The Vermont Screenplay Incubator

Supporting local filmmakers in writing Vermont-based screenplays.

The Inaugural Screenwriting Cohort

Marianne
DiMascio

Marianne DiMascio (she/her) is a co-founder and writer for Stealing from Work, a Vermont based sketch comedy troupe. She has also written for The Assembly Theatre (Toronto), Middlebury Actors Company (Flash Forward), and Vermont Stage (Winter Tales).

Sean
Kirby

Stemming from roots as a visual artist, Sean transitioned to a career in filmmaking in 2005 with the films Police Beat and The Gits, winning the Seattle International Film Festival Filmmaker’s Award for cinematography . Police Beat went on to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and is part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He was also selected by Filmmaker Magazine in 2009 as one of "25 Filmmakers to Watch". Sean has since photographed a multitude of other narrative and documentary films that have premiered at Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto, Locarno and Cannes film festivals. Sean continues to work as a cinematographer nationally and internationally while living on an off-grid farm in southern Vermont. He is currently transitioning his focus to screenwriting and directorial narrative filmmaking, beginning with I Am My Domain, the story of Romaine Tenney.

Ben
Johnson

Ben was President of the Vermont AFL-CIO and AFT Vermont for many years, but he was formed by the long shadow of the Dust Bowl in his native Oklahoma. Ben ran all the way to Vermont, but those pumpjacks and that red dirt will always be his homeland. He started as an outsider -- a free thinker in an evangelical theocracy -- and he kept himself an outsider, whether he liked it or not. He ran so far that now he’s snuck up on himself from behind. He's lived in Barre for twenty years, and that's where he tries to be a good father, practices the banjo, takes care of his goats, and writes stories.

Sam
McFarland

Sam is an award-winning filmmaker who splits his time between New York, Vermont, and Alabama. He graduated from the London Film School with a Masters in filmmaking in 2019. His graduation film premiered in competition at the Austin Film Festival, and went on to play around the country, where it won multiple awards. He is currently filming a series of short films in Putney, Vermont.

Billy Bob
Thompson

Billy Bob Thompson is an award-given Writer/Director, Voice Actor, and Special Effects Artist bouncing between Vermont and New York City. A recent graduate of UCLA’s Professional Program in Directing and a not-so-recent graduate of Temple University’s School of Film & Media Arts, Billy Bob’s flicks have been projected on indoor & outdoor screens across Ameruca. Recently, his work was featured at TromaDance and Slamdance. You can hear him on Pokémon, Transformers, Super Smash Bros, a few YU-GI-OHs, and loads more shows on Netflix, Cartoon Network, & Nickelodeon. www.BillyBobThompson.com

Screenwriting Coach

With years of experience as a professional actor in her birthplace Denmark and the USA, Jeanine has nurtured her desire to craft authentic stories and characters, leading to being awarded the Sloan Foundation Production Grant, winning Best Cinematography for her thesis from The Amrican FIlm Institute and being invited to join the Stowe Narrative Story Labs with her latest feature screenplay.

This award winning creator of films such as NO MORE and MORS DAG (Mother’s Day), skillfully brings together a creative team to support the development of universally resonant narratives grounded in the fearless truth of her personal journey.

When this AFI Directing Fellow is not writing or directing, you can find her downhill skiing, cooking or belting Brandi Carlile ballads with her daughter.

The Vermont Screenplay Incubator

The Inaugural Screenwriting Cohort

Screenwriting Coach

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