Lauryn Darden is a screenwriter-director committed to telling stories that help expand people’s understanding of diverse Black narratives and experiences. Much of her work centers the perspectives of older Black people - a perspective that is woefully underrepresented in film. Darden graduated in 2022 from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a focus in dramatic writing. Her feature screenplay The Later Years, a coming-of-age film that follows an elderly Black woman after she leaves her husband of 40 years, has won the National Black Film Festival for Best Original Script, Best Undergraduate Screenplay at the Fusion Film Festival, and was a Quarter Finalist for Final Draft’s Big Break Competition. Every story Darden writes and directs is created with an intention to provide a safe entertainment haven for Black people to feel seen, heard, and comforted through honest, gracious, and nuanced storytelling.