INDUSTRY 101 EVENT SERIES

Environment 101: Writing Climate Change
Wednesday, April 23, 2025 | 5-6:30 PM PT | Online

2025 marks the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, so this year we’re highlighting the reality of climate change, how writers who wish to weave this narrative into their stories can, and how to do so with scientific accuracy.

Join us as we examine what Hollywood’s gotten right (and wrong) on writing about climate change, what disaster films say about our collective consciousness, and where we go moving forward. Even one voice can make a difference!

Maikiko James
Senior Director of Programs, Women In Film (WIF)

Maikiko James is Senior Director of Programs of WIF, overseeing career advancement programs including Fellowships, Emerging Careers, and the WIF/Black List Episodic Lab. She co-founded INSIGHT, a WIF community for women of color in entertainment, in 2018. She previously produced impact campaigns with Active Voice, including those for Food Inc., Welcome to Shelbyville, Gideon’s Army, and Kids for Cash, and was a Special Project Advisor on the WIF-supported documentary Seeking Asian Female. Maikiko holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.

Ilyse McKimmie
Deputy Director, Sundance Institute Feature Film Program

Ilyse McKimmie is the Deputy Director for Sundance Institute's Feature Film Program. She oversees the Directors and Screenwriters Labs and the Screenwriters Intensive, provides year-round creative and strategic support to alumni filmmakers, and plays a key role in the Producers and Episodic Programs. Films developed at the Labs during her tenure include Dìdi (弟弟), A Thousand and One, Aftersun, Nanny, The 40-Year-Old Version, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, The Farewell, Sorry to Bother You, We the Animals, Beach Rats, Swiss Army Man, Diary of a Teenage Girl, Fruitvale Station, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Pariah, Sin Nombre, Red Road, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Paradise Now, and Maria Full of Grace, among many others. Before joining Sundance 25 years ago, she held positions at ICM and Red Wagon Entertainment. Her roots lie in the theater; her first job after graduating from UCLA was as a production stage manager in the Los Angeles theater scene.

Rishi Rajani
CEO, Hillman Grad

CEO Rishi Rajani oversees all divisions across Hillman Grad, guiding strategic direction and developing new business partnership deals with the likes of WBTV; Def Jam; Audible; and Zando. His producing credits include The Chi; Twenties; Boomerang; and The Forty-Year-Old Version, as well as upcoming A Thousand And One for Focus Features; Disney+’s Chang Can Dunk; Being Mary, which will premiere at this year’s SXSW; and Gifted & Black for Amazon Prime. Rajani also originated Indeed’s Rising Voices short film program, serves as an Executive Mentor for the Hillman Grad Mentorship lab, and launched a South Asian mentorship program under “The Salon.”

Michelle K. Sugihara
Executive Director & CEO, CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)

Michelle K. Sugihara is the Executive Director & CEO of CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment), the world’s longest-running non-profit organization creating opportunities and driving change for Asian and Pacific Islander success in Hollywood. She is a fourth generation Japanese American born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She graduated with honors from Claremont McKenna College with a dual major in Economics and Psychology and a minor in Asian American Studies, followed by a law degree from UCLA. Prior to joining CAPE, she was an entertainment attorney, film producer, and adjunct professor for the Claremont Colleges’ Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies.

A sought-after public speaker, Sugihara speaks around the world on Asian Representation in Media; Women in Entertainment; Inclusive Storytelling; Leadership; and other topics. She teaches “Improv for Lawyers” and has performed improv internationally.

Sugihara’s community involvement includes her roles as founding member of the Asian Pacific American Friends of the Theater, former Co-Chair of the Multicultural Bar Alliance of Southern California, member of PBS-SoCal Asian Pacific Islander Community Council, former VP of OCA-Greater Los Angeles, past president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Los Angeles County, past member of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles’s Executive Advisory Council, and past board member of the Japanese American Bar Association. Sugihara is a recipient of the City of Los Angeles R.I.S.E. (Recognizing Inspiring IndividualS Who Elevate and Empower) Award, KTLA 5 AAPI Visionaries Award, the prestigious National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s Best Lawyers Under 40 award, and the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Real Property Section’s Outstanding Young Lawyer award. She was named a “Rising Star” in Los Angeles Magazine’s Super Lawyer Rising Star section for seven years, an honor bestowed on only 2.5 percent of attorneys in the state each year.

Carmiel Banasky
VP of Editorial and Learning Initiatives, Good Energy

Carmiel Banasky is an award-winning short-story writer, novelist, and TV writer, staffing on the hit Amazon series, Undone, for which she wrote a climate-related episode in Season 2. She is the Head Writer and Executive Editor of the Good Energy Playbook for Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change, and she specializes in climate fiction in the TV and podcasts spaces. Carmiel is a Film Independent Fellow and the author of the critically-acclaimed novel The Suicide of Claire Bishop, which Publisher's Weekly calls a "tour de force.” Currently, she is showrunning a climate sci-fi podcast series for Wondery, and she is adapting a feminist cli-fi novel for TV. Her writing has appeared, among other places, in The Guardian, LA Review of Books, and on NPR. She also teaches climate short film classes for youth and adults, as well as climate writing workshops along the LA River. She spent four years on the road at writing fellowships, including time on a ship in the Arctic to study and write about the climate crisis. And she once tried her damndest to open a Planned Parenthood in Mississippi.