The Producers Guild of America announced the 10 producers and producing teams invited to take part in its inaugural PGA Create lab for emerging and mid-career creative producers. The program's focus is on supporting producers from underrepresented backgrounds. The Producers Guild also announced Google as the lead sponsor of PGA Create.
PGA Create sponsored by Google will be held October 25 through October 28 and will showcase creative producers and producing teams actively developing, financing and packaging scripted features and series. Participants will have opportunities to hone their project pitches, attend master classes with experienced producers and build their network of fellow producers. As the sole sponsor of this important initiative, Google will be providing an array of resources to help nurture talent from underrepresented communities. Google will be contributing meaningful funding along with a variety of products as a way to help the recipients throughout their creative journeys. PGA Create is designed to provide touch points over the span of one year, including an invitation for participants of its Scripted and Documentary cycles to re-convene during the PGA Create Forum, a new day-long event held during the Guild's signature Produced By Conference in June 2022.
"Google's significant support of this important PGA initiative championing diversity, equity and inclusion is critical to driving change in the industry," said Gail Berman and Lucy Fisher, PGA Presidents. "We're thrilled to have Google join us as we embark on this new program to build up the next generation of creative producers."
"At Google we are committed to amplifying diverse and underrepresented voices, which is why we're so proud to be partnering with the Producers Guild of America on their first ever PGA Create Program this fall," said Elle Roth-Brunet, Google Assistant's Entertainment Partnership Lead. "This new platform will be an invaluable support system for these 10 emerging creatives to take the next step in their career."
The partnership with the PGA was negotiated by UTA Marketing, which represents Google.
Producers and producing teams invited to participate in PGA Create sponsored by Google include:
Features
- Ashley Flores, Writer/Producer and Sabrina Ehlert, Producer, Madrigal 10 | Inspired by true events in 1970, an idealistic Latina lawyer discovers that LA county hospital is performing illegal sterilizations on Latina women and must rally the mothers to go into an impossible fight.
- Beverley Gordon, Producer, Experience | Set in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, a lonely, emotionally scarred African-American bus driver, estranged from her family and grieving for her sister, discovers a beautiful love doll on her bus, and begins a journey to find its owner and heal herself.
- Nasir Kenneth Ferebee and Quan Lateef-Hill, Producers, Give The Drummer Some | A teenage girl and her friends start a female music rebellion and struggle to survive in 1980's crack and crime-ridden Washington D.C.
- Gia Rigoli, Producer, The Weight Of Land | When a family of Latino ranch hands become ranch owners, small-town politics and violent land feuds drive a wedge between the Estradas and their small Arizona town.
- Sav Rodgers, Writer/Producer and Alex Schmider, Producer, I Love You, Felix McNeil | Transgender teenage boy Felix McNeil’s high school start was nearly ordinary — breaking an arm, crushing hard, and juggling the inevitable woes of adolescence — but when a larger-than-life, boundlessly supportive A-list actress/imaginary friend falls into his world from a billboard, things take a turn for the extraordinary.
- Rabia Sultana, Producer, Mala Sangre | A Ngäbe indigenous healer finds herself confronted by an intrusive archaeologist obsessed with unlocking the mystery of a sacred site. Her faith is tested when ancestral spirits insist that helping the foreign woman is the only way to save her people.
Series
- Ken Arquelio and Juan Pablo Arias Muñoz, Writer/Creators/EP, Desert Rats | After the death of his best friend, a used car salesman undergoing a mid-life crisis, quits his job, and decides to sell luxury real estate after blackmailing a wealthy Palm Springs porn producer who murders her elderly husband.
- Rashad Chambers, Writer/Creator/EP, Outliers | Two young black executives go on a journey of self-discovery as they hustle to build an empire that can take down the antiquated old boys' network.
- Marissa Diaz, EP/Creator, The Real And Magical Diaries Of Luna Icaza | Luna inherits her grandmother’s magic on the night of her quinceañera and uses her new power to tame the ancient Mexican mythological creatures that come to destroy her hometown.
- Elisha Miranda, Writer/Producer and Audrey Seda, Producer, The Chronicles Of Eva | When a teen girls’ mother is deported back to her country, she discovers her super power of drawing pictures that come to life, she must then decide: save her mother or use her power to make America “nice” again.
The Final Selection Panel was chaired by Tonya Lewis Lee (Co-Founder, ToniK Productions) and Lori McCreary (Madam Secretary) and included: Stephanie Allain (Homegrown Pictures); Mike Farah (CEO, Funny Or Die); Donna Gigliotti (Hidden Figures); Charles Howard (Kaon Interactive); Jon Kilik (The Hunger Games); Mike Larocca (Co-Founder, AGBO); Tia Smith (talentedSOL productions); Shelby Stone (ID8 Multimedia); Roxanne Avent Taylor (CEO, Hidden Empire Films); and Pam Veasey (Long Slow Exhale).
PGA Create was developed through the PGA One Guild initiative, which supports inclusive membership, employment, content, and authentic depictions. Spearheading One Guild are Chairs Tonya Lewis Lee and Lori McCreary.
The PGA Create program is a reimagining of the longstanding Power of Diversity Master Workshop, which concluded its 18th edition in 2020.
Applications for the Documentary cycle of PGA Create sponsored by Google will open this winter. For more information, please visit: producersguild.org/pgacreate.
