SAN FRANCISCO — The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) and the Sundance Institute today announced the fourth cohort of the “Sundance Institute | The Asian American Foundation Fellowship and Scholarship,” welcoming twelve new Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) fellows and scholars working in film and television, who will be immersed in the Sundance Institute’s artist community, resources, and mentorship to push their projects toward the screen.
TAAF’s continued support for the program underscores its commitment to uplifting storytellers and bringing more AAPI stories to audiences across the country. “Our 2026 STAATUS Index found that 39% of Americans can’t name a single famous Asian American, and when people do picture us on screen, martial arts stars are often the first thing that come to mind,” said Norman Chen, CEO of TAAF. “We’re excited to welcome this year’s cohort, whose films span horror, comedy, and documentary, family sagas and heist films, showcasing the range of storytelling this community has to offer.”
Each artist will receive the Artist Accelerator Program’s year-round support: hands-on guidance and bespoke project support, access to script consultancies, invitations to professional development programming, and a stipend to attend the 2027 Sundance Film Festival with a curated schedule. Additionally, Fellows receive a $20,000 non-recoupable grant and Scholarship recipients are paired with a Sundance Institute alumni mentor.
“After four years of partnership with The Asian American Foundation, we have supported 36 fellows and scholars. We’re proud to continue investing in the next generation of visionary storytellers and welcome this new cohort,” said Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs, Director, Artist Accelerator and Women at the Sundance Institute. “Through funding and mentorship, we’re helping artists bring bold, authentic stories to the screen and reach audiences across communities. We’re excited to champion this year’s fellows and scholars and see where their voices take us.”
The Sundance Institute | The Asian American Foundation Fellowship and Scholarship was created in 2022 through the generous financial support of founding partners Panda Express, who provided the grant to TAAF, and The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The artists selected for the fourth cohort of fellows are:
Kyle Casey Chu
About the Artist: Kyle Casey Chu is a writer and Drag Story Hour founding queen. In 2022, far-right extremists stormed her reading, seizing viral headlines. Kyle’s proof-of-concept narrative short, After What Happened at the Library, details the aftermath. It is a proof-of-concept for her debut dark comedy feature.
Project: After What Happened at the Library | A viral hate crime rockets a local drag queen into global notoriety, and now everybody wants a piece of her! As public attention forces her into absurdist fantasies, she struggles to become a “rising phoenix.”
Bryson Chun
About the Artist: Bryson Chun is a Native Hawaiian screenwriter best known for Moana 2 and the Disney+ series Doogie Kameāloha, M.D. He’s worked in development with Mattel and Ubisoft and is a two-time Black List Indigenous fellow and a CAPE list fellow. He is represented by Verve Talent and Literary Agency.
Project: Hammers | When his NFL career ends due to off-field controversy, Jonah returns to his home in Hawai’i, but when the ghost of his father’s criminal legacy pulls him into Hawai’i’s dangerous underbelly, he’s forced to confront the truth that coming home means facing everything you tried to leave behind.
Erin Lau
About the Artist: Erin Lau is a Native Hawaiian Writer-Director. Her work spans narrative, documentary, and episodic storytelling and has been featured on the Criterion Channel, Netflix, and PBS. She has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Studios, Film Independent, and Ryan Murphy’s Half Initiative.
Project: You Don’t Belong Here | You Don’t Belong Here is a character-driven horror film that follows a Native Hawaiian priest, who is haunted by a supernatural force after blessing a controversial construction project.
Patrick G. Lee
About the Artist: Patrick is a queer Korean diaspora filmmaker, writer, and community organizer. Their award-winning documentary projects center queer and trans Asian diaspora oral histories, including Unspoken (2020) and Searching for Queer Asian Pacific America (2018). BECOMING BECOMING is their feature debut.
Project: BECOMING BECOMING | Drag artist Jungle explores gender and seeks belonging as part of a chosen family of nightlife performers in Seoul, Korea. Through a home-video aesthetic, BECOMING BECOMING embodies the hopeful, inevitable arc of queer emergence – despite internalized fears of rejection and a surveillant society.
Thanh Tran
About the Artist: Thanh Tran is an Amerasian Vietnamese and Black filmmaker, music artist, and founder of New Krma Media. He co-founded the award-winning podcast Uncuffed and ForwardThis Productions. He is also a Film Independent Amplifier Fellow directing Finding Má, a feature documentary about his family reuniting.
Project: Finding Má | Separated for over 20 years by the foster care and prison systems, an Amerasian Vietnamese and Black family reunite to heal old wounds, starting with finding their houseless mom.
Renee Zhan
About the Artist: Renee Zhan is a Chinese-American director and animator from Houston, Texas. She is an alumnus of the Sundance Institute Directors Lab, Sarabande Foundation, BAFTA crew x BFI Network and Berlinale Talents and her short films have screened and won awards at festivals internationally.
Project: BAOBAO | After the revocation of the One Child Policy in China, Mimi, a spoiled 25 year old girl, returns home to discover that her parents have had a second child. Her parents refuse to see that there is something unnatural about their new baby boy, and that an evil other presence haunts their stately home.
This year’s six scholarship recipients are:
Miida Chu
About the Artist: Miida Chu is a writer, director, and film theorist who uses thought experiments to challenge assumptions about the body and soul. A Disruptors fellow, her short film EUREKA was Oscar-qualified, and her film theory was presented at the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image conference.
