Indigenous Storytelling: A Conversation with Miciana Alise (FANCY DANCE) and Erica Tremblay (RESERVATION DOGS)

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.

Miciana’s feature script, Nancy’s Girls, led to 2019 and 2021 Sundance Institute Indigenous Program Fellowships. Her second feature, Fancy Dance (co-writer), lead to a 2021 Sundance Screenwriters Fellowship, 2021 SFFilmRainin Grant, was featured on the Indigenous List hosted by The Black List and the 2022 Wescripted Cannes Screenplay List. She is a 2022 Flaherty Fellow and Women at Sundance | Adobe Fellow.

Erica is a writer and director from the Seneca-Cayuga Nation. She recently worked as an Executive Story Editor on RESERVATION DOGS at FX, where she directed her first episode of TV for the series. Together with Sterlin Harjo, she is developing a series adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize finalist, YELLOWBIRD, for Paramount+. Erica was an Executive Story Editor on the upcoming AMC series, DARK WINDS, produced by George R.R. Martin and Robert Redford. Her feature project, Fancy Dance, was accepted into the 2021 Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs. In 2021, she was also awarded the Walter Bernstein Screenwriting Fellowship, the Maja Kristin Directing Fellowship, the SFFILM Rainin Grant, and the Lynn Shelton Of a Certain Age Grant. Her short film, Little Chief, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was included on IndieWire’s top-ten list of must-see short films at the fest. In addition to writing and directing, Erica is also studying her Indigenous language. She is repped by WME and Ragna Nervik Management.