Introducing Diverso’s 2021 Minority Report Fellows
We are delighted to welcome seven new Minority Report Fellows into the Diverso family.
Established in 2020, the Minority Report is an industry-vetted fellowship program designed to help talented, yet underrepresented writers break into the entertainment industry. Our seven fellows were chosen amongst a total of 335 student submissions, all collected from Diverso’s growing network of 74+ universities. Submitted scripts, under an extensive selection process by our PSC committee, were dwindled down into 12 finalists. A second-round scoring by Industry Jury members, coupled with a holistic assessment by the Diverso team, emerged seven new Minority Report fellows.
Spanning from one coast to another, our fellows meld their unique backgrounds and voices into a rich cohort of student screenwriters. For the next few months, our Minority Report fellows will be engaging in community building, specialized panels, and pointed mentorship — all towards building a more accessible, more diverse Hollywood.
Meet the 2021 Minority Report Fellows:
Anndi Jinelle Liggett - RHAPSODY IN BLUE
School: New York University
Logline: In 1923, a poor, southern girl migrates north to Harlem in search of a mysterious, Creole musician. The odyssey catapults her into the world of jazz and into the hands of Miss Queenie, Harlem's most notorious crime boss.
Bio: Anndi Jinelle Liggett is a writer and director based in Brooklyn, NY. Growing up in northern Virginia, she spent much of her childhood with her head firmly in the clouds. Books and films were welcome excursions to different worlds, people, and experiences and she aspires to bring that same escapism to others. She is currently an MFA Candidate for Film & Television Production at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. In that time she has written and/or directed five narrative and documentary shorts. Prior to film school, she gained production experience at NBC's Today Show and Al Roker Entertainment where she also served as the Executive Assistant to Al Roker. Today, Anndi tells stories centering Black women and girls in all their richness, nuance, and complexity. Anndi is honored to be a 2021 Minority Report fellow andlooks forward to fostering new relationships and growing as a filmmaker.
Yugo Nakamura - THE OFFERING
School: The American Film Institute
Logline: When a deeply spiritual detective is forced to work with a troubled American FBI agent on a string of apparent suicide in Tokyo, they uncover the trail of a prolific serial killer with a blood-curdling endgame.
Bio: Yugo Nakamura is the product of a forbidden love between his Japanese father and his Jewish mother. He grew up first in Tokyo, where everyone thought of him as American, and later in New York City, where everyone saw him as Japanese. He often questioned why people chose to single out the unfamiliar and realized -- a lot of it came from TV and Film. Today, he embraces his bicultural sensibilities as a self-professed "Jewpanese," and loves writing crime thrillers, family dramas, and off-beat comedies to champion social acceptance. Yugo began his career as an assistant video engineer at a post facility in New York and has since worked in digital cinema and distribution with a little stint at his sister's nose-to-tail butcher shop in West Hollywood. Yugo was the post-production manager at Legendary before throwing caution to the wind and attending The AFI Conservatory where he recently earned his MFA in Screenwriting.
Jake Lawler - MARTIN CLAY
School: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Logline: When 17-year-old Martin Clay develops telekinesis after a freak accident, heis forced to navigate his new reality of high school and Black heroism.
Bio: Jake Lawler is a former football player and recent University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate. Hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina, Jake is a self-taught screenwriter and is currently Development Coordinator at Chaotic Good Studios. Prior to working at Chaotic Good, he co-founded multimedia nonprofit UNCUT—a college athlete storytelling platform—and produced, co-wrote, and co-starred in a FilmFest919-selected short film, GOOD SAMARITANS (2020). He is a passionate storyteller that has a love for science-fiction and horror, believing that using those spheres to weave in resonant social commentary and feature a diverse group of people and ideas will help further and elevate conversations in Hollywood and abroad...as well as selfishly knowing that there's a hell of a lot of fun to be had when things go bump in the night. He also likes to lift heavy objects from time to time.
