Meet the 2025 SSL Cohort
We’d like to introduce the six Scripted Series Lab participants who are currently hard at work with our Showrunner in Residence, Nelu Handa.
From right to left:
Deborah Vogt is a screenwriter, playwright, and dramaturg / script reader with extensive experience in musical theatre, stand-up comedy, and TV. Her first TV pilot was selected out of 1000 applicants for Comedy 50:50’s Female Writers’ Initiative. Her play, BIG Sister was nominated for the Jessie Outstanding Original Script award, and her musical, Carry On won Pick of the Fringe. She is a proud alumnus of UBC, Goldsmiths University of London, and the Gulf Islands Film and Television School (RIP).
When she’s not writing, she is succumbing to the Vancouver pressures of trail running, gravel cycling, and plunging in unreasonably cold water.
Sam Kieran Macneil is a nonbinary and neurodivergent screenwriter and actor. Since graduating from Vancouver Film School’s Writing for Film and Television program in 2015, they’ve placed in multiple screenwriting competitions such as the PAGE Awards and GEMFest International Screenplay Competition, and continually work at keeping their imposter syndrome at bay. Most recently, Sam completed their first writing assignment for an independent feature film and quit their stable day job to wander into the unknown. Sam’s writing draws on queer and neurodivergent stories, striving to make them more accessible to their communities. When they’ve run out of notebooks, Sam can be found cross-stitching, playing Sims, or stress-eating a six-pack of muffins.
Mateo Gugushe studied at UBC, then joined the Writing for Film and TV Program at InFocus Film School where he quickly found his voice as a comedic writer. Interested in bringing Queer narratives to the forefront of television, he uses humour and genre to express the nuance and joys of his experience. When not writing, Mateo can be found playing gay volleyball on Sundays and regular volleyball during the week.
Corina Bizim is a Romanian-born screenwriter and actor who, despite earning both a commerce degree and her real estate license, has served on the TIFF Next Wave Committee, acted in numerous Film & TV projects, dabbled in the exciting (frustrating) world of producing indie short films, and was part of the 2023 cohort of the GEMS Emerging TV Producer’s Program. Corina is passionate about telling high-concept stories with a comedic flair, believing humor can solve most of life’s existential (and regular) problems. If all goes well, she hopes to create the kind of feel-good television that one day becomes her generation’s Friday night nostalgia.
Shaun Balbar grew up in a tiny Prairie town, then trained professionally in ballet and modern dance before finding success in front of the camera as a union actor, notably starring in acclaimed Canadian director Guy Maddin’s award-winning film The Heart of the World. An author of novels, stage plays, optioned features, and pilots, his work has achieved recognition in major writing competitions, including One Last Song, chosen by the Austin Film Festival judges for a live reading in 2022.
Cindy Hu is a Taiwanese-Canadian screenwriter and producer with several award-winning original shorts, a roster of original live-action and animated projects in her portfolio, and experience in animation production to her credit. Cindy holds an MFA in film production from Columbia University in New York and is the recipient of the John Rooney Scholarship for Writing from the Youth Media Alliance.