The Sundance Collab Script Challenge

Julia Camara is a Brazilian writer/filmmaker. Born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, she freelanced for years as a Portuguese translator for film and television subtitling. She has written and directed several award-winning short films. Her feature directorial debut In Transit, an experimental drama shot mostly in one day and with improvised dialogue, won Best Experimental Film at four different festivals. Julia also wrote the sci-fi feature Area Q (starring Isaiah Washington), the road movie Open Road (starring Andy Garcia, Juliette Lewis and Camilla Belle), and the award winning sci-fi found footage feature Occupants aka Alterverse (starring Star Trek: Voyager's Robert Picardo). Occupants aka Alterverse has screened at 150 festivals all over the world and has won over 100 awards including a Telly Award for writing. Julia teaches Screenwriting at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She developed two brand-new courses since she started teaching; Inclusive Screenwriting, a course designed for the development of stories around underrepresented communities, and Writing a Low Budget Feature Film. In the Fall of 2020, Julia self-published the eBook That’s What She Wrote, a collection of articles and interviews about screenwriting and filmmaking. Julia works as an advisor for Sundance Co//ab. Some of her courses include: Crafting Your Sci-Fi Feature, Revising Your Feature Screenplay and Writing Your First Act. Some of Julia’s writing can be seen on WeScreenplay blog, Luz Collective, Student Filmmaker Magazine, and Ms. In The Biz archives. Julia is a staff writer for season 2 of the narrative sci-fi podcast Crypto-Z. Her latest project, Stronghold, an indie thriller she wrote and directed, is in post-production.

Gabriela Tollman is an award-winning writer-director whose films have played in festivals worldwide, including Palm Springs, Seattle, Cinequest, Cleveland, Mill Valley, Nashville, Sedona, and the Sundance Film Festival. Several of her films have aired on television networks, including HBO.

Tollman recently directed the short film LOVELY, co-wrote a feature about writer Henry Miller and is attached to direct the award-winning screenplay titled APART. She recently shadowed Hanelle Culpepper on the show NOS4A2 for AMC. Tollman’s dark-comedy pilot script, NASTY, was recently accepted to the Stowe Story Labs, highlighted by the Blacklist, a finalist for Screencraft and a second-rounder for The Sundance Episodic Lab. Check out her work at www.gabrielatollman.com

Tollman wrote, directed, co-produced, and acted in THE LAST GUNSHOT that played in over 25 festivals and won The International Cinematographer’s Guild Award. Tollman wrote and directed BIRTH OF INDUSTRY, which won the Los Angeles Short Film Grant from Kodak, Panavision, and Filmmakers Alliance. BIRTH OF INDUSTRY played in over 20 festivals and was awarded the John Williams award for Visual Excellence at the Cleveland Film Festival. Her film YOU TURNED BACK AND HELD MY HAND screened at numerous festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival, to much acclaim.

Her first feature film, SOMEBODY’S MOTHER, was released theatrically in October 2017 to rave reviews. According to the Los Angeles Times, “SOMEBODY’S MOTHER tackles a terrible loss and its aftermath with knowing empathy.” SOMEBODY’S MOTHER is now available for streaming on Amazon, Itunes, and Google Play.

Tollman originally hails from Johannesburg, South Africa, and graduated from UCLA’s theater and film department. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and son.

Jason Wishnow is the filmmaker who launched TED Talks, the Peabody Award winning video series watched over one billion times (even in outer space).

Wishnow works at the intersection of film and emerging technologies and has been called “no stranger to difficult shoots” (Wired UK, 2014), an “online-video virtuoso” (New York Times, 2009), the “enfant terrible of digital film” (The Guardian, 2000), and one of the ten most influential digital filmmakers of 1999 (RES Magazine).

Wishnow was an invited speaker at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival to present a future where web and mobile cinema would one day be everywhere. Wishnow returned to Sundance in 2004 to premiere his short film, “Oedipus,” which played on the Sundance Channel from 2007-2012.