The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has been giving production and screenwriting grants to filmmakers since 1997. The Sloan Film Program aims to influence the next generation of filmmakers to tackle science and technology themes and characters, to increase visibility for feature films that depict this subject matter and to produce new films about science and technology and about scientists, engineers and mathematicians.



The Foundation gives annual screenwriting and production grants to students at six of the nation's leading film schools: the American Film Institute; Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama; Columbia University School of the Arts; NYU Tisch School of the Arts; University of California, Los Angeles's School of Theater, Film and Television; and the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts. The Sloan Foundation develops feature-length science-themed screenplays through partners such as the the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Film Institute, the San Francisco Film Society, the Black List, and Film Independent. The Foundation also awards annual Science and Technology Feature Film Prizes and has honored such films as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Grizzly Man, I Origins, The Imitation Game, Marjorie Prime, Hidden Figures, and The Martian.



The Sloan Foundation has supported more than 500 film projects, including Andrew Bujalski's Computer Chess, which received Sloan development funding through the Tribeca Film Institute, and won the Sloan Feature Film Prize at Sundance before opening theatrically in 2013; Robot & Frank, originally a $20,000 Sloan production-grant winner at NYU that opened theatrically in 2012 starring Frank Langella and Susan Sarandon; Musa Syeed's Valley of Saints, shot in Kashmir, which was awarded three Sloan development grants; Jenny Deller's Future Weather, featuring three generations of women, which was developed through multiple Sloan grants and toured internationally as part of the American Film Showcase; Rob Meyer’s A Birder’s Guide To Everything, which features Sir Ben Kingsley and opened theatrically in 2014; Michael Almereyda's Experimenter, starring Peter Sarsgaard as Stanley Milgram which was awarded three Sloan grants and was distributed by Magnolia; The Man Who Knew Infinity which received Sloan funding via two awards and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival; The Imitation Game, the first Sloan film to win an Oscar, which was awarded a Sloan post-production award from Tribeca and a Feature Film Prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival; and Basmati Blues which received a 2007 production award.


For more information on the Sloan Film Program, visit sloan.org. Completed Sloan-awarded films can be viewed in their entirety here.