Announcing the 2026 Screenwriters Lab Participants – Hamptons International Film Festival

For the twenty sixth yr, the annual HIFF Screenwriters Lab (April 10-12, 2026), will pair rising screenwriters with established screenwriters, administrators, and creative-producers for a weekend of one-on-one mentoring periods.

An intimate gathering happening every spring in East Hampton, the Lab fosters rising expertise with these movie business veterans advising the collaborating fellows on their function size tasks in a collection of particular person and group growth periods. Submissions for this yr’s lab have been up 60% in comparison with earlier labs.

This yr’s mentors embrace filmmaker Cathy Yan, a 2018 Lab alum together with her challenge DEAD PIGS, which went on to win the Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting on the Sundance Film Festival and whose movie THE GALLERIST lately premiered on the 2026 Sundance Film Festival; HIFF alum Cory Finley, whose movie THOROUGHBREDS earned nominations on the Gotham Awards, Film Independent Spirit Awards, AFI Fest, and the Sundance Film Festiva;, and HIFF alum Noah Stahl, whose movie REALITY earned each PGA and Gotham Awards nominations.

2026 Mentors

• Cory Finley (BAD EDUCATION, THOROUGHBREDS)
• Noah Stahl (THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT, REALITY)
• Cathy Yan (DEAD PIGS, BIRDS OF PREY, THE GALLERIST)

2026 Selected Screenplays

• Before the Echo Makes a Sound, by Chloe Abrahams
  
• Punter, by Jason Adam Maselle
• Eruption, by Katla Sólnes
  

“When considering selections from this year’s record number of submissions, these three projects really stood out with their distinct voices and individual storytelling approaches. We are also honored that all three mentors are alumni of HamptonsFilm, having previously shared their work at either the festival or the lab,” acknowledged Chief Creative Officer David Nugent.

Katla Sólnes will obtain the 2026 Melissa Mathison Award for her screenplay Eruption. Established in 2016 and ​named for the late, beloved Oscar®-nominated screenwriter, this award strives to foster the continued growth of feminine writers within the business. Previous recipients embrace accomplished function movies from Annabelle Attanasio (MICKEY AND THE BEAR), and Cathy Yan (DEAD PIGS). To help girls in movie, please think about a donation to the Melissa Mathison Award.

• • Full bios of all Lab individuals are included under.

SCREENPLAYS

Before the Echo Makes a Sound

Screenwriter: Chloe Abrahams

Logline: After her estranged father dies, Nila returns to her Tamil group in Sri Lanka for the primary time in 20 years, in search of solutions about her brother who disappeared at first of the civil struggle. After discovering her father’s cassette tapes of an investigation into youngsters who keep in mind previous lives, Nila ventures into an unfamiliar realm, one the place she thinks she would possibly discover her brother.

Chloe Abrahams is a Sri Lankan-British artist and filmmaker. She investigates the therapeutic potential of the confessional, culminating in visceral work spanning shifting picture, sound, writing and efficiency. THE TASTE OF MANGO, Chloe’s debut non-fiction function, received the British Independent Film Award for Best Debut Director, received the viewers award on the BFI London Film Festival, and made the BAFTA longlist for Outstanding British Debut. She is at present creating her first narrative function, BEFORE THE ECHO MAKES A SOUND, set in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

Punter

Screenwriter: Jason Adam Maselle

Logline: On his 14th birthday, Brett and his grifter father should survive a day of chaos and lethal odds traversing Johannesburg’s playing underworld so as to hit one closing horse racing wager that can save their household.

Jason Adam Maselle is a BAFTA-nominated filmmaker from Johannesburg, South Africa. His work has screened on HBO Max and at quite a few worldwide and Oscar-qualifying movie festivals. He acquired his MFA in filmmaking from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. His newest quick movie PUNTER is govt produced by Spike Lee. The movie premiered on the Locarno Film Festival. the place it received a Special Jury Prize. The PUNTER’s function movie script adaptation is a 2025 NYU Purple List Winner. Jason is represented by Eryn Brown, Marc Mounier and Yang Fei at Entertainment 360. He misses going to the films together with his dad.

