The Black List Names 2023 Annual Lab Writers And Announces Expanded 2024 Feature Program

Valerie Complex
·5 min read

EXCLUSIVE: The Black List has named the six projects and seven screenwriters invited to their 2023 Annual Lab. The program, now in its eleventh year, provides creative mentorship and career support to promising feature writers as they further develop their scripts during a weeklong workshop in Ojai, CA.

This year’s writers are Jake Burnstein and Brandon Verdi (Extra Pulp), Anne Hollister (The House Sitter), Chris Hwisu Kim (E.S.L.), Kathryn Prescott (EMA), Jainaba Seckan (But Some Of Use Are Brave), and Lisabelle Tay (MOMO). The Black List selected these writers from over 1,300 feature script submissions on blcklst.com.

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During the Lab, each writer workshops their screenplay through peer workshops and one-on-one sessions with working professional screenwriting mentors, including Andrew Ahn (Fire Island), Steve Desmond (Knock At The Cabin), Stephany Folsom (Toy Story 4), Kiwi Smith (Legally Blonde) , Jonathan Stokes (El Gringo), and Scott Myers of Go Into The Story.

The Black List also announced the expansion of its feature program. Starting in 2024, the Black List Annual Lab will serve twelve feature writers and projects annually, in two tracks: the Writers Lab and the Projects Lab. Those selected for the Writers Lab track will further develop feature scripts that they intend to sell and/or use as voice samples. Those selected for the Project Lab track will further develop feature projects that they intend to direct. Both tracks remain focused on the goal of having all twelve writers emerge with the strongest possible script and the knowledge of how to move forward in their careers, whatever the direction.

Beginning today, writers will be able to opt into consideration for the expanded Lab via the Black List website (www.blcklst.com). The Black List will be looking for the strongest screenplays for both tracks–material with strong characters and a strong concept–as well as writers who have strong professional instincts who are looking to build long-term careers in the entertainment industry.

Annual Lab alumni have gone on to have successful careers in both film and television, both as writers and writer-directors. Previous Black List Lab alumni include Minhal Baig (writer/director of Hala, 2016 Black List), Tom Dean (Time Travelers La Ronde, 2016 Black List), Noga Pnueli (Meet Cute 2018 Black List and High Society, 2020 Black List), Ben Mehlman and Filipe Coutinho (Whittier, 2021 Black List), and Jimmy Keyrouz (Broken Keys, Official Selection, 2020 Cannes Film Festival).

2023 Annual Lab Writers and Projects

Extra Pulp by Jake Burnstein and Brandon Verdi

September, 2007. It’s Randy’s first day of high school radio – unfortunately for him, it’s also the station’s last. As the newest member of the now defunded late-late show, Extra Pulp, he and the Saturday crew must decide what’s worth saying with their final few hours on the mic.

Jake Burnstein and Brandon Verdi are high school best friends who decided to make movies together after a midnight showing of THE DARK KNIGHT. Molded by their youth in the suburbs of Detroit and their four years at the University of Michigan, the pair tell stories about coming-of-age at any age, fighting for the truth, and fast food.

The House Sitter by Anne Hollister
A broke, obsessive artist coerces her way into a beautiful woman’s apartment and will do whatever it takes to convince the people around her that her life is the picture-perfect image of success.

Anne Hollister is a writer, actor, producer, and the Development Director at HappyBad Bungalow. As a writer, she is drawn to writing and telling stories about driven women questioning their deepest desires, and is currently developing a feature with Sarah Jessica Parker’s Pretty Matches.

E.S.L. by Chris Hwisu Kim
When Molly Cho’s mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she rushes to relearn her first language, Korean, so that they can reconnect before she dies—but as she progresses in her studies, a long-dormant evil is awakened.

Christopher Hwisu Kim is a filmmaker and video producer for The New Yorker based in Brooklyn, NY, whose work has a keen focus on the Korean diaspora, exploring themes of belonging, heritage, and family through a genre lens. His screenplay “E.S.L.” was selected for the Black List’s Cassian Elwes Independent Screenwriting Fellowship at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023.

EMA by Kathryn Prescott
A 14-year-old girl, living in poverty on the outskirts of London, has three days to raise the money for the morning-after pill, before it won’t work anymore.

Kathryn Prescott started her career as an actor in the British television show SKINS. She has been writing, directing and acting for the past 15 years and currently lives in Brooklyn.

But Some Of Us Are Brave  by Jainaba Seckan
Inspired by true events in 1976, daring students and a spirited professor at a conservative Black women’s college take the school’s Board of Trustees hostage and demand a Black woman president for the first time in its nearly 100-year history.

Jainaba Seckan is a screenwriter specializing in historical dramas that center the experiences of women. She is also a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practitioner with experience in higher education, tech, and entertainment.

MOMO by Lisabelle Tay
When a troubled woman and her doppelgänger fall in love with the same man, their symbiotic relationship unravels with devastating consequences.

Lisabelle Tay is a Singaporean writer who works across genres, including poetry and short fiction. Her current projects include an upcoming podcast for National Gallery Singapore, as well as a feature screenplay produced by Little River Entertainment, the company behind Banjong Pisanthankun’s ‘Metal Casket’ for Amazon Studios.

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