It is such an honor to be listed alongside these 24 women screenwriters (including writer/director Tricia Lee, who’s also an NBC/Universal Film Fest alum and Beth Curry, who shared my 2020 Nicholl nerves virtually).
I LOVE discovering talented women and want to send a major note of gratitude to Wscripted and its founder Ellie Jamen for creating this initiative to amplify women in our industry at Cannes.
My latest pilot, 100% Natural, was named a 2021 Quarterfinalist for the Script Pipeline TV Writing competition, placing in the top 1% of all submissions. The program announced a change in its approach this year, opting to make a hard first cut and selecting only the top 55 out of 5500+ pilot scripts for its quarterfinals.
Proud to be on a list with a lot of fantastic writers, especially with such a wild, genre-bending politically-charged satire. And double especially since it came out of 2020.
On Monday, September 14th, I received the unbelievable news that The Lions of Mesopotamia is one of ten scripts to advance to the Academy Nicholl final round.
Coincidentally, I got the news while I was in the lobby of one of my first jobs as a 16 year-old breakfast waitress. It was one of those major moments that makes you smile at life’s sense of humor. It’s been a hell of a journey since those 5:30AM shifts!
I am incredibly humbled to be in such talented company and so grateful for the readers, Academy members, and staff that invest their time and care into making this fellowship possible. THANK YOU for recognizing this script that means so much to me, and I hope will ultimately mean a lot to others as a film.
And major congrats to the nine other finalists! Check them all out here.
Huge thanks to the Screencraft judges and team for recognizing The Lions of Mesopotamia as the winner of the True Story competition. Writing this script has been quite a journey, and I’m always thrilled to have the input and support of talented people.
Also very proud of my buddy Rob Alicea for winning the pitch portion of this contest! Thrilled to be in such talented company.
Proud to join the revamped 2020 Greenpoint Film Festival as a jury member and programmer, under its new directors, Anthony Argento and Ricardo Vilar.
Thanks to all of our filmmakers and sponsors for the continued support as our team negotiates these unprecedented times. We are SO excited to be able to offer the festival selections in a COVID-safe DRIVE-IN format this year, bringing our community together safely through the magic of cinema!
Tickets are available here and they are selling out quickly!
Additional FREE community programming (panels and a pitch workshop!) will be announced soon. The festival is For Filmmakers, By Filmmakers, With Filmmakers. Our team is all actively working in the industry, and we are thrilled to be able to bring NYC together for a series of incredible films.
What a way to kick off 2020! My sports/historical drama script The Lions of Mesopotamia has made the 2019 HIT LIST. Compiled by Launch Pad, The Hit List represents an industry-wide “best of” the spec scripts making their way around Hollywood, as voted on every year by studio execs, agents, producers, and more.
Not bad, since we really only started going out with the script in September!
Past titles on the Hit List include: A Quiet Place, I Tonya, The Imitation Game, Draft Day (by one of my absolute favorite writers, Rajiv Joseph), Life Itself (by the ridiculously talented Dan Fogelman, creator of This is Us), and so many other incredible scripts that have gone on to make incredible films. The full list its available here.
It is a huge honor to be a part of this group (shout out to my buddy Avra Fox-Lerner who also charted!). Every year we hear “the spec market is dead” or that it’s a waste of time to keep telling the stories that we care about as writers— they tell us no one’s buying and, at best, we are toiling away on elaborate writing samples.
I chose to tell a story about real people and I continue to believe that this story will one day come to the big screen and change lives.
LIONS is the true heroic sports story of the Iraqi Football Team during the Hussein regime and the challenges they faced while attempting to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. It weaves together a high-action sports story, historical drama, and a humanistic look at every day life in Baghdad.
Being recognized by my colleagues means the world to me. I am on a mission to tell a Middle Eastern story that does not feature a single American soldier. I hope that 2020 is the year I get a little closer to sharing a different look at Iraq with both true-story lovers and soccer fans around the world.
