HamptonsFilm, home of Hamptons International Film Festival, announced today the selected fellows, screenplays and mentors for the 24th edition of their annual Screenwriters Lab, which will take place April 5-7, 2024.
“In considering selections from this year’s record number of submissions, these three projects really stood out with their distinctive voices and unique approaches to storytelling. We are also honored to have three artists who have all exhibited work at our festival return to mentor these emerging artists,” stated Artistic Director David Nugent.
The three selected screenplays for 2024’s Lab are “Pygmalion” by Agnes Skonare, “Little Phnom Penh” by Chheangkea, and “Diary of a Muslim Cynic” by Sarah Mokh. The Lab pairs rising screenwriters with established screenwriters, directors, and creative-producers for a weekend of one-on-one mentoring sessions.
This year’s mentors include filmmaker and actor Michael Covino, whose work includes his feature directorial debut THE CLIMB, which premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best First Feature at the 2020 Film Independent Spirit Awards; director, screenwriter and producer Bart Freundlich; known for his 1997 Sundance Film Festival hit THE MYTH OF FINGERPRINTS, starring Julianne Moore; and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and filmmaker Celine Song, whose critically-acclaimed feature directorial debut PAST LIVES was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards. Song is an alumni of the Hamptons International Film Festival and was awarded the festival’s Breakthrough Artist Award at the 31st edition in October 2023.
SCREENPLAYS
“Pygmalion”
by Agnes Skonare
Logline: When a successful New Yorker in pregnancy denial joins her partner’s family for the holidays, a fateful accident offsets a dangerous game of blame and control, ultimately forcing her to reckon with her own desires for motherhood.
Bio: A Swedish writer/director based in LA., Agnes graduated with Honors from Columbia University where she was a scholarship recipient and writing/directing fellow. Agnes works on fiction films that explore the intricacies of the human experience, often exploring characters trapped in claustrophobic situations or relationships. Her short BERRY PICKERS was awarded The Adrienne Shelly Award for Best Female Director, the University Short Film Award at Hamptons International Film Festival, screened Telluride, was awarded a Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere and was shortlisted for a Guldbagge Nomination, the Swedish equivalent of the Academy Awards. The short is a pilot for her feature, which was the 2022 Winner of the BlueCat Screenplay Competition and selected for the Cine Qua Non Script Revision Lab. Her latest short, FAVOURS, starring Garance Marillier, was the 2023 Winner of the Tony Cox Screenplay Competition and premiered as part of the Best Shorts Program at the Gothenburg Film Festival in Jan 2024. She is the recipient of SWEA Los Angeles Film and Culture Scholarship for 2023, is a 2023 Vimeo Breakout Creator and is currently working on her first feature film with the acclaimed Swedish production company PINE.
“Little Phnom Penh”
by Chheangkea
Logline: Spanning two ever-changing decades and continents following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, a Cambodian woman in Phnom Penh grapples with her own deep personal desires and her evolving familial roles as a hopeful daughter, a watchful wife, and eventually, a single mother in America.
Bio: Chheangkea is a Cambodian-American filmmaker based in New York. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in architecture from MIT and is currently in his thesis year as a Dean’s Fellow at the NYU Tisch Graduate Film Program, focusing on writing-directing and cinematography. His previous short film, SKIN CAN BREATHE, is a finalist for the HBO Max APA Visionaries competition. It has screened internationally and is distributed by Max. Chheangkea is currently developing his first feature film, LITTLE PHNOM PENH, chronicling three decades of a Cambodian woman’s life post-Khmer Rouge. His upcoming short film, GRANDMA NAI, is in post-production and supported by the Fonds Image de l’Organisation de la Francophonie. Currently, Chheangkea is a fellow in the Marcie Bloom Fellowship in Film.
As a cinematographer, Chheangkea has worked on award-winning short films that have played at festivals worldwide. His cinematography work enables him to collaborate with other talented directors and further refine his visual language and storytelling.
“Diary of a Muslim Cynic”
by Sarah Mokh
Logline: Desperate to escape her midwest small town in the aftermath of a tragedy, a teen girl’s pursuits of love, college, and big city dreams are upended by an existential crisis and mystical encounters.
Bio: Sarah is a Lebanese-American writer and director interested in what the stories we tell reveal about how we believe the world works. She is a graduate of Harvard, where she studied Islamic Civilizations and English, and is currently a graduate student at NYU, where she studies Islamic mysticism and literature. She is a 2022 Film Independent Episodic fellow, a 2024 Sundance Feature Film fellow, and currently in development on her first feature film.
