Grants For Filmmakers [Updated July 2025]
18 Funding opportunities for filmmakers.
Hey creators!
We are back with another playlist, this time specifically for filmmakers.
Currently, there are (25) featured filmmaker grants.
If you are new here, welcome to Grants For Creators (GFC), a monthly newsletter where we research and curate grants and other funding opportunities for US-based creatives and small biz owners.
We aim to keep you updated with funding sources available so you can support your projects or ideas.
In addition to publishing a monthly newsletter, we create these “playlists” so you can quickly find relevant awards based on craft or identity.
Browse through all our playlists here. We keep these updated with new opportunities as we find them.
Our (9) other playlists include:
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Resources For Filmmakers
1. Tongal
Pitch your best ideas for video projects with noteworthy brands. If you’re a writer, that means submitting ideas, concepts, taglines, scripts, and more for brands and studios to expand on and turn into marketing campaigns. If you’re a filmmaker or animator, that means pitching creative briefs for the opportunity to be financed to produce video content. Learn more about Tongal here.
Grants For Filmmakers
2. [NEW] The Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant
This is an annual grant awarded to lesbians for making visionary moving-image art. Work can be experimental animation, documentary, narrative, cross-genre, or solely experimental. Applicants must be based in the U.S. The grant includes an award of $5,000 and a series of individual studio visits with QA staff members and the grant’s judges.
Entry Fee: $6
Deadline: July 2, 2025
3. [NEW] The Louisiana Film Prize 2025
Competitors must shoot a short film between five and fifteen minutes in length. Principal photography, defined as 90% of final runtime, must be conducted in Louisiana to be eligible for a $25,000 grand prize. If the winning production conducts principal photography inside Caddo Parish and/or Bossier Parish (parishes are counties in Louisiana), the prize is raised to $50,000. Document your production to prove when and where you filmed.
Entry Fee: $50
Deadline: July 8, 2025
4. [NEW] The Genre Films Manuscript Partnership - For Filmmakers
Simon Kinberg’s Genre Films will identify one outstanding unpublished manuscript for a film or television option. Genre Films will option the selected unpublished manuscript for $25,000 for 18 months. This collaboration with Simon Kinberg’s Genre Films seeks to identify deeply character-driven manuscripts. This partnership is open to unpublished manuscripts in all genres, but encourages submissions that elevate familiar genres, such as elevated science fiction, espionage thrillers, and action-adventure. You must post an original manuscript on the Black List website, with at least one evaluation, and opt in to the Program during the Submission Period.
Deadline: July 15, 2025