Funds from this grant provide two years of funding to the Tribeca Film Institute for its ongoing efforts to support films and filmmakers that explore scientific and technological themes. With Sloan Foundation support, the Institute will annually award up to $140,000, in grants from $10,000 to $40,000, to compelling narrative filmmaking that explores scientific, mathematical, and technological themes and storylines, or that features a leading character who is a scientist, engineer, innovator or mathematician. In addition to such financial support, Tribeca provides selected filmmakers with professional guidance and mentorship, including project notes, networking assistance, and exposure to financing and distribution executives. Funds from this grant also support a series of high profile events at the Tribeca Film Festival, including a screening and discussion series, readings of in-progress scripts exploring scientific and technological themes, and an awards ceremony and reception honoring winning filmmakers.

In 2010, the Foundation supported a pilot program based at the Coolidge Corner Theatre to support film screenings and subsequent science discussions at art house theaters across the country. That effort, Science on Screen, was successfully piloted at eight independent theaters across the country. Funds from this grant will enable the series to be expanded to include up to 40 theaters over the next two years. Coolidge will prepare a syllabus that includes film programming suggestions, speakers, case studies, and marketing and outreach guidelines and will conduct a major outreach seminar at the Art House Convergence, the largest gathering of art house cinema managers in the country, which convenes annually just before the Sundance Film Festival. Independent theaters who successfully apply to be part of the Coolidge effort will receive $7,000 stipends to help create their own Science on Screen series, which must include a minimum of three screenings or science-themed events during the year. In addition, Coolidge will coordinate a national Science on Screen day, organizing same-day screenings at all participating theaters.

This grant funds a project by New York University's Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film & TV to spur the production of high-quality, feature-length films about science and technology through a competitive awards open to all NYU film students. Each year for the next three years, NYU will offer $100,000 to the best student script exploring scientific, mathematical, or technological themes or featuring a scientist, mathematician, or engineer as a main character, with award funds to be used to turn the script into a feature length film. NYU will administer the awards process, accepting applications, convening a faculty panel to select quarter-finalists, advising filmmakers on needed script revisions, and arranging for scripts that advance as semi-finalists to procure an appropriate science advisor to ensure technical accuracy. Three scripts moving on to the final round will each receive $5,000 awards.

Funds from this three-year grant will support activities by Film Independent to develop science-themed film scripts and assist production teams developing science-themed feature films. Grant funds will primarily support two ongoing programs at Film Independent: the Sloan Producer's Grant program, which chooses one science script each year and develops it through a seven-week course of mentorship so that the project emerges with a realistic budget, schedule, and business plan; and the Fast Track program, which chooses exceptional science-themed film projects that are ready for financing and exposes them to more than 60 film financiers, production companies, and other industry professionals during an intensive series of meetings held at the Los Angeles Film festival. Also supported through this grant is an annual reception hosted by Film Independent at the Filmmaker Forum of the Director's Guild of America, where Sloan supported writers and directors are given special exposure to some 400 influential filmmakers and industry professionals.

This grant to the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) provides funds for the fifth triennial Sloan Film Summit in New York City in 2011. The summit is an important community-building event that brings together prize-winning students, faculty, and administration from the Foundation's six film school partners as well as screenwriters, filmmakers, and administrators from Sloan's four screenplay development and film festival partners: Sundance, Tribeca, Hamptons, and Film Independent. Funded summit activities include an opening night reception; a screening of award-winning shorts from each film school; screenplay readings of award-winning scripts with accomplished actors; panels on science, film, and new media that bring together notable scientists and filmmakers; a meeting of Film program administrators; and an industry meetings where filmmakers meet and pitch their films to leading members of the film industry. Among the key materials that will come out of the summit are a compilation DVD of award-winning shorts and a hard book and an iPhone/iPad application that lists all the screenplay and film projects of the past three years with bios and contact information for the filmmakers to be distributed to agents, managers, and development executives.

This 18-month grant to Columbia University, one of the Foundation's six film school partners, will fund a pilot project which aims to encourage science and technology storytelling through the World Wide Web. Guided by Columbia faculty, film students will experiment with the possibilities of new media by creating a 20-40 minute web series, told in three to eight minute narrative episodes (webisodes) with science and technology themes and characters that will reach new audiences. The production awards are open to Columbia students in the third to fifth year who have finished their courses, previously shot a completed film, and have exhibited innovative approaches to the challenges of web storytelling. Five teams will be awarded grants of $14,000 each to work on individual webisodes that will form part of a single web series. Students will work closely with film faculty and a science advisor, and grant funds will be paid out in stages based on adherence to a strict production schedule. Once finished, the web series will be entered into festivals and new media competitions, released on the internet, and distributed virally.

This grant provides continuing support to Columbia University, one of the Foundation's six film school partners, for three more years of activities designed to encourage top film students to develop screenplays and produce short films about science and technology. Activities supported through this grant include the provision of faculty mentors and science advisors for students working on science-themed film projects, two annual awards for production of short films on science and technology, two annual awards to develop promising feature film scripts with science content, and networking events with select film industry producers, agents, and managers.