The Sundance Institute has celebrated the filmmakers selected for the 2026 Merata Mita Fellowship and the Graton Fellowship.
The fellows were announced at the Native Forum Celebration presented by Merrell during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
The Merata Mita Fellowship is given each year to an Indigenous woman-identified artist looking to direct a feature film, and it is named after late Māori filmmaker Merata Mita. This year’s Merata Mita fellow is Masami Kawai (Ryukyuan).
The Graton Fellowship, now in its third year, provides support to Indigenous storytellers from California-based tribes.
This year’s Graton fellows are Isabella Madrigal (Cahuilla, Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) and Tsanavi Spoonhunter (Northern Arapaho and Northern Paiute).
“The Indigenous Program is excited to be supporting Masami, Isabella, and Tsanavi and their respective films,” said Adam Piron, director, Sundance Institute Indigenous Program.
“Their work spans many different formal approaches, and both the Merata Mita and Graton Fellowships have generously allowed our programme to expand the way in which we are able to increase the ways in which we meet these artists and their projects where they’re at and to help them step up to their next phases of production.
“They have been catalytic to this new era of Indigenous cinema.”
Merata Mita fellow Masami Kawai is a Los Angeles–born, Oregon-based filmmaker. She’s of Ryukyuan descent from the island of Amami. Her work, which integrates issues of race, class, and Indigeneity in the United States, has screened globally. She was a 2023 Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Lab fellow.
“It’s a tremendous honour to receive the Merata Mita Fellowship,” said Kawai.
“Mita’s life and work give me the courage to be the kind of filmmaker I am. She has paved a path that shows I can simultaneously be a filmmaker, educator, and mother, with each role enriching the others, making me a more engaged artist.
“I am also inspired by Mita’s mentorship of Indigenous filmmakers at Sundance, which has helped the diaspora reconnect with their Indigeneity and fostered a vibrant global Indigenous community that I am eager to contribute to.”
Graton fellow Tsanavi Spoonhunter is a Northern Arapaho and Northern Paiute non-fiction storyteller based in Northern Nevada who serves as director, producer, and writer. She holds a Master’s of Journalism degree from the University of California, Berkeley, concentrating in documentary film. In 2023, she founded the independent multimedia company Mahebe Media.
“It’s a true honour and privilege to be selected for the Graton Fellowship at the Sundance Institute,” said Spoonhunter.
“I’m humbled to have been born and raised among my Paiute people in California – it has cultivated an immense sense of pride in who I am and has inspired so much of my work, which is the purpose for this California-based fellowship.
“I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, especially the current tribal chairman, Greg Sarris, who has been previously supported by the Institute and its revered founder, Robert Redford.”
Graton fellow Isabella Madrigal (enrolled Cahuilla, Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) is a writer-director-actor. She is a Harvard alum, a 2025 Sundance Institute Native Lab fellow, a winner of the Yale Young Native Playwrights Contest, and a Native Theater Project MMIR Awareness awardee.
Her work in film/theater often centres ancestral wisdom, healing, and Indigenous futurisms.
“I am deeply honoured to receive the Graton Fellowship, supporting the development of my first feature film,” said Madrigal.
“This story began as a community theater play performed with Native communities across California, and I am thrilled to be able to reimagine this story for the screen.
“This project is informed by Cahuilla cosmology and created in dedication to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives. I hope to tell it in a good way, imagining how cultural wisdom can combat gender-based violence and empower Indigenous peoples.
“Achama to the Graton Rancheria Tribe and the Sundance Indigenous Program for investing in California Native storytelling.”
The Native Forum Celebration unites Sundance Institute Indigenous Program fellows, grantees, and alumni on Traditional Ute Nation Territory during the Sundance Film Festival.
At this annual event, the Merata Mita and Graton fellows are announced, and all Indigenous-led projects in the festival lineup and the 2025 Native Lab fellows are recognised alongside programme funders and contributors.
More information is available on the Sundance Institute website.
