AT&T Untold Stories is an impactful collaboration between AT&T and Tribeca Festival, dedicated to connecting creators to greater opportunity. The largest film production prize in the world of its kind, this $1.2M award goes beyond funding, offering comprehensive mentorship and a guaranteed premiere at the following year's Tribeca Festival.

On June 4th, five finalist teams gathered in NYC to pitch their scripted features to a Greenlight Committee of industry pros. Walking away with the life-changing $1.2M grand prize was the team behind MINNESOTA GOODBYE — Sid Gopinath, Aditya Joshi, and Alifya Ali.

“In this case, the script grabbed each of us from the beginning… To say we loved it is an understatement. It was culturally nuanced yet universal. The methodology and structure gave it a cumulative, emotional power that made it feel like an untold story. The vision for the film will offer audiences beautiful intimacy and we can’t wait to see it unfold.” - 2026 Greenlight Committee

The remaining four finalists will receive $15,000 grants to support their film's development.

Little Buddy

After a last attempt in a long fertility journey fails, Maggie and Jason head to the family cottage to reconnect and move on. Instead, Maggie finds herself mothering a cute delivery robot she impulsively stole from the local country store.

Nicole Emanuele, Writer/Director
Beth Hoyt, Writer
Erica Fishman, Producer

Minnesota Goodbye

Four generations of an Indian immigrant family navigate love, loss, and belonging while building a home for themselves at a lakeside cabin in Northern Minnesota. An intimate family epic told in reverse chronological order.

Sid Gopinath, Writer/Director
Aditya Joshi, Writer
Alifya Ali, Producer

The Playground

A burned-out mother and former one-hit-wonder enters a surreal international lullaby competition hoping to reclaim the creative life she abandoned, but when her neurodivergent son begins struggling within the systems meant to support him, she learns to honor his experience of the world, and rediscovers her own voice in the process.

Rachel Harrison-Gordon, Writer/Director
Kate Hopkins, Producer

Shanghai No. 1 Seafood Palace

Eleanor is invited to join a group of friends from Singapore, now in their late sixties, as they gather at a Chinese restaurant for a series of annual reunion dinners. When they begin dying one by one, Eleanor grows suspicious, as strange incidents and unsettling revelations make her question what's truly happening at the table.

Jean Lee, Director
Erica Liu, Writer
Xin Li, Producer

There's No Place

When Juan - a self-taught tech worker on the verge of landing a full-time offer - gets a call that his older brother Junior is released from prison, he drives 400 miles to haul him home down the Northern California coast. What starts as an obligation becomes something neither of them expected: a darkly comic and bittersweet collision between two men shaped by a world built for neither of them.

Jesus Beltran, Writer/Director
Alan Luna, Producer

Phoebe Robinson

Bio

Phoebe Robinson

Phoebe Robinson is a standup comedian, bestselling author, producer, actress, and publisher. Her second special, I Don’t Wanna Work Anymore, premiered October 7, 2025 on YouTube, and she is currently on her new “Feral and Fired Up” standup tour. She’s the author of You Can’t Touch My Hair, Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay, and Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes, and the founder of Tiny Reparations Books. Robinson co-created and starred in 2 Dope Queens (podcast and HBO), and her other work includes Everything’s Trash and Sorry, Harriet Tubman, both produced by her company, Tiny Reparations. She is a recipient of Variety’s Comedy Innovator Award.

Kellyn Smith Kenny

Bio

Kellyn Smith Kenny

Kellyn Smith Kenny is a globally recognized marketing leader known for her analytical expertise, customer insight, and ability to drive growth through high-performing teams. As Chief Marketing & Growth Officer at AT&T, she leads efforts to enhance customer acquisition, lifetime value, and brand transformation, overseeing marketing strategy, advertising, media, digital growth, and strategic partnerships. Previously, Kellyn served as Global CMO for Hilton Worldwide and held leadership roles at Uber, Capital One, and Microsoft. An Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow, she serves on multiple boards and is widely celebrated for her award-winning campaigns and contributions to marketing innovation.

Lilian T. Mehrel

Bio

Lilian T. Mehrel

Lilian T. Mehrel is an award-winning writer & director with a visionary sense of feeling and humor.

Her debut feature, Honeyjoon, premiered at Tribeca and won the world’s largest film production prize, the Tribeca AT&T Untold Stories Award, multiple audience awards and jury awards for Best Feature. It will open in NYC on June 10, 2026 at IFC, followed by LA, Chicago, and more theaters nationwide.

Lilian’s films have also screened at Palm Springs, Sao Paolo Mostra, Clermont-Ferrand, and the AmPav Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at Cannes. Her awards and selections include SFFILM Rainin, TorinoFilmLab, Film Independent Episodic Lab, Sloan Award, Nancy Malone Directing Award, Geri Ashur Screenwriting Award, Film Fatales Episodic Directing Shadow Workshop, CineQuaNonLab, NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, TFI Labs with YouTube/Google and Warner Media, and the Marcie Bloom Fellowship.

