Stowe Story Labs Announces Fellows and Honorable Mentions for 2025 Stowe Writers’ Retreat
STOWE STORY LABS IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE 2025 FELLOWS AND HONORABLE MENTIONS FOR THE STOWE STORY LABS ACCELERATOR FELLOWSHIP, THE BELLEM ENTERTAINMENT FELLOWSHIP, THE STUDIO SKYFIRE FELLOWSHIP, AND THE STOWE GENRE LAUNCH FELLOWSHIP TO STOWE’S WRITERS’ RETREAT
The selection process was highly competitive and we are pleased to honor these talented creatives. Thanks to all who applied for the fellowships. Thank you as well to our fellowship partners who help make this possible.
Congratulations to all.
STOWE STORY LABS ACCELERATOR FELLOW:
Kel Vance – Rockdale, NSW, AU – Sam the Hammer // Dramedy Feature
Logline: An aged care worker turns accidental funeral crasher, exposing the deep dark secrets of the dead—landing her in the crosshairs of the local crime family and their crooked cop.
Bio: Kel Vance is a screenwriter and playwright who creates unique and innovative storytelling with women at the heart, exploring the often untold and unexplored, in uncommon ways. Study of Kel’s creative passions only occurred after an earlier career in social welfare and dispute resolution. She now holds a GCert in Screenwriting, GDip in Media Arts & Production and a MA in Creative Writing. Since graduating, Kel’s short plays have been performed in festivals around the world, receiving both Judges and People’s Choice awards. While her feature and short screenplays have notably placed in a variety of competitions, including the Academy Nicholl Fellowships, Roadmap, Stowe Story Labs, the US Writer’s Lab, Big Break and AFF. Kel’s goal as a storyteller is to interrogate the truth of women’s lived experiences through her genre melding stories, particularly centring women over a certain age, hoping to evoke both empathetic connection and change.
STOWE STORY LABS ACCELERATOR HONORABLE MENTION:
Jacob Marx Rice – Jackson Heights, NY, USA – The Valley of Hinnom // Drama Feature
BELLEM ENTERTAINMENT FELLOW:
Mary Pat Bentel – Glendale, CA, USA – The Cockroach // Comedy, Drama TV-1 hr
Logline: After a body-altering accident, a woman must find a way forward in her new reality with the help of her friends and family - all of whom are forever changed.
Bio: Mary Pat Bentel is a LA-based filmmaker focused on socially relevant stories that make audiences laugh or cry while challenging them to reconsider their beliefs.
Projects she’s proudest of producing include Peabody-nominated THIS CLOSE (Sundance Channel), a series about best friends, who happen to be deaf; and feature films DARK WAS THE NIGHT, a family drama about loss; ANIMALS, a romantic drama about heroin addiction; and BOLD NATIVE, an action thriller about animal liberation.
5 years ago, an accident shattered Mary Pat’s arm and changed her life. She took notes between surgeries and her directorial debut, THE COCKROACH, emerged. The short film is currently nominated for the Humanitas Prize and has won the Audience Award at Austin, Best Drama at LA Shorts, Best Short at Carmarthen Bay, and Best Editing at HollyShorts thus far. She’s adapting THE COCKROACH into a series and loving her time in the writer/director chair.
BELLEM ENTERTAINMENT HONORABLE MENTION:
K. Broch – West Hollywood, CA, USA – Tomás King // Comedy TV-1/2 hr
STUDIO SKYFIRE FELLOW:
Scott Nabat – Sherman Oaks, CA, USA – Critter Catcher // Horror Feature
Logline: In Tribal South Dakota, unscrupulous animal trappers draw the wrath of a vengeful spirit. Four high-schoolers must band together to stop the ultimate terror!
Bio: After moving to Los Angeles in 1992 to become a filmmaker, Scott got his wunderkind moment at South by Southwest premiering his first feature, Other American Fables. This triumph was immediately followed by a string of career setbacks, personal failures, and one remarkable son.
Following a brief, 20 year hiatus from writing, he returned to the keyboard, bloodied yet unbowed—well, slightly bowed, but excited to write once again. This time would be different, constructive, born of wisdom and empathy and not just the inventive madness of a kid escaping an erupting volcano.
No longer the wunderkind, Scott went back to UCLA to study screenwriting. Going from the youngest kid in the room to the oldest and rediscovering the craft with an open heart and fresh eyes!
STUDIO SKYFIRE HONORABLE MENTION:
Billie Jo Mason – Simi Valley, CA, USA – STA*SIS // Horror SciFi Feature
STOWE GENRE LAUNCH FELLOW:
Christian Hearn — Invergordon, Highland, Great Britain — The Hiding // Horror, Thriller Feature
Logline: A travelling salesman unwittingly puts his young daughter's life in danger when he rescues a boy who he mistakes for the victim of a kidnapping, but is in fact a blossoming serial killer.
Bio: After Christian's early dreams of becoming a stuntman went up in flames after almost setting fire to his parents' back porch, and suffering a blood clot, he decided to try his hand at a less dangerous, but no less painful endeavor: screenwriting. Christian's credits include; FRACTURED (2016), winner of Best Feature at the British Horror Film Festival and the London Independent Film Awards, and the BIFA long-listed THE KINDRED (2021). His spec screenplays have placed as a semifinalist in the Nicholl Fellowships, Austin Film Festival, and Final Draft Big Break Contest, as well as a Screen Craft Top 10 Finalist, and Finalist in the UK Film Festival Screenplay Awards. His script THE SEVERING was nominated for Best Feature Screenplay at the Horrrorgins Film Festival. As of 2025, Christian's spec horror/thriller feature CRIMSON HIGHWAY is attached to producer Rodrigo Moscoso at Zero Gravity Management, and HOSTILES, an action/thriller which he co-wrote, is under a shopping agreement with producers Julien Arnoux and Pascal Degove. Christian lives in the Scottish Highlands with his wife and their two cats.
CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE!
