Introducing UFC’s 2021 Elevate Screenwriter Incubator Fellows
Los Angeles, CA — Oct. 14, 2021 — The Undocumented Filmmakers Collective (UFC) announces the launch of its newest Artist Development program. The Elevate Screenwriter Incubator, in partnership with Final Draft, supports UFC members to ideate and develop their screenplay projects. The program provides participants with free access to the Final Draft 12 software, workshops from industry partners to develop their projects, and a dedicated writing space with a community of fellow creatives. Made by and for undocumented filmmakers, this program highlights the inherent talent within our community by nurturing the stories of participating fellows.
The inaugural cohort of the Elevate Screenwriter Incubator include:*
Amritpal Kaur
Project Title: Untitled
Amritpal Kaur (Amrit) is an undocumented, disabled, queer South Asian storyteller and humxn rights advocate. She immigrated from Punjab, India to Los Angeles in 2000, just shy of the 9/11 attacks and xenophobia that would follow many Middle Eastern & South Asian communities. Amrit is enthusiastic about overthrowing the patriarchy, smashing white supremacy, and building bridges with BIPOC through her theater and filmmaking work. She is currently working on a project highlighting the diasporic and multilayered life of a low-income, underserved immigrant South Asian family through her start-up production company called Brown Girl Joy. Brown Girl Joy was founded by Amrit and her sisters, Jazz and Amani Kaur, and is dedicated to exploring the intersections of being beautiful, brown & black humxn beings in a time when underserved communities are gaslit and seen as “resilient” while battling Amerikkkan systemic racism. Amrit believes the world will be a better place when white folks step aside and come down from ALL power positions in BIPOC spaces and her work shows alternatives to white leadership in political and creative spaces, as well as how powerful community healing can be without white supremacy present.
Claudia Ramirez
Project Title: Los Caracoles
Born in Mexico and raised in Los Angeles, Claudia is a social justice advocate and community organizer turned filmmaker. Her work as a community advocate has significantly influenced her views on storytelling and the need to have folks directly impacted at the forefront. Claudia has worked on films such as Los Eternos Indocumentados, a documentary that explores the root causes of forced migration and centers refugee’s stories, resilience, and grassroots transnational organizing actions. As a founder of the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective she hopes to continue making films that center immigrant communities’ resilience and uplift undocumented storytellers. Most recently she has collaborated with other filmmakers on a short documentary called Coverage which highlights the urgency of expanding healthcare access to undocumented people by centering the unwavering voices of immigrant health justice leaders. In her spare time, Claudia enjoys gardening, dancing cumbias, and cooking.
Dorian Aideé Gómez Pestaña
Project Title: The Way
Dorian Aideé Gómez Pestaña is Mexican filmmaker and storyteller based in Durham, NC. Her voice and lens intend on telling stories of inclusion and belonging. She is a founding member of the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective and hopes to help find access to sustainable careers and resources for undocumented artists and storytellers. Her more recent work includes being the creative director and editor for the Nuestro South Podcast which explores the history of Mexican immigrants in the South during the Jim Crow Era and compares it to the immigrant experience of today.
Edgar Aquino Huerta
Project Title: Made in America
Edgar Aquino Huerta is a first generation Mexican immigrant who resides in South Jersey. As a kid he loved watching telenovelas and horror movies, and would rewrite his own versions along with reenacting them with his toys. In High School his writing became more realistic since he began working every summer as a migrant worker, and would often write stories about the struggle. As a film student in college, he found that his strongest talent was being a screenwriter.
Blas Ivan
Project Title: Maria & Luis
Blas Ivan, most commonly known as Ivan, was born in Acapulco, MX, grew up in California and is currently a resident of Las Vegas. After high school, he studied architecture before switching gears into photography. He has produced local music videos but maintaining focus on visual storytelling. In the last two years, he began to feel the limitations of photography as a storytelling platform and decided to dedicate more energy into the prospect of writing and directing. He is currently finalizing “Maria & Luis”, a fictional alternate universe of Mario & Luigi, and if they were immigrants. He is excited about everything the cinematic platform has to offer and feels like he has finally found something he can dedicate his life to.
