The Gotham Names 10 Series Creators To Watch At Inaugural TV Awards Ceremony

The Gotham

EXCLUSIVE: During their inaugural Gotham TV Awards ceremony in New York City, The Gotham Film & Media Institute, the group behind the annual film-centric Gotham Awards, named 10 Series Creators to Watch, as a means of recognizing rising series writers and creators with innovative vision and bold, risk-taking new series in development.

Those highlighted included Stephanie Adams-Santos, Abbesi Akhamie, Mithra B. Alavi, Aisha Amin, Elaine Hsieh Chou, Aizzah Fatima, Bat-Sheva Guez, Dallas Rico, Thea Rodgers and Craig T. Williams.

As honorees of The Gotham, the creators will have the opportunity to attend The Gotham Week Project Market, taking place September 30 through October 4 in New York City, where they will have access to the film and media industry as well as opportunities for representation. Selections were made possible thanks to The Gotham’s Expanding Communities partners, including Black Film Space, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Film Shop, Islamic Scholarship Fund, mamafilm, NALIP, Sundance Institute, and Women in Film. 

Honoring outstanding TV series and performances and celebrating industry icons, tonight’s Gotham TV Awards handed out honors in eight categories: Breakthrough Comedy Series, Breakthrough Drama Series, Breakthrough Limited Series, Breakthrough Nonfiction Series, Outstanding Performance in a Comedy Series, Outstanding Performance in a Drama Series, Outstanding Performance in a Limited Series and an Audience Award.

For more information about The Gotham’s Creators To Watch, read on.

Stephanie Adams-Santos

Stephanie Adams-Santos is a Guatemalan-American artist writer whose work spans poetry, prose, screenwriting, and illustration. Often grappling with themes of strangeness and belonging, their work reflects a fascination with the weird, numinous and primal forces that shape inner life. They are the author of several full-length poetry collections and chapbooks, including DREAM OF XIBALBA (selected by Jericho Brown as winner of the 2021 Orison Poetry Prize; finalist for a 2024 Oregon Book Award and Lambda Literary Award) and SWARM QUEEN’S CROWN (finalist for a 2016 Lambda Literary Award). Stephanie served as Staff Writer and Story Editor on the television anthology horror series TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORIES (Netflix), and was winner of a 2022 Gold Telly Award in TV Writing. They have received grants and fellowships from Sundance, Film Independent, Vermont Studio Center, Regional Arts and Culture Council, and Oregon Arts Commission. In addition to their literary work, Stephanie is creating an original tarot deck that blends poetry, animism, and ancestral magic.

Abbesi Akhamie

Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Abbesi Akhamie is a Nigerian-American filmmaker and educator working between Lagos and Washington DC. She received her MFA in Film from New York University and holds a BA in Communications from George Mason University. Her work focuses on Africa and diaspora experiences as well as the politics of culture and identity. Her debut short film, Still Water Runs Deep (2017), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won Best Student Short Film at Aspen ShortsFest. Her short film, The Couple Next Door (2020), premiered at Aspen ShortsFest, won the Audience Choice Award at the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival, and is streaming on the Criterion Collection. Currently, she is developing her debut feature film, “In My Father’s House,” as well as a proof-of-concept short film entitled “The Incredible Sensational Fiancée of Sèyí Àjàyí.” Abbesi was also selected to participate in the Black Rock Artist Residency based in Dakar, Senegal, founded by Obama presidential portraitist, Kehinde Wiley. As an artist, Abbesi has been recently supported by the Black Boy Black Girl Writes, Chanel Writer’s Network, Princess Grace Foundation and SFFILM Rainin Grant. When she is not diligently developing her projects, Abbesi teaches film producing to aspiring filmmakers.

Mithra B. Alavi

Named after the Zoroastrian “God of Light,” MITHRA B. ALAVI is an Iranian-American Muslim comedy writer, and graduate of the MFA Film program at Florida State University. Originally, from Tennessee, Mithra spent every Summer growing up in Iran and credits her mixed cultural background as the source of inspiration for her writing and directing. In January 2022 she participated in the Disney General Entertainment Writing Program and was hired as a staff writer for Season 2 of Freeform’s SINGLE DRUNK FEMALE where she co-wrote episode 206 “Keeping it Professional.” She was also selected for the Islamic Scholarship Fund’s inaugural Writers’ Lab, created with the support of Extracurricular and The Black List.

