Campbell's Spoonful of Joy awarded WARC Gold

Proud to have produced this very special six minute commercial for Campbell’s holiday.

The piece is based on a real experience of a mother with an autistic child and highlights a mother/son journey over the years through the bond of cooking. I was thrilled that The Light invited me to produce.

Starring Tatyana Ali, Aidan Cazzeau, Buddy Valastro, and some incredible child actors. Director: Kim Ferraro. EPs: Becky Morrison and Katie Maguire. Producer: me. DP: Fletcher Wolfe. PD: Wayne Neho. Gaffer: Alexa Hiramitsu. KG: Matt Tomko. Wardrobe: Bree Perry. Sound: Donny Tam. Hair: Brian Badie. MUA: Latisha Rankin. Casting: Rachel Reiss. PM: Merrily Holmes. AD: Chris Bicknell. Consulting Director: Siraj Jhaveri. Writer: Diana Davis. And an incredible crew that makes me wish commercials had credits because this set was a joy from start to finish and they were all phenomenal. Huge thanks to A+E and Spark Foundry for entrusting us to bring this vision to life.

Leylines Scripted Audio Drama

I’ve loved being a part of the writer’s room for a new scripted audio series Leylines.

Leylines is a sci-fi adventure series in the vein of Indiana Jones meets Stargate. It follows the Harbor brothers and their two friends as they investigate the mystery of their late father’s sudden demise.

Good Story Guild is an exciting new writer-run studio founded by Connor Pritchard (creator/showrunner of Workaholics) that I’m so stoked to be working with. They are producing a really cool slate of projects over the next two years, and I’m honored to be on the ground level of a new way of doing business in our industry.

Leylines is run by our fearless writer/creator Kerrod Williams and fellow writers Nick McMurdy and Christopher J.P. Smith complete the room. The show will start production in November under director, Rachel Music.

Can’t wait to hear it all come to life!

Cow Heavy and Floral - New Short Film in Production

What a joy it has been spending my late summer/early fall collaborating with writer/director (and friend!) Richa Rudola and my producing partner, Lela Meadow-Conner of mamafilm.

Poster design by Tavet Gillson

We have been overjoyed by the support the film has received from Panavision (New Filmmakers Grant), Jacki Zehner (Seed and Spark Patron’s Circle Grant), Elia Petridis of Filmatics, and the incredible cast and crew we assembled, who have poured their hearts into this film.

I have long been a fan of Richa’s and been looking for a project to share with her, so when she and Lela brought this short my way, I knew I wanted to join the fierce team of moms at the helm. Cow Heavy and Floral is a split-screen film about a postpartum writer struggling to make a deadline as she experiences an identity crisis between her various personas.

Starring Jessica Mendez Siqueiros, filmed by Kalilah Robinson, with the wonderful Simon TaufiQue attached to compose the score. We are excited to begin moving into post-production this winter.

Mina Finds Her Edge! Wins Runner-Up

Mina Finds Her Edge! took the runner-up spot in the Short Script Competition at Film Pipeline, behind Wendi Tang’s script Fishtank (which was also the winner of Tribeca/Chanel’s Through Her Lens this year!) The four finalists, chosen out of about 1700 scripts, can be found here. It was especially cool to see Stephen Nolly on the list—more and more lately, I’ve had the good fortune to share some of these shortlists with folks I know or recognize, and that always makes for good vibes of writer camaraderie. Looking forward to continuing to develop this short for production in London in 2023 with the wonderful team at Hawk Films!

Mina Finds Her Edge! Wins Hawk Films Screenplay Award

“Mina Finds Her Edge!” won the Hawk Films Screenplay award at HollyShorts.

Unfortunately, the production grant piece of this award did not materialize, so I’m returning to the drawing board to get the film made, but I am nevertheless honored that the script was chosen out of thousands of submissions.

Massive congrats to all the filmmakers at this wonderful festival (double congrats to those who became Oscar qualifiers). And triple congrats to Hallelujah for casting Bruce A. Lemon Jr. because I’m a little biased and I worked him back in our NY indie theater days :) - he’s a brilliant actor in a truly powerful film. Rooting for you guys all the way!!

Full list via Deadline here.