A massive THANK YOU to Launch Pad and Tracking Board for being an important source of support for spec writers, and an equally massive THANK YOU to the industry people who continue to pick up a spec from an unknown writer and crack it open, rolling the dice that it might just be the next life-changing Oscar winner.
We writers count on you. We are grateful that you make the time to read our passion projects. And thank you for your votes!
Angelfish, a feature I produced starring Princess Nokia, is an official selection of TIFF Next Wave, Toronto International Film Festival’s program dedicated to films for young adult audiences 25 and under.
Director Peter Lee and I will be in Toronto on February 15th for a post-screening Q+A.
Our team is so proud to be a part of the program and bring Angelfish to the beautiful TIFF Bell Lightbox Theater. We can’t wait to meet the next generation of TIFF film lovers!
After an incredible premiere at the stunning United Palace in NYC, Angelfish is coming to LA for a week run at the Laemmle Royal and to VOD starting on Tuesday 11/19.
Massive thanks to director, Peter Lee, and my producing partner, Rabia Sultana, who poured so much work into our lead up, as well as our distributor Dark Star Pictures; the entire Princess Nokia team including TCB PR and of course, Destiny herself; our film’s publicists, Sisi Cronin (Sicily Publicity) and Obscured Pictures; and our social media teams at New House and Media Fresh.
Very excited to get our little indie out into the world and to share the extraordinary hard work that our cast and crew put into it.
Major thanks to Rolling Stone for the exclusive premiere of the Angelfish official trailer!
The film stars Princess Nokia and Jimi Stanton and makes its world premiere in NYC at the gorgeous United Palace (one of the four original theaters in New York and a historical landmark) on November 14th.
Proud to have produced this film with Rabia Sultana, one of my long time collaborators.
HUGE NEWS.
For those unfamiliar with Tracking Board, it is an industry-specific site for news, analysis, and coverage in the film and TV industry. Since the TB Recommends program began, there have been 26 scripts recommended out of the thousands submitted annually for coverage and their Launch Pad competition.
I could not be more honored to have Lions on this very short and very exclusive list and to be one step closer to finding the people who will eventually make it a reality.
A major thank you to Tracking Board, and especially the anonymous reader who gave this script such thoughtful and insightful coverage.
Anyone in a creative industry knows it’s a vulnerable and terrifying thing to share your work, especially something you believe so deeply in. We get a lot of no’s and never know why. This film took years of research and my whole heart to write, and I grew exponentially as a human being because the story was in my life.
I’m very grateful to have had the experience of writing it and am looking forward to the world hearing this heroic, humanizing story.
After an incredible festival run including a premiere at BAM Cinematek’s New Voices in Black Cinema and being chosen out of 4000 films to play the NBC/Universal Film Festival, Interference is now available on Amazon Prime as part of the Amazon’s inaugural All Voices Film Festival. Please swing by and check it out (free with Prime!) before June 24th and drop us a review if you love it!
This film took a small army to make and the performances are absolutely breath-taking (like truly, you might end up holding your breath at moments). It was a nonstop amazing experience bringing my script to life and directing this film.
Proud to announce that Maturity has won two Telly Awards— Bronze for Comedy and Gold for Music (thanks to an incredible original score spanning hip hop, salsa, and jazz by Justin D. Wright). I had the extreme pleasure of creating this show. It aired last January, and we are thrilled to be honored alongside such hilarious comedy programming in the TV space.
I had the pleasure of producing upcoming romantic drama, Angelfish, starring Destiny Frasqueri (Princess Nokia) and Jimi Stanton last fall. The film is now complete, and we are SO excited to share a first glimpse of it.
Uploaded by Angelfish Official on 2019-05-14.
ANGELFISH is a coming-of-age love story set against the backdrop of the Bronx in 1993. It tells the story of Eva (played by rapper, Princess Nokia) and Brendan (Jimi Stanton, The Punisher on Netflix) a young couple from different worlds who change each other’s lives over the course of a summer.
