This grant provides ongoing funding to the Sloan Film Program at Columbia University, which supports young screenwriters and directors in creating new work with science and technology themes and characters. Under the stewardship of Trey Ellis, grant funds will allow Columbia to maintain two production awards for short films and provide expanded access to a mentorship program offering a stipend and research opportunities to a shortlist of three screenwriters. Grant funds will also allow the film school to expand an annual seminar into a major event at Columbia’s Lenfest Center for the Arts on the Manhattanville campus, which will include scientists and other researchers in addition to would-be applicants to the Sloan Film Program.

This grant provides ongoing support to the Sloan Film Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (NYU), which will develop science screenplays and produce short science or technology-themed films and games over the next three years. Under the stewardship of Michael Burke, grant funds will allow NYU to maintain three screenwriting awards, one production award, and one gaming award each year, while providing every project with a science advisor.

This grant provides ongoing support for the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI), to maintain and improve the Sloan Science & Film website, scienceandfilm.org, for a further three years. The website, led by Sonia Epstein, remains the most up-to-date, comprehensive resource for the Sloan Film Program, and also offers over 200 articles and interviews with science filmmakers, plus an additional 20 articles about film written by scientists. Grant funds will allow MoMI to publish two new articles on the Sloan Science & Film site each week, for a total of 250 over the grant period; commission over 20 original articles by research scientists; produce at least 8 Science on Screen public events annually; curate at least one science-themed gallery exhibition at the museum; update the site with new Sloan-winning media; promote and disseminate a short film teacher’s guide and a feature film companion guide; form partnerships with science and cultural institutions; represent the initiative at festivals and events; host annual networking events, produce a lookbook of Sloan-winning films; produce a development catalog to become a community resource for the Sloan film community; and award the 2022 Sloan Student Prizes.

This grant provides continuing support for a series of activities by SFFILM, the organization that hosts the annual SFFILM Festival, to nurture, develop, and champion films that explore scientific or technological themes and characters. Supported activities include the awarding of two $35,000 Sloan Science in Cinema Fellowships each year to promising feature film or episodic screenwriters who are exploring scientific or technological themes in their work. SFFILM also gives an annual award, the Sloan Science in Cinema Prize, to the best science-themed feature film submitted to the San Francisco Film Festival and promotes the winning film at the festival with a ceremony, screening, post-screening panel, and reception. SFFILM compiles the Sloan Stories of Science Sourcebook, which includes the best science stories and the most up-to-date scientific discoveries of the year and offers awards to two filmmakers who can develop original scripts based on these stories or ideas. Lastly, SFFILM partners with the Black List to identify promising science-themed scripts and bring them to the attention of developers, producers, and other film industry executives. Grant funds support these activities and associated operational costs for the next two years.