2025 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and Screenwriters Intensive Fellows (Courtesy of Sundance Institute)
Grad Film alum Chheangkea was selected for the 2025 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and alums Bethiael Alemayoh, Karishma Dev Dube, and Joanne Mony Park were selected as 2025 Sundance Screenwriters Intensive Fellows.
2025 Sundance Screenwriters Lab
Chheangkea - Little Phnom Penh
Logline: Spanning over two ever-changing decades, from post–Khmer Rouge Phnom Penh to early 2000s California, a Cambodian woman grapples with her identity, family, and love amid profound cultural and historical upheavals.
Chheangkea is a Cambodia-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn. He earned a BS in architecture from MIT and an MFA in filmmaking from NYU. His short film Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites will premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. His short film Skin Can Breathe streams on Max.
2025 Sundance Screenwriters Intensive Fellows
Bethiael Alemayoh - I Didn’t Forget You
Logline: In 1993, a homesick young woman hopes to connect with her favorite Eritrean pop star when his tour comes to Dallas, Texas.
Bethiael Alemayoh is an Eritrean and Ethiopian American filmmaker based in Texas. Her work follows women in the midst of little misfortunes causing big emotional impacts. Her work has screened at SXSW, BlackStar, Palm Springs International Film Festival, and more. She received the 2023 Indie Memphis Black Filmmaker Residency for Screenwriting.
Karishma Dev Dube - Strangers
Logline: Pari and Tara are complete strangers, until a chance encounter on a New York City subway platform instigates inexplicable and profound connections between them. Set between New Delhi and New York, the film explores how these two women quietly unravel in tandem: with lovers, at home, and in public.
Karishma Dev Dube is an Indian filmmaker based in New York. Her short film Bittu was shortlisted for the 93rd Oscars, winning the DGA Award and Student Academy Award in 2020. She is the 2022 recipient of the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women and 2024 SFFILM Rainin Grant for screenwriting.
Joanne Mony Park - The Windiest Day
Logline: Two Korean women, Naru and Deogi, reconnect during a night working as surrogate drivers in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. Over the course of a single night, they search for Naru’s lost dog and race to pay off Deogi’s debt, all while they confront past mistakes and unresolved emotions from their past.
Joanne Mony Park is a Korean American writer-director. Mony’s films have screened at Tribeca, Slamdance, and Edinburgh International Film Festival. She has participated in AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women+, TorinoFilmLab, and the CJ & TIFF K-Story Fund mentorship program, where she won the CJ & TIFF K-Story Fund Award.
Read more at Sundance Institute.