YEAR 2 COHORT

2025

  • Aitch Alberto is a writer/director born and raised in Miami, Florida. She is a Sundance Episodic Lab alum and Momentum Fellowship, recipient of a Skowhegan Artist Residency, a Yaddo fellowship, and Latino Screenwriting Project Fellowship. Most recently, Aitch adapted and directed GLAAD nominee for Outstanding Film ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE based on the award-winning young adult novel with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eugenio Debrez producing. Aristotle and Dante has also received a Guild for Music Supervisors nomination as well as making coveted Best of lists, including Vanity Fair, The Wrap and LA Times. Aitch has written on DUSTER, a 1970s-set crime drama series from J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan for Max. She also served as a writer on AppleTV+’s series LITTLE AMERICA from Lee Eisenberg and Sian Heder. Other works include HARA KIRI, WHITTIER BLVD, and SHE KILLS HE to name a few. She has been included on The Black List's inaugural Latinx List, as well as the Tracking Board's Hit List and Young & Hungry List, and NALIP's list of "Directors You Should Know." Aitch was named one of Variety’s 10 Directors To Watch and Indiewire’s 22 Rising Female Filmmakers to watch. Vogue Poland named her one of this generations female defining voices.

  • A first-generation Caribbean-American, Alesia Etinoff is an LA-based writer/performer and Rideback RISE writing Fellow! She was a Story Editor on Season 2 of THE GAME Reboot on Paramount +; she wrote episode #206 “Oceans 828;” as a staff writer in Season 1, she wrote episode #108 “Snips, Clips & Chair Sits.” In 2022, Alesia sold and developed AVANT-GUARDIANS with Paramount+, CBS TV Studios and Trevor Noah's Day Zero Productions and Avalon as Executive Producers, based on her award-winning webseries; she was attached as creator, writer and star. Later that year, Alesia wrote and performed a comedy one woman show about purity culture, “Allie v. The Abstinence Pledge” to sold out crowds at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood. IThe short film that she wrote/starred in alongside Lamorne Morris (NEW GIRL), Sherri Shepherd (THE VIEW), and Marque Richardson (DEAR WHITE PEOPLE), 19 WEEKS, was featured in POPSUGAR and SHADOW & ACT; the film was executive produced by Zoe Saldana's company, Cinestar. Her 2017 web series AVANT-GUARDIANS won Best Short Form Dramedy at the prestigious New York Television Festival, was nominated for best web series at ABFF, and was an official selection for the ‘18 LA Film Festival and Downtown LA Film Festival. It received rave reviews from Essence Magazine, Bust Magazine, Decider and TubeFilter.  Alesia first discovered her passion for TV/Film writing at the age of 17 in High School; she wrote a full-length movie, SCARRED, for a class that her best friend directed and Alesia starred; there was a red carpet premiere in the auditorium that led to her admittance into Carnegie Mellon University's school of Drama where she received a BFA in Dramaturgy in 2014.

  • Andrew is a writer, director, actor, producer and stand-up from small town Iowa. As an actor, Andrew stars in AppleTV+ comedy series PLATONIC, opposite Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne, directed and created by Nicholas Stoller and Francesca Delbanco. He appears as Garrett in FX’s THE BEAR part 2, 3, and 4. He will appear in Netflix’s basketball comedy, RUNNING POINT in 2025. In TV, he will write, produce, and star in an untitled show at HBO with Jody Hill directing and Christopher Storer and Roughhouse producing. He is writing and producing an untitled show at Netflix with David Bernad and Max Hollman producing. Previously he developed at FX with Christopher Storer and Hiro Murai producing and Amazon with Riz Ahmed and Lulu Wang producing. In 2021, he was selected into the Sundance Episodic Lab. In features, he was named one of Variety’s Screenwriters to Watch in 2024. At Amazon, he is writing the romantic comedy, SLOW BURN. At New Republic Pictures, he is writing an original thriller with David Michod producing and Brian Oliver producing. As a stand-up comedian, he was chosen as one of Vulture and New York Magazine’s Comedians You Should and Will Know in 2023. His stand-up is featured on Netflix’s JO KOY: IN HIS ELEMENTS and served as a producer. He was the opening act on a worldwide tour opening for Jo Koy performing for thousands of people in arenas and theaters. He has headlined comedy clubs, colleges, and theaters around the world.

