Austin Film Festival Screenwriters to Watch in 2025

Austin Film Festival’s annual Screenwriters to Watch list has predicted the rise of today’s most celebrated screenwriters and filmmakers. In 2025, we are excited to introduce you to the next 25 writers who are poised to make an impact.

Through our script and film competitions, and renowned Writers Conference, AFF curates a community full of fresh perspectives and relentless hustle that promise exciting careers to follow. With this list, we are thrilled to showcase these incredibly talented voices, celebrate their commitment to the craft, and watch their careers flourish in the months and years to come.

Austin Kolodney

Writer Dead Man's Wire; writer/director Two Chairs, Not One

Kolodney is a writer and director who has worked with Funny Or Die, Almost Friday TV, and Comedy Central. Most recently, his feature script, Dead Man's Wire, wrapped filming with Gus Van Sant directing, and starring Bill Skarsgard, Dacre Montgomery, Colman Domingo, Myha'la, Cary Elwes, and Al Pacino.

Tell us about a highlight in your career.

I was recently on set with Al Pacino for Dead Man’s Wire. One of the first things he said to me was "Oh you got it, kid. Great words, man. You know it when you read it...and you got it.". So right then I could have passed away peaceful and happy.

Michael Vlamis & Kyle Anderson

Co-writers Crossword (Vlamis directed), Music Theories, Blue Slide Park

Vlamis and Anderson are good, Midwest boys who met and began working together after exchanging digital series that weren't awful. They are the co-writers of the soon-to-be-released feature psychological thriller, Crossword, which Vlamis also directed, produced, and acted in. They also have a comedic series, Music Theories, set up at Sony with Dan Lagana showrunning, and they're actively working on several new projects ranging from comedy to horror.

How did AFF facilitate your journey?

AFF not only gave us a launch pad to begin our sales process, it allowed us to see how hundreds of people we don't know received our film, which was an invaluable experience. Also, many of the writers, filmmakers, and just all the people in general who we met at the festival were beyond supportive and interested in helping one another. We made a bunch of new friends who we hope will one day become collaborators.

Hannah Mescon & Dreux Moreland

Co-writers Warhol, Blown, The Golden Door

Mescon and Moreland recently completed the story of the 1980s Cotton Club murder, Blown for Artists Equity, with Addictive Pictures producing. They are also developing a project alongside Tea Time Pictures. and completed Warhol for TriStar, Pascal and Paradox. They also sold their Austin Film Festival Finalist feminist thriller script, The Golden Door to Lauren Sanchez and Matt Goldberg.

What has been your biggest lesson in navigating the industry?

Don’t be precious. This can apply on a micro level— something like a line of dialogue or a scene. But also, don’t be precious about projects. Things will die and change and sometimes they will come back to life years later. Easier said than done, but try not to let your ego get attached. Also, contracts can take up to a year to pay out, so plan accordingly.

Susie Yankou

Director/writer Sisters

Yankou is a Toronto-born, LA-based writer/director/producer specializing in queer, comedic stories that balance her irreverent, referential humor with an undeniable sense of heart.  Her debut feature, Sisters is slated for release in Fall 2025. She is a graduate of USC’s Writing for Screen and Television program. 

What’s next?

A new feature called Here for the Right Reasons! It's basically the queer, hard comedy version of Miss Congeniality. Coming off the heels of Sisters, I'm so inspired to keep making films, but I want to scale up a bit and making a big (but still edgy) comedy feels like the natural next step. I'm also producing the feature A Magical Place Called Glendale under Ed Helm’s banner Pacific Electric Picture Company!

Maia Henkin

Writer Suits LA

Henkin is an award-winning genre writer and filmmaker who is a member of the WGA. She was in the 2024 NBCU Writer’s Lab and WGAE’s New York Stage and Film Workshop (NYSAF).

What’s new?

Post Austin Film Festival, I got repped at Untitled Entertainment, joined the WGA, landed my first staffing job, and wrote my first episode of Suits LA! I also wrote a new spec and a new feature that I will be going out with in the Spring.

HF Crum 

Writer Dune: Prophecy, 3 Faces of Hunger & Thirst, Molotovs, Sawbones

Roger Corman recruited Crum out of USC film school to direct low-budget wonders around the world. As a stay-at-home dad, Crum writes everyman Hitchcockian thrillers between flipping pancakes and mending hearts/knees.  He is a Film Independent Screenwriting Fellow and recently signed with managers Ryan Cunningham and Jake Dillman at Anonymous Content.

