LOS ANGELES, July 13, 2026 — Sundance Institute today announced the 10 producers selected to participate in its annual Producers Labs taking place July 13–18 for feature film producers and July 20–25 for documentary producers. For the third year, both labs will take place at Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, Wyoming. Since 2008, the Producers Program has been the Institute’s mechanism for championing the crucial work done by independent producers, creating opportunities for support and increasing visibility for producers year-round. The annual Producers Labs are the focal point of the program.
The Producers Labs serve emerging independent film producers through project-specific support, including one-on-one meetings and curated group sessions with experienced producers and industry advisors. Fellows are encouraged to sharpen their problem-solving skills and expand their creative instincts as they refine strategies for pitching, financing, production, navigating the marketplace, and sustainability. The 2026 labs will include five fiction film and five nonfiction film producers, each working on their own project. Fellows in the Feature Film Producers Lab include Jaelyn Ellis with Likeness, Kara Grace Miller with Make Me a Pizza, Natalie Remplakowski with Sweetwater, Marie Alyse Rodriguez with How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, and Sean Weiner with The End of All Rivers. Fellows in the Documentary Producers Lab include Chelsea Hernandez with The School of Hope, Vero Kompalic with Yosi, Hansen Lin with God Lives Here, Julia Pontecorvo with Unfiltered (working title), and Cherrelle Swain with Southmont Drive.
Advisors for the 2026 edition of the Feature Film Producers Lab are Allison Rose Carter (I Love Boosters), Deniese Davis (One of Them Days), Eugene Pikulin (Bruns Brennan Berry Pikulin & Jacobs PC), Lucas Joaquin (Death of a Unicorn), and Peter Saraf (The Farewell). The Documentary Producers Lab advisors are Andrea Meditch (Grizzly Man), Gema Juárez Allen (The Castle), Rémi Grellety (Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat), Darcy McKinnon (Natchez), and Lance Kramer (Holding Liat).
“This year’s projects reflect extraordinary depth of vision, originality, and storytelling ambition, and we’re proud to support the producers shepherding them,” said Documentary Film Program and Artist Programs Director Kristin Feeley and Feature Film Program Producing and Artist Support Director Shira Rockowitz. “Working in partnership with a remarkable network of accomplished producers and industry advisors, we look forward to working with these filmmakers from development through release, helping them navigate a dynamic landscape that necessitates curiosity, creativity, and grit.”
After the lab concludes, producers engage in a yearlong fellowship that builds community, hones their entrepreneurial skills, broadens their network, and offers them the critical guidance and tools needed to lead a feature film from development through release. Sundance Institute support includes a yearlong mentorship from a dedicated advisor, industry connections, cohort gatherings, Sundance Collab benefits, and participation in Sundance Institute ELEVATE, the Institute’s professional development track. Acknowledging the ever-evolving filmmaking landscape, the lab and fellowship include an additional emphasis on audience engagement strategy and innovative distribution models.
The Sundance Institute Producers Program proudly counts 185 fiction and nonfiction producer alumni, including Elijah Stevens, who produced the 2026 Sundance Film Festival premiere films Time and Water and Barbara Forever, the latter of which won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award at the Festival and later the Best Documentary Film Teddy Award at the 2026 Berlinale; Dawne Langford, producer of Who Killed Alex Odeh?, which won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Journalistic Excellence at 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where Langford also won the Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Nonfiction; and Apoorva Charan, who produced the Tribeca Festival AT&T Untold Stories Award winner, Take Me Home, which played the 2026 Berlinale and Tribeca Festival after premiering at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where Charan won the Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Fiction.
Other recent Producers Labs alumni include Pierre M. Coleman (Ricky), Deidre Backs (Fancy Dance), Keith Wilson (I Didn’t See You There), and Kellen Quinn (Midnight Family). Producers Program alumni have also garnered Academy Award nominations and wins for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Beasts of the Southern Wild (win), Minding the Gap, Moonlight (win), Navalny (win), Nomadland (win), Sugarcane, and Time.
PROJECTS AND FELLOWS SELECTED FOR THE 2026 SUNDANCE INSTITUTE PRODUCERS LABS:
Feature Film Program
Jaelyn Ellis with Likeness (U.S.A.): When a Black San Francisco tech worker is laid off after AI replaces his job, he hires a white actor to impersonate him in job interviews, only to discover the stand-in has plans of his own.
Jaelyn Ellis, 2026 Mark Silverman Honor awardee, is an NYC-based producer. She has a proven record as a line producer and unit production manager. Under Craft House Pictures, she’s produced shorts that have screened at ShortFest, HollyShorts, and NewFest, and is currently in post-production on her debut feature as a lead producer.
Kara Grace Miller with Make Me a Pizza (U.S.A.): After an affair with a pizza guy unleashes a Pizza Goddess, a hungry woman seizes a chance to escape her unfulfilling life. In this adaptation of the viral short film, she makes a pact to feed the deity more delivery men, until an unholy pregnancy threatens to expose her secret.
