The current application cycle for the Frameline Completion Fund is now closed. The next submission window will open again around October, 2025.

The Frameline Completion Fund provides grants to emerging and established filmmakers. This program seeks to provide a much-needed source of financial contributions to artists who often struggle 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.

For over a quarter century, Frameline has awarded $667,500 to 190 projects (see all past recipients here) to help ensure that LGBTQ+ film/video projects are completed and viewed by wider audiences. Projects finished with assistance from the Frameline Completion Fund 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.

Submissions are accepted for documentary, narrative, experimental, animated, or episodic projects about LGBTQ+ people and their communities. The Fund also seeks to bring new work to under-served audiences; with this in mind, we especially encourage applications by women, people of color, transgender people, intersex people, asexual people, non-binary people, disabled people, and other underrepresented people and communities.

• New for the 2025 Season: Please note that a few things have changed this year regarding applicant eligibility. Beginning this season, we can only consider applications that provide a full working cut of the film. It’s perfectly acceptable if the cut has temporary sound, color, visual effects, music, etc. If the film is missing a scene or two, or animated sequences, feel free to let us know specifics in the application. We require that the applicant provide a cut that features at least 90% of the completed film. With the number of applications increasing dramatically each year, we can no longer consider a project that provides a clip, sample, or demo. Thanks for understanding.
• Grants are given ONLY for completion; therefore, projects must have 90% of production finished and be in the post-production phase or ready to begin post as soon as funding is in place.
• Projects in development, script development, pre-production, or production will NOT be considered.
• Grants will ONLY be given to projects about LGBTQ+ people and their communities.
• Grants are 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.
• Student projects are eligible as long as the student maintains artistic and financial control of the project.
• International productions are accepted.
• Members of the staff and Board of Directors of Frameline are ineligible.
• 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.

For more information or additional questions about the Completion Fund, please email programming@frameline.org.