Winner, The Coletta Preacely-Garcia Diversity Fellowship 2026
BIO
Dani Hanks (they/she) is a disabled writer/director based in NYC. After winning the 2024 Austin Film Festival, they were named one of ISA’s Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch in 2025. Their Austin-winning script is having a live table read on the official podcast stage of SXSW in 2026.
Dani grew up elbow-deep in human organs at their mom’s pathology lab in Porterville, California. A direct result of inhaling too much formaldehyde in their formative years, they dove headfirst into the entertainment industry and received a BFA in Drama at NYU Tisch.
Drawing from their experience as the only purple-haired snowflake in a deeply conservative family, they promote empathy for underrepresented identities through offbeat stories centered around diverse found families. Dani approaches the taboo with both levity and nuance and loves finding humor in the mundane.
Dani has worked on projects in development at FilmRise, RKO, and Josephson Entertainment, and is a fellow of Stowe, Disability Belongs, and the WGAE SSTP. They are a full-time meme connoisseur, part-time AD, former member of Mensa, and have 10 years of experience cutting animal tissue for medical research (much to the dismay of their pet rats).