JFI’s national, year-long Filmmaker-in-Residence program provides creative, marketing, and production support for filmmakers exploring and expanding thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture and identity.

What the Residency Offers:

• Monthly cohort support meetings
• Skill-building trainings with industry leaders
• Annual expense-paid convening at JFI’s Summer Film Festival (SFJFF), health guidelines permitting
• Pitch Training and Forum
• Passes to JFI programming
• Promotion through JFI channels for the life of the project
• Access to a screening room and test audiences for WIPs
• Consultations with JFI staff on marketing, fundraising, and exhibition
• Filmmakers located in the Bay Area are also eligible to apply for editing space in the 9th Street Media Center

Submission Criteria:

• Independent feature or short-form in fiction, documentary, animation, web, series, or hybrid form
• Projects can be in any stage from development through completion
• Filmmakers must have copyright and creative control and be ready to workshop their project
• Filmmakers can commit to up to 6 hours a month for cohort meetings and workshops
• Attendance is required at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival during the last week of July
• Student projects are not eligible for the Residency

As health and safety conditions allow, residents will participate in an in-person convening, coinciding with the annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at the end of July. Residents will receive passes to participate in all the festival screenings, panels, and parties as well as special training culminating in a pitch forum.

This residency is open to filmmakers across the United States, but Bay Area applicants can also apply for in-kind editing space at the 9th Street Media Center. Office space availability is subject to San Francisco public health guidelines.  

Filmmakers-in-Residence are selected by the Jewish Film Institute’s Filmmaker Services and Programming Departments.

Application deadline: October 31, 2021. No submission fee required.

For more information, contact jewishfilm@jfi.org. Sign up for our email list to stay in the loop about JFI’s offerings for Filmmakers. Click Here to download the full list of application questions.