Applying to the Indigenous Program Native Lab
About this Insider Session
In our Insider Sessions, Sundance Institute staff answer your questions and guide you through the process of applying to our labs, programs, grant opportunities, and the Sundance Film Festival.
For this Insider Session, join Indigenous Program Director, Adam Piron, and program alumni Sabrina Saleha and Taylor Foreman-Niko to learn more about applying to the Sundance Native Lab.
The Indigenous Program has built and sustained an Indigenous film circle, which now spans over four generations. The cycle of work begins by scouting for and identifying Indigenous artists, bringing them through the mechanisms of support at Sundance Institute to get their work made and shown, then bringing the filmmakers and their work back to native lands. The Native Lab has been a vital part of supporting Indigenous filmmakers since 2004. The lab focuses on the specific development of storytellers from Native and Indigenous backgrounds, encompassing feature film work. During the Lab, Fellows will hone their storytelling and technical skills in a hands-on and supportive environment, including one-on-one feedback sessions with advisors and roundtable discussions. Fellows will also explore and discuss indigenizing their creative practices in regard to writing their scripts.
The Native Lab provides direct support to emerging filmmakers from the U.S.-based Native American, Native Hawaiian, Alaskan Native, and Canada-based Indigenous Canadian (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) communities. Fellowship for Indigenous Canadian film artists made possible with support from the Indigenous Screen Office. Please note that you are required to submit a narrative feature script.
APPLICATION DATES
- Native Lab
- Opens December 1, 2026; STANDARDIZED OPEN TIME: 1:00PM PACIFIC / 2:00PM MOUNTAIN / 4:00PM EASTERN
- Closes December 22, 2026; STANDARDIZED CLOSE TIME: 3:30PM PACIFIC / 4:30PM MOUNTAIN / 6:30PM EASTERN
About the Sundance Institute Indigenous Program
The Sundance Institute Indigenous Program champions and provides deep support of Indigenous-created stories on a global scale. From labs and fellowships to screenings and gatherings around the world, the program’s offerings are designed in response to the specific needs of Native and Indigenous storytellers. Through our work, we emulate our core values of decolonizing the screen and uplifting the voices of Indigenous artists, recognizing that telling their stories comes with great responsibility and obligation towards Indigenous peoples, communities and their sovereignty.
Find out more about the Sundance Institute Indigenous Program here.
If you would benefit from an accommodation to fully participate in this event, please either submit a request here, contact us at (435) 776-7790, or email us at accessibility@sundance.org to discuss your specific requests. Every effort will be made to accommodate advance requests; however, requests made within 5 days of the event may not be guaranteed.
A recording of this Insider Session will be posted to Sundance Collab's Event Recording Library within two business days of the live event and will be available to view at no cost through February 10, 2027.
Insider SessionTeam
Adam Piron
Director, Indigenous Program
Adam Piron (Kiowa/Mohawk) currently acts as the Director of Sundance Institute's Indigenous Program where he helps oversee the organization's investment in Indigenous filmmakers globally. He also serves as a short film programmer for the Sundance Film Festival. He is also a co-founder of COUSIN: a film collective dedicated to supporting Indigenous artists experimenting with and pushing the boundaries of the moving image. He was previously the Assistant Film Curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He received his BA in Film Production from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts. Piron currently serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Seen, a journal produced by BlackStar examining the visual culture of communities of color, featuring interviews, reviews, and essays about Black, Brown, and Indigenous visual culture. He has also been on advisory panels for Canyon Cinema, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, The Jerome Foundation, The Princess Grace Awards and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
Sabrina Saleha
Alum, Indigenous Program
Sabrina Saleha is a Navajo writer-director and a staff writer on AMC’s Dark Winds. She is a 2026 Sundance Native Lab Fellow developing her feature Grief Camp. Her debut short film, Legend of Fry-Roti: Rise of the Dough, won Best New Mexico Short at theSanta Fe International Film Festival and the Audience Award at deadCenter Film Festival. She is a Tulsa Artist Fellow, and her work centers contemporary Native stories of family, grief, and joy.
Taylor Foreman-Niko
Alum, Indigenous Program
Taylor Foreman-Niko is a Samoan American writer based in Los Angeles. He enjoys writing character-centric genre stories. He was selected for 2022’s Blood List of Best Unproduced Horror and Thriller scripts, and chosen to participate in the inaugural PEAK Writers Fellowship and the 2024 Stowe Narrative Lab.
Adrienne Childress
Moderator | Producer, Collab Partnerships
Adrienne Childress, a Chicago native, is a Los Angeles-based producer and writer. Her credits span documentary, commercial, music video, and short- and long-form narrative content, with a central focus on working with directors and creatives whose voices are underrepresented in our industry. From 2015 to 2019, Adrienne managed and oversaw production for the Directing Workshop for Women at the American Film Institute. In 2024, she continued that mission by consulting on the creation and execution of Netflix's Proof of Concept Accelerator Program. Her feature films My Divorce Party, starring Rumer Willis, is streaming on Amazon Prime, and The Hater, starring Joey Ally, Bruce Dern, and Ali Larter, is on Mubi. In 2019, Adrienne’s project Girl Callin, a proof of concept she wrote and produced, was accepted as a part of Refinery 29’s Shatterbox Anthology Series and premiered at the Palm Springs Film Festival in 2020.
She has produced Visual Impact Statements for victims of the Woolsey, Eaton, Palisades, and Maui fires, as well as the PBS documentary series A Town Called Victoria. Most recently, Adrienne produced the Sundance x Adobe content series “Festival Moments” for the 2025 and 2026 Sundance Film Festivals.