  • Carolyn Huynh loves writing about messy Asian women who never learn from their mistakes (but with hopecore endings). Her debut book, The Fortunes of Jaded Women, was a Good Morning America book club pick and selected as one of the best books of 2022 by NPR and the Washington Post. It is currently in development for television by Heyday Studios and Universal International Studios with Carolyn co-adapting and executive producing. Her sophomore book, The Family Recipe, is due out from Atria in Spring 2025; and her third book, The Department of Arranged Entanglements, is due out in Spring 2026, also from Atria. Carolyn also participated in the playwriting incubator at the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Ignite Project, where she developed her first play, Not Courtney, in 2024. When she's not perpetually on deadline, Carolyn daydreams about having iced coffee on a rooftop or hopping on the back of a scooter in Ho Chi Minh City. She is represented by Laura Reddy at Range Media Partners; Jordan Hill at New Leaf Literary; and Melissa Rogal at Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Feldman, Rogal, Shikora & Clark Inc.

  • Crystal Ferreiro is a Miami-bred, Cuban-Guatemalan writer who is fluent in Spanglish, feminism, and OFFICE quotes (deep cuts only). Being the first college graduate in her family with a very practical degree in Acting and Screenwriting from Syracuse University, it was only natural for her to move to LA. Crystal has written for Netflix's TRINKETS and DIARY OF A FUTURE PRESIDENT on Disney+, where she served as an on-set producer for both shows. Crystal sold her original one-hour pilot HERMANAS to The CW with Jerry Bruckheimer TV & CBSTV. On the feature side, she co-wrote DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH, a rom-com for Creator+, currently streaming on Peacock. She most recently sold a musical biopic to TriStar with Arcus Studios producing. Crystal’s writing is genre agnostic but always leads with humor, heart, and messy heroines you can’t help but root for—because although Taylor says it’s exhausting rooting for the anti-hero, she finds it invigorating.

  • Keith Sweet II is currently staffed on the Duffer Brothers series, THE BOROUGHS, on Netflix.  He is also currently developing an untitled animated feature at Dreamworks with Kevin and Dan Hageman. Prior to that he was promoted from writer’s assistant to a staff writer on STAR TREK: Prodigy, making him the youngest writer in the STAR TREK franchise history. Keith is also developing the pilot, DON’T COME TO L.A., about a low-level gangster assigned to protect a popular rap singer, for Amazon/MGM Studios with YG, Underground, and Scooter Braun, attached to produce. Keith started his career in Hollywood as an intern at BAD ROBOT. He is a Compton, CA native and attended Saint John’s University. 

  • Kelly Luu is a Vietnamese American director/writer based in Los Angeles. Inspired by his parents' harrowing journey to America, as well as his upbringing in an underserved, predominantly non-Asian community, Kelly is drawn to telling stories about identity, parenthood and the lengths we are willing to go to uphold the “perfect” life. When writing scripts, Kelly seeks the emotional truth of the characters, the wounds that shape them, and the theme of the story that connects them all. The ultimate goal is to arrive at a story that not only thrills and entertains the audience, but also resonates with them emotionally. Kelly’s semi-autobiographical short The Mattress was awarded the USC SCA Edward Small Directing Award and was invited to premiere at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Kelly was a mentee of Ryan Murphy’s Half Initiative and Soo Hugh’s inaugural writing program, The Thousand Miles Project. Most recently, Kelly was selected as part of season four of Indeed and Hillman Grad’s Rising Voices program where he co-wrote and co-directed a short film, Technicians, that premiered at Tribeca 2024. Kelly graduated from USC’s MFA film program and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA where he is repped by Redefine Entertainment and Independent Artist Group.

