THE WHALE - Writers Lab
Tina Gharavi
Tiffany Yarde
Tiffany Yarde is a Caribbean-American screenwriter developing thriller and horror projects
that fuse psychological tension with culturally rooted storytelling. Raised in Brooklyn by
Bajan immigrant parents, her work explores fear as a byproduct of identity, generational
trauma, and survival, using genre to challenge monolithic portrayals of the Black experience
while delivering high-stakes, emotionally grounded narratives.
Her credits include the TV movie DRESS FOR SUCCESS (Tubi) and the short films BON
VOYAGE and OUT OF TIME. Tiffany was a fellow of the inaugural Creative Corridor
Program, a transatlantic initiative by Independent Film Trust and Roadmap Writers, where
she developed genre-forward projects alongside an international creative cohort.
She holds a B.A. in English from Bryn Mawr College and an MFA in Screenwriting from the
David Lynch School of Cinematic Arts. Tiffany is focused on building elevated thriller and
horror stories with global appeal and lasting emotional impact.
Kristine Nrecaj
I come from a lineage of storytellers. Before I knew film, I knew the impact of a pause, the moment a room grows still and a voice brings a world into being. My parents carried such worlds from Kosovo, where stories were not written down, but lived in memories and bodies. Growing up in Germany, my heritage existed mostly within our kitchen, in language and images shaped through words. Early on, I felt parts of my identity had no visible place. Storytelling became a way to make space and to reveal. I am drawn to what lies beneath the surface: the quiet traces of history within individuals, the fragility and strength of identity, and the subtle processes of transformation and healing. As a female filmmaker and as the mother of a daughter, I am deeply aware of lineage and continuity. I think of the women who came before me whose lives, choices, resilience and vulnerability prepared the ground on which I now stand. Therefore I´m driven by a deep desire to create images in which we can encounter ourselves beyond borders, beyond definitions, closer to what connects us at our core.
Markus Meedt
Markus is a writer-director whose work sits where intimate character drama collides with genre scale. Raised in a big family that moved across Europe and Australia, he learned early to make sense of new worlds through story. At 16 his stage comedies were produced at Borås Stadsteater in Sweden, remixing film tropes into farce. He studied Film & Mass Communications at London Metropolitan University and has since developed screenplays with international traction, appearing on the shortlist for the Nicholl’s Fellowship and Austin Film Festival. Selected for Directors UK Inspire, he shadowed Jamie Stone (Doctor Who). He is developing a high-end TV series with UFA and the immigration drama ‘Anchors’ with Brava House. His work as a commercials and content director and creative has allowed him to work with brands such as Adidas, Coca Cola, Netflix and Unilever.
Brennig Hayden
Brennig Hayden is an award-winning screenwriter whose work has been recognised both in the UK and internationally. His pilot script Hiraeth was optioned by Severn Screen in 2024, building on a strong track record of development with the BBC, including the Casualty Writer Development Program and CBBC’s The Dumping Ground shadow writing scheme. A member of the BBC Writersroom Drama Group (2021–22), Brennig has also been shortlisted for BBC Wales Writer in Residence. His scripts have earned acclaim on the festival circuit, winning the Gold Prize at the Page International Screenwriting Awards for Big Red and the Fellini Prize at the BlueCat Screenwriting Competition for Cwtch.
Lauren Kent
Lauren Kent is a journalist turned filmmaker who always loved a good story. After a decade directing and editing commercial content (and earning a Webby), she began writing features while languishing during the 2020 lockdown. Her short film THE SPLIT, which she co-wrote, edited and directed with her twin sister Lindsay Kent, won the Palm Springs International Screenplay Contest, and received numerous festival awards including Best Comedy. Lauren’s projects have placed as finalist / runnerup in Script Pipeline, Scriptapalooza and Screencraft contests, and she is a Stowe Narrative Lab alum. Her dark comedy AUNT DIE, which she wrote for Israeli director Aharon Keshales, is currently in development. Lauren wrote the horror feature THE EXHIBITION at the Nostos screenwriting retreat in 2023, and is excited to direct and edit this project with her sister. She is represented by Peter Van Steemburg at XYZ Films.
Jude Hope Harris
Jude Hope Harris is a writer, producer, and director, dividing her time between Mexico City and Los Angeles. She has written screenplays for MTV and Apple, was a participant in the Stowe Story Lab, a finalist in Stage 32’s TV comedy writing contest, and a semi-finalist in the Creative Screenwriting Pilot Competition. She has directed and co-written two shorts that premiered at SXSW and screened internationally, and was a member of the 2024-2025 Sony Pictures Television Elevate Directors’ program. She is the producer of the Oscar-shortlisted documentary, BAD AXE, and the 2018 gender equity documentary HALF THE PICTURE. She recently launched the independent production company, Trans American Films, to develop and produce scripted and documentary underdog stories for film and television.
Timea Fidler
Timea Fidler is a 2002 Austrian-born emerging Screenwriter and Directress. At the young age of 12 she discovered her love for screenwriting and since then taught herself the craft by reading industry books, participating in seminars like the Dramaturgy Workshop by Vienna’s Filmcoach and the Advanced Directing seminar by Raindance film school as well as finishing her Bachelor of Arts at the SAE Institute Vienna in 2025 with her first feature length script. Timea’s empathetic, atmospheric writing-style has already captivated many professionals to build flourishing work-relationships. She has been writing and directing several award-winning music videos, short films and creating concepts for long-term projects for herself and other directors/producers. Her focus lies on telling stories that deal with complex emotions, the deep struggle that comes with them and the fascination on how everyone deals with them in a different, sometimes shocking way.
