Writers & Mentors Announced for HIFF's 17th Annual Screenwriters Lab

The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) has announced the screenwriters and mentors for the 17th Annual Screenwriters Lab, which will take place from April 7–9 in Sag Harbor and East Hampton. The Screenwriting Lab pairs up-and-coming screenwriters with established writers, directors and producers for a weekend of one-on-one mentoring sessions.

“Our focus on fostering up-and-coming talent in the HIFF community is at the forefront of our festival’s mission, and our Screenwriters Lab is one of our most valued events,” HIFF Artistic Director David Nugent says in the announcement. “In the last four years, four projects from our Lab have gone on to be produced, all by female filmmakers, which is particularly exciting to us.”

The three selected screenplays this year are Annabelle Attanasio’s Mickey and the Bear, Jess dela Merced’s Chickenshit and Andrew Semans’ Ressurection. This year’s mentors are screenwriter/director/producers Robin Swicord, David Siegel, Ted Griffin.

Swicord is best known as the screenwriter of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for which she received a 2008 Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. She also wrote Memoirs of a Geisha and Little Women, and directed Wakefield, which screened at HIFF in 2016.

Siegel is the co-writer, producer and director of Uncertainty, which screened at HIFF in 2008. He also wrote The Deep End, and directed What Maisie Knew, and Bee Season, which screened as opening night of the 2005 Hamptons Film Festival.

Co-writer of Ocean’s Eleven, Matchstick Men and Tower Heist, Griffin was also the screenwriter of Ravenous, producer of Academy Award-nominated The Wolf of Wall Street and Up In The Air, and he directed the TV series Terriers, Mad Dogs, and Patriot.

There will also be a master class, open to the public, with last year’s mentor Michael H. Weber, who co-wrote (500) Days of Summer. The class will take place on Saturday, April 8 at 6 p.m. at the Ross School. For more information, visit hamptonsfilmfest.org.