Mithra has written and directed short films including “Birds Fly Home,” which has played at several festivals including the Academy qualifying LA Shorts International Film Festival. It was also named Best Narrative Short at the Indie Spirit Film Festival and Best Drama Short at Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival. The script was selected as the Runner-Up for Screencraft’s Short Film Competition, Finalist for the Women in Film Production Program, and Finalist for Hollyshorts. Her previous short film, “Three’s a Crowd,” was a Student Emmy Award winner.  Her writing has received accolades from a number of competitions including Top 10 in Screencraft’s Action Adventure Screenplay Competition and Top 10 in Screencraft’s Fellowship Competition.

Aisha Amin

Aisha Amin is a NYC-based writer and director of Pakistani and Kenyan descent. Her practice spans across narrative, experimental and documentary forms. Her award winning short films have screened at festivals around the world. Aisha is interested in telling stories from the perspectives of young women who are the heroes of their own journeys. In 2024, she was selected to participate in the BlackList and Women in Film’s Episodic Lab. In 2023, she was selected as a Director in Color Creative’s inaugural For Your People Program. She is a 2023 Cine Qua Non Screenwriting Fellow. She is a 2022 recipient of the NYFA’s Women’s Fund and Tomorrow Land Grant. She was a recipient of the 2019-2020 Sally Burns Shenkman Woman Filmmaker Fellowship at the Jacob Burns Film Center where she directed two short documentaries. She is also a recipient of The Shed’s Open Call Fellowship. She’s had three films premiere as Vimeo Staff Picks and her short film Simone has won awards on the festival circuit. Aisha completed her MFA in Screenwriting at Columbia in 2024. She is currently working on a feature film in development that will be shot in rural Kansas.                                               

Elaine Hsieh Chou

Elaine Hsieh Chou is a Taiwanese American author and screenwriter from California. Described as “the funniest and most poignant novel of the year” by Vogue, her debut novel DISORIENTATION was a New York Times Editors’ Choice Book, an NPR Best Book of 2022 and an NYPL Young Lions Finalist. The novel was optioned by Apple TV+ for development as a feature, with Elaine adapting.

Elaine’s Pushcart Award-winning short fiction appears in Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Tin House Online, Ploughshares and The Atlantic. Her multi-genre short story collection, WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM, is forthcoming in 2025.

Elaine’s original pilot GET HOME SAFE was selected for the 2023 Sundance Episodic Lab. Following a three-way bidding war, she is currently in development with Legendary Entertainment on her half-hour animated comedy series, BANANA TREE GHOST. She is in pre-production on her first short film, a proof-of-concept for her dark comedy feature, MY BEST FRIEND’S DAD.

Aizzah Fatima

Aizzah Fatima is an award-winning filmmaker, actor, and comedian. Her feature Americanish which she co-wrote, produced, and starred in has received 25 festival awards, and was distributed by Sony International in 2023. She tours her critically acclaimed one woman play Dirty Paki Lingerie internationally and in the US including performing at The Edinburgh Fringe and New York Comedy Festival. Her TV pilot Muslim Girls DTF: Discuss Their Faith word premiered at SeriesFest, is the winner of the Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award as well as Yes, And…Laughter Lab, and was part of Gotham Week 2022. It is currently streaming on Fuse+. She is a 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction from The New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a 2021 Orchard Project Episodic Lab fellow with her pilot A.S.S. Crawler, and received her MFA in Writing for Film & Television from Emerson College.

Bat-Sheva Guez

Bat-Sheva Guez is an award-winning writer and director who weaves dance and magic into visually compelling, character-driven stories. Guez has written and directed over 20 short films and screened in festivals worldwide including the Hamptons International Film Fest, the Rhode Island Int’l Film Fest, the Newport Beach Film Fest and more.

She was a finalist for the Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship, the recipient of the JT3 Artist Award for Screenwriting & Directing and a Quarterfinalist for the Screencraft Pilot Competition. She was a participant in the New York Stage & Film Screenwriting Lab and has been awarded screenwriting residencies by the Lighthouse Film Festival and a full scholarship to the Nostros Screenwriting Retreat in Tuscany. 

