As of early 2026,

our mentorship program is on pause.

We’ll relaunch it in a few months,

check back in soon!

Our mentorship program offers creative and practical guidance on the filmmaking process and helps plug directors into the funding, crewing, and distribution networks necessary to realize their visions.  We specifically target filmmakers who— because of who they are, where they are, or what they are making– face seemingly insurmountable odds to realize their vision.  

Bringing to bear our multitude of experience overcoming the challenges of making Beasts of the Southern Wild in South Louisiana and Wendy in the Caribbean, we’ve been able to offer filmmakers one-on-one personalized support to overcome the array of difficulties in their uniquely challenging first projects.

Here are some inspiring stories about a few of our former mentees:

  • Phillip Youmans’ participation in a Court 13 high-school filmmaking workshop in 2018 led to us supporting his feature film Burning Cane. Through our mentorship program, he was able to secure the producers, finishing funds, and industry connections needed to complete and release the film. One year later, Phillip became the youngest and first African-American director to win the Founder’s Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival, as well being the youngest director ever to have a feature film compete in the festival, at age 19. Burning Cane went on to receive distribution by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY and was released on Netflix. Phillip was nominated for a Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Director and a Film Independent Spirit Award for his work. His second feature, Magnolia Bloom, is now being produced by Made with Love productions.

  • Court 13 supported environmental-biologist Emilia Mello in her transition to filmmaking as she undertook documenting the Caiçara people on a remote peninsula of coastal Brazil, completely by herself. The film began as a documentary about a beach soccer tournament but over seven years of collaboration, transformed into an intimate and complex ethnography of a unique and endangered culture. No Kings went on to receive support from the Tribeca Film Institute, AJC!, and dok.incubator and screened at 7 international film festivals to date including MoMA Doc Fortnight, Camden International Film Festival, CPH:DOX and True/False. Her second feature La Chimica about the Nicaraguan student protest movement is currently in development with Saboteur Media.

  • Court 13 met Shabier Kirchner during the production of Wendy on his native island of Antigua. The aspiring cinematographer joined the team for scouting and casting and would eventually take charge of the second unit cinematography for the film. With support from Court 13, Shabier was able to immigrate to the US and launch a career in cinematography that has led to 8 shorts, 6 feature films, and winning the New York Film Critics Circle and British Academy Television Craft awards for best cinematography on Steve McQueen’s Small Axe (2020). He also directed the award-winning short Dadli (2018) and is in development on his feature debut.