What do you consider your big break?

Screenwriting contests. After film school, I worked as a low budget feature director, but ultimately winning screenwriting contests like the Austin Film Festival, Bluecat, Slamdance, and Roadmap Writers JumpStart are what put me on the map.

Austin Elliott

Co-writer American Horror Stories

Elliott currently works on the live-action Spider-Man show Spider-Noir as a script coordinator. Previously, he was a writer's assistant and script coordinator for both American Horror Story and its episodic anthology spinoff, American Horror Stories (of which he recently co-wrote his first episode).

What are you working on currently?

I actually have the AFF community to thank for my current script coordinator gig on Spider-Noir. My reps submitted me for the position and the showrunner, Oren Uziel, happened to be an AFF alum. He remembered previously meeting me at the festival, which really helped.

Josh Flanagan 

Director/producer Pickleheads; head writer Elkhorn, How Are We Today?

Raised across Texas and schooled at its titular university, Josh rode the rise of digital media as a lead creative at Austin-based Rooster Teeth Productions. He just wrapped production on his feature directorial debut, Pickleheads. A combat veteran of the Iraq war, Josh is privileged to serve as a mentor for the Writer’s Guild Foundation’s Veterans Writing Project. 

What’s next for you?

Too many things. I’m in post-production on Pickleheads., finishing two wildly different horror features (one for my directing pile), starting story discussions on a second season of a PBS mental health show, How Are We Today? and trying to find any moment to do a third (hopefully final) draft of a pilot that has some amazing producers attached so it can actually hit the market.

Laura Hunter Drago

Writer The Crime at Camp Ashwood; producer the New Girl, The Echo

Raised in small-town Virginia, Drago was a shy child who found her voice through storytelling. An alumna of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Drago writes fantasies and thrillers that center women. She won the Austin Film Festival Fiction Podcast Award for her series, The Crime at Camp Ashwood,.

What’s next for you?

I'm currently a Film Independent Project Involve Writing Fellow, so I'm working on writing a short film within that program. Outside of that, I just finished a TV pilot version of my podcast The Crime at Camp Ashwood, and I'm working on a couple of feature ideas for later this year.

Meko Winbush

Director Gray Matter, In The Darkness

Winbush is an L.A-based filmmaker. She is a graduate of Occidental College. After college she fell into editing movie trailers. A desire to be creative outside of the trailer industry led her to write, direct, and edit several short films. In 2023, she won HBO’s filmmaker competition show, Project Greenlight headlined and executive produced by Issa Rae.

How did you get your start in the industry?

I was always interested in writing, but began to take it seriously after college while interning at Gary Ross' production company. From that point on, if I wasn't working, I was likely writing. 

Connor Martin 

Writer/director Nonno, The Dregs

Martin writes and directs international stories about people behaving badly and paying the ultimate price. He is an alumnus of the 2024 Black List and Stowe's 2024 Producers' Lab. He has several projects in development with some fantastic partners, but is most excited about his directorial debut, The Dregs, which will be shooting this Summer.

What are you looking forward to?

The movie I'm directing has some incredible creative partners who share a love of independent film. So that's number one. Number two is getting to write a biopic of a childhood hero - with a studio I never thought I'd get to work with.

 Jen Howell

Writer Lopez vs Lopez, The Great Indoors, Baby Daddy

Howell got her industry start as the sequester manager on Hell's Kitchen, living in a beach house with losing contestants, and eventually becoming a story producer there. She then transitioned into scripted. She has written sitcom episodes on Freeform, CBS, and NBC for the likes of Bowen & Sons, Julie Bowen’s production company.

What was the turning point in your career/project? 

A Modern Family producer who'd been following my blog (100 Dates) contacted me. She was forming a company with Julie Bowen and looking for female content. Two days after that, they signed on to produce my show. I assumed we’d go to series and make a million bucks! That's not how it panned out, but it was a breakthrough, marking a very clear 'before' and 'after' in my career.

Daniel Negret

Writer/producer Shaman

Negret is an award-winning Colombian writer, producer, director based out of London. His feature writing debut, Shaman, premiered at the Austin Film Festival in 2024 and was a Jury Nominee. Other writing credits include the upcoming survival thriller Asphyxia, produced by Capstone Studios, Sombra, a canine thriller with Pierre Morel executive producing;,and the award-winning animation Pineapple Calamari

What’s next for you?

