Calls for Submissions

Submissions are open! The HamptonsFilm Screenwriters Lab champions the artistic visions of up-and-coming filmmakers from around the world.

An intimate gathering taking place each spring on Long Island’s East End, the Lab fosters emerging talent by pairing selected fellows with established writers and creative producers for a weekend of one-on-one mentorship. Over the course of the weekend, these film industry veterans advise the participating fellows on their feature length projects in a series of individual and group development sessions. Use the 30% discount code for NYWIFT members, NYW1FT26. Make your submission and learn more.

Submissions for the 10th Anniversary season of Project Unlonely Filmsare now open! Project Unlonely Films is nonprofit global initiative from the Foundation of Art and Healing that harnesses the power of film to raise awareness of loneliness, reduce stigma, and inspire people to connect. People from all communities experience loneliness, so Project Unlonely Films encourages filmmakers to share short works (up to 20 min) that explore this timely topic from diverse perspectives. From drama to comedy, live action to animation and beyond, they are looking for a range of perspectives on loneliness and finding social connection.

· Films do not have to be recent.
· All selected films will receive $150.
· There are 3 top award winners and 5 honorable mentions.

Project UnLonely Films is supported by luminaries in the filmmaking industry, including celebrated actor and director Steve Buscemi and former President of Production at Lionsgate Films Mike Paseornek. Learn more and submit your film. Contact janine@artandhealing.org with any questions or to request a waiver code.

Elevating portrayals of mental health is a key issue for Kristen Bell and Stacy L. Smith — and they’re working together, along with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, to ensure more stories make it to the screen. The Mental Health Accelerator will invite applicants with prior filmmaking experience to apply for a grant of $20,000 to create a short film focused on a mental health story. Up to 3 filmmakers will be selected. The films must be completed between February 1 and April 15 of 2026 to be screened at an event in May 2026. Submissions will be accepted this month. Learn more.

The Sundance Institute and Adobe are looking to find the next class of Sundance Institute Ignite x Adobe fellows. The application is open to emerging filmmakers ages 18 to 25 who are looking to take their careers to the next level.

Submit your short film to be considered for a year-long fellowship where you’ll start to navigate the early stages of your career, build your creative community, and receive mentorship and unique resources.

The application is open November 11th, 2025–February 12, 2026, on Sundance Collab, Sundance Institute’s digital space for artists to ignite their creativity, learn from experts, and build community. Apply by February 12! Questions? Email ignite@sundance.org or watch the how-to-apply Insider Session.

The 2025 Culver City Film Festival will have screening dates December 5-11 at The Culver Theatre! Submissions are open for shorts and feature narratives and documentaries, as well as music videos, experimental films and even promotional filmed content. Have your film screened in the heart of screen-land Culver City Film Festival, and home of Amazon, Apple, Sony Pictures and many film companies and distributors in the center of LA. Apply before the Last Minute deadline on December 1. Get more info and apply. 

As part of the team behind the short film Von Männlichen Musen (a 2025 NYSCA grantee), I’m writing to announce our open call for poster concepts. The selected concept will win an $800 commission to help us market Von Männlichen Musen, a WeScreenplay Shorts Semi-Finalist and ScreenCraft Film Fund Quarter Finalist, by writer-director and NYWIFT member Allegra Oxborough (2025 grand prize winner of ISA’s Table Read My Screenplay Competition at Festival de Cannes). Deadline is December 1. Learn more and submit.

Applications are open for the Stowe Story Labs Curated $50,000 Short Film Production Grant Program. Working with partners including ARRI, Seed&Spark, HanWay Film, Film Fatales, WeShort, and others, and with mentorship led by Stowe Alum and Film Independent Spirit Award Winning Creative Producer Liz Cardenas, this competitively awarded grant presents a life-changing opportunity for a screenwriter or production team to make a well-financed short film with mentorship available throughout the process, including support on building a festival campaign strategy and post-festival distribution program. The Regular Deadline is November 15. Learn more and apply.

NYWIFT member Cory Choy and Silver Sound invite you to apply. Registration is now open for the Winter 2026 Sonic Dash, which will take place on the weekend of January 9-11, 2026. Registrants will be emailed a prompt for the competition on Friday, January 9. They will then have until noon on Sunday, January 11 to submit their entry.

As before, our top winner takes home a $1,000 cash prize as well as a slew of hefty software and hardware audio suite upgrades. If you want it, make a plan to win! Take a look at Past Dashes to see what prior finalists have been able to do with 48 hours and a lot of ingenuity. Learn more and apply.

The largest film production prize in the world is now even bigger. AT&T Untold Stories is an impactful collaboration between AT&T and Tribeca Festival, dedicated to connecting creators to opportunity. This program goes beyond funding, offering comprehensive mentorship and distribution support to help get unique stories onto the big screen. Heading into its 9th year, the AT&T Untold Stories award is officially growing to $1,200,000. Submissions are open now until February 6, 2026. Submit.