Meys Motazedi
Meysam Motazedi’s work examines family, masculinity, and the myths that hold them together. His films are driven by protagonists who try to transcend legacies they were born into, in search of a skin to hide in, an identity to assume. He traces these journeys through an off-kilter naturalism that lets ordinary life tip slightly askew. He has screened at VIFF, RIDM, BAFICI, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Sólrún Freyja Sen
Sólrún is a writer, producer, and director whose focus lies on underdog stories, the experiences of society’s outsiders, and hidden worlds beneath the surface. Her drive to write and make films comes from her own lived experience and a passion for the untold stories that naturally emerge from the way people live and react to the world around them.
Her credits include writing and producing the docuseries Óminni/Blackout, which screened on SÝN miðlar in 2019. The series reveals a shift in illegal drug use among Icelandic youth and garnered significant media attention.
In 2024, she wrote and directed the docuseries Fólk eins og við/People Like Us, also screened on SÝN. The series follows four individuals who are experiencing or have experienced homelessness, telling their stories in an unconventional and compelling way.
Today, Sólrún works as a freelancer across various fields of filmmaking—primarily writing, editing, and e-course production—while concurrently developing her own original film and television projects.
Athena Mandis
Athena Mandis is a British-Cypriot award-winning writer, director, and producer working across film, television, and creative education. She is the founder of Mile End Films and has developed a diverse body of work spanning narrative features, documentary, and theatre, with a focus on character-driven storytelling and socially conscious themes.
Her films have screened internationally, and she is currently in development on multiple feature projects, including The Summer Will Come and Say Sorry!, while overseeing the final post-production of Brighton House. In 2026, she served as Festival Director of the Soho London Independent Film Festival. Alongside her creative practice, Athena is a Senior Lecturer in Film Practice at Queen Mary University of London, where she mentors emerging filmmakers and leads on industry-facing initiatives.
Athena’s work bridges artistic innovation with strategic production, combining cinematic storytelling with expertise in development, financing, and international collaboration within the screen industries.
Ellis Walker
Ellis Walker is a Scottish, London-based screenwriter who pivoted from a thirty-year career as a Civil Engineer — with landmark credits including London’s Millennium Bridge and the Elizabeth Line — to pursue visual storytelling.
As primary parent to triplets, family informs the deeply human stories he wants to tell, reflecting preoccupations with social justice, identity and shared humanity. Drawing on years travelling and working overseas, from Malaysia to Mexico, Ellis brings a global perspective with themes of interconnectedness and migration running through his work.
His short film “Soulmates” earned UK festival selections. Parallel work as a Script Supervisor gives him a rare, production-level understanding of how stories are built on screen, with credits including “Red Egg and Ginger”, which premiered at Tribeca. He is developing “Settlement”, a social-horror exploring cross-Channel migration, and “Mandalay”, a WWII female survival story. A London Film Academy MA graduate, he has trained with Sundance Collab and NFTS.
Céline Ribard
CÉLINE RIBARD is a queer French film director based in London (UK) and Vancouver (CA). She is drawn to hybrid-genre stories that explore themes of intimacy and identity.
With a degree in fashion and design, her first entry into film was through the costume department. A flair for problem solving led her to the production office before she found her voice in writing and directing. The experience as a designer, illustrator and her passion for analogue photography bring a unique visual language to her storytelling.
Her RTBF (Belgium TV) commissioned series UNIVERSELLES, supported by french film fund le CNC, was released online in 2024. Her short films have been screened in various festivals and queer spaces around the world. She’s now working on her feature debut “NOT A CACTUS” with producers Alberto Muffelmann and Iván Gutiérrez Araico. She is a BAFTA Connect, Directors UK and SACD (FR) member.
Bjargey Ólafsdóttir
Bjargey Ólafsdóttir lives and works in Reykjavík. She studied painting and mixed media at Iceland Academy of the Arts, Reykjavík and she holds a MFA from The Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki. She studied photography at Aalto University in Helsinki and Screenwriting and Directing at Binger Filmlab, Amsterdam. The art of Bjargey Ólafsdóttir is not confined to a single medium as each of her concepts calls for a different tool: photography, film, writing, sound art, performance and drawing. Her works are narrative by nature, telling stories of bored female dentists, rock stars in Japan and women that can see into the future and beyond. Her works are sometimes scary, yet beautiful and always brimming with humour and playfulness. Bjargey received a poetry award from the poetry festival Jón úr Vör in 2024 and 2025.
María Kjartansdóttir
María Kjartansdóttir is an Icelandic visual artist and filmmaker based in Reykjavík. Her work moves between visual art and narrative film, with a focus on atmosphere, character, and the relationship between landscape and emotional experience. She is particularly drawn to coming-of-age stories and projects shaped by place and lived memory.
She holds an MFA from the Glasgow School of Art and a BA from the Iceland University of the Arts. Her work has been presented internationally, including at Arken Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, Museo di Nervi in Italy, Arsenal Gallery in Poland, and the Ljungberg Museum in Sweden. Her photographic work has received recognition from Magnum Photos and the Helsinki Photo Festival.
She is a founding member of the multidisciplinary collective Vinnslan and co-founder of Dynja Films. Her short film Sprungur premiered at the Reykjavík International Film Festival. She recently completed the Directors Course at London Film School and is currently developing her debut feature.
J Frisch-Wang
Raised across the US by a Chinese mother and an American father, J developed a unique perspective shaped by constant movement and cultural confluence. Her festival journey began at age 16 with a selection at the Academy Award-qualifying Seattle International Film Festival. Now based in Berlin, where she graduated from film school, J works frequently on set as a 1st AD alongside prominent directors, brands, and artists. J’s directorial works often involve existentialism, reincarnation, animals, and absurdity. She is working diligently on making her debut feature, Jóhann in the End-Times a reality.