Mary Bronaugh - SWEARING
School: University of Southern California
Logline: Ninabelle Navarro is a spirited young Filipino woman whose sheltered perspective is obliterated by a chaotic first week of college. Accidentally recruited for the campus comedy troupe, Nina will discover a world where provoking God is a prerequisite - and she’ll let loose the surprisingly loud and angry voice inside her.
Bio: Mary Bronaugh is a comedy writer-director and BFA Writing for Screen and Television graduate from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She is currently the Apprentice Writer on the five-time Emmy-nominated Disney Channel show Big City Greens, as part of the Disney TV Animation Apprentice Writer Program, which trains young, diverse writers for staffing. She is also currently directing and producing an original pilot under Film Independent’s Artist Development Program called Swearing, starring Sari Arambulo of NBC’s A.P. Bio. She is thrilled to be selected as a 2021 Fellow in Diverso's The Minority Report. She produces her post-grad work under her production company Song Paper Pictures and is represented at The Gotham Group.
Omar Kamara - MASS AVE
School: The American Film Institute
Logline: On the final day to accept his offer into a prestigious art school, a first-generation Sierra Leonean American struggles to tell his traditional immigrant father that he will not be attending medical school in pursuit of his passion.
Bio: Omar Kamara is a Virginia native and a first-generation Sierra Leonean American. He graduated with a BA in Economics but quit his full-time job to pursue his passion. A self-made filmmaker, Kamara started his own production company, OK Productions, and has independently written, directed and produced many works including the web series EDUCATED and short film AGAIN. He also has contributed to the Showtime Series HOMELAND as a production assistant in both the locations and production department. Additionally, he is currently in post-production of his short film MASS AVE, a proof of concept for his feature of the same name, which was recently selected as a Winner of the Austin Film Festival Pitch Competition, advanced to the second round of Sundance's Feature Film Program, and placed as Finalist in the ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship. Kamara aspires to make films that mentally challenge his audiences, explore the complexities of human relationships, and tell the stories of Africa and the African Diaspora. Kamara is currently completing his MFA in Directing at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
Jalmer Caceres - MASS AVE
School: The American Film Institute
Logline: On the final day to accept his offer into a prestigious art school, a first-generation Sierra Leonean American struggles to tell his traditional immigrant father that he will not be attending medical school in pursuit of his passion.
Bio: Jalmer Caceres was born in El Salvador, without a television in his home. After arriving in the US at the age of 5, Jalmer defied the difficulties of language, poverty, and a rough upbringing to become the first in his family to graduate from college with a BA in Film and Electronic Arts from Cal State Long Beach. After graduating from the American Film Institute with an MFA in Screenwriting, Jalmer co-wrote the feature, MASS AVE, which won the Austin Film Festival Virtual Pitch Competition and placed as a Finalist in the ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship. In addition, his short Film, BRAVE ONES, which he wrote and directed, was an Official Selection in the Georgia International Latino Film Festival and the Panamanian International Film Festival/LA and is still touring the festival circuit. Jalmer is dedicated to exploring the themes of family, national identity, belonging, and displacement in his work.
Thomas Percy Kim - ISLE CHILD
School: University of Southern California
Logline: “Isle Child” is an R-rated drama. When a young Korean-American adoptee from a picture-perfect white suburban family discovers that his birth mother is terminally ill in Korea, he must decide whether to protect himself and preserve the facade of his American life or face the truth of his past and his otherness.
Bio: Thomas Percy Kim is a Korean-American writer/director kindled by raw, introspective narratives and poetic imagery. His debut stop-motion short film, Trejur, has screened at venues such as Heartland and Busan International before receiving the Harry Winston Brilliant Futures award and YoungArts gold medal by the age of 17. Currently attending USC’s film production program, he was presented by the Bruce Lee Family Companies, and his latest project, Si, starring Ki Hong Lee (Maze Runner, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) premiered at the 2020 Oscar-shorts-qualifying LAAPFF before being sold and distributed by HBO as part of their APA Visionaries program. He is based in LA, developing a feature loosely based on Si.
