Hamptons International Film Festival to Host 14th Annual Screenwriters' Lab

The Hamptons International Film Festival announced their 14th annual Screenwriters’ Lab will take place this weekend.

The event will take place from Friday, April 10 to Sunday April 12 at the Maidstone Hotel located on 207 Main Street in East Hampton.

“The Screenwriters’ Lab is a highlight of the year-round work that our organization does as it brings together a diverse range of talent from the industry and pairs them with a new wave of writers and filmmakers who are just beginning to make their mark,” HIFF Artistic Director David Nugent said.

The Lab, co-sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, pairs up-and-coming screenwriters with established screenwriters, directors and producers for a series of one-on-one mentoring sessions.

“Developing bold new work from fresh voices is at the heart of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s mission,” Executive Director, Anne Chaisson said.

Over fifty screenplays have taken part in the Lab since it began.

Writers of the selected screenplays are brought to East Hampton and spend the weekend in an environment where they share and discuss their projects, as they meet with established screenwriters, directors, and producers who advise them on how to develop their scripts and move their projects closer to production.

During evening events, the participants meet with members of the local artistic community, HIFF board members, and friends of the Festival.

The four screenplays selected include:

• Jane (by Kendell Courtney Klein) - In 1960, 26-year-old Jane Goodall, a loner who has long dreamed of Africa, travels to Tanzania to observe the wild chimpanzees. Arriving at Gombe, Jane must navigate the dense jungles of malaria, first love, a male-dominated scientific community, and her own social isolation, in order to complete a revelatory study of man’s closest genetic ancestor that raises the ultimate question—what does it mean to be human?
• European Zero (by Jared Goodman) - In the late 1960s, a Norwegian truck driver was assigned a dangerous trucking route that would take him from the fjords of Norway deep into the Persian Gulf. Tragically, the driver would later be discovered as the first European citizen to ever have AIDS, and it is now known that as he traveled throughout the continent he unknowingly spread the virus. Based on true events, European Zero is the saga of a man under incredible pressure who heroically accomplished what became a legendary mission, while simultaneously beginning a plague that continues to consume mankind.
• And Breathe Normally (by Isold Uggadottir) - At the edge of Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula, two women’s lives will intersect—for a brief moment—while trapped in circumstances unforeseen. Between a Ugandan asylum seeker and a struggling Icelandic mother pursuing a career in border patrol, an unlikely bond will form as both strategize in private—to get their lives back on track.
• The Gloaming (by Philip Aceto) - A troubled janitor has cut himself off from society, existing only in the shadows of the suburban Catholic high school where he works. Adam, a new student at the school, is a recently resettled Sudanese refugee. He has seen war, the loss of his family and the obliteration of his village. When Adam takes a job working alongside the janitor, he has to choose between sending money back to his former refugee camp or creating a better life in America, and the janitor is forced to confront his own past and his growing suspicions that Adam is part of the school’s plot to outsource him. The two outcasts struggle to defend what little they have, and their decisions could lead to tragic consequences.

This year’s mentors will be: Helen Schulman, Nicole Perlman, Alexander Dinelaris and Evan Hayes.

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