Inevitable Foundation Announces Inaugural Visionary Fellowship Cohort

Inevitable Foundation, a leading non-profit that invests in disabled writers and filmmakers, has announced its inaugural cohort of Visionary Fellows: Zayre Ferrer, Monica Lucas, Filipe Coutinho, Alys Murray, and Katherine Craft.

Inevitable Foundation’s Visionary Fellowship is a year-long program that invests in disabled filmmakers with the funding, mentorship and community they need to make a short film and leverage it into their debut feature. The program is uniquely designed to cover the transition between making a short and preparing and packaging a debut feature, ensuring they have ample support to connect the dots between the two. The program is exclusively supported by Netflix's Fund for Creative Equity, a dedicated effort to help train creatives for job opportunities on Netflix productions and set talent up for success in entertainment.

The Fellowship includes $55,000 in funding for each Fellow, including a production grant to produce their short film with an experienced crew, an unrestricted grant to support the Fellow over the course of the program, as well as access to health insurance, marketing support, and funds for travel and access needs. The Fellowship also includes mentorship and workshops from industry leaders, unique opportunities to collaborate with other filmmakers on-set, community building within the Fellowship cohort, and an industry-focused short film showcase that will include creative executives, agents, and managers.

“We are thrilled to name these incredible Visionary Fellows for the program’s inaugural cohort,” said Inevitable Foundation co-founders Richie Siegel and Marisa Torelli-Pedevska. “Our investment in these incredible disabled writer-directors represents the ongoing expansion of our pipeline for disabled creatives, and speaks to the core of our mission: helping disabled creatives reach positions of industry power. We can’t wait to get their stories out in the world.”

Since launching in 2021, Inevitable Foundation has supported over 100 disabled writers, filmmakers and podcasters via its Accelerate Fellowship, Elevate Collective, Elevate for Podcasters, and Emergency Relief Fund, and facilitated hundreds of general meetings for disabled screenwriters through its Concierge.

Each of the 2024 Visionary Fellows brings their unique experiences to the program.

Filipe Coutinho (he/him) is a writer and filmmaker living with OCD who has a passion for character-driven, inclusive, and commercial stories. He has been featured on The Black List for the last three consecutive years for his projects Whittier, Jambusters, and Patsy, and the latter two are currently in pre-production. Filipe is a member of Inevitable Foundation’s Elevate Collective, a Black List Feature Lab alum, and a two-time finalist of the Nicholl's Fellowship. His unique cultural perspective is highlighted by his background; Filipe emigrated from a small town in Portugal and knows intimately the challenges of being an immigrant in America. He is repped by Matt Rosen at RAIN management.

During the Visionary Fellowship, Filipe will develop his feature film 8-TRACKS, in which a heartbroken 30-year-old recounts, with great energy and a touch of magical realism, two life-defining relationships through the eight songs that tell their story.

Katherine Craft (she/her) is an Austin, Texas-based filmmaker and educator with low vision who always walks very fast, even though she rarely knows where she’s going. She writes character-driven comedies and offbeat horror that explore complex social issues with laughs, blood and guts, car chases, and explosions. Most recently, she wrote and directed the Audible Original Shaky, a nine episode comedy series due out in 2025. Before that, she wrote on Apple TV+ series Best Foot Forward, and created the Snap Original series Kappa Crypto. She is represented by Ava Jamshidi of Industry Entertainment.

During the Visionary Fellowship, Katherine will develop her feature film THE HOG QUEEN; during a small Texas town’s annual Hog Fest, a group of queer and disabled friends must survive the night being hunted in the woods by a right-wing militia after their local gay bar is attacked in the middle of their Hog Queen drag show.

Zayre Ferrer (they/them) is a Panama-born, Brooklyn-bred writer-producer who holds MFAs in Dramatic Writing and Musical Theatre Writing from NYU. They've been awarded the Yip Harburg Lyricist Award, Elphaba Thropp Fellowship, and received a Peabody nomination. Zayre created the Netflix Original Series Tijuana and wrote for HBO Max's Our Flag Means Death. They are represented by CAA, 3Arts, and Granderson Des Rochers.

During the Visionary Fellowship, Zayre will develop their feature film BEMBE, which follows a bandless Merengue bandleader hustling her way through the flourishing Latin Music scene of 1980s New York, and learning the hard way that if you wanna make it, you can’t do it alone.

Monica Cecilia Lucas (she/her) is a Los Angeles based film and TV writer who tells grounded, female-led stories about complicated relationships and uneasy power dynamics. She has worked as an assistant on TV shows for Netflix and Amazon, and as a Production Assistant on a handful of independent feature and short films. She is the recipient of Inevitable Foundation's Accelerate Fellowship for screenwriting as well as the 2024 Artists Disruptor's Fellowship. She is also a participant in the 2024-2025 class of Mentorship Matters and a 2024 Writer in Residence at Hedgebrook. Before receiving her MFA in Screenwriting from USC, she earned a BA in Political Science and philosophy and worked as a political activist in Washington, DC. Monica is repped by Jordan Bayer at Elevate and Jim Ehrich and Lindsay Lehrman at RBEL.

During the Visionary Fellowship, Monica will develop her feature film DOUBLE BIRTHDAY CHRISTMAS WEDDING, about identical twin sisters Gina and Victoria, who were born on Christmas Day and have always been attached at the hip. When golden child Victoria gets engaged and sets the wedding for Christmas day, down-on-her-luck Gina refuses to be left behind and competing Birthday Christmas Weddings ensue.

Alys Murray (she/her) writes genre fare for the romantic in all of us. A graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and King's College London, she's published three internationally best-selling novels, and has written for Hallmark, Lifetime, ViacomCBS, Passionflix, and British television. She is a proud member of Inevitable Foundation’s Elevate Collective, and alum of Disability Belongs and The Orchard Project x Sony's Homegrown Development Lab. She is represented by Maggie Cooper at Aevitas Creative and by Matt Felker and Norris Brooks at CAA.

During the Visionary Fellowship, Alys will develop her feature film HAPPY NEW FEAR, in which a young woman returns to her small town to discover it’s been magically transformed into a made-for-TV Christmas movie wonderland...and she’s their new star. But magic this powerful comes at a price, and what begins as harmless holiday fun soon turns into a sinister and satanic fight for her life.