Learn more about Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative Recipients.
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Meet the 2025 Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative Fellowship and Grant Recipients
MAY 20, 2026
The current fellows and grant recipients will be supported with funding, science advisors, and professional networking at the screenwriting phase of their projects.
The Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative is a cornerstone of SFFILM’s year-round artist development programs. This innovative partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation provides direct artist grants to filmmakers developing screenplays with science and technology themes with two distinct opportunities: the Sloan Science in Cinema Fellowship, and the Sloan Stories of Science Development Fund. The 2025 recipients of both programs were guests at SFFILM’s 69th San Francisco International Film Festival which ran April 24 through May 4, 2026 where they celebrated alongside award-winning director Ildikó Enyedi with her latest film Silent Friend which received the Sloan Science on Screen Award and Doron Weber, Vice President and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Masashi Niwano, the Director of Artist Development at SFFILM, works directly with the Fellows and Development Fund Grantees, pairing them with science advisors at the screenwriting stage while guiding their projects with targeted support. “What excites me about the Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative is that we’re getting to support a filmmaker at the screenplay stage while the story is being shaped. They become part of a global ecosystem of SFFILM-supported filmmakers, which builds their network of filmmakers, industry professionals, and future collaborators. Our mission is to help support the representation of science and technology more accurately, but also to pave the way for creative discovery by the filmmaker. You can see it across this year’s projects, whether it is a sound ecologist exploring how we experience a politically inaccessible wilderness, a Black engineer confronting gentrification in her neighborhood, or the ethical and communications machinery of a NASA first-contact announcement becoming the emotional spine of a story. We had so much fun welcoming Destiny, Justin, Lane, Sid, and Aditya to this year’s Festival. We look forward to celebrating this honor and inspiring their work throughout the year.”
Read more about the programs and these wonderful filmmakers below!
2025 Sloan Science in Cinema Fellowship Recipients
The Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship is presented in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as part of their mission to champion films and projects that explore scientific or technological themes or characters. Awards are made to two projects once a year, at the screenwriting phase of development. Recipients of the Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship will receive a $35,000 cash grant and access to the FilmHouse, SFFILM’s creative hub for local and visiting independent filmmakers.
The Green Corridor
Writer/Director: Justin Kim WooSŏk
Joseph Yoon, a Korean-American anthropologist, returns to his homeland on a Fulbright grant, drawn by rumors of a tiger’s reappearance in the DMZ—a creature long thought extinct on the peninsula. As he partners with a sound ecologist working along the border’s edge, their pursuit transforms into a confrontation with colonial ghosts, personal grief, and the limitations of human perception.
Talk Black
Writer/Director: Destiny Macon
A timid engineer develops an audacious split personality to help her stand up to the boys’ club at work and prevent “urban renewal” in the historically black neighborhood where she grew up.
2025 Sloan Stories of Science Development Fund Recipients
The SFFILM Sloan Stories of Science Development Fund is presented in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as part of their mission to champion films that explore scientific or technological themes. SFFILM will award up to $20,000 grants to filmmakers in the early stages of writing screenplays inspired by discoveries from the Stories of Science Sourcebook. The Stories of Science Sourcebook is composed of significant scientific and technological discoveries made in recent years as a source of inspiration to filmmakers interested in telling fictionalized stories that explore the discovery’s underlying themes or characters, and dramatize the impact of these breakthroughs on members of the broader public.
One Inch From Earth
Writers: Sid Gopinath, Aditya Joshi
A group of plucky scientists must overcome NASA leadership, rival teams, the specter of Mars, and the US government to launch a mission that proves life exists on a distant moon of Jupiter.
Hello Neighbor
Writer: Lane Unsworth
With humanity on the cusp of potentially finding life on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, a lonely and retired child science entertainer gets recruited to the NASA public relations team to help answer the question: if we do find life, how do we tell everyone?
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