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The 2026 Frameline Completion Fund submission window has now closed.
Key Dates
- Submission Deadline: Friday, October 10, 2025 at 11:59 PM PT
- Notification Date: Early 2026
What Are Completion Fund Grants?
The Frameline Completion Fund provides grants to both emerging and established filmmakers. This program seeks to provide a much-needed source of financial contributions to artists who are struggling to secure funding to complete their works.
Grants up to $5,000 are available for the completion of films that represent and reflect LGBTQ+ life in all its complexity and richness. Since 1991, Frameline has awarded $692,500 to 197 projects through the Completion Fund.
Who Can Apply?
The Completion Fund accepts projects in all categories, from documentary and narrative works to experimental, animated, or episodic projects, so long as the films are about LGBTQ+ people and their communities.
The program seeks to support works by and for under-served communities. With this in mind, we encourage submissions from women, people of color, transgender people, intersex people, asexual people, nonbinary people, disabled people, and other underrepresented people and communities.
Eligibility Requirements
- Only applications that provide a full working cut of the film will be considered. Temporary sound, color, or visual effects are allowed — just let us know what’s missing or still being worked on in your application.
- Grants are given for completion only, so 90% of production must be finished. If you aren’t in the post-production phase, you must be ready to begin post-production as soon as this funding is in place.
- Grants will only be given to projects about LGBTQ+ people and their communities.
- Grants are only given to individuals with creative and financial control of the project. In the case of collaboration, a sole project director must be designated as the applicant.
- Grants will be given to projects in any film/video format, of any length, genre, or nationality.
- Members of the Frameline staff and/or Frameline Board of Directors are ineligible.
Please Note: Frameline reserves the right to deem ineligible, or alter a project’s award status at any point prior to the disbursement of funds. Projects may be deemed ineligible for perceived violations of Frameline’s Code of Conduct and or projects that could harm the organization.
FAQs
How do I submit?
Submissions are now closed for the current grant cycle.
Can international projects apply?
Yes, we welcome and encourage international applicants. However, the proposal must be submitted in English and the rough cut of the film must have the option for English subtitles.
Can students apply?
Yes, student projects are eligible as long as the student maintains artistic and financial control of the project.
Is there an application fee to apply?
No, there is no application fee.
How much funding can I request?
The standard Completion Fund grant ranges from $1,000 to $5,000, though the jury can recommend a higher or lower amount.
How are applications reviewed?
Frameline’s Programming team will review all applications and work samples and will select semi-finalists to recommend to an independent jury. The jury of film and media professionals will then convene to collectively select the grant recipients. The names of the panelists will remain confidential until after the awards are announced.
Who makes up the jury?
Jury members are industry professionals, including filmmakers, curators, critics, and academics. Past jurors have included Elegence Bratton (filmmaker, The Inspection), Tina Takemoto (Dean of Humanities and Sciences at California College of Arts San Francisco), Lex Sloan (Roxie Theater Executive Director and filmmaker), and Stefano Gonzalez (film producer and Transgress Studios LLC founder and CEO).
When can I expect to hear a status update on my application?
Applicants will be notified of their status in early 2026. We will not be able to provide additional information about the status of your application before this time.
If my project is not selected, can you provide feedback?
Unfortunately, due to the high number of submissions, we do not provide critiques, screening notes, or individual reviews of any films not chosen for finishing fund grants.
If my project is not selected, can I reapply next year?
We do not recommend re-submitting the same film for consideration unless significant changes to the project have been made.
If I receive a grant from the Frameline Completion Fund, what can the funds be used for?
Grant funds may be used for any post-production costs including closed captioning and audio descriptions, editing, special effects and graphics, music licensing, and photo licensing.
Past Completion Fund Recipients
In 2025, projects finished with assistance from the Frameline Completion Fund include: Heightened Scrutiny, Niñxs, Only Good Things (Apenas Coisas Boas), Budget Paradise, Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites (ចៅសំណព្វចិត្ត), Rainbow Girls, and The Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives.
Past Frameline Completion Fund recipients include Pariah, Go Fish, No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics, Lingua Franca, North by Current, The Watermelon Woman, By Hook or By Crook, Call Her Ganda, Chavela, Appropriate Behavior, To Be Takei, Last Call at Maud’s, The New Black, 1985, It Came from Kuchar, Brother to Brother, Kumu Hina, Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen, The Cockettes, Vito, Freeheld, We Were Here, The Happy Sad, Signature Move, In the Summers, and The Brandon Teena Story, among many others.
Please find a full list of past recipients in our Completion Fund Archives.
Still have questions?
Please reach out to our Programming Team at:
programming@frameline.org