Project: Edging | A closeted transvestite rescues an amnesiac young woman during a blizzard, but as they’re snowed in and her memory resets each day, he pushes the boundaries of her consent, pulling her into his darkest fantasies.
Astor Kim-Stark
About the Artist: Astor is a Korean-American filmmaker originally from South Korea. She is a 2026 Sundance Institute | The Asian American Foundation Scholar, a 2025 Fellow of TIFF Writers’ Studio and CHANEL, and a two-time mentee of Ryan Murphy’s HALF Initiative. She graduated from USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Project: CLOUDS: A Case Study | A woman who claims to have an inter-dimensional disorder voluntarily admits herself into an utopian institute, where the clouds she sees above certain patients may be guiding her toward a reality the doctors cannot see.
Chona M.
About the Artist: Chona M. is a Filipino documentary filmmaker drawn to intimate lives lived under pressure, and to the humor and absurdity that coexist with hardship. Her debut feature, Untying the Knot, follows women fighting for divorce in the Philippines—the only country outside the Vatican where divorce remains illegal.
Project: Untying the Knot | In the only country outside the Vatican where divorce remains illegal, three women fight to break free from abusive marriages. Alongside them, an 82-year-old lawmaker wages a final battle against powerful religious opposition to change the law—and the belief that endurance is a virtue.
Oanh-Nhi Nguyen
About the Artist: Oanh-Nhi Nguyen is an award-winning AFI MFA graduate whose work amplifies Southeast Asian women and girls. A Hillman Grad Rising Voices director with films at Tribeca and Cinequest and streaming on Hulu, she is currently developing her debut feature, THERE ARE NO SAINTS.
Project: THERE ARE NO SAINTS | A celebrity therapist is forced to return home to care for her father’s terminal illness, only to realize it was a ruse to rekindle a nonexistent relationship with her narcissistic mother, who happens to be a former Vietnamese pop star.
Kanitha Heng Snow
About the Artist: Kanitha is a writer, social impact leader & first-time filmmaker. KAMNOP is her directorial debut. A graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program, she is also working on her memoir I Am My Mother’s Mother, which interweaves themes of memory, motherhood, and spiritual continuity across generations.
Project: Kamnop: A Treasure is Waiting for You | Kamnop is a transformative road trip, where a mother and daughter travel from Colorado to Cambodia in search of a treasure buried during the first days of the Khmer Rouge genocide. Kamnop is a quest for healing and justice, where dreams become reality, weaving together memory, sorrow and joy.
Tim Xayasomloth
About the Artist: From being raised by wrestling-obsessed Buddhist monks in San Diego to running an underground fight club in middle school in Arizona, Tim Xayasomloth draws on his unconventional upbringing to explore the challenges of finding meaning in identity, culture, and masculinity.
Project: LAO’d | On the day of a major Lao New Year festival, three disillusioned Lao-American teens plan to steal a revered Buddha statue for a quick payday, but as the heist unfolds, their ties to culture, family, and each other are challenged.
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About The Asian American Foundation (TAAF)
TAAF serves the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community by promoting safety, fostering belonging, and advancing prosperity. Launched in 2021 in response to the rise in anti-Asian hate and to address the long-standing underinvestment in AAPI communities, we invest in initiatives to combat anti-Asian hate, integrate AAPI studies into school curricula, elevate authentic AAPI storytelling, and expand resources and representation for our communities. Through our high-impact initiatives, events, and investments in national and local nonprofits, we’re creating a permanent and irrevocable sense of belonging for millions of AAPIs in the United States. For additional information about TAAF, please visit www.taaf.org or follow @TAAForg on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, or Facebook.
About the Sundance Institute
As a champion and curator of independent stories, the nonprofit Sundance Institute provides and preserves the space for artists across storytelling media to create and thrive. Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Institute’s signature labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. Sundance Collab, a digital community platform, brings a global cohort of working artists together to learn from Sundance Institute advisors and connect with each other in a creative space, developing and sharing works in progress. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences and artists to ignite new ideas, discover original voices, and build a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Through the Sundance Institute artist programs, we have supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Big Sick, Bottle Rocket, Boys Don’t Cry, Boys State, Call Me by Your Name, Clemency, CODA, Dìdi (弟弟), Drunktown’s Finest, The Farewell, Fire of Love, Flee, Fruitvale Station, Half Nelson, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hereditary, The Infiltrators, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Little Woods, Love & Basketball, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Mudbound, Nanny, One Child Nation, Pariah, Raising Victor Vargas, RBG, Requiem for a Dream, Reservoir Dogs, Sin Nombre, Sorry to Bother You, Strong Island, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Swiss Army Man, A Thousand and One, Top of the Lake, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, and Zola. Through year-round artist programs, the Institute also nurtured the early careers of such artists as Paul Thomas Anderson, Gregg Araki, Darren Aronofsky, Lisa Cholodenko, Nia DaCosta, Ryan Coogler, The Daniels, Robert Eggers, Rick Famuyiwa, David Gordon Green, Sterlin Harjo, Marielle Heller, Miranda July, Nikyatu Jusu, James Mangold, John Cameron Mitchell, Kimberly Peirce, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Boots Riley, A.V. Rockwell, Ira Sachs, Walter Salles, Quentin Tarantino, Erica Tremblay, Taika Waititi, Lulu Wang, and Chloé Zhao. Support Sundance Institute in our commitment to uplifting bold artists and powerful storytelling globally by making a donation at sundance.org/donate. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, and Bluesky.
