Joyce Sherri
Alum Joyce Sherri’s Sweet Sixteen, her first feature screenplay, won the Grand Prize for screenwriting at Slamdance.
Sweet Sixteen centers on Sweet, a 15-year-old girl who tries to convince her parents to throw her a big sweet 16 birthday party, but money and family problems lead her down a destructive path.
In an interview with Variety, Sherri said, “Black people are not a monolith then neither are our experiences. There is more to us than racial trauma. Sometimes we just want something as simple as a first kiss or a sweet sixteenth birthday party. I wrote ‘Sweet Sixteen’ because I want to share a story that explores a universal rite-of-passage from an unfamiliar point of view.”
Read more at Variety.