The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the cohort selected for the 2026 Episodic Lab program, taking place at Dunaway Gardens in Newnan, Georgia, from May 15–20. The 10 selected fellows working across eight projects are Carmiel Banasky (Wonderboom), Jeremy Dauber and Olivia Krebs (Cupidity), Celine Foster (Male Loneliness Epidemic), DeZell Lathon and Simone Williams (The Runaways), Michael Mount (The Circuit), Larry V. Santana (On Death’s Precipice), Liba Vaynberg (Loupe), and Natacha Yazbeck (borderline_). Their pilots explore themes including casualties of love, feminine disobedience, collegiate revolt, climate justice, and family restoration.
The five-day Episodic Lab was created to unite emerging-career writers with an original series IP that has not yet been produced, giving them opportunities to work under the guidance of established showrunners and development executive producers. The fellows will workshop their pilot, pitches for their series, and participate in one-on-one story meetings, panels, and writers rooms focused on advancing strong writing craft as well as viability in the current landscape. The fellows are also being supported through workshops prior to the lab, as well as our yearlong continuum of support framework, including ongoing project and career strategy meetings, in-person gatherings in Los Angeles, continued exposure and introductions to industry, membership to the Sundance Institute ELEVATE program, and Sundance Collab.
“This post–golden era of TV has prompted enormous questions asking what audiences crave right now and what networks are willing to give them,” said Jandiz Estrada Cardoso, Director, Episodic Program. “This year’s artists double down on the worlds we are chasing as adventurers, as fighters, and pain-ready lovers, because every day feels like so much is on the line yet out of our control; and these projects are the cheat codes to risking it all.”
“We are thrilled to have a new home for our Episodic Lab with our partners at Dunaway Gardens,” Michelle Satter, Founding Senior Director of the Artist Programs said. “Our gratitude goes to Tena Clark and her team as their connection to supporting groundbreaking and bold artists connects deeply to Sundance Institute’s ongoing work.”
Creative advisors this year include Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights), Nick Jones Jr. (Tulsa King), James Wong (American Horror Story), Dara Resnik (Home Before Dark), Graham Yost (Silo), Liz Flahive (GLOW), Mike Flynn (East New York), and Vera Santamaria (PEN15). Industry mentors this year will be: Dante Di Loreto (Fremantle), Sarah Timberman (Timberman/Beverly), Noel Manzano (AMC+), David Katsman (Entertainment 360), Andrew McQuinn (Netflix), Jasmyn Lawson (Netflix), Ashley Strumwasser (Hello Sunshine), and Jermaine Johnson (3 Arts Entertainment).
Additional Episodic pre-lab workshop leaders included Rika Dharmesh Bhakta (independent producer), Ori Chevio (Fifth Season), Daniel Chun (The Office), Adamma & Adanne Ebo (Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.), Erika Kennair (Mediapro), Amy Lippman (Party of Five), Bella Mumma (MRC), Beth Bruckner O’Brien (Big Moody Curve Productions), Iva Quint (Shondaland), Dr. Jennifer Turner (MADCOOL Media), and Trey Witter (ColorCreative).
The Sundance Institute Episodic Program is made possible by Founding Supporters Lyn and Norman Lear and Cindy Harrell Horn and Alan Horn. Leadership Supporters are the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Tena Clark – Dunaway Gardens Foundation, Ann Drake, Netflix, and Sundance Now.
Episodic Lab alumni include producers Katori Hall (P-Valley), Barry Jenkins (The Underground Railroad), Tanuj Chopra (Delhi Crime season 2), April Shih (Fargo), Crystal Liu (American Horror Story), Rafael Agustín (Hipster Death Rattle), Desiree Akhavan (The Bisexual), and Heather Rae (Outer Range). Past fellows have gone on to write on shows including Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Sympathizer, The Brothers Sun, Swarm, Ramy, Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, Poker Face, Dr. Death, Lioness, Reservation Dogs, Silo, Futurama, A Man on the Inside, Queen Sugar, Ms. Marvel, One of Us Is Lying, This Is Us, Little America, Dave, Snowpiercer, Bel-Air, Better Call Saul, Sweet Tooth, and Brilliant Minds. Alumni have also set up or sold lab projects at networks including HBO, Amazon Prime Video, STARZ, Disney+, Hulu, FX, ABC, The CW, AMC, and Netflix.
