The Turner Brothers have officially taken their talents from the Midwest to Park City, Utah.
In their Sundance debut, Julien and Justen Turner showcase the highs and lows of chasing dreams with FreeLance, an indie TV pilot following a young filmmaker in the Midwest as he navigates the creative industry alongside his tight-knit group.
The project premiered in the Episodic Fiction Pilot Showcase at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and is produced by their company, Dreadhead Films. It stars Spence Moore II, KevOnStage, Lou Young III, Lou Ratchett, Bernard “B Nard” Clark, Renè Vaca and Elijah Cooper, with an appearance by Mel Mitchell.
“It means so much to me that they thought of me for this character,” Mitchell, who plays friendly (and nosy) neighbor Kim, told Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “The story is so beautiful, and you know, just talking about the hustle and bustle and trying to make it — because everybody in this project is hungry. We’re all working to reach our goals and dreams, and I relate to that as I continue to step further into acting. I really, really do, so I’m very excited to be a part of this project. I can’t wait to see where it goes.”
On representing their friends
“The story that we wrote with FreeLance is about our friends,” Justen Turner said just a few days ahead of the premiere at the 2026 Sundance Festival in Park City, Utah.
“A lot of the characters that we write are based on our friends, who we are. We were born in Champaign, Illinois, and then moved to Columbus, Ohio. So this overall kind of demeanor of Midwestern people is something that we imbue a lot of our characters with,” he continued.
Julien added, “Because we came from the Midwest, making films was just a hobby, it wasn’t even a thing growing up that we knew we could make money or have a career doing. We were just telling stories and making short films because we saw them. It feels like that same attitude is kind of what we approach FreeLance with. Even just the audience we’re reaching — we’re not trying to reach, necessarily, a specific genre or industry — we’re trying to reach our friends, you know, our peers.”
Respecting the art of filmmaking
The brothers say that FreeLance’s main character, Lance, portrayed by Spence Moore II, is a combination of them both. He also provides an example of the many hats filmmakers often have to wear to bring their creative projects to life, often tapping friends and family to provide or lend a helping hand when resources are slim.
“We also put his character in the narrator [position] in that episode, because it’s two of us. I feel like what the narrator says in response to how Spence is reading it, it’s kind of like his inner thoughts, but we’re able to do it in real time,” Justen explained. “So, when we’re on a different set, we would text each other about it, because normally, things we could call out to each other, now, when we’re alone, we have to make a mental note. So we kind of played the narrator off of skits to kind of create a combination of how we would view the world from this perspective.”
Julien added, “Filmmaking is like getting your Cub Scouts patches; you’ve got to learn specific lessons just by doing it. There are certain things, or even at USC (University of Southern California), there are certain classes for specific aspects of the process. And filmmaking, when you don’t go to school for it, you have to just learn it by gigging.”
He revealed that each episode of FreeLance is meant to be a different gig, building on one another, before Lance is able to afford to shoot his own short film for the first time.
“We also love to explore genres and the history of film, and so being able to touch on that as a filmmaker, kind of like what inspires young filmmakers, people in our contemporaries, and paying homage as well as trying and reinterpreting ways and techniques that we’re inspired by.”
Keeping it all in the family
With their father working as a jazz musician and orchestra teacher in public school throughout their childhood and their mom being a choir director, the Turner household was quite musical.
“We played instruments growing up,” Julien said. “Piano, bass, cello, playing in the jazz band. Our mom’s a choir director, and they have gospel albums, multiple gospel and jazz albums.”
Justen noted that their parents met through music and that when he couldn’t sleep, his older brother Julien would take him down to the studio to listen in on the sessions, which is why it wasn’t long before they were bitten by the creative bug themselves.
“Our parents were like, whatever you decide to do, we’re gonna have to treat it the same way,” he said. “With music, we were practicing 30 minutes a day, going to lessons. We were at rehearsals, doing concerts. And with football, we were doing combines, trainers. And so my mom was like, ‘What’s the equivalent for film?’ And we just kind of, as a family, tried to figure that out. We would go to camps and festivals; we would shoot a film every break, and crowdfund. … It was like a journey as a family.”
On that journey, their mother, also an accounting professor, would step in to make sure their finances were in order and their schedules were tight.
“Julien would create the stories, and then we would co-direct, and I would edit, which would give it a really nice kind of pass off from pre-production to post-production to where we kind of knew our roles because it was literally just us doing those roles,” Justen said.
Julien added, “It was fun. Like, a little bit of choreography. Kind of like improv for us. We say that because the DP we work with, we’ve also worked with for the last 10 years, and so he understands our voice and our vision. Our mom understands our voice and our vision, and when we’re on set, I’ll say Justen is my eyes because he’s behind the monitor, watching what’s going on, calling out the details. I don’t even look, I’m just listening and hearing people’s words and delivery. It’s literally like we can be in two places at one time, and that’s how we trust each other.”
For the Turner Brothers, premiering FreeLance at Sundance is no small feat. They hope that it is, ideally, their door into the industry, and they noted the love they’ve always had for what the Sundance Institute represents.
“Hopefully we can join the network, that community of filmmakers that they’ve been fostering out here and make something happen,” said Julien.