THE SCREENWRITER'S COLONY WELCOMES THE NEW 2012 COLONISTS

Meet James Cohen, Russell Harbaugh, Silka Luisa, and Stella Meghie. They will be our Writers-in-Residence, living and working together at the Almanack Farm on the edge of Natucket's cranberry bog conservation land. Congratulations to the colonists!

James Cohen began his career in New York as the assistant film editor on features by Sam Mendes, Alan Parker, and James Ivory. Since then, he’s written a number of TV pilots and feature screenplays, the latest of which is slated to be read by his mother at some point in the distant future. His 33-minute fictional audio comedy, THE LACEY STUDY was an official selection of the Third Coast International Audio Festival. It premiered at WNYC’s The Greene Space in 2009 and aired on NPR shortly thereafter. Most recently, James wrote a TV spot directed by Eastbound & Down creator Jody Hill, and penned a wedding toast that was declared “ill considered” by the New York Post. James graduated in literature and film from Vanderbilt University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

James will be working on his script. THANKS FOR NOTHING: When a guy breaks up with his longtime girlfriend, and his parents are forced to take sides, they choose her.

Russell Harbaugh went on from earning his MFA in film directing from Columbia University to see his thesis short, ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING, play at festivals worldwide, including the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, BAMcinemaFest, Maryland, Sarasota, Seattle, Warsaw, Milano, and many others. Russell assisted director Eric Mendelsohn on the 2010 film 3 BACKYARDS for which Mendelsohn won a Best Director Award at that year's Sundance. Currently, Russell is developing the feature-length version of the short, LOVE AFTER LOVE, with Mendelsohn and producing partner, Michael Prall. LOVE AFTER LOVE is one of 12 projects included in the 2012 IFP/Film Society of Lincoln Center EMERGING VISIONS program.

Russell will be working on his script, LOVE AFTER LOVE, a messy, autobiographical love story about grief, sex, and the separation of a family that takes place over the course of several years.

Silka Luisa started working in film at Killer Films, Panamax Films and Sony Pictures Television. She recently completed an MFA in Film from Columbia University. Among other awards, Silka received the IFP-Marcie Bloom Fellowship, a mentorship program led by Dylan Leiner and Marcie Bloom of Sony Pictures Classics, a Film Independent Project Involve Fellowship and an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Grant. Her screenplay, CACIQUE, placed in the Nicholl Fellowship and her screenplay, RED CLOVER, was funded by the McNamara Creative Arts Grant.

Silka will be working on her script, ARCANA: A psychic teenager discovers that the tarot deck is a treasure map to dangerous relics and she must reconnect with her Romani family to decode the cards and destroy the artifacts.

Stella Meghie is the winner of 2012 Showtime Tony Cox Award for Screenwriting. She is an alumna of Berlin International Film Festival’s Talent Campus for emerging filmmakers and Bell Media Diverse Screenwriters Program presented by the Writer’s Guild of Canada. Her screenplay ‘Jean of the Joneses’ was a screenplay winner at Atlanta Film Festival and selected finalist for BET’s Urbanworld Film Festival. Stella is graduate of University of Westminster’s MA in Screenwriting and Columbia University’s Directors Workshop.

Stella will be working on her script, JEAN OF THE JONESES: A blocked writer learns the secrets of an immigrant family of women when her long-lost grandfather arrives on her grandmother’s doorstep and promptly dies.