Sundance Collab is pleased to announce the first group of fellows selected for our new Cultural Impact Residency. Created in honor of social justice advocate Michael Latt’s legacy, the six-month online residency program (through August 2025) will uplift early-career underrepresented storytellers with a focus on creative, social, and cultural impact and galvanize them with opportunities, hope, creative support, and inspiration. Sundance Collab is Sundance Institute’s year-round digital space for global artists to learn, create, build community, and champion independent filmmaking. 

Eight fellows were selected across three tracks: writing-directing in fiction, nonfiction, and episodic. Each fellow will receive dedicated meetings with Sundance Institute advisors to receive feedback on their projects; bimonthly cohort meetings to check in and share work; a meeting with Michelle Satter, Founding Senior Director, Artist Programs at Sundance Institute; and a meeting with applicable Sundance Institute Artist Program staff. Each participant will also receive a Sundance Collab Library Pass to access the extensive Sundance Collab Video Library, which includes Master Classes and recordings of previous Collab events, and two On Demand courses of their choosing. 

Advisors for the 2025 Sundance Institute Cultural Impact Residency include: Rita Baghdadi (Sirens), Patricia Cardoso (Real Women Have Curves), David France (How to Survive a Plague), Claudia Lloso (The Milk of Sorrow), Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard), LaToya Morgan (Duster), Rodrigo Reyes (Sansón And Me), Jessica Sharzer (A Simple Favor), and Justin Simien (Dear White People).

Michael Latt was a passionate social justice leader whose purpose-driven work impacted countless communities. As an award-winning entertainment marketer by training, he harnessed the power of art, creativity, and storytelling to create numerous nationwide impact initiatives, most recently as founder and CEO of Lead with Love. In his life, Michael made it his mission and purpose to transform society into one of love, equity, compassion, and true justice. In his public work, he fought tirelessly for change through art, narrative, and policy.

The 2025 Sundance Institute Cultural Impact Residency participants are:

Documentary Filmmaking Fellows:

Caron Creighton is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker. Much of her work is focused on displacement within the African diaspora, as informed by her identity. She has been a 2023/24 SFFilm FilmHouse resident, a 2024 Big Sky Pitch participant, and a 2024 BAVC MediaMaker fellow.

Wood Street

Chosen brothers John and LaMonté grapple with addiction, displacement, and city bureaucracy as they try to save their long-term community from eviction.

Fueled by unrelenting curiosity, Jennifer Huang is rethinking conventional practices of ethics, consent, and protecting vulnerable protagonists. She’s worked on productions for PBS, Anonymous Content, and Lucasfilm, and she co-founded Hyphen magazine. The Long Rescue is her first feature-length film.

The Long Rescue

Filipina teen sex trafficking survivors dream of safety, family, and romance in a secret shelter – but, once home, they confront the poverty, pimps, and predators of their pasts. Over nine years, their coming-of-age journeys are a lens into the struggles and strengths of survivors everywhere.

Kristal Sotomayor is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist, and curator. Their films Expanding Sanctuary (BlackStar Philadelphia Filmmaker Award, OTV/New Day Films) and Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens have screened across the globe. They’ve been supported by BlackStar, Outfest, If/Then, and NeXt Doc.

Untitled PARS Project

Untitled PARS Project unravels the technological infrastructure behind immigrant surveillance, revealing how advanced data-sharing systems fuel deportations and investigating the Philadelphia police’s Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System (PARS) and other government databases.

Writing-Directing Fellows:

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Alejandra López’s short The Blue Cape screened at 10 Oscar-qualifying festivals. She was staffed on Sony Crackle’s Startup. López became the first Latina to direct for Marvel Entertainment. She’s been selected in programs at Warner Bros. Discovery, Starz, and more.

Salmon Run

A desperate Puerto Rican mother joins a salmon factory in remote Alaska, but when her best friend disappears under mysterious circumstances, she discovers something far more nefarious happening in the workplace that threatens her life and the lives of others.

A. D. Smith is a writer, director, and composer from Memphis, Tennessee. He loves to create worlds grounded in reality, with accents of the fantastical, all told from a Black perspective. His work has been supported by Indie Memphis, Austin Film Festival, and Sundance Institute.   

r.e.g.g.i.n

Bearing the appearance of a young Black man, a domesticated android experiences “life” in the segregated south of the ’50s. Will the people of this time welcome his phenomenal abilities, or will the color of his outer shell skew their perception?

Wendi Tang is a Chinese writer-director and a graduate of NYU Tisch. Her films have screened at 50+ festivals worldwide. Fishtank, a proof-of-concept short supported by Tribeca and Chanel, won awards at SXSW Sydney and HollyShorts Film Festival. She’s currently developing her first feature film. 

Fishtank

A young woman vomits living goldfish whenever she’s triggered. She must unravel a monstrous truth behind her bizarre condition while teetering between nightmare and reality.

Writing Fellows:

From Massachusetts, Caitlin McCarthy is of documented Métis descent. Her stories tackle political and social issues, blending humor, heartbreak, and action. Notable work includes Wonder Drug, a Sloan Science and Film script at the HamptonsFilm Screenwriters Lab, now in development with Stephen Nemeth/Rhino Films.

A Native Land

A Black Native American policewoman battles prejudice and self-doubt while hunting a serial killer in an off-season resort town.

Kaelo Iyizoba is a Nigerian American filmmaker bridging Lagos and New York. He gave up his pharmacist’s coat for a camera and found a new way to heal people. Like many in his region of Nigeria, Iyizoba considers himself a trader, but his merchandise is empathy.

Birthright

In 19th-century Nigeria, a man saved as a child by ancient gods now secretly profits from the slave trade of his people. As British colonial forces and Christianity expand, they threaten to eradicate the very deities who spared his life. Now the gods call on him to fight for them or die with them.

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 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, Requiem for a Dream, Reservoir Dogs, RBG, 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, Wes Anderson, Gregg Araki, Darren Aronofsky, Lisa Cholodenko, Ryan Coogler, Nia DaCosta, The Daniels, David Gordon Green, Miranda July, James Mangold, John Cameron Mitchell, Kimberly Peirce, Boots Riley, Ira Sachs, Quentin Tarantino, 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, X, YouTube, and Bluesky.

# # #

MEDIA CONTACTS: Tammie Rosen, [email protected]; Tiffany Duersch, [email protected]; Sylvy Fernández, [email protected], Alex Courides, [email protected]