Lilian earned her MFA from NYU Tisch Grad Film with a PDS Fellowship, and her BA from Dartmouth with a Senior Fellowship. She also enjoys hip hop dance.

Isabel Sandoval

Bio

Isabel Sandoval

Isabel Sandoval is recognized as “one of the most exciting and multitalented filmmakers on the indie scene with a bold approach to cinematic style” by The Criterion Collection. Meanwhile, The Museum of Modern Art has recognized her as a “rarity among the young generation of Filipino filmmakers.”

Her debut feature, Señorita, premiered at Locarno. Her widely acclaimed third feature, Lingua Franca, premiered at Venice and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Her fourth feature Moonglow premiered at the 2026 Rotterdam Film Festival. She starred in the César Award-winning short film Maria Schneider 1983 directed by Elisabeth Subrin. She has been on the festival juries at Cannes, Locarno, BFI London, and Mumbai, and is a MacDowell and Yaddo Fellow.

She is currently developing her next feature, the 16th-century colonial drama Tropical Gothic, which won a development prize at the 2021 Berlinale Talents Project Market.

Her TV directing credits include the Emmy-nominated Under the Banner of Heaven starring Andrew Garfield and The Summer I Turned Pretty.

She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) in the Directors branch.

Moisés Zamora

Bio

Moisés Zamora

Moisés Zamora is an award-winning Mexican-American writer and filmmaker, best known as the creator, executive producer, and co-showrunner of global-hit Selena: The Series on Netflix, which won Best Dramatic Series at the Imagen Awards. He has also written for acclaimed shows including American Crime, Star, and Star Wars: The Bad Batch. He recently wrote and directed his first narrative short, Anne Frank’s First Kiss, a TikTok adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank in collaboration with the Anne Frank Fonds. To date, he has sold five TV series and is currently preparing to direct two feature films. Earlier in his career, Zamora produced and directed Young+Mexican, a feature documentary honored as Best Documentary by a Mexican Director at the Oaxaca FilmFest. He received the Binational Literary Prize for Young Novel Border of Words in Mexico for his Spanish-language novel. He was twenty-five years old.

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TAKE ME HOME

Anna cares for her aging parents in a fragile balance of meeting one another’s needs. When a Florida heat wave shatters their family and Anna’s routine, her future is uncertain until she creates a world where she can thrive.

Written & Directed by Liz Sargent

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HONEYJOON

A surprisingly sexy, darkly funny, life-affirming movie. Lela and her sensual daughter June take a trip to the romantic Azores after their major loss — with opposite ideas about why they’re there, how to grieve, and June’s tiny bikini. Between honeymooners, Woman Life Freedom, and their hot philosophical-surfer tour guide João, they find each other… coming back to life.

Written & Directed by Lilian T. Mehrel

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COLOR BOOK

Following the passing of his wife, a devoted father learns to raise his son with Down syndrome as a single parent. Through their journey to a professional baseball game, he fights to keep his promise to his child while healing from the loss of his significant other.

Written & Directed by David Fortune

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SMOKING TIGERS

Set in Los Angeles in the early 2000s, Smoking Tigers is a portrait of a lonely 16-year-old Korean American girl named Hayoung who is taken under the wings of three wealthy students she meets at an elite academic boot-camp. As she falls deeper into their world, Hayoung works harder to hide her problematic family and lower-income background from her new friends, only to discover the bittersweet pains of adulthood that will forever shape her life.

Written & Directed by So Young Shelly Yo

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LAND OF GOLD

First-generation Punjabi truck driver Kiran is about to become a father, but his irresponsibility is alienating everyone close to him. When he hears pounding on a shipping container at work and discovers an undocumented girl named Elena inside, everything changes as he sets out on a cross-country road-trip in search of her family. Over the arduous journey, the pair evade the police while feuding and bonding over music, paint swatches, and what it means to be seen as “other” in white America.

Written & Directed by Nardeep Khurmi

HBO Max
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MARVELOUS AND THE BLACK HOLE

Teenage delinquent Sammy Ko teams up with a surly children's party magician on a bizarre adventure to navigate her tumultuous home life and inner demons. A coming-of-age comedy that touches on unlikely friendships, grief, and finding hope in the darkest moments.

Written & Directed by Kate Tsang

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LUCKY GRANDMA

Set in New York City’s Chinatown, the film follows an ornery, chain-smoking Chinese grandma who goes all in at the casino, landing herself on the wrong side of luck… and in the middle of a gang war.

Directed and Co-written by Sasie Sealy
Co-written by Angela Cheng

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NIGERIAN PRINCE

A troubled American teenager, sent away to his mother's native Nigeria, finds himself entangled in a dangerous web of scams and corruption with a con-artist cousin as his guide.

Written and Directed by Faraday Okoro

Neflix
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