Doris Duke Foundation, Islamic Scholarship Fund and Sundance Institute: Second Building Bridges Fellowship Cohort to Expand U.S. Muslim Stories

The Doris Duke Foundation, Islamic Scholarship Fund and Sundance Institute are supporting six 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 customized 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.

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.

The Building Bridges Fellowship as well as the Building Bridges Completion Fund is a part of Sundance Institute’s Artist Accelerator Program, which works with artists and industry to create a more transparent, equitable, and sustainable independent film and television ecosystem. For more information about Sundance Institute and its artists programs, visit sundance.org.