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The Women’s Weekend Film Challenge has selected eight emerging writers as fellows for its inaugural pilot accelerator program, which will feature three weeks of intensive training followed by the chance to pitch to studios, production companies and executive producers.

Wwfc, founded by Katrina Medoff and Tracy Sayre in 2017 to promote gender equity behind the camera and on screen, is best know for its signature film challenge that has produced 30 short films with more than 700 female filmmakers, as well as running production workshops. The accelerator is designed to help emerging writers with completed scripts advance their careers as well as boost representation of women and non-binary people in TV.

The inaugural fellows and their pilots are Danielle Nicki (“Welcome to Nirvana”), Joanne Thomson (“Spinner & Marie”), Kate Torgovnick May (“Something Sweet”), Kenyetta Raelyn (“Tenth”), Ramou Sarr (“Killing It”), Samantha Wilson (“Foresight”), Spade Robinson (“Little Shop of Daughters”) and Vivian Kerr (“Five Points...

Women’s Weekend Film Challenge (Wwfc) is launching a pilot accelerator program for writers to pitch female-centric content.

The program, which will see emerging TV writers pitching beginning in October of this year, was designed to help such writers advance their careers, as well as to increase the representation of women non-binary people working in television.

“So many members of our community have pilot scripts ready to go but no one to pitch to,” Wwfc co-founder Tracy Sayre said in a statement. “This gap became especially apparent over the last year as we’ve hosted weekly virtual workshops; far and away, the most popular events have centered around how to pitch and how to break into the writers room. This accelerator is a natural response to the career goals of our community.”

Wwfc is accepting applications for the accelerator on FilmFreeway from June 17 to July 21, 2021. The program will take place virtually.

India Eisley grew up on sets because her mother was an actress, and she booked her first role when she was only 10 years old. Her 15-year career has thus far consisted of quite a few films in addition to television (“The Secret Life of the American Teenager”). Now, Eisley portrays the real-life Fauna Hodel, a woman who grew up believing she was mixed race, only to learn some dark truths about her origin story much later in life, in TNT’s limited series “I Am The Night.”

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