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L–R: Cristina Costantini, Brittany Wang, Ella Gale, Katla Sólnes

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Sundance Institute Award Announces Recipients for Science-in-Film Initiative and Artist Grants

Juried Feature Film Prize Awarded to SALLY; 
Director Cristina Costantini, Plus Four Grantees, Honored at Reception at 2025 Sundance Film Festival

PARK CITY, UTAH, January 27, 2025  — Today at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, the nonprofit Sundance Institute, in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, presented the juried Feature Film Prize to Cristina Costantini for her work on SALLY. Additionally, the recipients of three artist grants designed to support projects in development were announced: Ella Gale was awarded the Sloan Episodic Fellowship for Greenwashers, Katla Sólnes received the Sloan Development Fellowship for Eruption, and Brittany Wang was granted the Sloan Commissioning Grant for Thin Ice. The filmmakers collectively received a total of $84,000 in cash prizes and were honored at a reception hosted by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in Park City. Prior to the reception, the Feature Film Prize winner Cristina Costantini participated in a Sloan Foundation–sponsored Beyond Film event, The Big Conversation: Breaking Barriers, where panelists discussed the scientific and technological barriers that are exemplified by broader cultural and social challenges faced by scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, and how they are united in fascinating, complex narratives in film and television.

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Ahead of the Feature Film Prize reception, guests attended a Beyond Film talk, The Big Conversation: Breaking Barriers, hosted by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, that centered on the themes explored in SALLY, this year’s Feature Film Prize winner. Moderated by TV writer and executive producer at Edgewood Place Entertainment Wendy Calhoun, and featuring SALLY director Cristina Costantini, Guardians of the Galaxy writer Nicole Perlman, professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School Dr. Chao-ting Wu, and NASA astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman, the panelistsdelved into the art and science of breaking barriers. 

For over 20 years, the Science-in-Film initiative has supported emerging filmmakers whose work heightens public awareness of science in our culture, portrays the full range of humanity engaged in scientific and technological pursuit, illustrates the vital and unique role of scientists and their work in our society, and highlights the special possibilities of communicating through independent film. In addition to the prize, the Sloan-funded initiative underwrites the development of projects with science and technology themes through the Sloan Episodic Fellowship in the Sundance Institute Episodic Program, and the Sloan Development Fellowship and Sloan Commissioning Grant, in the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program. Fifty scripts have been developed or are currently in development through this program, with numerous feature films produced and released theatrically. The initiative also expands public discourse about science and cinema through a dedicated panel at the Sundance Film Festival. Panelists and jurors over the past 21 years have included Alan Alda, Paula Apsell, Darren Aronofsky, Kerry Bishé, Mike Cahill, Sean Carroll, Antonio Damasio, Ann Druyan, Jim Gaffigan, Brian Greene, Clark Gregg, Dr. Mandë Holford, Tenoch Huerta, Dr. Nia Imara, Clifford V. Johnson, Matt Johnson, Margaret Leone, Flora Lichtman, Brit Marling, Marvin Minsky, Jonathan Nolan, Sev Ohanian, Theresa Pak, Alex Rivera, Octavia Spencer, Shawn Snyder, Courtney Stephens, and John Underkoffler.


Previous recipients of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize include Sam & Andy Zuchero’s Love Me (2024), Sophie Barthes’ The Pod Generation (2023), Kogonada’s After Yang (2022),Alexis Gambis’ Son of Monarchs (2021), Michael Almereyda’s Tesla (2020), Chiwetel Ejiofor’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019), Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian’s Searching (2018), Michael Almereyda’s Marjorie Prime (2017), Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent (2016), Kyle Patrick Alvarez and Tim Talbott’s The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015), Mike Cahill’s I Origins (2014), Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess (2013), Jake Schreier and Christopher D. Ford’s Robot & Frank (2012), Musa Syeed’s Valley of Saints(2012), Mike Cahill’s Another Earth (2011), Diane Bell’s Obselidia (2010), Max Mayer’s Adam(2009), Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer (2008), Chen Shi-Zheng’s Dark Matter (2007); Andrucha Waddington’s The House of Sand (2006), Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (2005), Shane Carruth’s Primer (2004), and Mark Decena’s Dopamine (2003).