  • Kevin Luu is one half of a writer-director duo, alongside his twin brother Kelly. Raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and now based in Los Angeles, the brothers draw deep inspiration from their parents’ remarkable journey to America as refugees and their own experiences growing up in an underserved, predominantly non-Asian community. These formative moments have fueled their passion for creating elevated genre stories that explore identity and overcoming trauma in extraordinary and often unexpected ways. Kevin earned his MFA from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where he and his brother co-wrote and co-directed a number of award-winning short films. Notable among them is REAL BOY, which won Best Sci-Fi Film at USC’s First Look Festival, and THE MATTRESS, recipient of the SCA Edward Small Directing Award and an official selection of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Post graduate school, the brothers were selected as mentees of Ryan Murphy’s Half Initiative. They would go on to develop projects with esteemed partners, including CJ Entertainment, CBS Studios, 20K Productions, and 1Community. Their storytelling versatility led them to write an original multicultural supernatural podcast series for Gunpowder & Sky and earned them a spot in Soo Hugh’s and Universal Content Productions’ highly competitive television writing program, The Thousand Miles Project. Most recently, Kevin participated in Hillman Grad’s Rising Voices short film program, where he co-wrote and co-directed a short that premiered at Tribeca in 2024. Kevin is represented by Redefine Entertainment and Independent Artist Group.

  • Kerry Coddett is a Caribbean-American writer, actress, and stand-up comedian from Brooklyn. She has most recently served as a co-producer and writer on an upcoming drama series for Apple TV. She is also a graduate of the WGA Showrunner Training Program and was the Co-Executive Producer, Showrunner, and Head Writer on Yvonne Orji's A Whole Me for HBO. Before that, she wrote on both seasons of Flatbush Misdemeanors on Showtime and appeared as a recurring guest star in season 1. On-screen, Kerry has appeared in Hulu's Ramy, Showtime’s Desus and Mero, and Pause w/ Sam Jay on HBO. Before turning to comedy, Kerry graduated college cum laude at 19 and started her own business as a fashion designer and stylist for Jay-Z.

    In 2017, Kerry beat out 63 comedians in the Caroline’s on Broadway Comedy Madness Competition, becoming the first woman in history to win the honor. Kerry has been a selected performer at the New York Comedy Festival, Laughing Skull Festival, Skankfest, The Women In Comedy Festival, The Brooklyn Comedy Festival, and Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival.

    She is also the founder of Kwanzaa Crawl, an annual New York City community event that brings in over $500K in one day for local Black-owned businesses.

  • Originally a NY actor and award-winning playwright, Melody is a 2024 mentee in Ryan Murphy’s Half Initiative directing program. She completed writing a feature adaptation of the African fantasy novel “Beasts of Prey” for Netflix and sold an untitled genre show to Netflix with Will Packer. Melody won Urbanworld's Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay in 2018 and started out as a staff writer on CW's Two Sentence Horror Stories while still in the 2019 HBO Access Writing Program. Other credits: story editor on Law & Order: SVU, co-producer on Power Book IV: Force. Melody did the Sundance Episodic Lab and won an Adobe Women at Sundance Fellowship in 2021. She’s co-founder of Nyx Horror Collective which produced 13 MINUTES OF HORROR, a program of women-directed short films that ran on Shudder. Melody has directed short films and also writes comic books (OMNI). Her writing residencies include Yaddo, UCross, Chateau de la Napoule and a 2024 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency in Italy to develop a TV project and write a sci fi novel, both about climate change. She traveled to Antarctica on a National Geographic Explorer cruise to do research for those projects. Melody’s short stories have recently been published in African Ghost Short Stories and Best Climate Change Stories. She has developed several TV projects including for Reginald Hudlin, Tarell McCraney and Unapologetic Projects and has been asked to adapt the popular series of Emily Windsnap books.

