The Sundance Institute Feature Film Program has supported and championed many of the leading independent filmmakers of the past 40 years whose distinctive, singular films have engaged audiences worldwide. The unique vision of each filmmaker is embraced, encouraging a rigorous creative process with a focus on original and deeply resonant storytelling. The Institute’s guiding values of risk taking, community, inclusion, and freedom of expression have broadened the program to include American and international artists in a more meaningful and vibrant dialogue across cultural, political, and geographic boundaries. Over the years, the Feature Film Program has evolved to provide in-depth and year-round support to a next generation of filmmakers from development through distribution and has become a global model for supporting artists around the world.
More than 450 films supported by the FFP have been made and have connected with audiences worldwide, including:
Radha Blank's The 40-Year-Old Version • Ekwa Msangi’s Farewell Amor • Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth • Edson Oda’s Nine Days • Lulu Wang’s The Farewell • Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco • Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s The Mustang • Paul Downs Colaizzo’s Brittany Runs a Marathon • Pippa Bianco’s Share • Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You • Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Monsters and Men • Eliza Hittman’s Beach Rats • Geremy Jasper’s Patti Cake$ • Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits • Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Swiss Army Man • Chloe Zhao’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me • Marielle Heller’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl • Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash • Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station • Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar’s Beasts of the Southern Wild • Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene • Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre • Dee Rees’s Pariah • Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda • Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox • Chloe Zhao’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me • Taika Waititi’s Boy • Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's Half Nelson • Tamara Jenkins’s Slums of Beverly Hills • Debra Granik’s Down to the Bone • Paul Thomas Anderson’s Hard Eight • Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry • Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs
Development Track: Labs, Intensives, and Fellowships
The development track has one open application that allows your work-in-progress fiction feature screenplay to be considered for the following programs, fellowships, and grants:
- Screenwriters Lab (held annually in January)
- Screenwriters Intensive (held annually in March)
- Sundance Institute Comedy Fellowship
- Alfred P. Sloan Commissioning Grant and Fellowship (for projects with scientific or technological content)
Screenwriters Lab
January 11–15, 2021
Screenwriters Intensive
March 4-5, 2021
Directors Lab
Summer 2021, exact dates TBD
There is no open application to the Directors Lab. This lab is populated by projects that have already been supported through the development track.
Development Track
For fiction feature writers, directors, writer/directors, or writer/director teams, you can apply for support from the Feature Film Program through the development track (for projects in the screenplay development stage). There is one application for both U.S. and international applicants; regardless of where you are based, you can submit your work using this application. Please note that we will not be offering a post-production track application in 2021.
With this year of uncertainty due to the global pandemic, our Spring Labs are taking place virtually on Sundance Co//ab, our global digital community platform.
Post-Production Track
Due to the pause in the Film Music and Sound Design Lab and the Editing Residency, we will not be offering a Post-Production Track application in 2021. We plan to offer portable and virtual support for a curated selection of projects in post-production using our digital platform, Sundance Co//ab, and other sharing tools.