“We are deeply appreciative of our long-standing partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that allows us to honor artists that are exploring the connection between art and science,” said Amanda Kelso, Sundance Institute Acting CEO. “The Science-In-Film Initiative’s Feature Film Prize and artist grants give us the opportunity to recognize the artists at the forefront of this exploration. We are thrilled to celebrate this year’s recipients and give them a space for discussion on this topic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.”

 

“We are delighted to honor Cristina Costantini’s SALLY, a feature-length documentary that honors the remarkable, closeted life of pioneering astronaut and physicist Sally Ride, the first American woman to go to space,” said Doron Weber, Vice President and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “We are also immensely pleased to award three screenwriting fellowships to three outstanding women writers – Ella Gale, Katla Sólnes, and Brittany Wang  – who explore the unique challenges faced by women in science determined to contribute to their field and be treated as equals. This year’s winners are wonderful additions to the nationwide Sloan film program and further proof of the vitality of our landmark, two-decade partnership with Sundance.”

SALLY has been awarded the 2025 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and received a $25,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at today’s reception

Cristina Costantini, director of SALLY, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

The Prize is selected by a jury of film and science professionals and presented to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character. The 2025 jury for the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize included Michael Almereyda, Nia Imara, Monica Lopez, Nicholas Ma, and Sam & Andy Zuchero.

 

The jury shared that the Cristina Costantini’s SALLY was selected “for its moving portrait of a pioneering scientist and a complex human being who became the first American woman to fly in space and who insisted on living her own life while negotiating the restrictive culture of NASA and the mass media, and for its engaging use of a rich archive to illuminate the secret history of an extraordinary American that reverberates to our own day.”

SALLY / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Cristina Costantini, Screenwriter: Tom Maroney, Producers: Lauren Cioffi, Dan Cogan, Jon Bardin) –– Sally Ride became the first American woman to blast off into space, but beneath her unflappable composure was a secret. Sally’s life partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy, reveals their hidden romance and the sacrifices that accompanied their 27 years together. World Premiere. Documentary. Available online for Public. 2025 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize Winner.

Ella Gale will receive a $17,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for Greenwashers through the Sundance Institute | Sloan Episodic Fellowship.

Previous recipients of the Sundance Institute | Sloan Episodic Fellowship include: Tektite, The Professor and the Spy, Our Dark Lady, The Harvard Computers, and Higher.

Ella Gale is a comedy writer, director, and fiction podcaster. She started as a standup in Austin, Texas, before moving to Los Angeles. She is a Yes, And… Laughter Lab Fellow, Black List Feature Lab fellow, and Black List/Hornitos short film grant recipient. Her horror/comedy short Hell Gig played at Fantasia and Fantastic Fest, and is currently available on Alter. Her fiction podcast Candy Claus, Private Eye is an award-winning audio comedy about Santa’s bastard daughter solving hard-boiled Christmas crimes on the North Pole.

Greenwashers / An idealistic young environmental engineer gets sucked into a water rights conspiracy at a shady consulting company.

Katla Sólnes will receive a $17,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for Eruption through the Sundance Institute | Sloan Development Fellowship.

Previous recipients of the Sundance Institute | Sloan Development Fellowship include: Satoshi, Light Mass Energy,Moving Bangladesh, Chariot, and Tidal Disruption. She is also the recipient of the 2024 Sloan Screenwriting Award at Columbia University.

Katla Sólnes is an Icelandic writer-director represented by True North Talent who recently graduated with her MFA from Columbia University, and has been the recipient of support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Icelandic Film Fund, and Indian Paintbrush. She is an adjunct assistant professor in Screenwriting at Columbia University.

