IllumiNative, The Black List and Sundance Institute today revealed the finalists for their 2022 Indigenous List, which represent the best and most promising Indigenous creators in the film and television industry. See the list below.
The Indigenous List was launched in 2020 to provide a platform for Indigenous writers to showcase their screenplays, create additional pathways and opportunities within the industry, and support the development of the next generation of screenwriters.
This year’s writers will have the opportunity to meet four Indigenous creators who have first look and/or global development deals at major studios, including Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne); actor-director Michael Greyeyes (Firestarter, Interim); Sierra Teller Ornelas, showrunner/co-creator of Rutherford Falls; and Sterling Harjo, showrunner/co-creator of Reservation dogs.
“As one of the few Indigenous producers to get a first glimpse of a studio, I’m thrilled to help support our storytelling community to engage in business to bring more exciting Indigenous stories to audiences at United States and around the world,” Runningwater said.
Here are the 2022 Indigenous List writers and their scripts:
Taietsaron: Sere “Tai” Leclaire
HOW TO DEAL WITH SYSTEMIC RACISM IN THE BEYOND
Lyle Westman is dead and passed. When he discovers he must spend 1,400 years haunting Redface, he decides to retaliate against the systemic issues plaguing the afterlife.
Alex Nystrom
BETWEEN
On a mysterious sinking island off the coast of Louisiana, home to a tight-knit Native community, a compulsive man finds himself dealing with untold tribal secrets, missing children, and uncovering a past. repressed trauma.
Bryson Chun and Tara Aquino
DON’T CRACK
What do you do when your ex writes a song about you and becomes the biggest popstar in the world? If kidnapping your best friend, stealing a horse and running over Good Morning America to face it were on your breaking bingo card, then you win!
Maya Rose Dittoff
SWEETNESS OF BLOOD
Haunted by the unsolved mystery of her sister’s disappearance, Rose Home Gun returns to her childhood home on the Blackfeet reservation when ghosts from the past rise to threaten her reality and her sanity.
WAW-Parker
THE BARON
Love is a battleground when a hot-headed, flamboyant, gay Prussian military commander meets his ex in Valley Forge after being hired by George Washington to train the fledgling US Army during the darkest days of the American War. ‘independence. Comps: THE GREAT meets DICKINSON.
Brian Bahe
DECOLONIZE
When the United States is returned to Indigenous peoples, two empowered millennials are forced into a leadership role they didn’t sign up for.
Neil Tinkham
THE TAOTAOMONA
A divorced child goes on a hunt to capture a mythical creature that lives in the jungle, accidentally bringing his family closer.
Catherine Machi
JUNE ROSÉ
In San Francisco in the late 1960s, a homemaker and mother of three teenagers belatedly discovers her Cherokee heritage and challenges her conservative husband – and Cherokee father – to join the Red Power and feminist movements.