We’re very proud and very excited to introduce our inaugural cohort of MAST fellows. This extraordinary group’s projects include 3 animation, 3 documentary, and 2 narrative films, with topics ranging from displaced workers, to traditional stories of Mexico, to Burning Man, to restoring sight to the blind.

Each fellow will receive a grant of between $5,000 and $10,000 towards completion of a project milestone in 2019, mentorship, training through MAST labs, production resources from educational and industry partners, support and collaboration from MAST and the fellowship cohort, and distribution introductions. In total, MAST is giving out over $100k in support to these fellows.

The MAST fellowship is designed to support the career development of independent artists, and further build Salt Lake City and Utah as production hubs—both by supporting artists currently residing in Utah, and importing artists to live, work, or collaborate in Utah.

Drumroll please! The 2019 fellows are (in alphabetical order):

	Gabriela Badillo 	(animation)			A MAST Voices Seen Contest Winner
	David Cummmins	(narrative live-action)
	Andrew James		(documentary)			A MAST Micro-docs Contest Winner
	Nancy Kangas		(animation)
	Jill Orschel		(documentary)
	Tim Rowberry		(animation)
	Cole Sax		(documentary)			A MAST Micro-docs Contest Winner
	Shaandiin Tome		(narrative live-action)

We could not be more pleased with our results. The level of talent flowing through both our contests and our fellowship is top notch. Now we get to support these artists, be a part of their development and success. And its owed to the generosity of donors like Robin M. Woods who see the critical value of building artists from diverse backgrounds telling unique stories that in the end, bring us all closer.

"MAST is awesome! This kind of trust and support means so much." —Gabriela Badillo

"Many thanks to everyone supporting MAST." —Jill Orschel

"It’s an honor to be part of it." —David Cummins

"I’m thrilled!" —Andrew James

MAST will present the outputs of its 2019 fellowship cohort in early 2020, but we'll also publish regular updates and previews to our “Small Screenings” streaming area here at maststudio.org.

Onward!