I’m excited to share that Well Go will be releasing Shaman later this year! 

Sam & David Cutler-Kreutz

Writers/directors "Trapped," "A Lien," "Flounder"

Cutler-Kreutz are an award-winning writing, directing and producing team based in NYC and LA. As brothers, they grew up making films together.  Their first short film "Flounder" premiered in the Clermont-Ferrand International Competition 2022. Their second film "A Lien" was nominated for the 97th Academy Awards. Their third short "Trapped" premiered at SXSW 2024 Narrative Shorts Competition, where it won the Special Jury Prize.

What writing challenges have you encountered?

One of the toughest scenes we ever did was writing out the interview in our first draft of the A Lien script. It was a super long and complicated scene that had to cover a ton of ground in not much time. In the end out solution was just to cut it, the audience is way smarter than you think and sometimes the best thing to do is just cut stuff that really doesn't move the story forward.

Lindsey Robertson

Writer/producer Party People

Robertson has been making up stories since she was six years old – back then, it was called "lying," but now it's called "screenwriting." She originally hails from Dripping Springs, Texas, and she received a BA in Theatre Studies from the University of Texas at Austin before going on to earn her Screenwriting MFA from the University of Southern California. Her first feature, Party People premiered at the 2024 Austin Film Festival. She is currently set to co-direct the horror comedy, I Was a Teenage Monster, which is in pre-production. 

What drives your love for filmmaking?

AFF really drove home the fact that Austin has a motivated, creative community of filmmakers who are eager to support one another. I know I'm incredibly biased, but that's why I want to continue to film things in and around Austin. People here are just excited by the idea of being scrappy and making something together. 

Zach Cannon

Writer Panhandle, FBI: Most Wanted, Resident Alien

Cannon was raised in a multiethnic household in Miami, where his mother’s family are Cuban exiles and his father is a retired police chief.  He was most recently an executive story editor on CBS’s FBI: Most Wanted. He has sold and developed pilots with Amazon and Lionsgate. He is an alumnus of USC’s Writing for Screen & Television program, the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s Series Scriptwriters Program, and NBC’s Writers on the Verge. 

What was the turning point in your career/project?

Someone once told me that a career path is hindsight, which is to say there’s no one thing that gave me my break. Instead, it was a culmination of years building my career through parallel paths.

Elise Salomon

Producer Inside, Caoineadh, Urd, Skuld

Salomon is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker. She writes present-day, grounded folk horror with an all-encompassing aesthetic, rooted in drama and true to its supernatural underpinnings. Her projects have been featured in festivals, competitions and fellowships such as Sundance, Stowe Story Labs, SXSW, FrightFest, Fantasia, Frontieres and Marche du Film at Cannes. 

What was the turning point in your career/project?

Being accepted into competition with Caoineadh at AFF in 2023. The screenplay was one of three horror finalists, and it was the first time I had ever been recognized as a writer by a festival. It was a huge honor and so many doors opened for me.

 William Phoenix

Writer/director "Sunny Side Up": producer Learning English, We’re Here, and Home

Phoenix is a writer, director, and producer from North Hollywood, California.  His short film, "Sunny Side Up," was an Austin Film Festival official selection and won Best Short at New York Film Week. As a producer, his credits include Learning English (official selection at SXSW and Tribeca), HBO’s We're Here (season one), and the Apple TV+ Emmy-winning series Home (season two). 

What are you working on currently?

Writing a lot! I'm currently in post-production on two projects; a scripted feature I directed last Summer called The Bee and a sports doc-series I produced with Netflix. I'm also fine-tuning my feature writing debut Silver Spring.

 Mike Carreon

Writer Lopez vs Lopez, 2025 Disney Entertainment Television Writing Program

Carreon is a Tejano comedy writer who uses heart and humor to transform the hate in our world into stories audiences love. He s currently in the 2025 Disney Entertainment Television (DET) Writing Program. Previously, he co-starred in and co-wrote multiple episodes of NBCUniversal’s Lopez vs Lopez.

What do you consider your big break?

Growing up dirt poor on a goat ranch in a tiny Texas town, I didn’t think a career in this industry was possible for me, until I learned about improv comedy. For the next few years, I drove round trips from San Antonio to Austin five days a week to perform. I raised the funds to adapt my award-winning improv show into a short film that premiered at Tribeca and at the Austin Film Festival, where I met my first manager bar hopping across Congress Ave. These breadcrumbs of success along with supportive friends and family gave me the confidence to move to Los Angeles.

