The Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) today announced the films that will receive financial and creative support from the TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund, provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  This year, out of 121 applicants both in the US and internationally, six projects will be awarded a total of $140,000 and will be recognized at the annual Tribeca Film Festival (April 20- May 1, 2011). Grant recipients will receive year-round mentorship from science experts and members of the film industry with the goal to help their projects at any stage move towards completion.  The TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund awards grants to narrative film projects that dramatize science and technology themes in film or that portray scientists, engineers, or mathematicians in prominent character roles. 2011 also marks the 10^th year of the partnership between TFI and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a founding sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival and TFI.

The winning projects were selected by an Award Committee made up of luminaries in film and science including: Alexis Alexanian (Producer, The Hottest State, Pieces of April, Tadpole); Matthew Broderick (Tony Award-winning actor: Election, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, On Stage: The Producers, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying); James L. Brooks (Oscar-winning Writer/Director/Producer, How Do You Know, As Good As it Gets, Terms of Endearment); Andrew Fierberg (Producer, Broken English, Fur, Secretary); Dr. Stuart Firestein (Professor of Biological Science & Department Chair, Columbia); Dr. Janna Levin (Professor of Physics & Astronomy, Barnard) and Robin Swicord (Oscar-nominated Writer/Director, The Jane Austen Book Club, Memoirs of a Geisha, Matilda).