Applications are open for the 2026 WAVE Grant Cycle! Wavelength Productions’ WAVE Grant supports emerging filmmakers from diverse backgrounds and perspectives in making their debut short with a $5,000 seed grant, a year-long mentorship program, and in-kind partner services such as crowdfunding mentorship from Seed&Spark and coloring services from Nice Shoes. Apply now through November 16! Submit.

From the Heart Productions is excited to announce the 2025 return of the Carole Dorothy Joyce Grant for Student Filmmakers, now open for its third year of submissions! Sponsored by nonprofit From the Heart Productions, this grant seeks student filmmakers who are creating unique, socially impactful films on a budget of $50,000 or less. The grant is open to student filmmakers worldwide who are currently enrolled in a university, college, community college, extension courses, or high school. Projects may be short or feature-length narratives or documentaries. The winner receives a $3,000 cash grant,15% off expendables from Film Tools, 35% discount on lighting services from Paskal Lighting plus, additional in-kind support from generous donors. Every applicant receives a free 15-minute consultation with a funding expert to help advance their project. The application deadline is November 30. Apply and learn more.

Celebrate diversity in film with New York City’s Winter Film Festival! The 14th Annual celebration of independent film will run February 18-22, 2026. They seek fresh voices and creative indie films in all genres. The festival is dedicated to supporting emerging filmmakers and includes a highly regarded filmmaker education series, all screenings include director Q&A sessions and we work to ensure our films get written articles, video promos and red carpet interviews. The regular deadline is October 17. Use code WFF26GRP20 to take 20% off your submission fee on Film Freeway.

The Rephrase Table Reads series focuses on stories by racialized women and gender-diverse folks, creating a supportive space where screenwriters guide the feedback they need – whether it’s pacing, casting, dialogue, story structure, or character development. This is about building creatives up, boosting their confidence, and fostering a network that helps independent productions come to life. We cast union and non-union actors with the screenwriter, select story editors, and invite everyone to join us on Zoom and delve into the world the writer has created together. Join us as we uplift diverse talent and build a community to celebrate inclusive storytelling. Submit your work.

Join the Stage 32 Writers’ Room for free and connect directly with producers and executives who are actively seeking scripts. As a Writers’ Room member, you get exclusive access to 6 new Open Writing Assignments every Tuesday, available only on Stage 32. But that’s not all—you also get dozens of additional perks, including weekly pitch practice sessions, exclusive industry offers, online events, and direct access to the industry’s top executives and reps. Last week alone: 108 scripts requested by industry professionals, 37 in-person meetings booked, and 4 writers secured representation this month. Past and current members can redeem the coupon code FreeMonth925 at checkout. Submit for free! 

The DGA New York Assistant Director Training Program is designed to provide opportunities for a limited number of individuals to become Assistant Directors in film, television & commercial production. This is a two-year Program consisting of 350 days of on-the-job training combined with monthly seminars. Trainees are placed on the sets of various features, television series and commercials shooting primarily in the New York City vicinity working under the supervision of DGA members – Second Assistant Directors, First Assistant Directors and Unit Production Managers – until graduation. Upon completion of the Program, graduates are qualified to join the DGA (Directors Guild of America) as Second Assistant Directors. The 2026 Application is now open! Deadline is December 2. Apply Now!

The filmmaking team behind the upcoming short film Von Männlichen Musen is thrilled to welcome New York City artists to participate in our poster contest. The selected design will win an $800 commission to help market Von Männlichen Musen. Von Männlichen Musen is a 16-minute psychological comedy about artists and muses, a 2025 NYSCA grantee, WeScreenplay Shorts Semi-Finalist and ScreenCraft Film Fund Quarter Finalist by award-winning writer-director and NYWIFT member Allegra Oxborough. For more details, participants should refer to the creative brief linked in the submissions form. Visual design concepts must be submitted in PDF format by October 17 at 5 PM. Submit your poster.

 

Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival turns 10 in 2026 — and they’re celebrating big! From special pre-festival screenings to an expanded film lineup, late-night movies, and the return of their student filmmakers showcase, this milestone season will be unforgettable. As a film organizational partner of Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival, New York Women in Film and Television members receive 50% off short film submission fees. Films must be directed by a woman, 20 minutes or less, completed or released no earlier than October, 2024 and must be submitted to Cascadia on Film Freeway using the code: 26NYWFT. Cascadia’s 10-year celebrations will be April 30- May 3, 2026 in person in Bellingham, WA, with an online version of the festival to follow May 7-17, 2026. The estival’s first deadline is on Sepember 18. More details can be found on Film Freeway or Cascadia’s website.

The Women’s Voices Now Film Festival submissions are officially open! The Women’s Voices Now Film Festival promotes emerging women filmmakers using social-change films to advocate for women’s and girls’ rights around the world. The festival is offering a 50% discount for the first month of submissions using code 2026FF. The early bird deadline is October 1. Join emerging women’s filmmakers around the world and submit your film.