ERUPTION / In the highlands of Iceland in 1972, a geologist’s wife finds her marriage tested when a wily American student arrives, stirring tensions as volatile as the volcanic landscape.

Brittany Wang will receive a $25,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for Thin Ice through the Sundance Institute | Sloan Commissioning Grant.

Previous winners of the Sundance Institute | Sloan Commissioning Grant include: Inverses, Incompleteness, The Futurist, Pharmacopeia, The Plutonians, and Challenger.

Brittany Wang is a screenwriter born in Tianjin, China, and raised in suburban Maryland. A child of divorced immigrant parents (a true double whammy), Brittany writes about the unconventional ways outsiders redefine life on their own terms. She was a LACAC fellow and completed her MFA at USC, where she received the Sloan Screenwriting Grant. She is also the recipient of the 2024 Sloan Screenwriting Award at USC and the 2024 Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize.

THIN ICE / In 1999, graduate student Jane Willenbring embarks on a research expedition under renowned glaciologist David Marchant. Upon reaching the remote Antarctic camp, Jane is forced to endure his endless physical and psychological torment. 17 years later, now an award-winning geomorphologist herself, can Jane face her past and bring Marchant to justice?

WHO

Sundance Film Festival®

The Sundance Film Festival, a program of the nonprofit, Sundance Institute, is the pre-eminent gathering of original storytellers and audiences seeking new voices and fresh perspectives. Since 1985, hundreds of films launched at the Festival have gone on to gain critical acclaim and reach new audiences worldwide. The Festival has introduced some of the most groundbreaking films and episodic works of the past three decades, including Daughters, Dìdi (弟弟), A Real Pain, Sujo, Thelma, Will & Harper, Past Lives, 20 Days in Mariupol, The Eternal Memory, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, A Thousand and One, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, Rye Lane, Navalny, Fire of Love, Flee, CODA, Passing, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Minari, Clemency, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Zola, O.J.: Made in America, On the Record, Boys State, The Farewell, Honeyland, One Child Nation, The Souvenir, The Infiltrators, Sorry to Bother You, Top of the Lake, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Hereditary, Call Me by Your Name, Get Out, The Big Sick, Mudbound, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Precious, The Cove, Little Miss Sunshine, An Inconvenient Truth, Napoleon Dynamite, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Reservoir Dogs, and sex, lies, and videotape. The program consists of fiction and nonfiction features and short films, series and episodic content, innovative storytelling, and performances, as well as conversations, and other events. The Festival takes place in person in Utah, as well as online, connecting audiences to bold new artists and films. The 2025 Festival will be held January 23–February 2, 2025. Be a part of the Festival at festival.sundance.org and follow the Festival on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X(formerly Twitter), and YouTube.

The Festival is a program of the nonprofit Sundance Institute. To date 2025 Festival sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors – Acura, AMC+, Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Adobe; Leadership Sponsors – Audible, Casamigos, Omnicom Group, Shutterstock, United Airlines; Sustaining Sponsors – Canon U.S.A., Inc., Darling&Co., Dropbox, World of Hyatt®, IMDbPro, MACRO, Rabbit Hole Bourbon & Rye, University of Utah Health, Vimeo, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY, White Claw Hard Seltzer; Media Sponsors – Deadline Hollywood, IndieWire, Los Angeles Times, Variety, Vibe, Vulture, TheWrap. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year round programs for independent artists. Please visit festival.sundance.org for more.