She directed and co-wrote the pilot episode of READING RAINBOW LIVE, bringing back the beloved tv show to a new generation of viewers. She has also directed a segment for SESAME STREET.

Her award-winning film, IN THIS LIFE, was broadcast on ALL ARTS and PBS and has received press and accolades from NY Times, LA Review of Books, Forbes, and others. Her film BEHIND THE WALL also won eight awards during a successful festival tour including the Panavision Grant for BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY at the Oscar-qualifying Rhode Island Int’l Film Fest. Dance Magazine called it: “The Genre-Defying Dance film you didn’t know you needed in your life.”

She is a co-producer on the feature documentary, BEING BEBE, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and has received global distribution from OutTV,  Fuse, and Peacock among others.

Guez was also listed as one of Nine Screendance Artists You Should Know About by Dance Magazine.  

Dallas Rico

Dallas Rico, originally from — you guessed it — Dallas, TX, graduated from U.T. Austin with a degree in Film & Television, and spent several years as a high school Spanish teacher in Los Angeles and New York City while honing his voice as a writer. His work nimbly moves between comedy and drama, and through it he seeks to celebrate Black, queer, and blerd culture. Most recently, Dallas sold his pilot LESSONS to NBC and, through the Disney Writing Program, was staffed as a writer on Hulu’s REASONABLE DOUBT, where he co-wrote and produced the second season finale. As a hobby, he enjoys performing stand-up, so everyone can laugh at his dating mishaps.

Thea Rodgers

Thea Rodgers is a biracial American-Salvadoran writer and actress. Heart and humor lead her genre-bending narratives exploring the intricate relationships of the families we’re given and the families we create–inspired by her own parents. Her father was raised by a radical Episcopal priest in the political chaos of 1970’s San Francisco, and her mother was raised Catholic between the same city and small-town El Salvador, but both broke away from their families’ strict expectations to become actors themselves. Thea’s work is guided by the artistic curiosity, sky-high expectations, and strong moral compass her parents passed down to her–exploring how to forge our unique paths in life while honoring our deepest values, regardless of institutional teachings. Thea wrote on the Emmy-winning interactive Twitch series, Artificial: Factions, and was recently selected into the Women In Film x The Black List Episodic Lab. Thea is an alum of Mentorship Matters, a prestigious program where she was mentored by showrunner KC Perry. When not writing, Thea works for the non-profit HowlRound, a global resource center for theatre makers, and performs Shakespeare in English and Spanish.

Craig T. Williams

A native New Yorker, born in Harlem Hospital and raised in the Bronx, Craig is a writer and producer at Red Wall Productions, a film production company he founded over twenty years ago with his wife and partner of 22 years, Rosalyn Coleman Williams. Together, they have created over 50 film projects, including features, documentaries, and narrative short films.

His journey landed him his first staff writing job on the hit TV show “TERROR LAKE DRIVE” on ALLBLK, an AMC Streamer. Craig was part of the prestigious Warner Brothers Discovery TV Writer’s Program. His feature film “Black Boys Don’t Sew” was just part of the New York Stage and Film Filmmaker’s Workshop and has Academy Award Winner Viola Davis and Julius Tennon attached as Executive Producers.

Craig has many scripts in various stages of development including the award winning one-hour TV pilot “How Ya Like Me Now,” about the ’80s rap rivalry between Kool Moe Dee and LL Cool J., “Christmas In The Dreamhouse, a Movie Musical,” and a one hour procedural “Ghetto Twins” about two women born to the same father on the same day, who meet as adults and form an agency that reconnects lost family members. Craig wrote and produced the feature film “Game Nite” that premiered at 2024 Pan African Film Festival and is headed for distribution.

Craig is a mentor for Women of Color Unite’s Mentorship Program, The Craft Institute, and for teen filmmakers at Reel Works Mentorship Program in Brooklyn. He is the Executive Director of the newly launched Men of Color Unite (MOCU), a social action and 501(c) (3) non-profit organization that focuses on remedying the inequities that face Men of Color in today’s entertainment and media industries.