Stowe Story Labs Announces 2024 Stowe Launch Fellows
Filmmakers Will Receive Development Support & Mentorship
Stowe Story Labs is pleased to announce the 2024 Stowe Launch fellows: Chaseedaw Giles with her drama The Final Cut, Goldie Jones with their action, crime thriller Russian Dolls, and Isabelle Blanche, who is this year’s Galway Film Marketplace Fellow, with her sports, coming-of-age drama The Squad.
This is the third annual installment of Stowe Story Labs' advanced development program for top emerging screenwriters and filmmakers. Launch incubates and develops feature films and television projects to help fulfill Stowe Story Labs’ mission of bringing screenwriters, filmmakers, and creative producers together with seasoned, working industry professionals to get work made and seen.
Chaseedaw Giles is a renaissance woman. As a writer, she elevates marginalized voices into the mainstream. Her stories have appeared in national and local news publications as well as magazines. She writes about gun violence, the opioid crisis, culture trends, and more. Chaseedaw enjoys writing horror and drama screenplays and shorts. Chaseedaw has acted in numerous theater productions and independent films, as well as modeled for various photo projects, some landing in Buzzfeed and NPR. She also performs in the hip-hop duo “Black From Home” consisting of two rappers (herself and ALXNDR), accompanied by a full band.
Giles' The Final Cut is a Moonlight-esque drama feature inspired by a true story. In West Baltimore, Anthony, a self-made and charming barber, works a double life. In one, Anthony cuts hair at his beloved barber shop. But when gun violence erupts, he takes on a gruesome and routine task at the local funeral home’s morgue: repairing bullet trauma to the hairlines of deceased young Black men using donated hair from his shop’s floor.
Goldie Jones is a nonbinary (she/they) Wyoming born writer/director, aerialist, and artist, with an award-winning career in commercial production under their belt. Their gritty genre stories center characters across the gender spectrum reclaiming their power to define themselves, their lives, and the worlds they live in. They are a Universal Writers Program Finalist, Stowe Story Labs Alumni, WIF Mentee in the Director's Circle, and now Stowe Launch Fellow. Goldie won over 100 accolades as a writer/director, including 2nd place at Slamdance and Cinequest, Second Rounder for the 2023 Sundance Development Track and the Lynn Shelton “Of a Certain Age” Grant, Top 5% for The Writers Lab 2023, and Top 5 finalist for production grants from WIF and ISA. Her most recent short film, I’m Sorry, I Tried, I Love You, was a Hollyshorts Screenplay Competition Finalist, winner of the 2021 WIF Seattle Professional Grant, and premiered at Dance with Films 2022.
Jones’ Russian Dolls is an action, crime thriller about fresh-out-of-prison Charlotte “Charlie” Smith. Smith is forced to pay off an old debt by intercepting a package only to learn the package is a person—an organ donor caught at the center of a war between a dying mobster and his estranged son.
Galway Film Marketplace Fellow
Isabelle Blanche is a Glasgow-based screenwriter originally from Ireland. She is currently developing a coming-of-age feature film set in the rough-and-tumble world of club rugby, a supernatural TV series about Irish mythology, and her first stage play. She was one of ten finalists to pitch her feature film to an industry panel and a full house at the Galway Film Fleadh 2023. Her short screenplay, The Disturbed, recently reached the Kerry International Film Festival Screenwriting Award finals. Isabelle has a Master’s Degree in Screenwriting from the Screen Academy Scotland. While continuing to develop her skills, Isabelle also works as a script reader for Shore Scripts and has extensive experience working in the film and TV industry in the production department.
Blanche’s The Squad is a sports, coming-of-age, drama feature about headstrong Liv Kennedy. Kennedy is determined to achieve sporting glory on the rugby pitch, but there is a problem...nobody believes she can do it. It is a story about Liv’s efforts to turn her community, her family, and—most importantly—the team around to achieve success, and to learn what is most important in a well-lived life.
This year’s fellows will each receive curated guidance to support the advancement of their work. Typically, program participants will attend a Stowe Lab and Retreat, and engage in a structured ongoing mentoring program with one or more Stowe mentors. Stowe will work with the artists on all aspects of development.
