Well, you will have to wait until March 8, 2017, because that is when the HBOAccess Writing Fellowship will open again. But in the meantime, you can learn more about this year’s winners, who will participate in the workshop in July, shoot their presentation in August, and finish up post-production by the end of September.
Kate Marks was a Project Involve fellow at Film Independent where she received the Barbara Boyle Award. She began making films after working as a playwright, theater director, and performer in New York City. Her award winning short films (Pearl Was Here, Homebody, 7 Day Gig, and Miracle Maker) continue to screen all over the world. Highlights include Slamdance, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Austin Film Festival, Mill Valley, and broadcasting on PBS. She is a graduate of CalArts (MFA) and Brown University (BA).
Pete Chatmon’s debut feature, “Premium”, starred Dorian Missick, Zoe Saldana, and Hill Harper and premiered on Showtime after a limited theatrical run. Chatmon also wrote, produced, and directed “761st”, a documentary on the first black tank battalion in WWII, narrated by Andre Braugher. Chatmon received the Tribeca Film Institute “All Access” Program’s Creative Promise Narrative Award for the heist screenplay “$FREE.99”, written in collaboration with Candice Sanchez McFarlane. Through Double7 Images, his Digital Studio, he has directed content for ad agencies, Porsche, Proctor & Gamble, Lenovo, Universal Pictures, and other brands. Chatmon’s career began in 2001 with the Sundance selection of his NYU thesis film, “3D”, starring Kerry Washington. His current project, the short film “Black Card”, began traveling the international film festival circuit in Spring/Summer 2015 and premiered on HBO in February 2016.
Kevin Lau is a writer/director who is a recent fellow of the Sony Pictures Television Diverse Directors Program and CAPE New Writers Fellowship. A graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program, his thesis film, MADE IN CHINATOWN, swept the NBCUniversal Short Film Festival–winning Best Short, Best Writing, and Best Actor–and has gone on to screen in exhibitions at the New Americans Museum, Glass Curtain Gallery, and in classrooms at UCLA and Emerson College. Kevin is a proud native of Los Angeles and credits the culturally diverse city for shaping the stories he tells.
The program provides one on one mentorship with an HBO creative executive, education about the craft and business of directing, and a $100k budget, to shoot a short presentation for HBO with a professional crew. So bring your A game because I know the talent is out there!
