Today marks the first day of PGA Create's 2025 Scripted Cycle, where 13 producers from eight projects will attend four days of intensive sessions and masterclasses. PGA Create is a lab for emerging and mid-career creative producers from underrepresented backgrounds who are in active development, financing or packaging of a feature or series. There are two cycles per year: one focused on scripted projects, and the other focused on documentary projects. The fellows for this cycle were previously announced in Deadline.com. Meet them below.

Laura Scarano, Producer – A World of My Own
In the heat of summer, two young women from neighboring ranches discover a love that challenges them to reimagine desire, home, and their futures.

• Laura Scarano is an award-winning filmmaker based between Los Angeles, CA, and Brooklyn, NY, whose projects have screened at over 60 festivals worldwide. Throughout her career, her mission has been to elevate artists, giving them a platform to implement change in the world. She has produced a repertoire of feature-length and short films with an emphasis on incisive characters.

Nico Blanco, Producer – Best Man
When image-obsessed Mattie Greene makes his estranged high school best friend his best man, their reunion stirs old wounds, blurred desires, and the kind of queer intimacy that threatens to unravel the perfect life he's built.

• Nico Blanco is a queer filmmaker from Bogotá, Colombia, based in Los Angeles. An AFI Conservatory MFA graduate, he produced Accidental Blessing, Unspoken (BFI Flare 2024), and the upcoming documentary House of Leather. He's currently developing the queer rom-com Best Man, the horror feature Steam, and the documentary Born to Be Kissed in the Dark.

Sachin Dheeraj Mudigonda, Producer/Director and Janani Vijayanathan, Producer – Mouna Tharangam (A Silent Wave)
In Post-Roe Texas, Amal, an Indian-American woman, grapples with an unexpected pregnancy when her path crosses with a newlywed Indian immigrant, Charulata. Their love sparks a journey of sexual awakening as the specter of abortion looms large.

• Sachin Dheeraj Mudigonda is a Directors Guild of America Student Award-winning filmmaker whose work has been screened at prestigious film festivals such as Hot Docs, Raindance, EnergaCAMERIMAGE, and Kraków. His work explores human resilience and social justice and has been released on platforms such as MUBI, Kinoscope, SIMA Academy, Vimeo Staff Picks, and Directors' Notes. He is currently developing his debut feature, A Silent Wave, with support from major labs and film funds.
• Janani Vijayanathan is an Indian classical dancer, software engineer, and independent film producer. Her first film, Testimony of Ana, won the National Film Award (India), screened at Hot Docs, and is streaming on MUBI. Her follow-up, Men in Blue, won the DGA Student Grand Prize and the Grand Jury Prize at IFFLA. It is currently streaming on Director Notes. She co-runs Kinostreet, a home for socially conscious cinema from South Asia and the diaspora.

Sofia Rovaletti, Producer – Not It
After a failed suicide attempt sends her back to 1992, burnt-out jingle writer Jackie Garcia sets out to stop her teenage mom from getting pregnant with her—only to realize that saving her family's future means facing her own.

• Sofia Rovaletti is an Argentine filmmaker and executive specializing in development. She worked on Operation Finale, Lucrecia Martel's Zama, and the 2018 Youth Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. Since moving to Los Angeles, she's been Director of Development at MoJo Global Arts and produced Tender (2024) and I F*cking Hate You! (2025) through The Latino Film Institute and Netflix fellowship.

Marcel Pérez, Producer and Alicia Herder, Producer/Director/Writer – The Girl Who Cried Wolf
Convinced her alcoholic mother is turning into a werewolf, six-year-old Bee races to find a "cure" before the full moon, blurring fantasy and reality in a desperate bid to save her.

• Marcel Pérez is a GLAAD Media and Spirit Award–nominated producer and first-generation Cuban-Peruvian American from Miami. His work centers underrepresented voices, with credits including Sundance premiere La Leyenda Negra (HBO) and The Way You Look Tonight (Gravitas Ventures). His documentary Piñata Prayers won the 2022 BlackStar Pitch, supported by Warner Bros. Discovery OneFifty.
• Alicia Herder is producer and award-winning director exploring the dark, surreal side of human nature. She's a GLAAD Media and Spirit Award-nominated producer, with her credits including Sundance premiere La Leyenda Negra (HBO) and The Blue Drum (Netflix). A 2024 WIF Independent Producing Fellow with an MFA from UCLA, she creates visually compelling work that confronts social issues.

Omar Al Dakheel, Producer/Writer/Director and Steven Snyder, Producer – The Washroom
In small-town Texas, a closeted Imam fights for his community's right to bury their dead while hiding a forbidden love that could cost him everything.

• Omar Al Dakheel is a Kuwaiti-born filmmaker with an MFA from USC. His short Ablution screened at 60+ festivals, and he produced Witness (Slamdance 2025). In documentary, he directed Jihad in Hollywood (Al Jazeera), al imam (National Geographic, PBS), and Everybody's Watching (The Criterion Channel). Most recently, Omar was Co-Producer on Season 3 of Netflix's Emmy Award-winning American Manhunt.
• Steven Snyder is an independent producer and Chapman MFA graduate. A 2025 Sundance Producing Fellow and 2024 Film Independent Fast Track Fellow, he previously presented The Washroom at Inside Out's International Finance Forum. He executive produced Dreamin' Wild starring Casey Affleck, and produced the short Azi, which premiered at Sundance 2025 and won Best SAGindie at HollyShorts.

Patrick Epino, Producer/Writer/Director and Paola Mardo, Producer – Veterano
In 1981 San Francisco, a desperate Filipino World War II veteran launches a frantic bank robbery spree to save his dying best friend, putting him on a collision course with a young, ambitious detective eager to make his mark.

• Patrick Epino is a writer, director, and producer from the San Francisco Bay Area whose work explores the lives of outsiders pushed to the margins of society. His feature Veterano advanced to the second round of the 2024 Sundance Development Lab. His pilot South City was a Film Independent Episodic Lab finalist.
• Paola Mardo is SVP, Head of Audio at Proximity Media, where she directs, produces, and hosts their flagship podcast In Proximity. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and the Bay Area, she created Long Distance, a podcast and documentary series about stories in the Filipino diaspora, which won the inaugural Google Podcasts Creator Program.

Vivian Ip, Producer/Director/Writer and Fanfan Zhou, Producer – Shophouse Hearts
Set in modern Singapore, a marketing strategist returns to her birthplace for a career-defining project, but clashes with a local architect who sees her as an outsider until buried memories reveal a shared past that forces them to face what home and love mean.

• Vivian Ip originally from Singapore, is an award-winning filmmaker and BAFTA Connect member with an MFA from USC. She centers intimate, underrepresented portraits of the human condition through her short films An Island Drifts and Bobo in Bliss. In the vertical microdrama space, she has directed Breaking the Ice (ReelShort) and Love, Lies and Alibis (Vigloo), and is developing a new series set in her home country.
• Fanfan Zhou is a Los Angeles-based producer originally from China. She holds an MFA in Film Directing from CalArts and brings a cross-cultural lens to scripted storytelling, focusing on identity, intergenerational dynamics, and underrepresented perspectives. Fanfan currently works as a Video Strategist at ByteDance's Short Drama Department, where she helps shape innovative scripted content for digital platforms.

For the fellows, this program will function as an introduction to the Producers Guild, aimed at cultivating and establishing relationships with potential future members of the organization. 

PGA Create was developed through the PGA One Guild initiative, which supports inclusive membership, employment, content, and authentic depictions.

For more information on the PGA Create program, including information to apply to future cycles, visit: producersguild.org/pga-create.