Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and Commissioning Grant

Overview

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation partners with the Sundance Institute to administer four annual awards supporting filmmakers whose work portrays science, technology, and scientists accurately and compellingly. These awards are announced each January at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The total cash awarded across all four programs is $84,000 per year. The Sloan Foundation's 2025 grant to Sundance Institute was $900,000, funding the full Science-in-Film initiative.

The Sloan Foundation does not accept direct applications from filmmakers. All submissions go through the Sundance Institute's application process. Filmmakers apply to the specific Sloan program that matches their project's format and stage.

What It Funds

Sloan Commissioning Grant: $25,000

The Commissioning Grant awards $25,000 to a filmmaker or writing team developing a narrative feature screenplay centered on science or technology. The grant funds the writing and development phase. Recent winners include:

• 2026: Alan Fischer and Jonathan Cuchacovich for Cyborg Beast
• 2025: Brittany Wang for Thin Ice
• Previous winners include Inverses, Incompleteness, The Futurist, Pharmacopeia, The Plutonians, and Challenger

Sloan Episodic Fellowship: $17,000

The Episodic Fellowship awards $17,000 to a writer or team developing an episodic project (television or streaming series) with science or technology at its core. Recent winners include:

• 2026: Sonia Kennebeck and Tetiana Anderson for Speak for the Dead: Excited Delirium
• 2025: Ella Gale for Greenwashers
• Previous recipients include The Professor and the Spy, Our Dark Lady, The Harvard Computers, and Higher

Sloan Development Fellowship: $17,000

The Development Fellowship awards $17,000 to a filmmaker developing a narrative feature project in earlier stages. Recent winners include:

• 2026: Daeil Kim for Stem
• 2025: Katla Sólness for Eruption
• Previous recipients include Satoshi, Light Mass Energy, Moving Bangladesh, Chariot, and Tidal Disruption

Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize: $25,000

The Feature Film Prize is a juried award (not an application-based grant) given to an outstanding feature film screening at Sundance that focuses on science or technology as a theme, or depicts a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character. It is one of only six juried prizes at the Festival. Recent winners include:

• 2026: In The Blink of An Eye from director Andrew Stanton and screenwriter Colby Day
• 2025: SALLY from director Cristina Costantini

The 2026 jury included Sophie Barthes, Dr. Heather Berlin, Dr. Andrea Ghez, Ari Handel, and Nicole Perlman.

Eligibility

Eligibility is determined by the Sundance Institute's application criteria for each Sloan program. Common requirements across all Sloan Sundance programs:

• The project must be a scripted narrative or documentary film/episodic project (not a commercial, educational video, or purely informational content)
• Science, technology, mathematics, or scientists must play a central role in the story, not merely serve as background
• The portrayal must be substantively accurate and dramatically compelling
• Historical, biographical, and fictional approaches to scientific subjects are all eligible
• Applicants apply through the Sundance Institute, not directly to the Sloan Foundation
• The Feature Film Prize is juried from films already accepted into the Sundance Film Festival; filmmakers do not apply for this award separately

The Sloan Foundation explicitly states that it does not accept unsolicited scripts, treatments, or pitch letters. All submissions must go through the Sundance Institute's application portal.

How to Apply

Filmmakers should visit the Sundance Institute's website for current application deadlines and requirements for each Sloan program. The application cycles typically open months before the Festival. Applicants submit a project description, screenplay or treatment, a statement on the scientific content, and supporting materials. The Sundance Institute may also require a science advisor attachment or letter of support from a scientific consultant.

The Sloan Foundation also funds a high-profile panel discussion and a reception at the Festival celebrating the Sloan-winning screenwriters and filmmakers. Prize winners participate in a Sloan Foundation-sponsored Beyond Film event at Sundance.

Other Sloan Partner Programs

The Sloan Foundation funds similar grant programs through multiple partner organizations beyond Sundance. Filmmakers whose projects do not fit the Sundance application criteria should consider these alternatives:

• Film Independent: $20,000 Episodic Lab Grant, $30,000 Producing Lab Grant, $20,000 Fast Track Grant, and $50,000 Distribution Grant for Sloan-eligible projects
• SFFILM: Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship and Stories of Science Development Fund
• Athena Film Festival: $20,000 Sloan Athena List Award for women screenwriters with STEM-related scripts, plus two Sloan Fellowships for the Athena Screenwriting Labs
• The Black List: Sloan-supported screenplay development program
• Toronto International Film Festival: Sloan screenplay development program
• Six film schools (AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, NYU, UCLA, USC): Annual awards in screenwriting and film production, with amounts ranging from $13,500 to $27,500 per grant

Who Should Apply

Narrative and documentary filmmakers developing feature-length or episodic projects in which science, technology, mathematics, or the lives of scientists are central to the story. The Commissioning Grant is for screenwriters at the script development stage. The Episodic Fellowship is for writers developing a series. The Development Fellowship is for filmmakers in earlier development. Filmmakers with a completed feature accepted into Sundance are automatically considered for the Feature Film Prize.

Watch: Funded Films

See Also

For the broader Sloan Foundation Film Program, see the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Film Program entry. For the Sloan New Media Program supporting interactive and digital projects, see the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation New Media Program entry. For building a development budget that accounts for science advisor consulting fees, use the Budget Breakdown Calculator. For understanding how Sloan funding fits into a broader independent film strategy, see Film Grants and Funding.