Sundance Institute

As a champion and curator of independent stories, the nonprofit Sundance Institute provides and preserves the space for artists across storytelling media to create and thrive. Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Institute’s signature labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. Sundance Collab, a digital community platform, brings a global cohort of working artists together to learn from Sundance advisors and connect with each other in a creative space, developing and sharing works in progress. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences and artists to ignite new ideas, discover original voices, and build a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Through the Sundance Institute artist programs, we have supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Big Sick, Bottle Rocket, Boys Don’t Cry, Boys State, Call Me by Your Name, Clemency, CODA, Drunktown’s Finest, The Farewell, Fire of Love, Flee, The Forty-Year-Old Version, Fruitvale Station, Half Nelson, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hereditary, Honeyland, The Infiltrators, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Little Woods, Love & Basketball, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Mudbound, Nanny, One Child Nation, Pariah, Raising Victor Vargas, Requiem for a Dream, Reservoir Dogs, RBG, Sin Nombre, Sorry to Bother You, Strong Island, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Swiss Army Man, A Thousand and One, Top of the Lake, Walking and Talking, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, and Zola. Through year-round artist programs, the Institute also nurtured the early careers of such artists as Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Gregg Araki, Darren Aronofsky, Lisa Cholodenko, Ryan Coogler, Nia DaCosta, The Daniels, David Gordon Green, Miranda July, James Mangold, John Cameron Mitchell, Kimberly Peirce, Boots Riley, Ira Sachs, Quentin Tarantino, Taika Waititi, Lulu Wang, and Chloé Zhao. Support Sundance Institute in our commitment to uplifting bold artists and powerful storytelling globally by making a donation at sundance.org/donate. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram,TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube.

About the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation:

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a New York-based, philanthropic, not-for-profit institution that makes grants in three areas: research in science, technology, and economics; quality and diversity of scientific institutions; and public engagement with science. Sloan’s program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports Books, Radio, Film, Television, Theater,  New Media, and YouTube & TikTok to reach a wide, non-specialized audience and to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities.

Sloan’s Film Program encourages filmmakers to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination. Over the past two decades, Sloan has partnered with top film schools in the country – including AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, NYU, UCLA, and USC – and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production, along with an annual best-of-the-best Student Grand Jury Prize. The Foundation also supports screenplay development programs with the Sundance Institute, SFFILM, the Black List, the Athena Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Film Independent. The Foundation has supported over 800 film projects and has helped develop over 30 feature films, including Michael Almereyda’s Tesla, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Ginny Mohler’s Radium Girls, Thor Klein’s Adventures of a Mathematician, Jessica Oreck’s  One Man Dies a Million Times, Michael Tyburski’s The Sound of Silence, Shawn Snyder’s To Dust, Logan Kibens and Sharon Greene’s  Operator, Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, and Matthew Brown’s  The Man Who Knew Infinity. The Foundation has supported feature documentaries such asPedro Kos, Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk’s The White House Effect, Werner Herzog’s Theater of Thought, David France’s How to Survive a Pandemic, Sharon Shattuck and Ian Cheney’s Picture a Scientist, Shalini Kantayya’s Coded Bias, Noah Hutton’s In Silico, Ric Burns’ Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, Mark Levison’s The Bit Player, Alexandra Dean’s Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Mark Levinson’s Particle Fever, and Jacques Perrin’s Oceans. It has also given early award recognition to stand-out films such as Oppenheimer, BlackBerry, Don’t Look Up, Linoleum, Ammonite, The Aeronauts, The Martian, First Man, and Hidden Figures.

The Foundation has an active theater program and commissions about 20 science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the National Theatre in London, while supporting select productions across the country and abroad. Recent grants from Sloan’s Theater Program have supported Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day (currently on Broadway), Nelson Diaz-Marcano’s Las Borinqueñas, Mark Rylance’s Dr.Semmelweis, Anchuli Felicia King’s Golden Shield, Sam Chanse’s what you are now, Charly Evon Simpson’s Behind the Sheet, Lucy Kirkwood’s Mosquitoes, Chiara Atik’s Bump, Nick Payne’s Constellations, Lucas Hnath’s Isaac’s Eye, Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51, David Auburn’s Proof, Leigh Fondakowski’s Spill, and Bess Wohl’s Continuity. The Foundation’s book program includes early support for Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, the best-selling book that became the highest grossing Oscar-nominated film of 2017, and Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning American Prometheus, adapted for the screen in Christopher Nolan’s hit film Oppenheimer.

For more information about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, please visit  www.sloan.org or follow the Foundation at @SloanPublic on X, Instagram, and Facebook.

 

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