Thank you Peter Lee for accepting on my behalf and for capturing the moment :)

Haider, TX to screen at PGA Produced By Conference

After a very special experience filming in Houston, where “Haider, TX” is set, I am proud to screen the film as part of the PGA Produced By conference for a talented crowd of producers and creators.

Thank you to the PGA, Google, Powderkeg, and Panavision for supporting the film, and of course, huge thanks to Rabia Sultana, and our whole cast and crew for making the film possible.

Producer's Guild, Google, and Powderkeg to EP New Film HAIDER, TX

Rabia Sultana and I co-directed a short I wrote called “Haider, TX” for Google and Powderkeg (Paul Feig and Laura Fischer’s production company) as part of the Short Film Project presented by the Producer’s Guild and Google. The film is additionally supported by a generous grant from Panavision, which allowed us to shoot on film.

We traveled to Houston, Texas to make the film, which is a fun, cross-cultural comedy based in the Urdu-speaking Pakistani community there, and found absolutely wonderful people who were so kind and helpful— both the local film workers and the Pakistani community, who were so supportive.

Very excited to move the film into post and share it with an audience.

https://deadline.com/2022/02/producers-guild-google-the-short-film-project-paul-feig-laura-fischer-1234924904/

The Monster That Stayed at EFM

The Monster That Stayed team is pleased to have been invited to share our first ever public pitch for the film as part of the European Film Market at Berlinale. Anne Leigh Cooper, our director and my co-writer on the film, will pitch the project to an audience of financiers, distributors, and other industry colleagues as one of 30 projects in the cohort, presented by Largo AI.

Ward 6 - Chekhov Adaptation

Thrilled to be collaborating with producers Daniel Scot Kadin and Emik Davidov on a truly Russian feature adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s wild story, Ward 6. We have been cooking up an exciting take on this deeply existential and psychological story set in a 1895 mental ward, and I am so stoked to adapt this film for a modern audience (and a female lead!)

Thank you to my students and alma mater!

It was a special fall creating and teaching a new course for NYU SPS’s new Film Producing certificate program. Budgeting, Casting, and Financing for Film and TV was a brand new offering this year and I was thrilled to join my longtime colleague Simon TaufiQue (who is the keystone of the program) as an Adjunct.

I love working with emerging and developing producers, and it was a special treat to get a glimpse into some bright futures!

Mala Sangre at the Producer's Guild PGA Create Lab

Congratulations (and huge thanks!) to my longtime friend and often-producing partner, Rabia Sultana, for becoming one of the ten producers selected for a year-long development lab at the Producer’s Guild!

Rabia is one of the most talented producers I know and I have loved working with her over the years on several films and commercials. I am honored that she chose my multilingual feature thriller — Mala Sangre (Bad Blood) — as her submission for the lab.

The Monster That Stayed

I am humbled and honored to serve as a writer on Anne Leigh Cooper’s film, The Monster That Stayed. Produced by Rabia Sultana and Santosh Govindaraju, the film is a dramatic thriller based on a true story of sexual assault from a survivor’s point of view. I am proud to have collaborated on a piece that marries art and advocacy, and I am eternally gratefully for the trust that was bestowed upon me.

New Directing Work for Pringles

Had a blast collaborating with the creative team at Townhouse and production team at Hogarth/Gramercy Park Studios. Shot by DP Shannon Madden, styled by Joseph Shrope, produced by Katie Maguire, we took on the age old question— “If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” The original livestream version on Twitter netted over 1 million views.

Inaugural Cannes Screenplay List of Women Writers: Official Selection

It is such an honor to be listed alongside these 24 women screenwriters (including writer/director Tricia Lee, who’s also an NBC/Universal Film Fest alum and Beth Curry, who shared my 2020 Nicholl nerves virtually).

I LOVE discovering talented women and want to send a major note of gratitude to Wscripted and its founder Ellie Jamen for creating this initiative to amplify women in our industry at Cannes.

The full list is here.

Quarterfinalist - Script Pipeline TV Writing

My latest pilot, 100% Natural, was named a 2021 Quarterfinalist for the Script Pipeline TV Writing competition, placing in the top 1% of all submissions. The program announced a change in its approach this year, opting to make a hard first cut and selecting only the top 55 out of 5500+ pilot scripts for its quarterfinals.

Proud to be on a list with a lot of fantastic writers, especially with such a wild, genre-bending politically-charged satire. And double especially since it came out of 2020.

