Writers

Hernán Barangan was diagnosed with Leukemia as a teenager — and while undergoing radiation therapy, he mutated into an atomic beast — umm, no — he fell in love with movies as a way to escape. He graduated from high school and cancer the same year, and would discover in the following decade that storytelling is actually about turning and facing your fears. He went on to build a career that spans documentary, commercials and screenwriting. Returning to face those aforementioned fears, he directed and stars in CANCER REBELLION (Executive Produced by Roger Daltrey of The Who), for which he traveled to all 50 states to interview 100 young adult cancer patients. Over the course, he discovered the power of filmmaking as a form of narrative therapy. He also directed THE 100%, a fully-immersive 360° interactive experience to benefit StandUp2Cancer; it won the Tribeca X Award and was nominated for an EMMY. He’s a marathon hand-cycler, has rebuilt a VW from the ground up, makes a mean green smoothie and is proudly half Salvadoran, half Filipino, and all-guns blazing.

Born to a Rwandan father and a Belgian mother, Aurora Ferlin grew up on the outskirts of Brussels, Belgium in a large, blended family. She is a 2020 Academy Nicholl Fellowship Quarter-Finalist with her feature screenplay, VILOMAH. Last year, her screenplay, SHEWENT MISSING was greenlit by Lifetime. The made-for-TV movie premiered on the network in April and is Aurora’s first TV writing credit. With a background in journalism, she has a passion for highlighting marginalized voices. Her screenplays always contain a good dose of suspense and her works often explore themes of crime, race, class and social justice. In 2016, she won the Standing Up Award at the Cleveland International Film Festival with her feature documentary, JIMBROWN’S AMER-I-CAN DREAM about the social legacy of NFL Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown and his work with at-risk youth. It was nominated for Best Documentary at the2016 American Black Film Festival (ABFF). In 2018, her short film, MOTHERS was selected as part of ABFF’s Inaugural Emerging Directors Program. That same year, the short also won Best Short Film at the Back-In-The-Box Industry Film Festival.

Most recently, Aurora has written the pilot episodes of MAHOGANY SUNSET and A NEW DAY, the first scripted podcasts under Hallmark’s Mahogany banner. She has also produced shows for the Africa Channel and she is the co-creator of the networks’ original series, SHADES OF YOU. An HBCU alum, she is a graduate from Florida A&M University and the University of Brussels. Since moving to Los Angeles, Aurora has worked closely with community activists and at-risk youth to end the cycle of gun violence and youth incarceration. She’s an avid runner and completed her first marathon this past March.

Emman Sadorra is a 2nd generation Filipino-American writer who is drawn to telling stories about identity and finding humor in unexpected places. Born and raised by immigrant parents in Eagle Rock, California, Emman’s formative years were spent feeling guilty for being bad at all the things he was supposed to be. Growing up, he had trouble connecting with his cultural identity, so he ran from it. Being the queer grandson of a famous Pastor from the Philippines made him feel inherently defective. And being the sensitive-artsy-blacksheep-only-son of the family meant that feeling out of place was his natural habitat. But through the healing power of writing and learning to laugh at life’s messiness, Emman’s been able to shed his former identity of feeling like a bad son, a bad Christian, and a bad Filipino. He began his career in TV Development, working for a busy production company that developed comedies and dramas for ABC Studios and Universal Television. There, he worked with the team behind the NBC comedy I FEEL BAD, all the way from pitch to airing on TV. After a few years learning how the TV sausage gets made, Emman made the jump to work for a Showrunner where he got to learn from comedies like ABC’s black-ish and NBC’s KENAN. He’s written, directed, and produced short films that have screened at Dances With Films and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. More recently, Emman has written for the revival of Nickelodeon’s iconic children’s show, BLUE’S CLUES & YOU.

Amelia Swedeen grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, alongside her favorite person in the world: her younger sister, who was born with developmental disabilities. As her high school’s resident documentarian, Amelia was known for making projects that created conversations around ableism. While attending USC School of Cinematic Arts, Amelia wrote and directed a short film starring Luke Zimmerman, an actor with Down Syndrome who starred on The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Despite decades of elevating disability in her work, Amelia spent most of her life believing that she was neurotypical. After she watched Hannah Gadsby’s comedy special about an adulthood autism diagnosis, Amelia realized that she is autistic too. Now that Amelia recognizes herself as a member of the disability community along with her sister, she is finally able to make sense of her own life. This has led her to develop unique strengths in the writers’ room, such as using pattern recognition to nail pitches on story structure. Amelia is excited to continue elevating disabled and neurodivergent identities in her work – now from a firsthand POV.

