Festivals & Submission Opportunities
Lady Filmmakers Festival 2025 – Final Deadline July 23
🎬 Shorts, Features, Music & Art | 🎗 Women in Leadership | 🌍 🇺🇸 International, US
Lady Filmmakers Festival celebrates films directed, written, produced, or shot by women (or with women in key creative roles). Entries include narrative, documentary, experimental, music videos, art projects, and screenplays, with opportunities for table reads, staged script readings, and music or art showcases.
Key Dates:
· Final submissions accepted until July 23, 2025
· Event Dates: September 24–29, 2025 @ Beverly Hills, CA
New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival 2025
🎨 Short, Feature & 30-Second Animation | 🌍 🇯🇵 International, Japan
This unique festival takes place inside New Chitose Airport (Hokkaido, Japan), providing an immersive viewing experience and fostering global animation exchange. Now in its 12th edition, it welcomes short films (<30 min), 30-second animated pieces, music animation, and feature-length animated films.
Key Dates:
· Feature (≥30 min) & 30‑Second Entry Deadline: July 21, 2025
· No entry fee
· Awards include up to ¥1,000,000 JPY Grand Prix and ¥300,000 Feature Grand Prix
· Winners invited on-site (travel & accommodations partially covered)
Why Submit: A one-of-a-kind platform for visibility, creative exchange, and potential festival coverage in an international setting.
Funding / Labs / Grants
Southern Documentary Fund – Production Grants 2025
🎬 Nonfiction Production | 💰 $15,000 / 7 Awards | 🇺🇸 US
The Southern Documentary Fund (SDF) offers production grants to filmmakers in or from the American South, supporting documentary projects that emphasize regional storytelling and underrepresented voices. Seven grants of $15,000 each will be awarded in 2025.
Application Period:
· Opens July 14, 2025, at 8:00 AM EST
· Closes August 15, 2025, at 11:59 PM EST
NFMLA NewNarratives 2025 – Open Until August 5
🎬 Film, TV, Animation & Experimental | 💰 $25,000 Total Grants | 🇺🇸 US
NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) has opened its 2025 NewNarratives program, offering five $5,000 grants to creators developing bold new stories for film, TV, animation, or experimental media. This includes a special $5K climate storytelling grant supported by the Hollywood Climate Summit.
Key Details:
· Application Deadline: August 5, 2025 at 3 PM PST
· 4 × $5,000 General Artist Grants
· 1 × $5,000 Environmental Storytelling Grant
· Open to narrative and nonfiction projects in development, production, or early post
Tools & Resources
Celtx – Free Storyboard Templates & Creator
🖼️ Visual Planning Tool | 🆓 Downloadable + Online | 🌍 International
Celtx offers a flexible set of free storyboard templates and an intuitive online storyboard creator for filmmakers and creative teams. With downloadable options in PDF, PowerPoint (PPTX), Illustrator (AI), and Word (DOCX), it supports both digital and hand-drawn workflows—ideal for visualizing scenes before you shoot.
Whether you’re working on a short film, commercial, animation, or pitch deck, these templates help organize shots, plan sequences, and align your team visually.
Features Include:
· Free storyboard templates in multiple formats
· Online drag-and-drop storyboard creator
· Part of Celtx’s larger pre-production suite (script, shot list, schedule tools)
Internet Archive – Free Public Domain Media for Creators
🎞️ Historic Films, Shorts & Broadcasts | 🆓 Download & Stream | 🌍 International
The Internet Archive is a vast, open-access digital library offering thousands of public domain and Creative Commons–licensed films, TV shows, newsreels, commercials, and educational videos. It’s an essential resource for filmmakers, video artists, and researchers looking for legal archival footage to remix, reference, or study.
Whether you’re developing a documentary, building a visual essay, or sourcing inspiration, this archive supports creative reuse and historical authenticity.
Highlights:
· Searchable by keyword, year, format, and topic
· Includes classic cinema, silent films, NASA footage, and old PSAs
· No login or fee required to download or embed
Job & Creative Opportunities
Producer, Visualization (Project Hire) – Sony Pictures Entertainment
🎬 Virtual Production & VFX | 💼 Full-Time, Onsite | 🇺🇸 US
Sony Pictures is seeking a Producer for Visualization to support their Torchlight Production team in Culver City. This role blends creative oversight and coordination within virtual production and VFX workflows, ensuring smooth development of art assets and team collaboration.
Key Details:
· Location: Culver City, CA
· Type: Full-Time
· Salary: 43–$56/hr, plus benefits/incentives
Post-Production Coordinator – Disney Studios
🎥 Feature Film & TV Post-Production | 💼 Full-Time | 🇺🇸 US
Disney’s StudioLAB is seeking a Post-Production Coordinator to support feature and series teams through finishing stages. Ideal candidates will manage post schedules, deliveries, and asset tracking, collaborating across editorial, VFX, sound, and marketing departments.
Key Details:
· Location: Burbank, California (onsite)
· Full-Time
· $52,300.00 to $67,600.00 / Year
Senior Crowd Technical Director – Zoic Studios
🐚 VFX Crowd Simulation | 💼 Full-Time (Remote w/ Office Option) | 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 Canada, US
Zoic Studios, a VFX studio known for its work in television and feature films, is hiring a Senior Crowd TD for crowd simulation on high-end productions. You’ll lead the crowd pipeline, develop tools, mentor junior artists, and collaborate closely with animation and CG department leads.
Key Details:
· Location: Primarily remote with optional in-office access in Vancouver, BC
· This position is based in Vancouver. Applicants that reside in BC will be prioritized. (Candidates in ONT and the USA will also be considered)
· Salary: CA $50–65/hour
Industry Pulse
🎬 Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Surpasses Night at the Museum at Global Box Office
📈 Franchise Box Office Milestone | 💣 Action Legacy Continues | 🌍 Global
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning has officially overtaken Night at the Museum in total global earnings, crossing the $584 million mark at the worldwide box office. The latest installment in the Tom Cruise–led franchise continues to perform steadily after six weeks in theaters, despite strong competition from summer tentpoles like Superman and Jurassic Park: Rebirth.
Estimated read: 2 min
The Institute and Too Much Debut on Pilot TV Podcast
📺 Streaming Series Spotlight | 🎧 Industry Talk with Creators | 🇬🇧 UK
Empire’s Pilot TV Podcast just featured two buzzy new series: Charlie Brooker’s dark rom-com Too Much (starring Ayo Edebiri and Will Sharpe) and the sci-fi thriller The Institute, created by The Walking Dead’s Scott Gimple and starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Emer Kenny.
Estimated read: 2 min
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