Reel Sisters Screenwriting Retreat 2025

“Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people — the beauty within themselves,” — Langston Hughes

*Reel Sisters Screenwriting Retreat

RESTORE, REST & WRITE

Aug. 14-17, 2025

Registration: $500, plus Eventbrite fees ($450 before 6/30/25, Code: HarlemRetreat2025)

Add Saturday's Reiki Meditation Circle to your cart for $15!

*RETREAT includes free enrollment in Screenwriting Symposium: Using AI Tools In Writing Your Script!

Eligibility + Application: Writers must submit a synopsis (1 page maximum) and short sample of their screenplay (10 pages maximum) with a short bio (2-3 sentences). At the end of the retreat, several screenwriters will have an opportunity to showcase an excerpt of their work at a staged reading hosted by Reel Sisters and BRIC in the fall. Writing teams are welcome. Slots are limited, Register ASAP!

Our writing retreat will be held in three different locations! We kick off in Brooklyn at BRIC and spend the next three days writing in Harlem!

Location (Aug. 14): BRIC, 647 Fulton, Brooklyn

Location (Aug. 15): Langston Hughes House, 20 W. 127 St., Harlem

Location (Aug. 16-17): Maysles Documentary Center, 343 Lenox Ave., Harlem

Legendary writers past and present have created great stories in Harlem and now it is your turn! Discover your muse in the streets, sounds, places and history of a community that launched the careers of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Lorraine Hansberry and James Baldwin, among other great writers. Recently, popular streaming shows Godfather of Harlem (Hulu) and Harlem (Amazon) illustrate the powerful role Harlem plays in sparking the imagination of storytellers worldwide.

Reel Sisters Screenwriting Retreat will offer you a chance to explore the esoteric side of Harlem’s hidden history while providing opportunities for you to “Restore, Rest & Write.” Our four-session course retreat is designed to give independent screenwriters the opportunity to work on scripts for television, film and streaming platforms like HBO, Netflix and Amazon.

Our Restore, Rest & Write Retreat is a perfect “staycation” for NYC writers to discover Harlem through new eyes and offer visiting writers a chance to explore a community with a rich cultural legacy.

You will work intensively while enjoying moments to visit historic Harlem locations, break bread with like-minded professionals and relax. Yes, relax. Breakthroughs happen when you have the space to restore your creative soul.

From our opening night dinner WITH SOUL FOOD AND CONVERSATION at Melba’s Restaurant to a writing session inside historic Langston Hughes House, you will partake in a nurturing experience. Connect to Harlem’s legendary past by joining our Harlem Renaissance walking tour and take a break from our intense writing session to join our Reiki Meditation Circle led by Harlem’s own Khuumba Ama.

Let our retreat be a gift to yourself to discover “the beauty within” and your first step in finishing a final revision of your script.

Award-winning producer/director/writer Jennica Carmona will lead you in your goal to refine and prepare your script for production.

Goals & Outcomes

Leave our retreat with script notes, a working elevator pitch and a network of professional accountability partners who will support you in completing your final script for tv, film or digital media. Have an opportunity to be one of four writers selected for a staged table reading of your work presented by Reel Sisters & BRIC in fall 2025. The staged reading will be aired on BRIC’s cable streaming station and Reel Sisters’ vast social media outlets!

• Work collectively with seasoned professionals to revise a script for professional production consideration for a major film, tv or streaming outlet.

• One on One script coverage and consultation with our instructor (Value: $250)

• Free automatic enrollment into Reel Sisters + BRIC Screenwriting Symposium held on Aug. 14, 2025, 1 pm-5:30 pm.

• Peer to Peer script note sessions

• Shared meal & social gatherings to create a nurturing environment and opportunity to bond with professional filmmakers in the field. Eat at Harlem’s famous Melba’s restaurant!

• Harlem is the birthplace to many historical writers and artists — revise your script in a cultural mecca that continues to inspire artists worldwide!

• Develop your script in the Langston Hughes House and Maysles Documentary Center, two historic venues renowned for writing and filmmaking, respectively.

• Enjoy a personal Harlem Renaissance Walking Tour and uncover hidden facts about one NYC’s cherished neighborhoods! Write your script in the inspired setting of Langston Hughes’ home!

INSTRUCTOR BIO

Jennica Carmona

Her first feature film, Millie and the Lords, won several awards on the film festival circuit and was sold to HBO/Cinemax shortly after its release. The film, which was inspired by the revolutionary Puerto Rican civil rights group, The Young Lords, has been screened at numerous colleges and universities throughout the country. In 2021, Jennica was commissioned by the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival to create a short documentary film, “Fuerza Y Poder”, with young Latino students in the South Philadelphia area. The film explored how the power of community helped them to overcome challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most recently, Jennica wrote and directed a short film, “The Fellowship”, with the senior students at Pace University, which explored issues of race, class, and privilege in an elitist private college.

Jennica has worked as a Film and Theater Educator for many years for various organizations, including Montclair Film, the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival, Fleisher Art Memorial, Big Picture Alliance, and more. She has also worked as a Programmer for film festivals such as Reel Sisters Film Festival and the New Jersey Jewish Film Festival. Jennica currently works as the Documentary Programmer for the Atlanta Film Festival, and as an Associate Professor in the Film Department at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is an active member of FILM FATALES, a national non-profit organization dedicated to creating equity for women in the filmmaking industry. Born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico and raised in Rochester, NY, she is a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.

She is a proud co-founder of Si Se Puede Productions, a theatre and film production company that creates material with social justice themes. Info: www.sisepuedeproductions.org.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

BRIC Arts, 647 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, United States