Mason Greer 

Director "Lineage," My Name Is Vendetta, "Shout"

Greer is an award-winning writer and director, recently honored with the Big Indie Pictures Fellowship Award at the Austin Film Festival. His work spans commercials, promo films, short films, animation, and dubbing for Netflix productions, with multiple awards and official selections at festivals across the U.S. and Canada.

What do you consider your big break?

After becoming a finalist in the Warner Bros/Blklst Incubator Challenge, it gave me enough recognition to get a meeting to option one of my spec scripts titled Less Than Grand Larceny. Although the rights inevitably went back to me the following year, this was a great start for me and gave me real motivation to keep working.

Michail Eggelhoefer

Writer Hung Over

Eggelhoefer is a British-Malaysian screenwriter currently based in London (though he’s lived in seven different countries so far). He tends to write stories about the relationships people have during, and after, their most difficult moments. His work often draws on his own experiences dealing with trauma, addiction, racism, and the search damaged people have for connection. 

What was the turning point in your career/project? 

A major turning point was when a very kind showrunner took the time to read one of my scripts. I expected him to rip it to shreds, but he was very complimentary. It was probably the first time that I’d had a working screenwriter tell me my work was at a professional standard. It was a much-needed boost during I time when I didn’t have much confidence, and helped me realize how far I’d come. 

Imogen Grace

Writer Audrey

Grace is a Montreal-based screenwriter and a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre TV Writing Program. Her feature screenplay Audrey won the Best Feature Sci-Fi Award at Austin Film Festival and in the Script Pipeline Screenplay Competition. She is currently developing multiple projects for film and television, delving into themes like the cost of ambition, messy healing journeys, the fine line between good and bad, and the universal search for belonging.

What was the turning point in your career/project?

Being accepted into the Canadian Film Centre Bell Media Prime Time TV Writing program. I got to take part in a full-time writers room with the incredibly smart and generous writer/showrunner Bruce Smith, write my own series, and pitch to many of the major players in Canada. It was rigorous and intense, in the best way. It changed the course of my career for sure. And, of course, the Austin Film Festival.

Emily Everhard

Writer/director "Special Delivery"; creator/writer Tektite

Everhard is a queer filmmaker who tells stories about female underdogs and outsiders. She was a 2024 Sundance Fellow and Enderby Entertainment Filmmaking Fellow. Her films have played and won awards at festivals including Aspen, Palm Springs, Austin, SeriesFest, HollyShorts, Nashville, BendFilm and more.

What was the turning point in your career/project?

2024 was a huge year for me. I kicked off the year with a Sundance-Sloan Episodic Fellowship for my teleplay Tektite and ended the year at AFF with two big wins as a writer-director for my short film, "Special Delivery." I also graduated from Columbia and got representation.

Shruti Parekh

Writer/director/producer "Zari"

Parekh is an Atlanta-bred, Brooklyn-based filmmaker who tells stories of self-discovery and subversion.  Her most recent narrative short, "Zari," was produced as a winner of the CAPE/Janet Yang Productions Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge, won the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at NewFest, and was nominated for Best Narrative Short at Austin Film Festival. She has a BA from Brown University and an MFA in Directing from UCLA.

What’s next?

I have been taking my short film "Zari" to more festivals and finishing post-production on my next short, "Homebody." Once that’s done, I plan to shift my focus back to writing.

Ama Anane

Writer/director Cottonmouth 

The product of Jamaican and Ghanaian parents, Anane grew up in two of the wildest places on earth: Papua New Guinea and Las Vegas. Her scripts and standup explore the identities that divide and make us whole. She was a 2024 Moonshot TV Pilot Accelerator Fellow, a 2024 Script Competition Finalist for the Austin Film Festival, a 2024 Semifinalist for the Humanitas New Voices Fellowship, and currently a part of the 2025-2027 NBCUniversal Launch TV Writer's Program. She’s directing her first short film, “Cottonmouth,” in 2025.  She is a graduate of Emerson College and Columbia University.

What was a turning point in your writing career?

I think it's still turning, but being a script finalist for the Austin Film Festival was huge for me! And before that, I got into the Moonshot TV Pilot Accelerator, which helped me hone my pitching skills with a cadre of peer women and nonbinary writers and put me in the room (well, Zoom) with network and streaming executives to share my pitch.