Frameline Completion Fund

Overview

The Frameline Completion Fund has been providing finishing funds to LGBTQ+ film and video artists since the 1990s. Administered by Frameline, the organization behind the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, the fund has awarded over $667,500 to more than 190 projects. It provides grants of up to $5,000 to filmmakers who need financial support to complete works that represent and reflect LGBTQ+ life in all its complexity and richness.

The fund accepts projects in documentary, narrative, experimental, animated, and episodic formats, making it one of the more format-inclusive grant programs available to LGBTQ+ filmmakers.

What It Funds

Completion Fund grants support the finishing phase of production: post-production costs including editing, color grading, sound mix, music licensing, closed captioning, and festival deliverable preparation. Projects must have completed principal photography to be eligible -- the fund is not designed for projects still in production.

The grant amount of up to $5,000 is intended as a meaningful contribution to completion costs rather than a full covering of them. Many recipients use Frameline funding alongside other completion grants and crowdfunding to assemble the finishing budget.

Eligibility

Films must represent and reflect LGBTQ+ life. The content requirement is the primary eligibility criterion -- the fund does not restrict eligibility by the filmmaker's own identity, though LGBTQ+ filmmakers are the program's primary constituency. Projects must have completed principal photography and must not yet be distributed. Filmmakers must be based in the US for most grants, though the fund has at times accepted international applications -- check the current guidelines for the active cycle.

Frameline has awarded completion grants to projects ranging from short films to feature-length documentaries and narrative features. Films with a track record of festival acceptance are given consideration, as are strong debut projects.

Application Process

Applications open annually. Frameline Completion Fund grantees are featured at Frameline's film festival, providing public exhibition alongside the financial support.

Who Should Apply

LGBTQ+ filmmakers in post-production who need finishing funds to complete a film in any format. The fund is particularly well suited to short and feature documentary and narrative filmmakers working outside mainstream financing structures who have a compelling LGBTQ+ story ready for post.

See Also

For calculating post-production costs and storage requirements for your finishing phase, use the Storage and Footage Calculator. For an overview of how completion funds fit into a broader financing strategy, see Documentary Financing: Building Your Stack.