Conversations from the Sundance Institute Labs | Show, Don't Tell: Writing Sight & Sound to Express Emotion with Veena Sud (THE KILLING) & more

Tarell Alvin McCraney is an acclaimed writer. His script, IN MOONLIGHT BLACK BOYS LOOK BLUE, is the basis for the Academy Award-winning film MOONLIGHT directed by Barry Jenkins, for which McCraney and Jenkins won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The second season of McCraney’s critically acclaimed drama series DAVID MAKES MAN (OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network) was executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and Michael B. Jordan and can currently be streamed on HBO Max. The first season received a Peabody Award, Critic’s Choice Award, and Gotham Award while also maintaining 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. McCraney also wrote the film HIGH FLYING BIRD, which premiered on Netflix and is directed by Steven Soderbergh. McCraney’s plays include MS. BLAKK FOR PRESIDENT (co-written with Tina Landau), THE BROTHER/SISTER PLAYS trilogy, HEAD OF PASSES, WIG OUT!, and CHOIR BOY, which was nominated for four Tony Awards. McCraney is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, the Whiting Award, Steinberg Playwright Award, the Evening Standard Award, the New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Windham Campbell Award, and a USA Artist Award. He is currently Chair of Playwriting at Yale School of Drama and a member of Teo Castellanos/D-Projects.

Veena Sud created The Killing (AMC/Netflix) which was nominated for six Emmys, including for Sud’s writing, as well a WGA nomination for Best New Series. Her recent Emmy Award winning TV series, Seven Seconds (Netflix), is an ensemble drama centered on the hit and run of a young Black teenager by a white police officer. Sud’s feature film The Lie (Blumhouse), which she wrote and directed, premiered as a Gala at the Toronto International Film Festival and on Amazon in 2020. Her film/series hybrid, The Stranger debuted on Jeffrey Katzenberg’s ground breaking Quibi mobile platform in April 2020.

Sud was featured in The Hollywood Reporter’s 2011 Power Showrunners List and Variety’s Women’s Impact Report. She worked as a print and broadcast journalist in New York City, in film distribution at Third World Newsreel, and is an alumnus of New York University’s Graduate Film and Television program.

She is represented by William Morris Endeavor and Anonymous Content and her attorney is Bruce Gellman at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman and Newman.

Named one of the Top Latinas Changing the Game for Representation by Glamour Magazine, creator, director, writer, showrunner, and producer Linda Yvette Chávez has emerged in the entertainment industry as a powerful voice, bringing fearless, inclusive and impactful stories to the big and small screens. Highlighted by Variety in their Comedy Impact Report alongside heavy hitters Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Tiffany Haddish, Chávez continues to break ceilings and has no plans to slow down anytime soon.

This year Chávez has a handful of exciting projects on the docket. First up, Chávez penned the upcoming Searchlight Pictures feature film FLAMIN' HOT, directed by Eva Longoria. FLAMIN' HOT premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival, winning the Audience Award and critics’ hearts in the process. Media raved “it’s a heartwarming movie at the core, it feels good to root for the underdog and win” (Austin Chronicle), “an engaging and empowering watch” (TheWrap), and “utterly delightful…equally amusing and affecting film that defies expectations” (The Hollywood Reporter). The film follows Richard Montañez, a Frito Lay janitor who channeled his Mexican American heritage and upbringing to turn Flamin’ Hot Cheetos into a snack that disrupted the food industry and became a global phenomenon. Longoria tapped Chávez for her authentic voice that depicts the Mexican American experience, to execute Eva’s vision for a comedic, effervescent, and uplifting version of Montañez’s story. FLAMIN' HOT is set to stream on Disney+ and Hulu on June 9, 2023 and marks the first time a feature film has been made available on both platforms at the same time. Also in film, Chávez is currently adapting the New York Times bestselling book I AM NOT YOUR PERFECT MEXICAN DAUGHTER by Erika L. Sanchez alongside Anonymous Content and MACRO with America Ferrera set to direct in her feature directorial debut. Chávez is also preparing to make her own directorial debut with a horror-comedy written by two up-and-coming Latino writers. The film follows four Mexican-American sisters in the ‘90s as they battle zombies to save their baby sister and their hood from the apocalypse. It’s being coined as SHAUN OF THE DEAD if it wore hoops and was sprayed down with AquaNet.