Kara Grace Miller has produced narrative work screened at SXSW, Beyond Fest, and Sitges Film Festival, as well as documentary work included in CAFilm’s educational programming and two presidential campaigns. She’s an alum of BendFilm: Basecamp and the Frontières Market Shorts to Features Lab at Fantasia.
Natalie Remplakowski with Sweetwater (U.S.A.): A rural Texas teen’s last summer in her hometown is upended when she suspects she’s been sexually assaulted at a friend’s ranch party. As the daughter of a retired rodeo star, she must decide whether to pursue justice at the cost of being ostracized by her beloved community.
Natalie Remplakowski is a Polish Canadian producer with Citrine Productions, where she champions auteur-driven films with international reach. An NYU Tisch alum, her associate and producing work has screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, and Cannes. In 2026, she premiered the feature Seahorse at SXSW.
Marie Alyse Rodriguez with How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (U.S.A.): After losing her factory job, Cara Romero, a proud Dominican immigrant in her late 50s, must rebuild her life. Shaken by her sister’s impending move and desperate to reconnect with her estranged son, she struggles to find her place in a changing city. Adapted from the acclaimed novel of the same name.
Marie Alyse Rodriguez is an LA-based Mexican producer and development executive whose work is grounded in building films with care, intention at every step, and long-term vision. She is drawn to filmmakers whose work is rooted in lived experience and emotional honesty. The project was developed in partnership with the late Edgar Lacey Rosa, who was selected alongside Marie for the Lab and Fellowship.
Sean Weiner with The End of All Rivers (U.S.A.): In a rapidly changing Montana valley, an injured logger resorts to contract killing to pay for his father’s medical care. As outside investors threaten his home and his livelihood, he is forced to contend with the end of a way of life.
Sean Weiner is an Emmy‑nominated producer and editor based in New York’s Hudson Valley. He recently produced and edited Adam Meeks’ debut, Union County, which premiered in U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Weiner is a co‑founder of the filmmaker support organization UFO.
Documentary Film Program
Chelsea Hernandez with The School of Hope (Mexico, U.S.A.): At the U.S.-Mexico border, where cartel violence and U.S. policy collide, a one‑room school inside a migrant shelter becomes a lifeline for three asylum‑seeking children and the founders who risk everything to keep it open.
Chelsea Hernandez is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and storyteller whose work centers on community, representation, and social justice. She has directed and produced award-winning documentaries, including Building the American Dream (PBS) and Breaking the News (Independent Lens).
Vero Kompalic with Yosi (Mexico, U.S.A.): After his beloved grandmother’s death, queer undocumented poet and playwright Yosimar Reyes inherits her dream of reverse migration to Mexico, forcing him to confront where he truly belongs.
Vero Kompalic is a Venezuelan filmmaker and founder of DISCORDIA. Her work has been recognized by festivals and institutions, including Locarno, Tribeca, the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, Berlinale, La Biennale, The Gotham, DOC NYC, Habitar el Cine, and other international platforms.
Hansen Lin with God Lives Here (India, U.S.A.): As ecological crisis ravages an ancient Indian village, its people confront loss, faith, and fragile dreams, while a folk theater artist revives their bond with the god of nature.
Hansen Lin is a New York–based Chinese filmmaker and creative producer. Drawn to auteur-driven, art house cinema, he works from intuition and cross-cultural sensitivity, partnering with creatives to find a story’s emotional and visual core and make space for Asian and diasporic voices.
Julia Pontecorvo with Unfiltered (working title) (U.S.A): In a poetic blend of reality and imagination, a vivacious Brooklyn teenager strives to reclaim her own fleeting childhood while helping raise her four younger sisters. Through her original poetry, she conjures a world where Black girls get to simply be kids.
Julia Pontecorvo is a creative producer. Her work spans documentary, branded content, and experiential, including Going Varsity in Mariachi, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. At Firelight Media, she has led programs supporting filmmakers from underrepresented communities. She was a 2020 Impact Partners fellow.
Cherrelle Swain with Southmont Drive (U.S.A.): After losing their grandfather’s home in Tuskegee, Alabama, the Lewis-Green family retraces sites of memory across the South, blending vérité, archival footage, and intimate conversations to explore home, inheritance, Black land loss, and family legacy.
Cherrelle Swain is a documentary producer and founder of Terra Rossa, a community-centered production company focused on social justice. Her work centers ancestry, identity, healing, and impact. Credits include Black Boys, In Due Season, and Southmont Drive.
The Sundance Institute Producers Program is supported by an endowment from the Sandra and Malcolm Berman Charitable Foundation, with generous additional support from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Amazon MGM Studios, Wyck Godfrey, RAMO, APM Music, ESME GRACE, and an anonymous donor.
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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MEDIA CONTACTS: Sylvy Fernández, sylvy_fernandez@sundance.org; Rachel Walker, rachel_walker@sundance.org