Amelia has been on the support staff of six shows, her favorite being The Umbrella Academy, because she loves writing about complex family dynamics in heightened realities. After she wrapped on that show, Amelia wrote a spec of it that placed in the Austin Film Festival (but she is proudest of the enthusiastic response her script received after she posted it on a fanfiction site). Most recently, Amelia has experience working on crime dramas. She is currently the writers' assistant on the second season of Power Book IV: Force for Starz, and she is delighted to be co-writing the finale. She is repped by Writ Large.

Varta Torossian is a multicultural writer/director with roots in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. As a teenager, she traveled the world with a dance company performing in stage productions, music videos, and TV shows. She eventually landed in NYC where she literally and metaphorically felt like an alien. She didn’t know anyone, barely spoke any English and despite growing up without movies or TV shows, she decided to pursue a career in screenwriting.

Over the years, Varta won many grants and scholarships which put her through school. She graduated summa cum laude from Ithaca College and went on to earn two master’s degrees - in Directing from ArtCenter College of Design, and in Screenwriting from AFI.

Varta has an eclectic work experience as a PA on Top Chef and Project Runway, a Development Assistant at Lifetime, and a co-producer for a Korean documentary series. She also wrote, directed and produced a number of award-winning shorts which screened at festivals in the U.S. and abroad.

Varta’s scripts, which often feature rebels, outsiders, and misfits like her, have been finalists at screenwriting competitions such as ScreenCraft, Final Draft Big Break, and Cinequest. In her spare time, Varta loves to practice yoga and contortion, stretching both her body and mind

TOMMAR WILSON (TOE-mar | he/him) is a Kansas born military brat who didn’t spend more than four years in one place until his mid 20s. The path to his career was just as chaotic having been a Pizza Hut manager, a clerk for the Kansas Secretary of State, and appearing in multiple Broadway shows including HAMILTON, HAIR, and the short-lived vampire musical, LESTAT. 

The thing that has remained constant through his journey is his passion for storytelling, which took many forms before eventually leading to screenwriting. His original screenplay UP, UP, AND AWAY! earned a quarterfinalist honor in the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowship. And his original pilots including ROMANCE IS DEAD, and CHORUS BOY have been honored by multiple TV fellowships and contests.

As a writer, Tommar considers himself the lovechild of Barry Jenkins and Bryan Fuller,* creating rich, grounded characters navigating life through heightened, and sometimes fantastical, realities. (*Cannot confirm this parentage) He is particularly interested in drama that centers gay, Black protagonists, and exploring important issues like mental health, addiction, and the elusive human connection, while leaving plenty of room for joy and humor.

Tommar is a graduate of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, and the UCLA Professional Program in TV Drama Writing.

Ida Yazdi is a Muslim Iranian American writer who was raised between Isfahan, Iran and Birmingham, Alabama. She is a former architect having worked within renowned architecture studios around the world before deciding to embark on a career in television writing. Her work often explores themes of cultural identity, alienation, and otherness. She builds narratives that examine both the humor and pain that comes with starting over in life, specifically through the lens of Muslim and Middle Eastern women.

Her most recent short film, LESSONS, screened at Maryland Film Festival and Atlanta Film Festival. Her pilot, ANDI, TODAY was a finalist for the 2021 Stowe Story Labs Fellowship and the Almanack Episodic Lab. It was also featured on the 2022 Black List x Muslim List, which highlights the best unproduced scripts written by Muslim writers. She was recently accepted into the Starz #TakeTheLead Writers’ Intensive and the 2022 Women in Film Writers Mentorship Program.

She received an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia University where she was awarded the 2020-2021 Screenwriting Teaching Fellowship. She has worked as a Script Coordinator for shows like City on Fire on Apple TV+ and The Girls on the Bus on HBOMax.

William Yu is a Korean American screenwriter and Asian American advocate who tells subversive stories that tackle difficult cultural conversations while winking at you with a hopeful smile. 

William's feature romantic comedy IT WAS YOU was recently selected to the Black List - the buzzy compendium of the year’s most-liked unproduced Hollywood screenplays - and also attached Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu as an executive producer. Yu's half hour dramedy pilot GOOD BOY was selected for the 2020 Sundance Episodic Makers Lab and was named to the 2020 CAPE List as a top screenplay by an AAPI writer. 

He was also selected to the inaugural cohort of The Thousand Miles Project, the story incubator program run by Soo Hugh, the creator of Pachinko on Apple TV+.

William is the creator of #StarringJohnCho, the viral phenomenon that used photoshopped movie posters to spark a global conversation about Asian American representation in media and that had a wide-ranging impact on Hollywood.

Yu brings a global perspective, with family roots stretching as far as Seoul and Jamaica. He was born in Philadelphia, raised in Hong Kong, grew up in Boston, seasoned in New York, and now resides in Los Angeles.