The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awards one participant of Film Independent’s Fast Track financing market the annual Sloan Fast Track Grant. The recipient receives a $10,000 production grant, admission to Film Independent’s Fast Track, and year-round support from Film Independent. Learn more about the Sloan Foundation on its website.
The grant is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which seeks to create and develop new scripts and films about science and technology and to see them into commercial production with national and international distribution. It has screenplay development programs with the Tribeca, Sundance, and Hamptons Film Festivals, as well as other select independent partners and film schools.
2010 SLOAN FAST TRACK GRANT RECIPIENTS
Future Weather
When she’s abandoned by her eccentric single mom, a 13-year-old loner grows fixated on environmental disaster, forcing her and her grandmother to confront each other and the things they can’t control.
Jenny Deller, Writer/Director/Producer
Jenny Deller is a writer, director, and actor living in Philadelphia. Her feature-length screenplay, Future Weather, received the 2009 Showtime Tony Cox Award for Best Screenplay. Slated to go into production in 2010, Future Weather was also awarded Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grants through Film Independent’s Producers Lab and Fast Track, and the Tribeca Film Institute. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Young Scholars grant, Deller has been writing fiction for over twenty years, and directing theater and film since attending high school at the Illinois Math & Science Academy. She has directed, produced and edited eight short films, including a documentary for Anthropologie, where she served as Senior Copywriter for four years. After graduating with a self-designed major in fiction-making from Lewis & Clark College, Jenny went on to study acting at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, and in New York at the Ward Studio Meisner Program and American Mime Theatre. Her appearances include Law & Order and many New York theatre productions including Romeo & Juliet. In 2009, Deller was selected to participate in the Nantucket Screenwriters Colony and the Film Independent Screenwriters Labs.
Kristin Fairweather, Producer
Kristin Fairweather has worked in local politics and public finance in Philadelphia for the past ten years, managing public relations campaigns as well as large field efforts for local politicians – an experience that translated well to film production. Before going to work at both local and state levels in public finance and elective politics, she received her Masters in Government Administration from the University of Pennsylvania. As a producer, her political savvy has aided in development and marketing for Future Weather and will play a crucial role in managing pre-production. She was instrumental in producing Save the Future, Deller’s companion-short to Future Weather for the Netflix FIND Your Voice Film Competition. The short recently premiered at the 2010 Nantucket Film Festival. Fairweather also participated in the 2009 Film Independent Producers Lab.