Blumhouse and K Period Media Screamwriting Fellowship Names Inaugural Group

Ryan Murphy, Bridget Savage Cole, Danielle Krudy, Mike Flanagan and Crystal Liu among advisers guiding nine participants

Blumhouse HorrowFellows

Blumhouse and K Period Media, the production company founded by Kimberly Steward, revealed their inaugural cohort of nine fellows selected to participate in the first annual Blumhouse and K Period Media Screamwriting Fellowship, the companies announced on Tuesday.

The program, created in partnership with the Sundance Institute, was established to provide support and mentorship to underrepresented emerging film and television writers aspiring to work in the horror genre.

The week-long intensive lab kicks off today in Los Angeles with the generous support of advisors Karen Joseph Adcock, Simon Barrett, Dwight Caines, Jacob Chase, Bridget Savage Cole, Mike Flanagan, Christine D’Souza Gelb, Alayna Glasthal, Josh Godfrey, Disney Hall, Walter Hamada, Cindy Holland, Danielle Krudy, Chris Landon, Nick Lazo, Keith Levine, Damon Lindelof, Crystal Liu, Grant Moninger, Ryan Murphy, Couper Samuelson, Rob Savage, Ryan Turek and Kevin Williamson.

The eight projects selected for the 2023 Screamwriters Fellowship and the nine artists participating are:

Geo Bradley with “Rot:” Haunted by the death of his hoarder mother, an antisocial man suffering from obsessive compulsions takes work as a trauma cleaner in hopes of facing his past, but the job soon begins to infest and unravel his mental state.

Chelsea Gonzalez with “Women in Jeopardy:” Trapped as the nameless victim in an endless ‘Groundhog Day’ murder loop, Girl 1 enlists the help of fellow victims Darleen and Roxy to rewrite their stories. Can they break free from the vicious cycle of victimhood and defeat their killers once and for all, or are they doomed to be repeatedly murdered for all eternity? Everybody loves a dead girl.

Julien Magnat with “Familiar:” A troubled mom locked in a bitter custody battle brings home a shelter cat for her precocious daughter. When a rash of uncanny occurrences takes over their household, she begins to wonder if the cat is the only guest she has welcomed into their home.

Kaushik Sampath with “The Shaman’s Daughter:” When an American woman adopts the daughter of a deceased shaman healer from India, she soon discovers that the birth mother’s spirit has become a haunting presence that will stop at nothing to be reunited with her daughter.

Mai & Kim Spurlock with “Good Sisters:” Linh Tran is a spiritual medium in Đạo Mẫu, an ancient Vietnamese religion. When she travels upstate to perform what she believes to be a routine blessing, Linh soon realizes a ravenous spirit is stalking her and her teenage daughter.

Meg Swertlow with “No Overnight Parking:” A reformed bad girl and her three best friends set out for a wild weekend of fun… only to get locked inside an underground parking structure with a masked, misogynistic killer.

Myung Joh Wesner with “Lunaria:” An engineer living alone on the moon must face her inner demons to defeat the ghost that’s haunting her lunar base.

Neil Creque Williams with “The Plat-Eye:” In this modern Southern Gothic folktale, a grieving Black college student finds Confederate Gold on a former plantation—and accidentally awakens the shape-shifting creature who has been charged to protect it.

The nonprofit program is being run through the K Period Media Foundation, a fund of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, and is being led by independent producer Kimberly Parker Zox, who serves as the Fellowship’s Program Director.

The immersive program’s participants were selected from an applicant pool that was by invitation in its first year. The participants were selected to further develop their scripts with the guidance and mentorship of accomplished filmmakers and executives.

Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satter (Founding Senior Director, Sundance Institute’s Artist Programs) and Ilyse McKimmie (Deputy Director, Feature Film Program) collaborated with Blumhouse and K Period Media to build an immersive year-round program, including a week-long intensive for participants focused on developing their projects and honing their skills. Further, the Fellows will receive targeted mentorship and continued support throughout the year.

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