Fawzia Mirza, Roshan Sethi, And Zoya Akhtar, Join Fourth Annual 1497 Features Lab As Mentors

Zoya Akhtar (The Archies), Fawzia Mirza (Queen of My Dreams), and Roshan Sethi (A Nice Indian Boy) are set to join the 1497 Features Lab as Mentors.

Returning for its fourth year, the nonprofit 1497’s annual Features Lab will once again offer robust mentorship, script development, and industry access to elevate and advance the careers of screenwriters of South Asian descent. After expanding the Lab to a fully in-person format last year, this year’s program will build on that success with an intensive Retreat and subsequent Pitch Day. The Lab Retreat will take place this October 23-28, 2024 in Malibu.

The 1497 Features Lab, their signature impact program, entails three rounds of rigorous evaluation by independent Selection Committees to ultimately discover three Mentees to invest in. Each Mentee is then paired with a pod of Mentors – comprised of an established filmmaker, producer, industry representative, and a 1497 Features Lab Alum – from whom they receive comprehensive feedback on their scripts and access to exclusive resources and career navigation. In addition to meeting with their Mentors individually during the Lab Retreat, Mentees will also have the opportunity to work with Columbia professor Adrienne Weiss focusing on the emotional journey of their film through workshops with actors and participate in engaging master classes and fireside chats to provide additional professional development and creative inspiration.

“The 1497 Features Lab is a complete game-changer for South Asian creatives in film,” said 2023 Mentee Maya Bastian. “I gained valuable insight into both my feature script and my career, and I now have a clear direction on how to move forward. The attention to detail was wonderful and the atmosphere the team created was simply incredible.”

Along with Akhtar, Mirza, and Sethi, this year’s industry guests in the Mentor pods include Talha Asad (HBO), Aanch Khaneja (Superspecial), Karim Lakhani (head of development at Yvonne Orji’s in and thru), along with returning Mentors Mohammad Ali (Authentic), Raj Raghavan (Issa Rae’s ColorCreative), and Priya Satiani (Entertainment 360). 1497 Alums Jaclyn Backhaus, Toby Fell-Holden, Swetha Regunathan will join the cohort for peer to peer support. Additional guests will be announced soon.

Taking into account all the guests in the Mentor pods and Selection Committees and the additional industry advisors, the 1497 Features Lab team will once again highlight representation from all eight recognized South Asian countries. Those eight countries are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

“We always strive to foster an inclusive space where individuals of all backgrounds feel acknowledged, while championing our community’s voices by empowering them to write without boundaries,” said the 1497 Co-Founders in a joint statement. “Over the last 3 years we’ve seen the impact of our Lab firsthand and are thrilled to witness the remarkable strides our Mentees’ careers have taken since participating.” Notable Mentee achievements following their time in the 1497 Features Lab include acceptance into the Sundance Lab, receipt of a Blumhouse Screamwriting Fellowship, and placement in a Netflix writers room. One Mentee’s next project will be produced by Barry Jenkins’ Pastel.

“Our commitment to challenging the status quo is unwavering, and we actively translate our principles into intentional action,” continued Ahmed, Khan, and Shah. “We take pride in our organization’s growth, which allows us to provide increased value to our Mentees and the South Asian creative community.”

Founded in 2020 by Adeel Ahmed, Kamran Khan, and Lipica Shah, 1497 is an organization dedicated to supporting and uplifting artists of South Asian descent and challenging their historic exclusion from and underrepresentation in the American film and television industry. Their name signifies the year before colonization began in the area now known as South Asia, and they have established themselves as a reliable leader in the efforts to increase authentic and diverse representation of South Asians in the entertainment industry.

In just the last year, the organization has hosted a launch event with Hasan Minhaj, produced the second annual 1497 South Asian Lodge at the Sundance Film Festival where speakers Mira Nair, Ritesh Batra, Alok Vaid Menon and others joined, and co-hosted a dinner to celebrate the South Asian filmmakers at SXSW with Lilly Singh and most recently an Eid event with Gold House.

Applications for the 2024 Features Lab opened on Friday, April 19, 2024 for global applicants exclusively on Coverfly. The deadline to apply is May 25, 2024 and the application fee is waived until May 5. Filmmakers from all South Asian backgrounds, experience levels, and geographic regions are encouraged to apply. Applicants must be at least 18 years old, have a complete draft of a narrative feature film, and be eligible to be in the United States for the duration of the Lab Retreat. More details about the Features Lab can be found on 1497’s website and FAQ. Follow @define1497 on Instagram.