RespectAbility Entertainment Professionals Lab, Summer 2022
Sofie Lebow
Sofie Lebow is a writer-director based in Los Angeles who is passionate about mental health advocacy and sleep health. She creates women-centric stories through which she hopes to help those struggling, to break mental health stigmas, and inspire compassion.
She graduated from Colorado College with a degree in film and media studies and studied at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where she learned to shoot on 16mm. She found her love for writing in a three-walled classroom at a high school located 10 miles away from the nearest town. Students lived in wood cabins, chopped wood for shower fires, left their cellphones at home, and movies were a rarity, only passed around on a traveling hard drive. Many of her experiences here shape her writing.
She currently works to make films more sustainable and just finished writing her first television series. She previously interned at Innovative Artists and worked in development for an executive producer.
Learn More
After an extensive search and interview process, 20 individuals were invited to participate in the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s 2022 Entertainment Lab taking place June 7 – July 14, 2022. This 6-week, 18-session Lab aims to further develop and elevate the talent pipeline of diverse professionals with disabilities working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming. Participants include people with physical, cognitive, sensory, mental health, and other disabilities ranging in age from people in their 20’s through their 50’s. The Lab is a recipient of The Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award.
The Los Angeles Cohort of the 2022 Entertainment Lab is made possible with support by:
- Platinum Sponsors: Murray/Reese Foundation and Netflix
- Gold Sponsors: The Harnisch Foundation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and The Walt Disney Company
- Silver Sponsors: Hollywood Foreign Press Association Charitable Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, and NBCUniversal
- Location Sponsors: Bunim-Murray Productions, DreamWorks Animation, Endeavor, Lionsgate, Nielsen, and ROSIES Foundation