2020 Academy Nicholl Finalist

On Monday, September 14th, I received the unbelievable news that The Lions of Mesopotamia is one of ten scripts to advance to the Academy Nicholl final round.

Coincidentally, I got the news while I was in the lobby of one of my first jobs as a 16 year-old breakfast waitress. It was one of those major moments that makes you smile at life’s sense of humor. It’s been a hell of a journey since those 5:30AM shifts!

I am incredibly humbled to be in such talented company and so grateful for the readers, Academy members, and staff that invest their time and care into making this fellowship possible. THANK YOU for recognizing this script that means so much to me, and I hope will ultimately mean a lot to others as a film.

And major congrats to the nine other finalists! Check them all out here.

Lions Wins Screencraft True Story Competition

Huge thanks to the Screencraft judges and team for recognizing The Lions of Mesopotamia as the winner of the True Story competition. Writing this script has been quite a journey, and I’m always thrilled to have the input and support of talented people.

Also very proud of my buddy Rob Alicea for winning the pitch portion of this contest! Thrilled to be in such talented company.

2020 Greenpoint Film Festival Bringing NYC Together

Proud to join the revamped 2020 Greenpoint Film Festival as a jury member and programmer, under its new directors, Anthony Argento and Ricardo Vilar.

Thanks to all of our filmmakers and sponsors for the continued support as our team negotiates these unprecedented times. We are SO excited to be able to offer the festival selections in a COVID-safe DRIVE-IN format this year, bringing our community together safely through the magic of cinema!

Tickets are available here and they are selling out quickly!

Additional FREE community programming (panels and a pitch workshop!) will be announced soon. The festival is For Filmmakers, By Filmmakers, With Filmmakers. Our team is all actively working in the industry, and we are thrilled to be able to bring NYC together for a series of incredible films.

More info can be found here.

THE HIT LIST: The Lions of Mesopotamia makes "Best SCRIPTS of 2019"

What a way to kick off 2020! My sports/historical drama script The Lions of Mesopotamia has made the 2019 HIT LIST. Compiled by Launch Pad, The Hit List represents an industry-wide “best of” the spec scripts making their way around Hollywood, as voted on every year by studio execs, agents, producers, and more.

Not bad, since we really only started going out with the script in September!

Past titles on the Hit List include: A Quiet Place, I Tonya, The Imitation Game, Draft Day (by one of my absolute favorite writers, Rajiv Joseph), Life Itself (by the ridiculously talented Dan Fogelman, creator of This is Us), and so many other incredible scripts that have gone on to make incredible films. The full list its available here.

It is a huge honor to be a part of this group (shout out to my buddy Avra Fox-Lerner who also charted!). Every year we hear “the spec market is dead” or that it’s a waste of time to keep telling the stories that we care about as writers— they tell us no one’s buying and, at best, we are toiling away on elaborate writing samples.

I chose to tell a story about real people and I continue to believe that this story will one day come to the big screen and change lives.

LIONS is the true heroic sports story of the Iraqi Football Team during the Hussein regime and the challenges they faced while attempting to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. It weaves together a high-action sports story, historical drama, and a humanistic look at every day life in Baghdad.

Being recognized by my colleagues means the world to me. I am on a mission to tell a Middle Eastern story that does not feature a single American soldier. I hope that 2020 is the year I get a little closer to sharing a different look at Iraq with both true-story lovers and soccer fans around the world.

A massive THANK YOU to Launch Pad and Tracking Board for being an important source of support for spec writers, and an equally massive THANK YOU to the industry people who continue to pick up a spec from an unknown writer and crack it open, rolling the dice that it might just be the next life-changing Oscar winner.

We writers count on you. We are grateful that you make the time to read our passion projects. And thank you for your votes!

Angelfish heads to Toronto for TIFF Next Wave FEB 15

Angelfish, a feature I produced starring Princess Nokia, is an official selection of TIFF Next Wave, Toronto International Film Festival’s program dedicated to films for young adult audiences 25 and under.

Director Peter Lee and I will be in Toronto on February 15th for a post-screening Q+A.

Our team is so proud to be a part of the program and bring Angelfish to the beautiful TIFF Bell Lightbox Theater. We can’t wait to meet the next generation of TIFF film lovers!

Tickets are available here.