NYU - New York University
04/16/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 04/16/2025 10:53
NYU’s Purple List Announces Four Winners for 2025
New York University announced the 2025 winners of the Purple List-the best production-ready screenplays from Tisch School of the Arts graduate film students and recent alumni-on April 16 at 721 Broadway in New York City. Industry veteran Rachel Chanoff will deliver the keynote, followed by staged readings of selected scenes from the screenplays.
Created in 2012 by NYU Graduate Film alumni Ashim Bhalla and Shandor Garrison, with faculty advisor John Tintori, the Purple List is modeled after filmmaker Franklin Leonard's Black List.
The 14th edition of the Purple List includes a coming-of-age comedy about a teen who receives a dire medical diagnosis, a family drama about a former star wrestler, a thriller set in the gambling underworld of Johannesburg, and a young woman's pursuit of justice in a close-knit Texas rodeo community.
The Purple List has 19 finished featured films to its credit. Since its inception, it has showcased 58 screenplays. Recent highlights include: Griffin in Summer by Nicholas Colia (2022 PL) which received its world premiere at Tribeca in 2024 and won Best US Narrative and Best Screenplay; In the Land of Brothers by Raha Amirfazli, a 2021 Purple List screenplay that premiered at Sundance in 2024 and won the Directing Award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition; and The Starling Girl, by Laurel Parmet, a 2019 Purple List selection that premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and received distribution from Bleecker Street Media.
Ash Mayfair's 2020 Purple List script, Skin of Youth, was released last month in Japan. Her debut feature, The Third Wife, (a 2015 winner) won the NETPAC Award at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Other Purple List filmmakers include Desiree Akhavan, Imran Khan, Shaka King, Cathy Yan, and Chloe Zhao.
The list continues to be a milestone for independent filmmakers who have fewer avenues to finance, produce, and distribute arthouse films, explains Bhalla.
"Our filmmakers hail from diverse backgrounds and corners of the globe, yet their projects are distinguished by a singular artistic voice and compelling directorial vision. At the Purple List, we acknowledge the urgent need to bolster support for the intimate, untold stories that define arthouse cinema. In the coming year, we will expand our operations to provide even greater assistance to our extraordinary filmmakers, ensuring that their unique narratives find the audiences they deserve," Bhalla says.
A panel of 82 judges representing producers, screenwriters, directors, editors, agents, and media selected the 2025 winners through a blind-read process.
The 2025 Purple List (in alphabetical order)
How I Learned to Die by Manya Glassman
When 16-year-old Iris learns she has a 60% chance of dying from a risky surgery, she chases a bucket list of teenage milestones on a journey that leads to unexpected discoveries. In preparing to die, Iris learns how to live in a world where happy endings are never guaranteed.
Glassman earned an MFA in film directing from NYU in 2024, including a proof-of-concept short of How I Learned to Die that was executive produced by Spike Lee. She has won numerous awards, including New England Best Director (2022) and Audience Pick (2021) at Flicker's Rhode Island International Film Festival.
Manya Glassman
Mandingo by Terrance Daye
Nearly a decade after a public scandal tears his family apart, former State Champion Wrestler Jafari Parks returns to the Long Island suburbs of his childhood and a future that remains uncertain for him and his family.
Terrance Daye
Daye graduated from Morehouse College and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. His film, Ship: A Visual Poem, won the 2020 Short Film Jury Award for U.S. Fiction at the Sundance Film Festival, and he has been honored by NewFest, Outfest, and The Wrap's Shortlist Film festivals. Day has assisted on Netflix, Disney+, and BET+ productions. Mandingo was a Top 10 selection in 20204's AT&T Untold Stories Competition.
Punter by Jason Adam Maselle
On his 14th birthday, Brett and his grifter father Harris must survive a day of chaos and deadly odds traversing Johannesburg's gambling underworld in order to hit one final horse racing bet that will save their family.
Jason Adam Maselle
Maselle is a BAFTA-nominated filmmaker from Johannesburg currently working in New York City. After graduating from NYU's graduate film program, Maselle had his work screened at numerous international and Oscar-qualifying film festivals. His short film, Punter, was executive produced by Spike Lee and won prizes at the Locarno Film Festival and the Austin Film Festival.
Sweetwater by Cassidy Batiz
A rural Texas teen's last summer in her hometown is upended when she suspects she's been assaulted at a friend's ranch party. As the daughter of a retired rodeo star, she must decide whether to pursue justice at the cost of being ostracized by her tight-knit community.
Batiz is a director/writer/editor from Dallas who now lives in Brooklyn and is a candidate for an MFA in film at NYU. Her narrative short film, Big Lot, has been screened at national festivals, and her upcoming documentary
Cassidy Batiz
short, Metal Dad, won the Alan Landsburg Documentary Production Award. Sweetwater has been selected for the 2025 NYU Production Lab Feature Development Studio.
About Tisch School of the Arts
For over 50 years, the NYU Tisch School of the Arts has drawn on the vast artistic and cultural resources of New York City and New York University to create an extraordinary training ground for the individual artist and scholar of the arts. Today, students learn their craft in a spirited, risk-taking environment that combines the professional training of a conservatory with the liberal arts education of a premier global university with campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, Shanghai and 11 academic centers around the world. Learn more at www.tisch.nyu.edu.