Sundance Institute announce second Building Bridges Fellowship cohort

The Doris Duke Foundation, Islamic Scholarship Fund, and Sundance Institute are pleased to announce the 6 new artists selected as part of the second cohort of the Building Bridges Fellowship, aimed at expanding Muslim storytelling in the United States. The fellowship provides financial and creative resources, mentorship, and support to filmmakers, focused on telling U.S. Muslim stories while also offering community and network support with other creatives in the industry. Projects by artists across a variety of backgrounds, tell stories of self-discovery, complex relationships, family dynamics, grief, and more.

The Building Bridges Fellowship represents a significant opportunity for emerging diverse filmmakers to hone their craft, receive mentorship from industry professionals, and access valuable resources to sustain their career and bring their projects to fruition. In addition to an unrestricted artist grant of $10,000, fellows benefit from a customised slate of services tailored to their creative, career, and project goals; a year-long mentorship, a Sundance Collab Community Package; and access to Sundance Institute’s ELEVATE program for year-round professional and project development. With a focus on uplifting U.S. Muslim stories, the fellowship seeks to reduce the barriers for emerging artists to connect with broader audiences and ultimately pave the way for a new generation of filmmakers to enrich our nation’s cultural tapestry and encourage meaningful dialogue around common themes of identity, belonging and diversity.

“At Sundance Institute, we are committed to fostering an inclusive creative ecosystem that amplifies diverse voices and stories,” said Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs, Sundance Institute’s Director of the Artist Accelerator and Women at Sundance Programs. “The Building Bridges Fellowship is a powerful initiative  for elevating U.S. Muslim narratives, and we are thrilled to support this talented cohort of artists as they deepen their craft, share their unique perspectives, and forge meaningful connections within the industry. This collaboration with the Doris Duke Foundation and Islamic Scholarship Fund is vital in ensuring these important stories reach wider audiences and inspire a richer cultural dialogue.”

“We are thrilled to announce our new cohort of Building Bridges Fellowship artists, each uniquely gifted in their ability to weave varied narratives that explore the greater Muslim experience,” said Zeyba Rahman, Director of the Building Bridges Program at the Doris Duke Foundation. “This fellowship and inaugural convening at Shangri-La goes beyond mere storytelling; it is a celebration of identity and belonging, through the shared experiences that connect us all. Our commitment as part of the broader Building Bridges Program is to continue to invest in creators and culture makers such as the Building Bridges Fellows to ensure their stories have opportunities to be told, and also to highlight the universal humanism that unites us.”

The six fellows announced today, alongside the inaugural cohort, will gather at the Doris Duke Shangri-La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture, and Design in Honolulu, Hawaii, home to the largest collection of Islamic art in the U.S. This artist development retreat aims to foster community, inspire creativity, and support the artistic growth of both the fellows and their projects. Programming will cover key areas such as sustainability, artistic practice cultivation, pitching, building creative collaborations, and navigating the industry. Sessions will be led by Sundance and ISF staff, in collaboration with advisors Leila Abu-saada, Rameez Khan, and Sameh Zoabi. Local Hawaiian artists Ualani Davis, ʻIhilani Lasconia, Kauwila Mahi, and David Shepard will also join the retreat for a creative exchange, exploring how personal experiences, methodologies, and intentional cultivation shape creative practices across disciplines.

Selected by a panel including representatives from Sundance Institute and the Islamic Scholarship Fund, the second cohort of 2024 fellows and their projects are:

• Mithra B. Alavi, Arranged – Mithra B. Alavi is an Iranian-American Muslim comedy writer whose upcoming project, Arranged, follows a 35-year-old Iranian American woman whose white boyfriend of two years dumps her on her birthday instead of proposing. Taking matters into her own hands, the protagonist gets drunk, calls her dad, and asks to be set up with an eligible Iranian bachelor.<> Mithra has written on Freeform’s Single Drunk Female S2 (ep. 206 “Keeping it Professional”), and her previous short film, Three’s a Crowd, was a Student Emmy Award winner. 
• Aqsa Altaf, Sonapur – Aqsa Altaf’s upcoming project Sonapur – which is also part of the Gotham Film Market – explores a desperate migrant worker who, in the shadow of Dubai’s towering skyline, embarks on a dangerous journey to reclaim his confiscated passport, determined to return home to Pakistan before time and his sense of self slips away. Aqsa’s short, American Eid, is now streaming on Disney+, and her SXSW short, Awayy, is being produced into a feature. Aqsa was raised in Kuwait by South Asian Muslim migrant worker parents.
• Khaula Haider Malik, Alien Nation – Khaula’s upcoming project Alien Nation is a hybrid documentary that tells the story of a middle-aged Pakistani couple who spot what they believe to be a UFO outside their window. They then embark on a road trip across America, meeting others along the way who also pose the question: Are we not alone in the universe? Khaula, who co-produced the Emmy-nominated Girls State and was a 2023 HBO/Gotham Fellow, was born in Lahore, Pakistan.
• Kausar Mohammed, Exorsisters – Kausar Mohammed is a writer/actor who plays in comedy, horror, and the spaces between. Her upcoming project, Exorsisters, follows three Pakistani-American sisters who, after their grandfather’s death, must mend their frayed relationships when they inherit not only the family duty of performing exorcisms for the Muslim community, but the supernatural abilities that come with it. Her queer romcom, The Syed Family Xmas Eve Game Night, premiered at TIFF and was acquired for TV.  Her work has garnered acclaim in Vogue, Huffington Post, NBC, and more.
• Fatima Wardy, White Musk – Fatima Wardy is a Sudanese and British filmmaker currently based in Austin, Texas. Her work focuses on diasporic existence and how displacement from home breeds connections and disconnections in the daily lives of immigrants. Fatima’s upcoming project, White Musk, follows a young Sudanese Muslim woman who grapples with the complexities of caring for her dying mother while balancing her own life and desires.
• Habib Yazdi, When Pluto Was a Planet – Habib Yazdi is an Iranian-American director and comedic writer molded by his upbringing in rural Texas, where his family’s Persian traditions collided with a Southern Baptist community. His upcoming project, When Pluto Was a  Planet, follows Kaveh who, faced with intensifying pressures to marry, can no longer waver between the carefree lifestyle of his friends and religiously-ingrained ideas of family and responsibility. His worlds collide on a weekend in The Hamptons during peak summer heat.

“Since 2009, the Islamic Scholarship Fund has been at the forefront of supporting Muslim filmmakers,” said Iman Zawahry, ISF’s Film Programs Director. “Now, in our 15th year, we’re proud to continue this mission with the second cohort of the Building Bridges Fellowship. For too long, Muslim storytellers have been overlooked, their stories untold and undervalued. Thanks to the generous support of the Doris Duke Foundation and our strong partnership with Sundance Institute, we’re ensuring that these filmmakers receive the career and artistic development they need to thrive. We’ve already witnessed the incredible achievements of our inaugural cohort, and we’re excited to build on that success.”

The Building Bridges Fellowship is one of several initiatives of the Doris Duke Foundation Building Bridges Program, which launched in 2007 to counter hate directed at U.S. Muslim communities in the United States in the aftermath of 9/11 and to promote mutual understanding. Through this program, which is the largest U.S. funding program of its kind, the foundation has allocated approximately $48 million in grants to date aimed at creating understanding about and forming connections with U.S. Muslim communities.