I am proud to have produced this film alongside the incredible, Rabia Sultana, who has made four films with me now. The film will make its world premiere in 2019. Keep up to date on screenings and ways to watch through the Angelfish instagram! All photos by Ramy Mam.
FLOORED that Interference has been officially selected as one of 15 films in the NBCU Short Film Festival. This incredible initiative aims to diversify the film and TV industries from the ground up, cultivate new talent and voices, and create a pipeline to bringing new artists into the NBC family.
As a writer and director who has been making my living in film and TV production for four years now, it is so exciting to see a major network take meaningful steps to create a lasting change in our industry. I cannot wait to meet all of the hard-working, committed people who make a festival like this possible, and to get to know the work of the other filmmakers who are sharing the lineup!
Check out the list of films here!
FREE tickets can be reserved for the NY screening (we screen Tuesday, August 14th) here!
Very proud to have shared Interference with the March on Washington Film Festival audience, a festival focused on illuminating civil rights issues and increasing awareness and action.
Festivals like this remind me what an incredible opportunity filmmakers have to impact their communities through art.
Man-Babies, the independent TV comedy pilot I produced (with Ruya Koman) and co-starred in (with Tyler Hollinger, Collin Smith, and Surina Jindal) won seven awards at NYC Independent Film Festival this weekend. In the TV pilot category, we took home:
BEST COMEDY, BEST ACTRESS (me! haha!), BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Surina Jindal), BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Collin Smith), BEST ENSEMBLE CAST, BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN (Kory Diskin), and BEST COSTUMES (Fern Cozine).
I also had the immense pleasure of participating in a panel hosted by Jeff Ayars about creating your own work with some of my personal heroes, Tyler Hollinger (creator of Man-Babies), Sonja O'Hara (creator of Doomsday, Astral, and many more shows), Michael Melamedroff (direcotr/producer of THE PROBLEM WITH APU), and Victor Cruz (BLUE BLOODS, creator of THE STOCK ROOM). We had a wonderful time sharing our war stories with a packed house, I absolutely love meeting and speaking with emerging filmmakers.
After an unbelievable premiere and some tears during our Q+A, I'm so pleased to announce that Home Street Home took the prize for Best Short Doc at Harlem Film Festival this weekend.
I co-directed this film with Tyler Hollinger and co-produced with Phil Sullivan and Shane Duffy, our EP. We are very grateful to Damian and his family for opening up to us and helping to destigmatize the homeless epidemic.
Please stay up to date on our story and check out our trailer here!
Our team is over the moon to announce that our documentary, HOME STREET HOME, will receive its world premiere at the Harlem International Film Festival this Sunday May 6th at 5PM. I had the good fortune of co-directing this film with Tyler Hollinger. It was executive produced by Shane Duffy, and we had an absolutely incredible crew.
Synopsis: In 2015 Shane Duffy met a homeless man Damian 'Dean' Cummings. In an effort to directly help one man's life, Shane built a 'Hidden Home' disguised as a dumpster. Damian lived in this home for over a year on the streets of SOHO NYC and know one suspected otherwise. In 2017 the NYPD took Damian's home away after the NY POST broke the story, thus returning him to the streets. Now the duo is being threatened with 10 days of jail and a $500 fine.
Photo: Jamal Solomon.
I am honored to announce that "Interference," a short dramatic thriller I wrote, co-directed, and co-produced will receive its World Premiere on April 28th as part of BAMCinematek's New Voice in Black Cinema Festival.
I had been trying to make this film for years. Its script was shortlisted for many grants and awards including Nantucket Film Festival's Tony Cox/Showtime Screenwriting Award, ScreenCraft's Production Fund, WeScreenplay's Production Grant, and Hell's Half Mile's Pitch Fest. Through the love and support of an incredible cast and crew, we were finally able to make this film a reality. I am so extraordinarily proud of what we were able to accomplish and humbled to have directed such a talented group of people. We are especially honored to have the opportunity to elevate the black artists that made this film what it is and sincerely hope you can join us at one of my absolute favorite theaters in New York!