Ariella Stoian – 2026 Fellini Award Winner
Life as a Mesoplankton
After her father’s death, Mab (13) returns to the hospital where he died and, by helping terminally ill George (10) chase his dream of becoming a marine biologist, learns to live with loss.
My name is Ariella. I grew up between Australia, Romania and Italy, and I’m now based in London, UK. I’m a screenwriter and playwright drawn to character-driven stories where grief, magic and small ruptures in reality shift how people live together. My work often sits at the meeting point of science, the wild and wonder — where the strange seeps quietly into the everyday.
My writing spans contemporary realism, speculative fiction and magic realism, grounding the fantastical in human hearts through a lyrical lens. I’m particularly interested in character-driven comedy that arises from voice, relationship dynamics and whimsy. Across screen and theatre, I write formally playful, genre-blended work, especially stories about young people, queer folk and women navigating intimacy, anger, tenderness and the costs of closeness. I like holding care and brutality in the same frame.
Life as a Mesoplankton developed from thinking about children who spend long stretches inside hospitals, and how it changes you to grow up in proximity to death. I wanted to write about two kids who refuse to flatten into tragedy — who argue, joke, obsess over immortal jellyfish, find each other — and who use science, art and imagination as a way of living joyfully, often mischievously, with the ache of loss.
I trained in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (UK). My plays have been longlisted for the BBC Writersroom Popcorn Award (HIVE, 2023) and the Paines Plough Women’s Playwriting Prize (2023), and shortlisted for Theatre503’s International Playwriting Award (To be a bat, 2023).
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