1497, the nonprofit dedicated to advancing artists and filmmakers of South Asian descent, has selected the three mentees for its 2024 Features Lab, providing mentorship, script development, and industry access. IndieWire announces them exclusively below.
The Features Lab returned in person in 2023 after two years of a virtual and hybrid format in the pandemic, taking place at an immersive Malibu retreat and Los Angeles pitch day. For the fourth year, 1497 will again host the Features Lab in Malibu, where mentees will be paired with a pod of four mentors — an established filmmaker, producer, industry rep, and 1497 Features Lab alum — to receive script feedback and career guidance. Mentees will also work with filmmaker, Columbia professor, and veteran script consultant Adrienne Weiss to further develop their scripts, with a particular emphasis on the emotional journey of their stories.
“We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: we launched the 1497 Features Lab to empower writers in the South Asian diaspora to tell whatever stories they want to tell, regardless of the societal, industry, or stereotypical expectations that so often confine writers in our community to certain genres and cultural storylines,” Ahmed, Khan, and Shah said in a joint statement. “All 10 Finalists met this challenge and are all incredible storytellers in their own right. This wasn’t an easy decision for us and our Selection Committee to make! We are so excited to support our newest Mentees and see how their stories continue to move the needle for South Asian representation.”
This year’s Mentor Pods include Zoya Akhtar (“The Archies”), Fawzia Mirza (“Queen of My Dreams”), and Roshan Sethi (“A Nice Indian Boy”), Talha Asad (HBO), Aanch Khaneja (SuperSpecial), Karim Lakhani (in & thru), as well as returning mentors Mohammed Ali (“Authentic”), Raj Raghavan (ColorCreative), Priya Satiani (Entertainment 360), and 1497 Features Lab Alums Jaclyn Backhaus, Toby Fell-Holden, and Swetha Regunatha.
In the past three years, 1497 has supported nine mentee-driven projects. Since then, Mentee Sofian Khan was nominated for an Emmy for his documentary, “The Interpreters,” which inspired his feature script “The Ones We Left Behind”; Swetha Regunathan’s script “Sunderbans” was selected for the Cine Qua Non Storylines Lab; Toby Fell-Holden’s script “White Lies” was selected for the Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Talent Lab and secured another round of development financing from BFI. Other Mentees have been accepted into the Sundance Lab (Urvashi Pathania), received the Blumhouse Screamwriting Fellowship (Kaushik Sampath), and been placed in a Netflix writers room.
Being a mentee was “an incredibly special experience. I felt empowered as an artist and seen as a person,” said 2023 Alum Aden Suchak in a statement.
“I left the program inspired to rewrite and armed with resources to actualize the film,” added 2023 alum Jhanvi Motla.
More about the selected 2024 mentees and their projects below, with language courtesy 1497/the filmmakers.
Aqsa Altaf – “Sonapur” (Horror) – A desperate migrant worker in Dubai navigates a treacherous underworld to reclaim his confiscated passport and return to Pakistan before it’s too late.
Fatimah Asghar – “When We Were Sisters” (Drama) – Three Muslim-American siblings are orphaned by their father’s murder. Through tenderness, lyricism, and an intimate portrayal of their betrayals of each other, we see them create their own version of family amid chaos, navigate through grief and their caretaker uncle’s cruelty, and learn how to stand on their own.
Shakil Jessa – “Student Government” (Comedy) – An insecure gay narcissist hires a film crew to document his run for college student council president.
