This grant supports an annual $150,000 First Feature Production Award at New York University Tisch School of the Arts (NYU) to provide students the opportunity to produce and release their first full-length feature film that dramatizes scientific and technological themes or characters. Students submit one-page pitches for science films annually. A dozen quarter finalists are selected to write step-by-step breakdowns of their films, and from this group, six semi-finalists are chosen to meet with scientists and film faculty to improve the science content, narrative, and design of their films, before submitting revised treatments. In the finalist stage, three students are selected and awarded $5,000 each to develop their treatments into full-scale feature screenplays. Finally, one winner is selected and receives a $150,000 production award to produce their first feature film.

This grant supports Film Independent (FIND) to host the 2025 Sloan Film Summit, a convening of all Alfred P. Sloan Foundation film and media-related grantees held every three years, from film schools to film festivals and from film development and film distribution partners to theater, gaming, and social media partners. At the summit, FIND will highlight 25 years of the Sloan Foundation’s film program, looking back at where the program started and what has changed in the science and film landscape, as well as the media and broader culture. In addition to anticipated attendance by 200 members of the Sloan film community—including all the winning screenwriters, filmmakers, episodic writers, gamers, and animators from the past three years—FIND will invite members of the general public to participate in several public-facing events, adding an estimated 1000 attendees.  Funded activities include introductions and updates from Sloan award recipients; case studies of successful collaborations between filmmakers and scientists; networking opportunities that connect filmmakers with scientists, agents, casting directors, distributors, film festivals, production companies, entrepreneurs, and executives; live reading of excerpts from Sloan-winning screenplays; panels that will feature scientists expounding on underappreciated scientific stories and discoveries, and keynote addresses.