Out Of Africa: Three Filmmakers Of African Descent Selected For 2026 Sundance Institute Ignite X Adobe Fellowship
Three African Filmmakers Join 2026 Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellowship … The Sundance Institute has announced the names of up-and-coming filmmakers who will take part in the 2026 Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe Fellowship, with three creatives of African descent making the list. Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe fellows receive a $5,000 artist grant, as […]
Black News 
Three African Filmmakers Join 2026 Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellowship …
The Sundance Institute has announced the names of up-and-coming filmmakers who will take part in the 2026 Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe Fellowship, with three creatives of African descent making the list.
Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe fellows receive a $5,000 artist grant, as well as a one-year complimentary membership to Adobe Creative Cloud, to help propel them at this stage of their careers. Following the in-person lab in June, participants join monthly webinars focused on creative and professional development alongside the Ignite cohort. Fellows will also gather in person again for a curated programme at the 2027 Sundance Film Festival in Boulder, Colorado. This year’s cohort was selected from more than 1,100 applications from around the world.
“It’s with great pleasure that we return to MASS MoCA to kick off a new year with our Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe fellows. The filmmakers selected represent an exciting cross section of perspectives, and we’re appreciative of our partners at Adobe for their collaboration in bringing the group together this week,” said Toby Brooks, Director of Sundance Institute Ignite. “Our team is looking forward to facilitating a dynamic cohort of emerging filmmakers and connecting them with the tools needed to build a solid foundation for their careers in this coming year and beyond. Ignite is first and foremost a community — of alumni and mentors alike — and we’re thrilled to welcome these fellows into it.”
“Every filmmaker deserves the chance to bring their vision to life. Together with the Sundance Institute, we’re working to make sure access to tools and funding is never what stands between a creator and their story“, said Amy While, Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Adobe. “Over 15 years as partners, we’ve seen firsthand what happens when emerging filmmakers get that support and we couldn’t be more excited to see what the new cohort of fellows brings to the screen.”
The three filmmakers of African heritage who will be part of this year’s Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe cohort are:
Aicha Cherif: A Guinean-born director based in New York City who is drawn to storytelling as a means of excavation and to the emotional architectures that shape how we belong to one another. Her documentary Heat screened in Film Forum’s Tenement Stories, a century-spanning New York City retrospective, where she was the youngest director.
Simisolaoluwa Akande: A Nigerian-British multi-award-winning artist whose work spans fiction and speculative nonfiction. Grounded in queer African epistemologies, her practice challenges dominant narratives around African identity, memory, and representation.
Yace Sula: A Gambian-American non-binary filmmaker who often works in the experimental arena. Their films have screened at festivals such as the New York Film Festival, Fantasia Film Festival, and Ann Arbor Film Festival. In 2025, they were named one of Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”
Since its founding in 2015, the Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe Fellowship has had 19 alumni projects selected to screen at the Sundance Film Festival, with several winning jury awards. Former Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe fellows have also won prizes at SXSW and the Tribeca Festival, as well as the Short Film Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination.
Earlier this year, the fellowship expanded to include a new short film fund available to Ignite alumni, supporting more projects as they move from concept to screen in the coming years. This direct-to-creator pathway aims to foster a more inclusive, innovative, and creator-driven entertainment ecosystem, one in which technology helps unlock limitless creativity.
Sundance Institute Ignite is supported by Adobe and Arison Arts Foundation.
