2026 JFI Grants: Application Guidelines

This page contains guidelines for the 2026 JFI Grants application.

Applications are submitted via FilmFreeway. Note: there is a custom form with additional questions. Please download the application questions and prepare your answers before filling out the custom form. It can not be saved while in process. Finalists will be asked for additional materials. 

2026 Completion Grants Application Timeline:

Applications Open: January 25, 2026
Early Deadline: February 15, 20265
Final Deadline: March 8, 2026
Notification Deadline: July 17, 2026
Announcement Date: August 2, 2026

Download a PDF of the 2026 Completion Grant Application questions here.

Upcoming Info Sessions:

Hosted by Marcia Jarmel, Director of Filmmaker Services.
Advance registration required.

9am–10pm PT
Tuesday, January 20, 2026

10am–11pm PT
Friday, January 30, 2026 | Friday, February 6, 2026

The grant application is not an entry form for the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. If you would like to submit your project to the upcoming festival, visit this page.

The Jewish Film Institute's Grants provide finishing funds to emerging and established filmmakers for original stories that promote thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, and identity. Launched in 2020, these juried Grants have awarded $500,000 to 38 projects to date. Projects of interest are fresh, nuanced, and thought-provoking explorations of Jewish themes, selected for their potential to entertain and engage us, turn conversation into action, and reframe understanding of Jewish cultures and identities. Projects may be features, shorts, episodic programs, or web series, with works in fiction, documentary, hybrid, and animation eligible for consideration.

The Jewish Film Institute (JFI) champions bold films and filmmakers that expand and evolve the Jewish story for audiences everywhere. JFI celebrates the spirit of film, inquiry, independence, collaboration, community, and inclusion to support film’s evolution on big and small screens as an indispensable form of cultural communication that inspires personal and societal change. JFI’s annual public programs, which serve thousands of individuals in the Bay Area and across the United States, include the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), the first and largest Jewish film festival in the world, JFI WinterFest, online film offerings, and special events with filmmakers, artists, and culturally-diverse thought leaders. In addition to the Grants, the JFI Filmmakers in Residence program offers documentarians a year-long fellowship, helping them to build community and enhance creative, marketing, business, and production skills.

Grants are given only for completion expenses. To be competitive, projects must be in post-production with at least a strong rough cut. Projects in development, script-development, pre-production, production, or early post-production will not be considered. Applicant must hold artistic, budgetary, and editorial control and maintain copyright of the proposed project.

• • In case of collaboration, a sole project director must be designated as the applicant.
  • Applicants must be at least 18 years old. 
  • Sample work must be in English or subtitled in English.
  • Student, educational, and promotional projects are not eligible for consideration.
  • Films cannot be finished at the time of application. Films can be eligible if they premiere before grant determinations are made, if you can document a need for support to cover finishing expenses. 

Applicants do not need to be Jewish, but projects must reflect thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, or identity.

Projects Must:

• Make a unique contribution to the body of films on Jewish history, life, culture and/or identity.
• Have high production values and reflect excellence and originality in storytelling and craft.
• Have potential to entertain and engage, turn conversation into action, and reframe understanding of Jewish cultures and identities.
• Showcase contemporary relevance.
• Demonstrate a realistic schedule, fundraising plan, personnel, and budget to bring the project to completion.
• Identify a realistic strategy for reaching its intended audience.
• Show that the grant will make a critical contribution to the project’s completion.
• Demonstrate a strong alignment to JFI's mission, vision, and values. 

A selection committee of industry professionals will review all applications, preview sample works, and select finalists. An independent panel of media professionals including producers, directors, programmers, academics, distributors, or other experts in the field will convene to collectively select the grant recipients. The names of the panelists will remain confidential until after the awards are announced at the closing night of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in August of each year.

JFI is not able to provide critiques, screening notes, or individual reviews of films not chosen for Completion Grants.

• The Jewish Film Institute will have the first option to present the Bay Area Premiere of the film.
• The grantee will acknowledge funding by the Jewish Film Institute and any designated/named Award or Grant on screen, in web, pitchbook, poster, and printed credits for the project, or wherever else such credits appear. JFI staff has the right to review credits before post-production is complete.
• Grantee will provide a MP4 file of the finished film and trailer for JFI’s archive, not to be shared without the filmmaker’s express permission.
• The grantee will update JFI staff on the status of the film at milestone moments for JFI to report to stakeholders and elevate in its communications.
• Grantees must adhere to JFI's community standards and code of conduct. 

In addition to funding, grantees are entitled to:

• Recognition in JFI's institutional and marketing materials year-round and at the annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
• Invitations to live and online filmmaker events year-round.
• Request feedback on their project from JFI staff.
• Host a work-in-progress screening virtually or in the Ninth Street Independent Media Center’s Screening Room, under JFI’s auspices.

• Grantee may not be a Jewish Film Institute employee or Board member.
• Grantee may not be a full-time student.
• The project cannot be a work for hire.
• Only one application per project will be accepted.
• Industrial, educational, or promotional projects are ineligible.
  

This grant application is not an entry form for the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. If you would like to submit your project to the upcoming festival, visit this page.