HamptonsFilm’s Screenwriters Lab, which will take place Friday through Sunday, has announced the program’s selected screenwriters, screenplays, and mentors.
The screenplays are “Before the Echo Makes a Sound” by Chloe Abrahams, “Punter” by Jason Adam Maselle, and “Eruption” by Katla Sólnes. The Lab pairs rising screenwriters with established screenwriters, directors, and creative producers for a weekend of one-on-one mentoring sessions.
“When considering selections from this year’s record number of submissions, these three projects really stood out with their distinct voices and individual storytelling approaches,” said David Nugent, HamptonsFilm’s chief creative officer. “We are also honored that all three mentors are alumni of HamptonsFilm, having previously shared their work at either the festival or the Lab.”
This year’s mentors are Cory Finley, a director with three features to his credit; Cathy Yan, who has helmed three feature films and an episode of HBO’s “Succession,” and Noah Stahl, a producer at Cinetic Media whose résumé includes three narrative features and an all-archival documentary.
Abrahams is a Sri Lankan-British filmmaker and artist whose debut nonfiction feature’s honors included the audience award at the BFI London Film Festival. Her “Before the Echo Makes a Sound” is the story of Nila, who returns to her Tamil community for the first time in 20 years after her estranged father dies looking for answers about her brother, who disappeared at the beginning of the civil war.
Maselle is a BAFTA-nominated filmmaker from Johannesburg, whose work has been shown on HBO Max and at numerous film festivals. His film “Punter” follows 14-year-old Brett and his grifter father, who must survive a day of deadly odds traversing Johannesburg’s gambling underworld in order to hit one final horse racing bet that will save their family.
A writer-director from Iceland, Sólnes was a 2025 Sundance Screenwriters Lab fellow whose environmentally driven work has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Icelandic Film Fund, and Indian Paintbrush. In her “Eruption,” which is set in the highlands of 1970s Iceland, a geologist’s wife finds her marriage tested when a wily American student arrives, stirring tensions as volatile as the volcanic landscape.
HamptonsFilm will present “Eruption” with the 2026 Melissa Mathison Award, which was established in 2016 in honor of the late Oscar-nominated screenwriter and intended to foster the continued development of female writers in the industry.
