Justin Neal

JUSTIN NEAL is a US citizen and Canadian permanent resident through the Squamish Nation. He is a dramatic writer of offbeat narratives that weave comedy with high-stakes drama, creating uplifting tales of personal transformation. Neal is an alumni of the Norman Jewison Film Program Writers’ Lab (2022) at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto.

Neal’s screenplay The Skins Game received Telefilm development funding in 2021. His limited series project Boundary Bay (part of the 2022 Indigenous Screen Summit pitch event at BANFF), and his feature The Traveller, have been awarded development grants from the Indigenous Screen Office and Creative BC. His play, So Damn Proud, premiered in Vancouver in September 2021 to multiple sold out performances.

A selected artist for programs and residencies (including Banff Indigenous Playwrights Nest, Stowe Story Lab, Netflix/BANFF Diversity of Voices and others), prior to focusing on playwriting and screenwriting, Neal juggled a challenging career as a marketing and editorial producer in San Francisco and New York while participating in amateur theatre at night as a collaborator and performer.

He moved to his family’s traditional Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) territory in Vancouver to earn a Joint MFA in Creative Writing and Theatre from UBC in 2015.