Artist Opportunities
The Sundance Institute’s labs, granting, and mentorship programs operate year-round to support independent artists and bring exciting new work into the world. Several of our programs are now accepting submissions.
Open Applications
2025 Development Track
The development track has one open application that allows your fiction feature work-in-progress screenplay to be considered for the following programs, fellowships, and grants: Screenwriters Lab (held annually in January), Screenwriters Intensive (held annually in March, online), Sundance Institute Comedy Fellowship (includes participation in either the Screenwriters Lab or Intensive), Sundance Institute Horror Fellowship (includes participation in either the Screenwriters Lab or Intensive), and Sundance Institute Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (includes participation in either the Screenwriters Lab or Intensive) and Commissioning Grant.
Deadline: May 16, 2024
The Sundance Institute Graton Collab Artist Opportunity
The Sundance Institute Graton Collab Artist Opportunity application is live. It serves to cultivate a stage for artists from federally and non federally recognized California Indian tribes to tell their stories through film. The inaugural fellows will be awarded curated courses from the Sundance Collab platform, which provides a virtual destination for emerging artists to learn craft and career strategies and to build community through courses, workshops, advisor sessions, extensive resources, and community gatherings.
Deadline: August 31, 2025
2024 Indigenous Intensive
Through this three-day short-film intensive, the Indigenous Program aims to provide mentorship and support to emerging Native Hawaiian filmmakers and creators currently living on Oahu, Hawai‘i. The intensive includes one-on-one feedback and workshops featuring Hawai‘i-based filmmakers and industry professionals. Fellowship grants for artists are made possible with support by the Nichols Family Film Fund and Creative Industries Division (Hawai‘i).
Deadline: May 28, 2024
Upcoming Applications
Sandbox Fund Open Call
The Sandbox Fund offers grants, engagement events, and other opportunities for independent artists seeking to explore the intrinsic link between science and culture through innovative storytelling. The open call is administered twice annually by the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund in collaboration with Sandbox Films, a documentary production studio that illuminates the art and beauty of scientific inquiry.
Sundance Documentary Fund Open Call
In a changing media landscape, the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund has been a stable, progressive force in supporting work that has expressed the world in creative, complex, beautiful, and provocative ways, and it has created real cultural and social impact around some of the most pressing issues of our time.