Seeking actors for Main Character Support Group‘s upcoming Table Read Series on May 29. This is a FREE event designed to provide emerging screenwriters with the opportunity to have their Un-produced TV Pilot Scripts read and performed by actors for the very first time, all in a safe and laid-back environment. You will meet other TV & Movie enthusiasts, play games, make plans for movie date nights / watch parties, and even find a movie theatre buddy to go see the next big summer blockbuster with. This event is unpaid. Sign up.

 

The Black List‘s Annual Labs support promising, non-professional twelve writers in two cohorts: the Writers Lab cohort and the Projects Lab cohort. The Labs support writers on two distinct career tracks: those who are interested in being a career writer, with a focus on working within the studio system, and those who are interested in writing and directing their own work in the independent space. The goal of the Labs is for all twelve writers to emerge with the strongest possible script and the knowledge of how to move forward in their careers, with Black List support. The Labs are in-person, weeklong intensive writers workshops. Writers in both cohorts will workshop their feature screenplay through one-on-one sessions with professional screenwriting mentors and in peer workshops. The Labs will also include several story- and industry-related sessions with executives, producers, literary agents and managers. Apply by July 1. Learn more!

 

 

As anti-Asian violence continues to rise and it appears that police and government entities are reluctant to truly step up, the Asian American Film Lab is commissioning a multi-media project to stop AAPI hate. AAFL invites you to empower the community by sharing your voices and stories. Send AAFL your stories of anti-AAPI Haye and how you dealt with them. Hindsight is always 20/20 and you can be sure someone else has or will experience what you did – what would your advice to them be? Send photos, videos, poems, or however best suits your voice to info@film-lab.org.

 

Black Market Releasing (BMR) has announced their call for submissions.  BMR serves as a source connecting diverse voices and BIPOC stories to the big screen. BMR is a theatrical distributor of bold, new and authentic stories from diverse perspectives. Serving the dynamic, untapped theatrical market for diverse voices, its parent organization, CaribbeanTales has been connecting BIPOC stories to screens, and mobilizing audiences for over 20 years. Submissions are currently being accepted on a rolling basis. Learn more and submit.

 

Created by Women, from Little Dot Studios, are accepting submissions for their curated YouTube channel. Created by Women is a YouTube channel with content directed, written, or produced by women. Their goal is to generate attention and revenue for independent female and female-identified creators by offering a generous revenue share on monetized videos and using our media teams’ expertise to maximize their YouTube audience. They are currently accepting submissions for comedy, action, drama, unscripted and documentary content. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.  Learn more and submit.

 

AbilityE, a free platform for performers with disabilities to connect with entertainment studios, has launched. Casting studios are seeking disabled talent more than ever, and so to make these connections happen more quickly, abilityE was created. Disney, Netflix, NBC, and more major studios have expressed enthusiastic interest in this platform. The website also details its origin and how the platform helped Netflix cast their hit show The Healing Powers of Dude. Learn more and create a profile.

 

The Peter Roth Internship Program at Paley Center is accepting applications beginning TOMORROW April 30. The Peter Roth Internship Program, named in honor of the legendary television executive, offers a paid internship each year for 20 talented undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds and underserved communities who are interested in a career in television. Applicants must be rising junior or senior students currently enrolled in a four-year undergraduate degree program at an accredited college or university. There is currently no deadline to apply. Learn more and apply.

 

The Multicultural Sci-fi Organization (MCSFO) are searching for the next biggest writers in Sci-fi!  MCSFO is the premier marketing agency for multicultural sci-fi, fantasy, and comics. MCSFO celebrates sci-fi films and series that bring inclusion and diversity to the genre by honoring their work. The organization are looking for serious geeks who love talking about Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi film, and comics for fun!  Must be well-versed in the sci-fi genre with excellent writing and storytelling skills! For more details, contact multiculturalscifi.org@gmail.com.

 

The Red Bull Arts Microgrant Program is accepting applications. The adapted Microgrant program will award two $1000 grants each month to artists in 20 cities across the United States. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis and there is currently no deadline. Learn more and apply.

 

Flag TV, a new digital channel in partnership with Nashville Women in Film &TV, is seeking content submissions. FLAG-TV offers independent female filmmakers an opportunity to showcase their content on television via on-demand streaming services.The channel is available on Roku, Amazon Fire and Twitch-TV. To inquire about submissions, email info@flag-tv.com.

 

Cinereach develops, produces, finances, and supports feature-length fiction, nonfiction and hybrid films crafted for the big screen. They look for projects (at any stage) that create deep and lasting impressions through story, character, or cinematic approach. They seek to work with both unknown and established filmmakers who may face creative, financial or systemic obstacles to realizing ambitious visions. Their films range widely in content and style. Please visit their Films page to review their recent work. Submissions are rolling. Learn more.

 

 

The WORLD Channel series America Reframed is currently accepting submissions of completed feature-length non-fiction projects. Each year, Emmy-nominated public television series America ReFramed features diverse personal storytelling often tied to hot-button social issues. With 60 to 90-minute documentary films, followed by provocative conversations, this weekly program offers an unfiltered look at stories rarely given a voice on national television. America ReFramed documents the times in which we live. It airs Tuesdays at 8 PM on the WORLD Channel. Read the guidelines and submit online.