The Sarasota Film Festival (SFF) continues to expand within the community and this year has announced a newly formed partnership with The Hermitage Artists Retreat to further the work done by the SFF Screenwriters Colony (SWC) and its continued relationship with the Nantucket Screenwriters Colony.

As part of this partnership, Nantucket Screenwriters Colony alumni John Henry Summerour and Saschka Unseld have been spending two weeks on the Hermitage Grounds in the company of other playwrights and visual artists, developing new projects for film and virtual reality storytelling. With the residency culminating on the closing weekend of SFF, the writers will participate in festival programming and celebrations, including Unseld serving on the documentary competition jury.

“To have these writers join us at the festival is a true honor, and their contributions to our growing artistic community really make a difference,” says SFF President Mark Famiglio, who also underwrote this year’s residency with the SWC Board of Directors. “The Sarasota Film Festival thrives off of our relationships with other organizations. To partner with the Screenwriters Colony is a great opportunity for us. It is perfectly accommodated on the grounds of The Hermitage Artists Retreat.”

Founded in Nantucket in 2002 by Buzzfeed cofounder John S. Johnson, the Nantucket Screenwriters Colony includes a flagship month-long October residency in Nantucket for feature film writers, an Episodic Comedy Colony, labs exploring narrative storytelling in Virtual Reality and now a growing collaboration with the Sarasota Film Festival to provide retreat opportunities in Florida for writers in a network with exciting new projects to develop. Alumni have gone on to create award-winning films, such as last year’s horror hit It Follows, and collaborate on a number of acclaimed television shows, such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.

The Sarasota Film Festival continues through April 9 with screenings at Regal Hollywood 20.