2026 Climate Storytelling Fellows
Eight bold voices explore climate justice stories in New York City in a new fellowship that emerged from our summer series, The City as Commons: New Stories of Climate Justice. Global Rise gathers storytellers, scientists, and environmental justice organizations to inspire collective imagination in building cultural narratives for a new landscape of climate solutions.
Fellows are now working hand-in-hand with the Global Rise creative team through workshops, mentoring, and peer exchange to shape their early-stage ideas. A selection of realized pitches will be presented in a public event during the Climate Film Festival in September. Fellows will also share moments from their creative evolution in developing stories for the future.
Aditi Desai
Public Power — (Feature film) In a near-future New York City, Energy Planner Maya stumbles onto an underground collective secretly powering the city with scavenged, community-generated energy. When the city finds out, a fight for power and who owns it begins.
Aditi Desai is a sustainability practitioner and storyteller. She was part of the founding team at Voltpost, an urban mobility startup named a TIME Best Invention and Fast Company World Changing Idea and holds a Master of Science from Columbia University's Climate School.
Alex Tillett Miller
Ember and Liberty — (Animated short film) After discovering two migratory birds taking refuge in a half-built New York City high-rise, a construction manager and his wife, an ornithologist, must come up with a plan to protect the birds and nature's place in the city.
Alex Tillett Miller is a clean energy technology professional and climate educator. She develops children's media narratives that highlight the incredible work already happening in communities, centering people's relationship to place as the true driver of climate progress.
Gabriel Henneman
Year of the Midea Twenty-One-Million Watt Air Conditioning Unit — (Feature film) It’s New York City’s first-ever heat wave stay-indoors mandate, and cooling systems around the city slowly fail. Four New Yorkers—a stubborn veteran, an overwhelmed doctor, a delivery driver chasing a better life, and a mortician—face the fallout, not knowing when, if, or in what twisted form relief will come.
Gabriel Henneman is a screenwriter and recent MFA graduate of NYU Tisch’s Dramatic Writing Department, where he was a two-time Sloan Science in Cinema Fellow. His work explores obsession, identity, and human connection through psychologically grounded genre storytelling.
Lev Brodinsky
Eruv — (Feature film) Nine days before a closeted Hasidic teenager’s wedding, the eruv wire surrounding his stifling Brooklyn neighborhood snaps during a heat wave, and he decides to venture beyond it. Seeking refuge in his estranged sister’s apartment, he experiences her community’s adaptation to climate change, forcing him to confront his ideas about the world, his identity, and the life he wants for himself.
Lev Brodinsky is a filmmaker with an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU as a Fulbright Scholar and an MFA in Film from Tel Aviv University. His scripts have won prizes at the HFF International Feature Pitching Event and the Missouri Stories Screenwriting Competition.
Sanya Panda
The Ultimate RenAIssance — (Feature film) It’s 2055, and a half-submerged Empire City is ruled by an authoritarian AI regime. State scientist Dr. Tropia searches for signs of life, finding Mariana Gonzalez, a member of a legendary climate collective. Gonzalez has the last relic of a losing revolution: a manifesto that could ignite the next one. But what is Dr. Tropia really searching for, and what will she do once she's found it?
Sanya Panda is an Earth scientist, emerging filmmaker, and climate advocate who has represented collaborative climate action perspectives at UN global forums. She believes the world is one family, and that collaboration—not competition—is key to climate resilience.
Sara Ali Bugaighis
Muskie — (Feature film) Based on true events, in 1966, a smog event kills a Brooklyn teenager and 167 other New Yorkers. A grieving mother’s fight for justice meets Maine senator Edmund Muskie’s decade-long battle against auto-industry lobbyists. Their collective efforts lead to the creation of the EPA, the existence of which is still being fought for today.
Sara Ali Bugaighis is an Arab American writer and producer based in New York City. Before pursuing writing full time, she worked in documentaries on shows like Generation Hustle (HBO) and Shark Week with Tracy Morgan (Discovery+). She holds an MFA from NYU Tisch's Department of Dramatic Writing.
Stephanie Dawson & William Reliford
The Land of Away — (Animated short film) After her teddy bear is thrown away, seven-year-old Melanie goes looking for it at the local landfill, befriending Lucia, a girl who lives nearby and suffers from asthma. But when Melanie gets the chance to retrieve her toy, it's at the cost of endangering Lucia's health. Melanie is forced to examine her relationship with waste, its impact on surrounding communities, and consumption for the first time.
Stephanie Dawson is a filmmaker and educator, currently a Producer for PBS's Great Performances with The WNET Group. “The Land of Away” is her first animated project, made with her uncle and mentor, William Reliford.
William Reliford is an award-winning visual effects artist and 3D animator with over 25 years of experience. As principal artist behind Real Images Visual Effects, he has a background in film production and creates high-quality VFX, forensic animations, and scientific visualizations.