Filmmaker Meetup and Panel: Making Your First Feature with Tracy Droz Tragos (PLAN C), Randall Park (SHORTCOMINGS) and Laurel Parmet (THE STARLING GIRL)

At an early age, Tracy found solace in watching Vietnam War movies and making a connection with the father she never knew, a U.S. Navy officer who died in Vietnam. Over time, this led to her interest in storytelling - especially stories revealing hard truths. 

Tracy’s work includes Abortion: Stories Women Tell, the HBO documentary telling intimate stories of unplanned pregnancies and resilience; Smartest Kids in the World, a documentary about the crisis in U.S. high school education; and Be Good, Smile Pretty, an Emmy Award-winning documentary about the grief and healing of those orphaned by the Vietnam War. 

With Rich Hill, Tracy embedded in the homes of low-income families in rural Missouri to give voice to the at-risk teenagers there. Rich Hill won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Since then, Tracy has continued filming with these Missouri families with a focus on Sarah, whom Tracy met in 2012, an ambitious student who became pregnant at age 15 and is now a mother of three. In 2020, Tracy was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for her ongoing work on Sarah. 

Tracy holds an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from USC and a B.A. in Writing in Fiction from Northwestern University. As an aspiring fiction writer/director, she faced many rejections - but with documentaries, she was able to greenlight herself. In 2019, she met Sula, the real-life inspiration behind "The Macrobiotic Stoner," and she is excited to return to the fiction world with this feature, currently in development. Tracy is a 2021 Sundance Screenwriting and Directing Fellow, a 2021 Susan Nimoy Fellow and Lynn Auerbach Fellow and a 2022 Adrienne Shelly Fellow. Tracy is proudly premiering her new documentary, PLAN C, at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Randall Park is perhaps best known for his role as the patriarch of the Huang family on the hit ABC series FRESH OFF THE BOAT. He’s known globally for his role as Jimmy Woo in the Marvel Universe, appearing in WANDAVISION for Disney+ as well as Marvel’s ANT MAN AND THE WASP. Randall co-wrote and co-starred alongside Ali Wong in the Netflix romantic comedy, ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE. 

Randall currently co-hosts the hybrid comedy TRUE STORY opposite Ed Helms for Peacock. In the voiceover world, Randall voices Pete the Logic Rock on Netflix’s animated comedy HUMAN RESOURCES and can next be heard in Universal’s adult comedy STRAYS. Next up, Randall will reprise his role as Dr. Stephen Shin in AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM. 

Randall recurred on HBO’s VEEP and has appeared in the feature films THE DISASTER ARTIST, OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY, SNATCHED, THE NIGHT BEFORE, TRAINWRECK, THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT, DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS, LARRY CROWNE, THE GOOD DOCTOR, and FRAGMENTS. His TV credits include BOJACK HORSEMAN, THE OFFICE, NEW GIRL, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, HOUSE, THE MINDY PROJECT, COLD CASE, CSI, RENO 911!, WILD N OUT, and THE SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM. Randall can also be seen in THEY CAME TOGETHER opposite Paul Rudd, NEIGHBORS opposite Zac Efron, SEX TAPE opposite Jason Segel and THE INTERVIEW opposite Seth Rogen and James Franco. 

Randall’s production company, Imminent Collision, aims to develop comedy-forward stories from Asian American perspectives. Randall is set to make his directorial debut this winter at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival with the indie feature SHORTCOMINGS, an adaptation of the graphic novel by Adrian Tomine. The company has set up several projects at ABC, Hulu, HBO Max, and Amazon.

Laurel Parmet is a screenwriter and director based in New York, where she received her MFA in directing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Her award-winning short films, including SPRING and KIRA BURNING, have played at SXSW, MoMA, Palm Springs, Outfest and more. She is a Sundance Screenwriters Intensive fellow with her feature THE STARLING GIRL and is developing a feature with Alexa Demie and Bron Studios.

Michelle Satter is the Founding Senior Director of Sundance Institute's Artist Programs. As a key executive of the Leadership Team, Satter has been one of the chief architects of the Institute's programs since 1981 and has created and leads all programs supporting scripted storytelling. Under Satter's tenure, the Feature Film Program has provided year-round and in-depth support to the ground-breaking and award-winning filmmakers Sean Wang (Dìdi (弟弟)), Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man) A.V. Rockwell (A Thousand and One), Roger Ross Williams (Cassandro), Charlotte Wells (Aftersun), Nikyatu Jusu (Nanny), Mounia Akl (Costa Brava, Lebanon), Radha Blank (The 40-Year-Old Version), Edson Oda (Nine Days), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station), Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men), Dee Rees (Pariah), Marielle Heller (Diary of a Teenage Girl), Gina Prince Bythewood (Love and Basketball), James Mangold (Cop Land), Damien Chazelle (Whiplash), Chloe Zhao (Songs My Brother Taught Me), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox), Robert Eggers (The Witch), Taika Waititi (Boy), Rick Famuyiwa (The Wood), Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre), Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs), and Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know), among many others. 

Satter also created and led the Institute's international initiatives in Latin America, Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and India, the Producing Program, and the Episodic Program. More recently, Satter founded and is charged with creative oversight and vision for Sundance Collab, a global digital storytelling and learning platform, and the Institute lead for the Sundance Artist Program Group, overseeing the Feature Film Program, Documentary Film Program, Producers Program, Episodic Program, Indigenous Program, Catalyst, and International Program. 

In recent years, Satter has been recognized with the Women in Film Business Leadership Award, the ACLU Bill of Rights Award, the Golden Eddie Award from ACE, the Horizon Award for her contribution to Female Filmmakers, the Indian Film Festival Los Angeles U.S.-based Industry Leadership Award, the MPAC Media Award, the Coral de Honneur at the Havana Film Festival, a tribute celebrating her 30 years leading the Feature Film Program at the Sundance Institute and the Giving Voice Award at the Sundance Festival Women's Leadership Luncheon. Prior to joining the Sundance Institute, Satter was a Co-Founding Partner and Program Director of ArtiCulture, Inc, responsible for producing hundreds of events in the Boston area and the Director of Public Relations for Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art. Additionally, Satter co-produced the Academy Award-nominated documentary Waldo Salt, A Screenwriter's Journey. 

In 2024, Satter received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an Oscar celebrating her long-term work at the Sundance Institute supporting independent storytellers who have brought meaningful change and inspiration to world audiences. She was honored this year at the Sundance Festival Gala for her long standing commitment to nurturing artists and cultivating independent film through the Sundance Labs, where visionary artists convene to develop groundbreaking projects through an in-depth creative process, for the past four decades.