Javier Lopez Quintana
Project Title: Sirens
Javier Lopez Quintana (pronouns He/They), is an award-winning filmmaker. Quintana’s work reflects their experiences as a displaced person existing on stolen Tongva Land. The films they have made are personal reflections of questions they have asked themselves, their fears, their hope, and their understanding of how to shape a more empathetic world.
Currently, Quintana is deeply focused on creating films that show the role intergenerational trauma plays in the decisions they have made in their own life. They will work on their next screenplay, Sirens (working title), with the support of the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective.
Jazz Kaur
Project Title: Static Space
Jazz Kaur (she/her) is a queer, immigrant, South Asian filmmaker, theater creator, and educator. Recently, she graduated as the only Sikh student in the Harvard Class of 2021. She won the Harvard Taliesin Prize and Lee Patrick Award for Drama for her thesis screenplay. In 2020, she wrote and directed “As If By Magic,” an interactive play, celebrating and exploring how low-income, queer, BIPOC womxn have held onto their creativity especially when faced with systemic disenfranchisement. She co-founded Brown Girl Joy Productions with her sisters, Amrit and Amani Kaur, to explore what it means to go beyond representation and to be in solidarity with their intersecting communities. Alongside her artistic work, Jazz runs an education start up that mentors high school students on how to create change as entrepreneurs, artists, and scholars. In 2020, she collaborated with Columbia and Cornell students to host walk-in college application clinics for undocumented students.
Lidieth Arevalo
Project Title: The Odyssey of Life
Born in Ahuachapán, El Salvador and raised in California, Lidieth Arevalo is an activist, multimedia producer and editor with a commitment to impact the world and use audiovisual media to evoke change, promote diversity, inclusion, equity and justice for all. Some of her most recent documentaries include Growing in the Shadows (2020) for PBS and the Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB), Alpharaoh (2019), Ladylike (2019) Advance Parole (2018), ERUSD Leader of the Ethnic Studies Revolution (2018), and Sin Raiz (2015).
Nicole Solis-Sison
Project Title: Untitled
Nicole Solis-Sison is a Filipina DACAmented artist, creative director, strategist, producer and educator. Her work focuses on cultural equity, diversity and sustainability in digital discourse across the art, media and film industries. Nicole is a proud founding member of the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective, a nationwide organization that tackles systemic inequities facing undocumented immigrants in the media field. Nicole received her BFA at University of California, Berkeley. She is the recipient of the 2016 Eisner Award for the Highest Achievement in the Arts.
Nirav Bhakta
Project Title: Geeta
Nirav Bhakta is an award-winning Director/Actor/Writer. While growing up as an undocumented immigrant in motels, Nirav utilized the restraints of his environment and geographical boundaries to create with what he had. Nirav’s background in story telling extends from Architecture to the North Indian classical dance form of Kathak. Due to the lack of authentic roles and experiences as an actor, Nirav began creating zero budget short films focusing on the immigrant experience. His films have screened on platforms such as HBO, CBS, Disney+ and a number of festivals such as Outfest and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.
Paolo Rein
Project Title: The Tenant
Born in the Philippines and brought over at the age of 2, Paolo Rein is an emerging Writer, Director, and Activist local to Carson, California, and the greater South Bay LA Area. Having grown up undocumented with immigrant parents and navigating the gutters of gang life in South Bay LA, Paolo’s early on exposure to such unjust systemic systems that keep folks poor and incarcerated have greatly influenced his passion for filmmaking. Inspired by the community around him, he aims to tackle issues such as colorism, representation on film, and addressing matters on social and political themes where his experiences offer a different humane lens where it is needed. His last film, ‘Shaded Complexion’, revolved around survivor’s guilt in progressing in society after having lived in the gutters and landing a studio corporate internship that has an unhealthy obsession with pre-existing narratives centered around brown and black bodies. As an activist through the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective and his various contributions towards immigrant rights, he has continuously advocated for immigrants and formerly incarcerated folks to be in the film entertainment space. Whether introducing talent on set with a darker complexion to offering guidance towards formerly incarcerated folks on how to navigate the industry, Paolo has provided experience(s) and education to those seeking to work in an industry that has long denied folks.
*Some fellows of the inaugural cohort have requested to not have their information announced.
Special thanks to Final Draft for supporting this program.
For more information about this artist development program, send an email to artistdev@undocufilmmakers.org