Eruption

Screenwriter: Katla Sólnes

Logline: In the highlands of Nineteen Seventies Iceland, a geologist’s spouse finds her marriage examined when a wily American pupil arrives, stirring tensions as unstable as the encompassing volcanic panorama.

Named after Iceland’s most harmful volcano, Katla Sólnes is an Icelandic writer-director. She is a Sundance Screenwriters Lab fellow (’25) and a Hamptons Screenwriters Lab Fellow (’26) together with her function, ERUPTION, which is in growth and is being produced by Anton Máni Svansson (GODLAND, THE LOVE THAT REMAINS) of “Still Vivid” Productions. Her work is environmentally-driven, juxtaposing intimate and complicated relationship tales in opposition to the unstable panorama of Iceland. Katla holds a Master’s diploma in Screenwriting from Columbia University and has been the recipient of help from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Icelandic Film Fund, and Indian Paintbrush.

Recipient: 2026 Melissa Mathison Award

MENTORS

Cory Finley

Cory Finley is a St. Louis-born, New-York-based filmmaker. His first movie THOROUGHBREDS, starring Olivia Cooke, Anya Taylor-Joy and Anton Yelchin, was launched by Focus Features and nominated for Independent Spirit and Gotham Awards. BAD EDUCATION, with Hugh Jackman and Alison Janney, received an Emmy in 2020 for HBO. His third function LANDSCAPE WITH INVISIBLE HAND, with Tiffany Haddish and Asante Blackk, was launched by MGM. He has directed episodes of WeCrashed and the upcoming Hulu collection Furious. He started his profession as a playwright, and his performs proceed to be produced across the U.S.

Noah Stahl

Noah Stahl is a producer at Cinetic Media. Credits embrace Geremy Jasper’s Independent Spirit Award-nominated directing debut PATTI CAKE$ (2017), which premiered at Sundance and Cannes and was launched by Searchlight Pictures; Tina Satter’s Peabody Award-winning directing debut REALITY (2023) starring Sydney Sweeney, which premiered at Berlin and Telluride and was launched by HBO Films; THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT (2024), an all-archival documentary directed by Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk and Pedro Kos, which premiered at Telluride and was launched by Netflix; and Jasper’s O’DESSA (2025) starring Sadie Sink, which premiered at SXSW and was launched by Searchlight Pictures. He relies in New York.

Cathy Yan

Cathy Yan‘s debut feature DEAD PIGS, which she wrote and directed, won the Special Jury Prize for ensemble acting at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, among other accolades. Yan then directed the critically acclaimed BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN), starring Margot Robbie and Ewan McGregor. Yan made her television directing debut with an episode of HBO’s Succession, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.” She lately premiered her newest movie THE GALLERIST, starring Natalie Portman, on the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Yan studied at Princeton University, the place she earned her B.A., and New York University, the place she acquired a twin M.F.A. and M.B.A. in movie. In a earlier life, she was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, working in New York, Hong Kong and China.

Highlights of the Screenwriters Lab over the previous 24 years have included Kelly O’Sullivan’s MOUSE, starring Sophie Okonedo, which premiered on the 2026 Berlinale and which IndieWire known as “a profoundly tender coming-of-age tale;” Anu Valia’s WE STRANGERS, starring Kirby and Maria Dizzia, which premiered on the 2024 SXSW Film Festival; Andrew Semans’ RESURRECTION, starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth, which premiered on the 2022 Sundance Film Festival; Michael Tyburski and Ben Nabors’ THE SOUND OF SILENCE, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Rashida Jones, which premiered on the 2019 Sundance Film Festival; Ísold Uggadóttir‘s AND BREATHE NORMALLY and Christina Choe‘s NANCY, which both premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and received awards for directing and screenwriting, respectively; Destin Daniel Cretton’s SHORT TERM 12, starring Academy Award®-winning actors Brie Larson and Rami Malek, which received the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at SXSW in 2013; Justin Schwartz’s THE DISCOVERERS, starring Griffin Dunne, which made its world premiere at HIFF 2012; and Sara Colangelo’s LITTLE ACCIDENTS, which premiered on the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, starring Elizabeth Banks and Chloe Sevigny.