LINDIWE SUTTLE MUELLER-WESTERNHAGEN

is a 44-year old black, female songwriter turned screenwriter. Her first short film, Desmond’s Not Here Anymore, won the 2019 HollyShorts Screenplay contest. In 2020, Lindiwe was voted one of the Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch by the International Screenwriters’ Association. She is a MBA graduate, Stowe Story Labs alumni, UCLA Writers’ Studio Program 2021 graduate and currently taking classes at the Harvard University graduate writing program.
A MBA class gave Lindiwe an opportunity to enter into the Atlanta film industry. On her first film job, she went from the Costume Department P.A. to Beyoncé’s personal costumer, then worked on a HBO period film with Cynthia Nixon and Kenneth Branagh and two Tyler Perry films. This is where Lindiwe learned how movies were made and fell in love in with filmmaking.

But her love for film and TV were already flowing through her veins. “I was a latchkey kid, so I watched a lot of TV and film. Crying while watching ET in the back of my parent’s station wagon in a drive-thru, dazzling over Dorothy’s red slippers which led to a forever love with all things sparkly, mesmerizing at Diana Ross’s depth in Mahogany at 7-years old, yup 7. Dancing till my feet hurt from the Thriller short film, understanding comedy through The Carol Burnett Show and I Love Lucy, learning about friendship from The Goonies and Stand by Me, and having to sleep in my parents bed… at 14 because I couldn’t shake Kathy Bates’s face from Misery. It all has shaped me.”

As the daughter of a South African mother and an America father, her many stories of her stories are about cultural family dynamics. She grew up with a mother who created and hosted South Africa’s first TV talk show and an author father and this was the backdrop where Lindiwe learned the power of words and sharing stories that impact our world. “My characters are mostly black females. Women that fight to break stigmas, rebels that show their human spirit rise up time and time again, and labeled outcasts that stand up against social norms. Writing feels like I have found myself, I call it… my beautiful torture.”

Social Media @lindiwesuttle