The 2026 Sundance Institute Episodic Lab projects and fellows are:
Carmiel Banasky with Wonderboom: When Earth violently rejects humanity’s ancient climate solutions, an idealistic butterfly-human scientist and her bitter mentor must sail an antique ship with a misfit crew, racing to implant an AI into Earth’s consciousness before methane explosions end civilization — but they may be awakening something beyond their control.
Carmiel Banasky’s career spans television, film, novels, and audio, and she is a recognized leader in climate storytelling. Since staffing on Amazon Prime Video’s Undone, she created the sci-fi podcast The Last City, which reached #1 in fiction, and she serves as VP of editorial for the climate storytelling nonprofit Good Energy.
Jeremy Dauber and Olivia Krebs with Cupidity: CupidCo is a secret agency that’s been engineering relationships among the rich and powerful for millennia. When enigmatic operations leader Finn recruits a messy, no-filter relationship researcher, Beatrice, they partner on military-grade, science-backed missions to keep couples in love — no matter the cost.
Jeremy Dauber has written two novels for kids and seven other books for his day job as a professor at Columbia University. Olivia Krebs is a writer-producer who worked as a creative consultant on DreamWorks’ The Bad Guys movies. Together, they write modern myths that dissect hidden power structures.
Celine Foster with Male Loneliness Epidemic: After her billionaire boyfriend goes celibate in solidarity with the male loneliness epidemic, a self-centered sorority girl must partner with an overzealous feminist scholar to solve the crisis and save her sex life.
Celine Foster is a Black queer comedy writer known for crafting community-centered narratives that skewer the zeitgeist with incisive insight and biting, absurdist humor. A graduate of Stanford University, her work has been supported by Roadmap Writers, TRIBE Writers’ Fellowship, and the Disabled BIPOC Film Collective.
DeZell Lathon and Simone Williams with The Runaways: News of Harriet Tubman’s arrival sparks three enslaved friends to turn their plantation up-the-f*ck-side-down, no consequences… except they oversleep. Now with no guide, no plan, and no damn sense, they chart a chaotic course north, accidentally showing three-fifths of the Delta how to claim their own half-baked slice of freedom.
DeZell Lathon and Simone Williams are filmmakers residing in Los Angeles, California. Their work explores the absurdity of sociopolitical norms and expectations along the lines of race, gender, and sexuality through dynamic storytelling. They are often blending genres to create fascinating circumstances for their layered characters to explore.
Michael Mount with The Circuit: Three families on the weeklong Ivy League campus tour circuit unravel as their closely guarded histories come to light.
Michael Mount’s writing has been published in NPR, Pacifica Literary Review, and Longreads and optioned for feature film. He has received fellowships from the Orchard Project and MacDowell and a grant from the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts at Brown University for photography of his thru-hikes on the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails.
Larry V. Santana with On Death’s Precipice: A devoted husband, driven by desperation, makes a pact with a Grim Reaper to cure his wife’s terminal illness: He must die a violent death at the Reaper’s hand. Every. Single. Day. As his wife recovers, each cycle of death and resurrection pulls him closer to something far more disturbing.
Larry V. Santana is a Puerto Rican writer-director and former TV producer raised between the Bronx and the Poconos. A UC Berkeley graduate, he produced for MSNBC and Investigation Discovery, where he interviewed individuals convicted of felonies and their victims. His work grounds the supernatural in the everyday, drawn from real-world terrors.
Liba Vaynberg with Loupe: After her husband’s mysterious death, a pregnant Hasidic chemistry teacher inherits his family’s 47th Street jewelry empire — only to discover that the business, and perhaps her marriage itself, was built on deception. Torn between sanctity and sin, she must decide what kind of widow she will become.
Liba Vaynberg is the Jewish daughter of Azerbaijani and Ukrainian refugees, an O’Neill Award–winning playwright produced off-Broadway, and a staff writer on Star City (Sony/Apple TV+). She studied molecular biology at Yale before getting her MFA from Columbia, so her parents are continually wondering why she didn’t become a doctor.
Natacha Yazbeck with borderline_: After his handler is assassinated, a smuggler makes a run for his life with his baby daughter, leaving his wife at the mercy of his militia. Thirty years later, that daughter walks into a therapist’s office — and blows the cover off a landmine she was never meant to touch.
Natacha Yazbeck is a writer and journalist born in New Jersey by way of Beirut. A former foreign correspondent, she spent a decade covering Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. She is a recipient of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.
