Film Independent's Sloan Grants Program

Film Independent's Sloan Grants Program is sponsored by Film Independent, funded by Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. In partnership with the Alfred P.

Sloan Foundation, Film Independent encourages filmmakers to create more realistic and accurate stories about science and technology.

For over a decade, Film Independent and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation together have encouraged filmmakers to create more realistic and accurate stories about science and technology to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.

Projects eligible for support through Film Independent’s Sloan Grants program feature scientific, mathematical or technological themes, or have a lead character that is a scientist, engineer or mathematician. Science fiction films and documentaries are not eligible.

Some well-known examples of films and TV series with stories inspired by science include _Silicon Valley_, _Hidden Figures_, _The Theory of Everything_, _The Big Bang Theory_ and _Scrubs_. Film Independent supports Sloan-eligible projects at various stages: A $20,000 Episodic Lab Grant is awarded to a Sloan-eligible project in the **Episodic Lab.

**Past recipients of Film Independent’s Episodic Sloan grant include**_Cloak & Data_**, **_Mary Mallon_** and **_Liftoff_. ** A $30,000 Producing Lab Grant is awarded to a Sloan-eligible project in the **Fiction Producing Lab. **Past recipients of Film Independent’s Producing Sloan grant include **_Smoke Country_**, **_The Plutonians_** and **_Upstreamers_.

** #### Development/Pre-Production A $20,000 Fast Track Grant is awarded to a Sloan-eligible project in the **Fast Track** finance market. Past recipients of Film Independent’s Fast Track Sloan grant include **_Science of the Slam Dunk_**, **_Moving Bangladesh_** and **_Asia A_. ** A $50,000 **Sloan Distribution Grant** is awarded to a Sloan-eligible project that is entering its distribution phase.

Past recipients of Film Independent’s Sloan Distribution grant include **_After Yang_** and **_Radical_. ** Each of the Sloan grantees in an Artist Development program are paired with a Science Advisor who will review their project and advise the grantee on their project from a scientific perspective.

All Sloan grantees are featured on the **Sloan Science and Film** website, an online publication presented by the **Museum of the Moving Image. ** #### About the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation The Alfred P.

Sloan Foundation is a New York based, philanthropic, not-for-profit institution that makes grants in three areas: research in science, technology, and economics; quality and diversity of scientific institutions; and public engagement with science.

Sloan’s program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience and to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities.

Sloan’s Film Program encourages filmmakers to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination. Over the past two decades, Sloan has partnered with a dozen leading film schools and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production.

The Foundation also supports screenplay development programs with the Sundance Institute, SFFILM, Film Independent, The Black List, the Athena Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Sloan Film Program has supported over 800 film projects and has helped develop over 30 feature films, including _Tesla_, _Radium Girls_, _Adventures of a Mathematician_, _One Man Dies a Million Times_, _The Sound of Silence_, _To Dust_, _Operator_, _The Imitation Game_, and _The Man Who Knew Infinity_.

The Foundation has supported feature documentaries such as _Vishniac_, _Join or Die_, Werner Herzog’s _Theater of Thought_, David France’s _How to Survive a Pandemic_, _Picture a Scientist_, _Coded Bias_, _In Silico_, _Oliver Sacks: His Own Life_, _The Bit Player_, _Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story_, _Particle Fever_, and Jacques Perrin’s _Oceans_.

It has also given early award recognition to standout films such as _The Pod Generation_, _BlackBerry_, _Don’t Look Up_, _After Yang_, _Linoleum_, _Son of Monarchs_, _Ammonite_, _The Aeronauts_, _Searching_, _The Martian_, _First Man_, and _Hidden Figures_.

The Foundation’s book program includes early support for _Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race_, the best-selling book that became the highest grossing Oscar-nominated film of 2017, and Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning _American Prometheus_, adapted for the screen in Christopher Nolan’s hit film _Oppenheimer_.

For more information about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, visit sloan. org or follow the Foundation on X, Instagram or Facebook.

If you have additional questions, please email us at **artistdevelopment@filmindependent. org. **