Meet the Mentors & Judges for the Screenwriters Lab!

Aug 11
5 min read

The SAS is thrilled to unveil an exceptional lineup of international industry heavyweights guiding the selected participants through our inaugural Screenwriters Lab, an initiative of IMDA's Talent Accelerator Programme presented by the Screenwriters Association (Singapore).

Our shortlisted screenwriters will embark on exclusive online masterclasses to refine their concepts alongside these master storytellers:

Emerging Track Mentor: UK Film and TV producer Rienkje Attoh (Noughts + Crosses, You Don't Know Me, The Shadow Scholars) 
Experienced Track Mentor: UK Screenwriter Holly Phillips (Get Even, Dance Academy, Nearly Famous)

Our finalists will pitch their developed projects live to a prestigious panel of judges, which includes:

Australian Writer/Director/Producer Stuart Beattie (Obi-Wan Kenobi, Collateral, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)
Korean creative producer Song Jin Sun (True Beauty, What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim, The Whirlwind)

Click here to submit your concept before 21st August 2026.

JUDGES

JIN SUN SONG

Jin Sun Song is a Korean creative producer, executive producer, and founder of Studio HaJI, a Seoul-based creative studio developing original Korean and Asian intellectual property for international television, film, and animation.

With more than two decades of experience in the Korean television and content industry, Song has worked across the full creative development process—from identifying source material and shaping original concepts to story development, adaptation strategy, series bibles, production, and long-form narrative architecture.

She began her career as a webtoon writer before moving into television as a story editor and development producer. She subsequently developed and led drama projects at SBS and Studio Dragon, two of Korea’s leading television and content companies. This background has given her a practical understanding of both the creator’s process and the demands of developing commercially viable series.

Her credits include Netflix’s political drama The Whirlwind, as well as What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim, True Beauty, Duty After School, Connect, Avengers’ Social Club, Live Up to Your Name, and Rugal. Her work spans political drama, romance, coming-of-age, science fiction, thriller, horror, women-led ensemble storytelling, and historical fantasy.

Through Studio HaJI, Song focuses on creator-led international development, adaptation, and cross-border co-production. She develops original and adapted projects in both live-action and animation with producers, writers, directors, studios, and industry organisations across Asia, North America, and Europe. Her current collaborations include partners in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Canada, and the United States.

Song’s particular strength lies in identifying the core dramatic engine of an intellectual property and developing it into a distinctive, sustainable series for global audiences. Her approach combines rigorous story structure with close attention to character, emotion, and cultural specificity. Rather than simply translating a local story for another market, she seeks the emotional question that can travel across cultures while preserving what makes the original material

singular.

With an academic background in law, Song also brings structural and strategic thinking to rights, adaptation, and international creative partnerships. In addition to developing her own slate, she works internationally as a mentor, lecturer, consultant, and industry judge, sharing her experience in Korean series development, adaptation architecture, series bibles, showrunner collaboration, and cross-border creative leadership.

STUART BEATTIE

Stuart Beattie is an Australian director, writer, and producer who has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 1992.

He’s best known for his screenplay for COLLATERAL, which earned him nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, Satellite Award for Best Original Screenplay and Saturn Award for Best Writing.

Stuart also wrote the screenplay for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, receiving a nomination for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Other key scripts include DERAILED, AUSTRALIA, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, 310 TO YUMA, and G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA.

Stuart’s role as director and writer of the 2010 film, TOMORROW WHEN THE WAR BEGAN, received the AACTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay along with several nominations by the Film Critics Circle Of Australia for best director and best screenplay.

Stuart also wrote and directed the Lionsgate fantasy-action film, I, FRANKENSTEIN, wrote and produced the Vietnam-war film, DANGER CLOSE: THE BATTLE OF LONG TAN, and wrote and produced the recent Netflix action film, INTERCEPTOR.

In television, Stuart wrote the award-winning Australian miniseries, DEADLINE GALLIPOLI, as well as the highly acclaimed Disney Plus limited series, STAR WARS: OBI-WAN KENOBI, and the Hulu limited series, FARAWAY DOWNS.

In theater, Stuart wrote the book for the hit Jim Steinman musical, BAT OUT OF HELL.

EXPERIENCED TRACK MENTOR

HOLLY PHILLIPS

Holly Phillips is best known for creating and showrunning YA series GET EVEN for NETFLIX and the BBC. She served as lead writer and creator of BAFTA and RTS nominated THE ATHENA for SKY TV. Previous credits include story editor and writer on Australian Series DANCE ACADEMY which (among others) won a LOGIE and an AWGIE. Holly also wrote and created the original series NEARLY FAMOUS for Channel 4. She was on the writing team for BAFTA nominated SUGAR RUSH for Channel 4.

Other credits include, ROBIN HOOD, MILLIE INBETWEEN, DEAD GORGEOUS, EVE, SO AWKWARD and Scandi Noir TRAPPED. Through her own production company, Adolescent Productions, Holly received development funding from the BFI for her original YA supernatural mystery series – THE VANISHING OF FRANKIE WILLIAMS.

She currently has original series in development with Silverprint Pictures, Cineflix Media and Kudos Productions. She is also currently adapting a hugely successful book series for Deadpan Pictures and Studio Canal.

Holly is a visiting tutor at the National Film and Television School on the Screenwriting MFA. She has also run writers’ labs for SKY TV and Access All Areas for neuro diverse and learning-disabled writers. A script development lab for Screenworks and Matchbox Pictures in Australia and given a Masterclass for the Children’s Media Conference.

EMERGING TRACK MENTOR

RIENKJE ATTOH

Rienkje Attoh is an award-winning film and television producer, story developer and former broadcast journalist whose work spans short and long-form fiction, animation and documentary.

Named one of Screen International’s UK and Ireland Stars of Tomorrow in 2020, she is a BAFTA member and an ICF-accredited coach, with over twenty years of experience across broadcast journalism and creative production. She began her career in news and entertainment with the BBC, ITN and Euronews, before moving into scripted and unscripted production, driven by a strong editorial instinct and a deep commitment to bold, untold narratives.

Her feature debut A Moving Image (dir. Shola Amoo), a multimedia exploration of gentrification in London, screened at Sundance, the London Film Festival and the LA Film Festival in 2016, the year her production company, So & So Productions, received a BFI Vision Award. Her subsequent credits include Pond Life (2018), starring Daisy Edgar-Jones; the BBC adaptation of Noughts + Crosses (2020), co-produced with Mammoth Screen in Cape Town; and You Don’t Know Me (2021) for BBC and Netflix. In 2024 she co-produced The Shadow Scholars, and continues to develop a distinctive slate including an untitled biopic on Sarah Forbes Bonetta with SunnyMarch, Edith’s Daughter starring Cynthia Erivo, a fantasy series on the Ghanaian Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa with Universal International Studios, and a documentary on musician Chief Adjuah.

An alumna of the National Film and Television School, where she also guest teaches, she runs Unfolding You, a coaching practice for creatives and screen professionals navigating change and reconnecting with their sense of direction.