2026 New Voices Filmmaker Grant Recipients
Learn more about the 2026 New Voices Filmmaker Grant Recipients and their work!
2026 Grantees
STAR AMERASU (she/her)
Star Amerasu is a performance and new media artist whose work seamlessly integrates narrative film, music, and digital storytelling. A graduate of San Francisco Film School’s Digital Filmmaking Program, Star’s work explores identity, futurism, and desire, often with a humorous satirical lens. A former Outfest Artist-in-Residence, her debut short film, After Hours, executive produced by Elliot Page, premiered on the West Coast at Frameline Film Festival and on the East Coast at NewFest in 2024. She’s also a theatrical performer, having completed a run in Los Angeles at the New Theater Hollywood for Sam Anderson’s The Wolf is an Endangered Species and an off-Broadway run in Mickey Gooch’s Silverback Mountain, directed by Sam Lafrage, in 2026.
DEBORAH DEVYN CHUANG (they/them)
Deborah “Devyn” Chuang is a Taiwanese-American writer-director specializing in horror and body genre films that explore themes of identity and sexuality. Their debut short, Mom, if I Were a Vampire, premiered at NewFest in 2022 and has since grown into a queer cult favorite on Letterboxd. Devyn’s second short film, Strawberry Shortcake, premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it won Best Short Film in 2024. The film went on to receive a Special Jury Mention at the Women Make Waves International Film Festival in Taiwan and screened globally at over 20 festivals, including BFI Flare, Sitges, Fantasia, and Fantastic Fest. Devyn is currently developing Strawberry Shortcake into a feature film while finishing post-production on their latest short film, Trauma Dumpling, a horror-comedy starring Bai Ling. Trauma Dumpling is the winner of the 2025 Bridges/Larson Foundation production grant, and has received recognition from the Austin Film Festival and Vimeo. Devyn holds a B.S. from UC Berkeley and an MFA from Columbia University, where they teach screenwriting.
GEORGIA KRAUSE (they/them)
Georgia Krause (they/them) is a Seattle-based Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker telling empathetic stories set within elevated realities. Raised in North Carolina, Georgia moved around between the South and New England, briefly attending high school in Amsterdam, before going to NYU Tisch School of the Arts for film production. Through their documentary work, Georgia has worked on productions with National Geographic, PBS, ABC, and Netflix. Their work has screened at the 2025 United Nations Climate Summit, DOC NYC, the Jackson Wild Summit, Defy Film Fest, and was awarded the Founder’s Choice at the San Diego Environmental Film Festival. Georgia is interested in creating work that makes the misunderstood familiar, and that dances between the edges of harsh and soft. Outside of documentary filmmaking, you can find them climbing rocks and mountains.
AJ DUBLER (they/them) & CARMELA MURPHY (she/they)
AJ and Carmela are a stop motion filmmaking duo who create handcrafted, darkly whimsical, and intimate stories that explore queer transformation. They met in a puppet animation class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where they began their creative collaboration, and directed their debut film, A Bird Hit My Window and Now I’m a Lesbian. This film has played at over 80 film festivals around the world, including Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and Frameline, where they won the Colin Higgins Youth Filmmaker Award. They are currently based out of Denver, Colorado, where they are producing their next stop motion short film, God is a Pelican. Crafting every tiny brick, floorboard, and teacup, AJ and Carmela weave human hands directly into the fabric of their films.
The New Voices Filmmaker Grant is presented by
“By empowering the next generation of filmmakers, NewFest and Netflix will work to increase queer representation and support authentic stories that showcase the talent of storytellers”
– David Hatkoff, NewFest Executive Director