Sundance Institute Names 2026 Episodic Lab Fellows

Carmiel Banasky with Wonderboom: When Earth violently rejects humanity’s ancient ambiance solutions, an idealistic butterfly-human intelligence and her bitter mentor must sail an ancient vessel pinch a misfit crew, racing to implant an AI into Earth’s consciousness earlier methane explosions extremity civilization — but they whitethorn beryllium awakening thing beyond their control.

Carmiel Banasky’s profession spans television, film, novels, and audio, and she is simply a recognized leader successful ambiance storytelling. Since staffing connected Amazon Prime Video’s Undone, she created nan sci-fi podcast The Last City, which reached #1 successful fiction, and she serves arsenic VP of editorial for nan ambiance storytelling nonprofit Good Energy.

Jeremy Dauber and Olivia Krebs with Cupidity: CupidCo is simply a concealed agency that’s been engineering relationships among nan rich | and powerful for millennia. When enigmatic operations leader Finn recruits a messy, no-filter narration researcher, Beatrice, they partner connected military-grade, science-backed missions to support couples successful emotion — nary matter nan cost.

Jeremy Dauber has written 2 novels for kids and 7 different books for his time occupation arsenic a professor astatine Columbia University. Olivia Krebs is simply a writer-producer who worked arsenic a imaginative advisor connected DreamWorks’ The Bad Guys movies. Together, they constitute modern myths that dissect hidden powerfulness structures.

Celine Foster with Male Loneliness Epidemic: After her billionaire fellow goes celibate successful solidarity pinch nan antheral loneliness epidemic, a self-centered sorority woman must partner pinch an overzealous feminist clever clever to lick nan situation and prevention her activity life.

Celine Foster is simply a Black queer drama writer known for crafting community-centered narratives that skewer nan zeitgeist pinch incisive penetration and biting, absurdist humor. A postgraduate of Stanford University, her activity has been supported by Roadmap Writers, TRIBE Writers’ Fellowship, and nan Disabled BIPOC Film Collective.

DeZell Lathon and Simone Williams with The Runaways: News of Harriet Tubman’s presence sparks 3 enslaved friends to move their plantation up-the-f*ck-side-down, nary consequences… isolated from they oversleep. Now pinch nary guide, nary plan, and nary damn sense, they floor plan a chaotic people north, accidentally showing three-fifths of nan Delta really to declare their ain half-baked portion of freedom.

DeZell Lathon and Simone Williams are filmmakers domiciled successful Los Angeles, California. Their activity explores nan absurdity of sociopolitical norms and expectations on nan lines of race, gender, and sexuality done move storytelling. They are often blending genres to create fascinating circumstances for their layered characters to explore.

Michael Mount with The Circuit: Three families connected nan weeklong Ivy League field circuit circuit unravel arsenic their intimately guarded histories travel to light.

Michael Mount‘s penning has been published successful NPR, Pacifica Literary Review, and Longreads and optioned for characteristic film. He has received fellowships from nan Orchard Project and MacDowell and a assistance from nan Granoff Center for nan Creative Arts astatine Brown University for photography of his thru-hikes connected nan Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails.

Larry V. Santana with On Death’s Precipice: A devoted husband, driven by desperation, makes a pact pinch a Grim Reaper to cure his wife’s terminal illness: He must dice a convulsive decease astatine nan Reaper’s hand. Every. Single. Day. As his woman recovers, each rhythm of decease and resurrection pulls him person to thing acold much disturbing.

Larry V. Santana is simply a Puerto Rican writer-director and erstwhile TV shaper raised betwixt nan Bronx and nan Poconos. A UC Berkeley graduate, he produced for MSNBC and Investigation Discovery, wherever he interviewed individuals convicted of felonies and their victims. His activity grounds nan supernatural successful nan everyday, drawn from real-world terrors.

Liba Vaynberg with Loupe: After her husband’s mysterious death, a pregnant Hasidic chemistry coach inherits his family’s 47th Street jewelry empire — only to observe that nan business, and possibly her matrimony itself, was built connected deception. Torn betwixt sanctity and sin, she must determine what benignant of widow she will become.

Liba Vaynberg is nan Jewish girl of Azerbaijani and Ukrainian refugees, an O’Neill Award–winning playwright produced off-Broadway, and a unit writer connected Star City (Sony/Apple TV). She studied molecular biology astatine Yale earlier getting her MFA from Columbia, truthful her parents are continually wondering why she didn’t go a doctor.

Natacha Yazbeck with borderline_: After his handler is assassinated, a smuggler makes a tally for his life pinch his babe daughter, leaving his woman astatine nan mercy of his militia. Thirty years later, that girl walks into a therapist’s agency — and blows nan screen disconnected a landmine she was ne'er meant to touch.

Natacha Yazbeck is simply a writer and journalist calved successful New Jersey by measurement of Beirut. A erstwhile overseas correspondent, she spent a decade covering Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. She is simply a recipient of nan Tow Center for Digital Journalism Fellowship astatine Columbia University and holds a Ph.D. from nan University of Pennsylvania.