The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival has released the names of the screenwriters who will participate in its first script development lab this spring.

Four Indigenous screenwriters were selected for the program, which is aimed at helping writers develop feature film-length scripts from the treatment stage to a completed first draft.

The projects selected to participate are Michelle Latimer‘s drama Forgotten, Craig Lauzon’s romantic comedy At The End Of The Day, Ryan McMahon’s comedy Bamaapii – See You Later and Kaherawaks Thompson’s drama Thank You, Lu.

The lab will be led by Shannon Masters (Empire of Dirt), Shereen Jerrett, New Zealand-based Briar Grace-Smith (Strength of Water) and former imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival director Danis Goulet.

The lab will start with a four-day retreat at Atikameksheng Anishnawbek in northern Ontario in late May. The screenwriters will then have four months to work on their projects, and will present their scripts at the next imagineNATIVE festival in October.

While the lab currently focuses on developing scripts through to the first draft phase, organizers are thinking about how future editions of the program might be able to help move projects closer to production, Goulet said.

“For me, the next logical step would be how do we actually connect these people that have amazing scripts to the producing partners and other types of industry partners they would need to be taking the script to,” Goulet told Playback Daily.