  • Michael Yuchen Lei is an award-winning Chinese-born filmmaker whose fiction and non-fiction work has played at festivals including Tribeca, San Sebastian, CPH:DOX, and Palm Springs. His feature documentary debut, A Taste of Sky was produced by Archer Gray (The Persian Version) and premiered at Tribeca. A graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, he began his career in music as personal photographer to Joe Walsh of the Eagles and photographing artists such as Ringo Starr, the xx, and Outkast. He has been recognized as a fellow by Almanack Screenwriters, Points North Institute, SFFilm, the Swatch Artist Residency, and Film Independent for Documentary, Screenwriting and Project Involve. As producer and editor, his documentary Echo won the 2023 Audience Award at Aspen Shortsfest and premiered on the New Yorker. He is a 2025 Rideback RISE Fellow and currently developing a number of projects including his feature fiction debut.

  • Morgan Collins is a writer from Stone Mountain, GA, whose credits include BET’s FIRST WIVES CLUB and Amazon's HARLEM. She decided to pursue a career in film and TV while attending The University of Florida, where she studied the cultural influences of COWBOY BEBOP, DEATH NOTE, and other anime on post-WW2 international politics. She later received an MFA in Screenwriting from the University of Southern California, but her writing also includes work as a participating artist in the Museum of Rilao, a project of USC’s interactive World Building Media Lab, and Tracking Ida, an escape-room style game inspired by Ida B. Wells’ investigative journalism. Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at age 33, Morgan and her work are proof that “coming of age” isn’t limited to youth. Her writing often explores the fine line between comedy and horror, irreverently looking to the past and exposing the dark absurdities of the present. Morgan lives in LA where she’s currently writing on the upcoming animated TV adaptation of Anthony Bourdain’s GET JIRO graphic novel.

  • Paloma Riojas is a creative chingona with an unyielding passion for crafting stories that connect audiences through bold, authentic storytelling, exploring humanity from a fresh point of view. She cut her teeth in the film industry as a development executive for Diego Luna, co-writing and producing Nana, a Sundance-premiering short film, and contributing to Cesar Chavez and Mr. Pig. With an MFA from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Paloma has received numerous accolades: her pilot The Edge was featured on the inaugural Black List Latinx TV List (2020); she was selected for the inaugural Mentorship Matters program (2021); her pilot Shepherd was chosen for the Outfest Screenwriting Lab (2022); and she is a Soho House Fellow (2023/2024). Her credits also include Showtime’s Your Honor and Paramount+’s Happy Face. Her Spanish-language short Adán, which she wrote and directed, won both the Jury and Audience Awards at the Diversity in Cannes Showcase. Most recently, Paloma was commissioned to write a feature for an indie producer and is adapting a critically acclaimed novel into a feature-length screenplay. Her producing credits include a variety of award-winning short films showcased at festivals worldwide and distributed by HBOMax, 12 Telly Awards, and bilingual content for the Cesar Chavez Foundation and Jarritos. Based in Southern California, Paloma draws inspiration from her multicultural background, her family, and the ocean waves where she often writes. She is represented by United Talent Agency.

  • Sunny Tripathy is a writer / filmmaker who paid his way through UCLA with day jobs that included working at Jamba Juice, teaching at a Yeshiva Gedolah, and modeling for Indian grocery stores— which is not a joke. He sold his first TV show to 20th CENTURY FOX out of college and later sold a series with SONY TELEVISION to AMAZON after a highly competitive bidding war.   Tripathy cut his teeth in features developing his original spec with Ivan Reitman and Amie Karp before selling it to TRISTAR. He has a myriad of projects in development, and just finished writing an animated feature for DREAMWORKS with David Hoberman producing. Tripathy is signed to UTA, 42, and Lichter Grossman Nichols Adler.

  • Taietsarón:sere Leclaire, AKA Tai Leclaire, is a Native American director, writer, and actor from the Mohawk Nation of Kahnawà:ke. Tai's latest project, writing and directing an short adaptation of the classic movie THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER for Warner Bros. Studios, will be available to stream on MAX. His previous short film, HEADDRESS, which he wrote, directed, and starred in, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. He's a former writer and actor on the NBC comedy series RUTHERFORD FALLS by Sierra Teller-Ornelas, Mike Schur, and Ed Helms. He wrote on the upcoming Will Arnett animated comedy SUPER TEAM CANADA.

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