Mexican director Carlos López Estrada and his Anti-Gravity Academy have selected six new emerging filmmakers and their feature projects for the third edition of his Screenwriters Camp.
Estrada, who received an Academy Award nomination for directing the Disney film Raya and the Last Dragon The animated film, will see its incubator help take six new films in development from script to screen. These include Alejandra Vazquez and Sam Osborne Teen riotsabout a teenager who finds himself in the middle of Imus’ battles against villains in Mexico City in 2008; Chloe Jori Vogel cherry, Where a pre-school teacher who is afraid of intimacy has an unexpected relationship with her pregnant neighbor; and girlswritten by Chris Likud, in which a father’s girl from a dysfunctional family goes undercover to investigate her father’s second family.
The other three film writers looking to package and produce their first films through Estrada’s Screenwriters Camp are Danielle Garber; Crime tripWhere murders are solved on a ship full of true crime fanatics; Julian and Justin Turner Too lateabout a desperate college student who undertakes a deadly mission to save his mother suffering from dementia; And Mido Taha Other peopleThe film revolves around three Lebanese sisters who help their father run a laundromat in Dearborn by day after their mother passes away, and borrow the dresses they clean to go to fancy parties at night.
“The level of submissions this year was extremely inspiring; a beautiful testament to the creative power of emerging voices in the industry. Each film is grounded in truth, rich in lived experience, and offers an extraordinary new lens through which to view the world. If this is the future of cinema, we firmly believe we are in good hands,” Estrada and Abiram Brizuela, who lead project development at the Antigravity Academy incubator, said in a joint statement.
The Screenwriters Camp is part of Estrada’s production company, which was launched in 2018 to develop and produce underrepresented stories and incubate projects for first- and second-time filmmakers looking to venture into independent filmmaking outside of traditional paths.
Previous graduates have used the development work and hands-on mentorship offered by Screenwriters Camp to secure acting, get into pre-production and advance through programs like Sundance Labs, according to Antigravity Academy. Current and former mentors at the Screenwriters Camp include Marcus Gardley (violet), Clint Bentley (Train dreams), Xun Wang (Didi) LaToya Morgan (Duster) and Chazz Bennett (Queen Sugar).
Antigravity Academy also runs a short film studio and the Indie Institute, an intensive virtual filmmaking institute. Estrada is repped by CAA.
