Do Digital Curanderas Use Eggs in Their Limpias?, by Roberto Fatal
The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the fellows selected for the 2025 Directors, Screenwriters, and Native Labs. This year’s cohort includes first-generation Mexican American visual artist Leo Aguirre and Mestize Chicana video artist–turned–genre filmmaker Roberto Fatal in the Directors and Screenwriters Lab; and native Cahuilla/Turtle Mountain Ojibwe filmmaker Isabella Dionne Madrigal in the Native Fellow Lab.
The Native Lab is designed for artists of Native and Indigenous backgrounds who aim to center Indigeneity in their work. Over five days, fellows refine their scripts for feature and episodic projects in one-on-one feedback sessions, screenplay readings, and roundtable discussions with experienced advisors while building community on Native land in Santa Fe.
Isabella Dionne Madrigal is a writer, director, and actor. She is a Harvard alum, a winner of the Yale Young Native Storytellers Contest, and co-director of the Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling Nonprofit. Her work centers ancestral wisdom, healing, and Indigenous futurisms. In her film Menil and Her Heart, when a Cahuilla teen vanishes, her sister searches for the truth, navigating her family’s grief and ancestral visions that draw her into a cosmic world that may hold the answers — if she chooses to listen.
The Directors and Screenwriters Lab will support the development of eight projects and nine fellows. Marking its 45th year, this initiative has built a supportive community for visionary artists to convene and cultivate bold storytelling that has continued to resonate for decades.
Roberto Fatal's sci-fi, horror, and action movies center marginalized humans navigating the intersections of death and survival, technology and culture, and overwhelming terror and profound love. In Electric Homies, Ria, a Two-Spirit healer, receives a miracle when their comatose sister uploads her consciousness into a digital utopia. But as more in their barrio upload, Ria questions what it means to be human and learns the true cost of escaping the pain of carbon-based life.
Leo Aguirre's work has received international recognition through film and photography projects spanning the advertising, music video, and narrative landscapes. In Verano, his feature film debut, an unruly teenager’s summer plans are upended when his parents decide to foster an adolescent from Central America who is seeking asylum in the United States. As the two teens realize they must share more than just a bedroom, they are forced to confront their differences amid their harsh realities.
A core component of the Institute’s Feature Film Program, The Directors and Screenwriters Lab returns for its 45th year from June 1–16 in Estes Park, Colorado.
