FANIA IN THE FOREST is a fierce coming-of-age television pilot about a rebellious 16-year-old Jewish girl who escapes the Vilna ghetto and fights to earn her place among the male-dominated forest partisans. As she confronts both the brutality of the Nazi occupation and the resistance’s rigid ideas about what a girl can be, Fania discovers the cost and the power of refusing to stay in her place.

A Top 5 ScreenCraft Fellowship finalist and Austin Film Festival Pitch finalist, FANIA IN THE FOREST was most recently named to the 2026 Women’s List, recognizing the year’s top unproduced screenplays by women.

The reading runs approximately 75 minutes with no intermission, followed by a Q&A. FANIA IN THE FOREST is written by Lisa Kenner Grissom and directed by Genevieve Fowler. The team includes Noam Dromi, Executive Producer for Reboot Studios and Lauren Schaffel, Co-Producer.

Lisa Kenner Grissom is an award-winning screenwriter and playwright whose work engages dynamic social issues, often through a female lens. She's known for creating multi-layered characters, exploring the complexity of human emotions, and finding levity in discomfort. Since visiting Vilnius, Lithuania, she’s been exploring Jewish themes more deeply, including resistance, resilience, memory, and legacy. Her TV pilot, FANIA IN THE FOREST, is a Top 5 ScreenCraft Fellowship Finalist and an Austin Film Festival Pitch Finalist. Most recently, it was named to The 2026 Women’s List of top unproduced scripts. Originally from Boston and based in Los Angeles, Lisa is a graduate of Wesleyan University. lisakennergrissom.com IG: @lisa_kenner_grissom_

Genevieve Fowler is an LA and Chicago based director whose multidisciplinary performance works weave together memories of the past, present, and future to discover ways in which our current reality is questioned and sanguine futures are dreamed on. She has worked with The Kennedy Center, REDCAT Theater, The Tank Center for Sonic Arts, The Center for New Performance, California Institute for the Arts, the Braid, Amargosa Opera House, First Peoples Fund, The Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Lookingglass Theater, Chicago Dramatists, Big Bridge Consortium, Heritage Arts Company, The Special Olympics of Illinois, the senior citizen musical theater troupe Still Acting Up, among others. Genevieve is a company member of Collaboraction Theater Company, an artistic associate with Medina Theater Collective, a member of the Actors Studio West Director’s Unit, and the proud founder of ANTI-FRIEZE LA: Performance Festival. Genevieve holds an MFA in Directing from the CalArts School of Theater and a BA from Vassar College.