In television, Chávez recently inked a multi-year overall deal with 20th Television where she is creating her own projects, as well as executive producing other dramas and comedies created by diverse voices, for all Disney platforms. Chávez made her first big splash in the entertainment industry in 2020 with her groundbreaking, critically acclaimed, award nominated series GENTEFIED, which she co-created and helmed as co-showrunner, director, and executive producer. Produced by America Ferrera and MACRO, the show followed three cousins who band together to keep their grandfather’s popular Boyle Heights taco shop in business as the neighborhood becomes more gentrified. GENTEFIED was praised for navigating larger themes of gentrification and the marginalization of Latinxs in America, and during its run was nominated for a prestigious Peabody Award, ten Imagen Foundation Awards including Best Comedy Series and Best Directing for Chávez, and a GLAAD Media Award nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series. Seasons one and two of the show can currently be streamed on Netflix.

Hailing from Norwalk, California, Chávez developed her story writing talents while an undergrad at Stanford University. She went on to study Writing for Cinema and Television at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, earning her MFA and receiving the prestigious Jack Nicholson Award for merit in writing. Chávez was a Film Independent Project Involve Fellow, where she wrote and directed her second short film. She served as an Advisor at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in 2022 and 2023. There she provided ongoing support to independent storytellers in the program by helping advance the development and production of their work. Chávez resides in the Los Angeles area.

Jessie Nelson wrote, directed and produced CORRINA CORRINA and I AM SAM, starring Sean Penn. She co-created and executive produced Sara Bareilles’ LITTLE VOICE for Bad Robot and Apple TV. Among her other directing credits are CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM and LOVE, THE COOPERS. Her writing credits also include STEP MOM and THE STORY OF US. Nelson wrote the Broadway musical WAITRESS with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, which went on to the West End in London. Nelson directed ALICE BY HEART, which she co-wrote with Steven Sater with music by Duncan Sheik at the National Theater Connections Program in London and at MCC in NYC. She began her career as an actress at the Public Theater, working with the experimental theater, Mabou Mines, and acting with the New York Shakespeare Festival. Currently, Nelson is executive producing Nikesh Shukula’s BROWN BABY and Glennon Doyle’s UNTAMED for television. She wrote the children’s book LABRACADABRA.

Douglas McGrath is a filmmaker and playwright. He was nominated for a Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award for his book, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay, Bullets Over Broadway, and an Emmy for his HBO documentaries, Becoming Mike Nicols and His Way. He wrote and directed the Academy Award winning films Emma, Nicholas Nickleby, and Infamous. He is a columnist for Air Mail and has written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. As an actor, he appeared in The Daytrippers, Quiz Show, The Insider, Happiness, Michael Clayton, Godless, and Girls. He began his career as a writer at Saturday Night Live in what was incontestably the worst year in the show’s history.

Scott Frank’s screenplays include Little Man Tate, Dead Again, Malice, Heaven’s Prisoners, Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Minority Report, The Interpreter, The Lookout (also directed), Marley & Me, The Wolverine, Walk Among the Tombstones (also directed), Logan, the Netflix limited series, Godless (also directed) and The Queen’s Gambit (also directed). Out of Sight and Logan were both nominated for Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay. Out of Sight won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America as well as Best Screenplay awards from the National Society of Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics. Logan was also nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Get Shorty was nominated for both a Golden Globe and a Writers Guild Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His directorial debut, The Lookout, won the Independent Spirit award for Best First Feature.

Godless was nominated for 12 Emmy awards, including writing, directing, and Best Limited Series, as well as nominations from the Directors and Writers Guilds. The Queen’s Gambit won 11 Emmy Awards, including Best Director and Best Limited Series. It won the Golden Globe for Best Limited Series as well as winning awards in the Limited Series category from the Writers, Producers and Directors Guilds, The Critics’ Choice Awards and the USC Scripter Award for Best Adaptation. It was also named one of the AFI’s Top Ten Shows for 2020.

Mr. Frank is currently adapting Mary Doria Russell’s novel, The Sparrow, for F/X as a limited series for Johan Renck to direct, preparing Monsieur Spade, a series he co-created with Tom Fontana and will direct for AMC in 2022, and adapting, with Megan Abbott, the Nabokov novel, Laughter in the Dark, as a feature film. Mr. Frank’s first novel, Shaker, was published by Knopf in 2015.