Today the nonprofit Sundance Institute shared the names of this year’s cohort for the 2026 Sundance Institute Trans Possibilities Intensive, taking place online from July 27–29. This is the fifth year of the intensive, which is designed for transgender storytellers of color so their creative practice can grow in community as they develop projects. Under the guidance of the experienced creative and peer advisors and Sundance Institute’s Equity, Impact, and Belonging Program, the Intensive provides a collaborative environment for participating storytellers to sharpen their skills, develop relationships, and challenge the obstacles that continue to exclude transgender artists. This year’s fellows are Stella Alfjaro, Autumn Boxley, Song Hà, Emory Chao Johnson, Justice Jamal Jones, and Kevin Xian Ming Yu.
The Trans Possibilities Intensive offers direct support to transgender artists of color via project-based granting for the advancement of trans-led projects at all stages of their life cycles while identifying emerging trans talent and providing year-round custom creative and professional development opportunities.
The 2026 cohort will have a robust schedule focusing on key areas of craft, including group exercises, discipline-specific workshops, and sessions with established creative artist advisors, including Ash Cook (Video Store.Age), Nava Mau (All The Words But The One), Amrou Al-Kadhi (Layla), and Vuk Lungulov-Klotz (Mutt). Fellows were chosen through nominations-based applications. 2026 marked the second year in a row the program received a record number of nominations, speaking to a growing demand for the connection and guidance provided by the initiative.
“Creating a trans-centered and trans-led environment where trans artists of color could work on their craft and build community has been a key part of my vision since I started at Sundance Institute. I am proud of the vibrant and dynamic artists we’ve supported who continue to reify, amplify, and center transgender experiences,” said Moi Santos, Manager of Equity, Impact, and Belonging. “It’s significant to be celebrating a half decade of the Trans Possibilities Intensive: to witness the opportunities these artists have created for themselves, their communities, and each other, how they’ve poured back into it, and how each of them has forged their own path in a landscape that needs their stories and always has. Five years and 30 storytellers later, we’re just getting started.”
For the next three days, fellows will take part in conversations centered and led by trans creatives, including fireside chats with their creative advisors. Their schedule will focus on key areas of craft, including group creative exercises, discipline-specific workshops, and close work with experienced creative advisors.
To cap off the Trans Possibilities Intensive, on its final day (July 29) at 10 a.m. PT there will be a conversation open to the public streaming on Sundance Collab — Sundance Institute’s digital platform for artists to learn from experts and connect with a global filmmaking community. This year’s conversation, Toward Trans Possibilities, will be moderated by Moi Santos, Trans Possibilities Intensive Founder, in conversation with acclaimed auteur Isabel Sandoval (Lingua Franca). “As a storyteller, Isabel is perceptive, courageous, and innovative. I am looking forward to what I know will be a captivating conversation for our Sundance Collab community. The conversation will reflect on the proliferation, possibilities, and power of trans visibility, storytelling, and representation.”
Alumni fellows include Kyle Casey Chu, whose intensive-supported After What Happened at the Library won Best Narrative Short at the 2026 Houston Asian American Pacific Islander Film Festival and is currently being developed as a feature with Zackary Drucker attached to produce; Jess Waters, who was selected for the Transgender Film Center Career Development Lab; Ava Davis, who has attached The Dazey Phase as a producing partner on her intensive-supported feature The Waltz; Sepi Mashiahof, who is a two-year SFFILM FilmHouse resident (2025–2026) and worked on Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma as director’s assistant to Jane Schoenbrun; Rraine Hanson, who was selected as Comfrey Films’ 2026 Director-in-Residence and part of the inaugural Level Ground Film Fellowship cohort; and Helix Zhang, whose film typhoon diary 风球日记 was featured on the Criterion Channel as part of the experimental film festival Prismatic Ground. Former advisors of the intensive include Rhys Ernst, Luis De Filippis, Éri Sarmet, Mars Verrone, Lyric R. Cabral, Zackary Drucker, Roberto Fatal, Sam Feder, Yance Ford, River Gallo, Tourmaline, Ro Haber, Félix Endara, Aitch Alberto, Chase Joynt, and Sydney Freeland.
The Sundance Institute Equity, Impact, and Belonging Program is made possible by support from Google.org, THE WALT DISNEY STUDIOS, Jerome Foundation, Netflix, Rotten Tomatoes, Golden Globe Foundation, The Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation, SAGindie, Roger and Carin Ehrenberg, The Love Loud Foundation, and an anonymous donor.
The fellows selected for the 2026 Trans Possibilities Intensive are:
Stella Alfjaro (Writer-Director) with The Places We Go (U.S.A.): A young trans woman training as a death doula discovers she has a son, forcing her to confront her past and step into unexpected motherhood.
Stella Alfjaro is a Latin filmmaker and writer from San Francisco whose work explores intimacy, reinvention, and the emotional complexities of becoming, blending realism with dreamlike atmosphere.
Autumn Boxley (Writer-Director) with A Man Named Autumn (U.S.A.): Autumn, a transmasculine person, sets out to find a new name that aligns with how they want the world to see them.
Autumn Boxley is a Black transmasculine filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Their debut short, Flash Sale, is a trans buddy comedy that premiered at NewFest and BFI Flare this year.
Song Hà (Writer-Director) with All of Our Children (U.S.A.): In a state facility where children control adult bodies, a mother is assigned to a training cohort run by her own teenage daughter.
Song Hà is a trans filmmaker obsessed with women who are hard to love. Her work has been supported by platforms such as Netflix, Queer|Art, Galerie Balice Hertling, CAPE, and NewFest. She creates in order to stay close to Creator.
Emory Chao Johnson (Director) with Tainan Story (U.S.A./Taiwan): Traveling across Taiwan, the filmmaker and his uncle team up to restore the family’s abandoned home. While the filmmaker is allergic to dust and Uncle has no more shoeboxes, they uncover treasures that might just hold the answer to Taiwan’s future.
Emory Chao Johnson is an award-winning filmmaker based on unceded Tongva land in the San Gabriel Valley. Primarily working in nonfiction, Chao Johnson’s films focus on looking deeply beyond expectations through a trans lens.
Justice Jamal Jones (Writer-Director) with La Prophetess (U.S.A.): When a young queer medical entomologist discovers a misfiled archive that awakens the spirit of an 18th-century Haitian revolutionary, Romaine-la-Prophétesse, she is drawn into a haunted battle between history, desire, and possession.
Justice Jamal Jones is a New York–based director, writer, and cultural alchemist who bridges cinema, stage, and archival research. Raised in Boys Town, Nebraska, Jones’ Queer failure to conform has catapulted them into a career within the arts.
Kevin Xian Ming Yu (Writer-Director) with I Saw You In The Flood (U.S.A.): Over one night of heavy storms, Kai, a transfemme nonbinary Chinese American, is visited by manifestations of their grandfather’s ghost.
Kevin Xian Ming Yu is a transfemme nonbinary filmmaker from Queens, New York. Yu received the 2025 NewFest New Voices Filmmaker Grant and was a 2024 Film at Lincoln Center Artists Academy fellow. Their last two short films premiered at SXSW.
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.
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