Yahoo Lifestyle The Black List & Cassian Elwes Name Natalie Baseman As Their Independent Screenwriting Fellow For 2025
EXCLUSIVE: The Black List and veteran producer Cassian Elwes have named Natalie Baseman as their Cassian Elwes Independent Screenwriting Fellow for 2025.
Elwes selected the up-and-coming screenwriter on the strength of Good Auntie, a dark comedy about a sharp-tongued stand-up comic who does everything she can to get out of fulfilling her dying sister’s last wish. A Nicholl Semifinalist, the project is currently in development with Tanbark Pictures.
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This year marks the 12th consecutive partnership between the Black List and Elwes to support a promising writer with independent sensibilities with in-person mentorship and exposure to the indie film world. While the fellowship typically sees Elwes accompany a writer to the Sundance Film Festival, the producer this time around offered Baseman an an all-expenses-paid trip to shadow him on the set of Dead Man’s Wire, a crime drama from Gus Van Sant shooting in Kentucky. Baseman also received an Online Industry Pass to Sundance 2025.
“Natalie is such a winner,” said Elwes. “Everyone she met loved her. All of us can’t wait to see her movie. I couldn’t be more grateful to the Black List.”
“It was an absolute honor to spend time with Cassian and the incredible crew of DEAD MAN’S WIRE on set in Louisville last month,” said Baseman. “Through our conversations, Cassian provided an insider’s view to indie filmmaking, financing, and production—one that is rarely available to writers. In what has been a few rough years for the industry, I’m so thankful to Cassian and the Black List for providing a pathway for writers to gain experience and get their work into the world. If there’s anyone who has the vision to bring filmmaking into its next hundred years, it’s Cassian and his team.”
Originally from Massachusetts, Baseman is behind the cooking-themed sketch show Feed Yourself, which is available on YouTube, and is a contributing writer for satire website Reductress. Since moving to Los Angeles, she’s worked on Comedy Bang! Bang! (IFC), American Housewife (ABC), Circe (HBO Max), and most recently, Dicktown (FXX). She holds an MFA in screenwriting from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and cut her teeth doing improv and sketch comedy in Boston and Los Angeles.
Participants in the Cassian Elwes fellowship are all unrepresented feature writers with an independent sensibility who have made less than $5,000 in aggregate in their film or television writing careers. Previous fellows include Tania Gunadi, Christopher Hwisu Kim, Leslie Nipkow, Aemilia Scott, Claire Ayoub, Emily Tomson, Heather Faris, John C. Hoffler Jr., Keely Lewis Wise, Terrell Garrett, Kristina Zacharias, Mike Harden, and Matthew Hickman.
“Yet again, Cassian has created a transformational opportunity for a special writer that we’re honored to have been a part of finding,” said Black List founder Franklin Leonard. “Inviting someone to Sundance is one thing. Inviting someone to the set during production of your Gus Van Sant-directed, Colman Domingo-starring project is quite another. Natalie couldn’t be more deserving. I’m personally looking forward to visiting her own set at some point in the hopefully not too distant future.”
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