Spring 2026 Grant Program Finalists

Thank you to every artist that submitted an application for the Flatiron Film Project's Spring 2026 Grants Program. The Selection Committee has been delighted, inspired and touched by the quality of work. Please find below the list of Finalists. Scroll to the second half of the list to find Colorado projects.

Grant recipients will be announced in the coming weeks. Congratulations to all!

U.S. Projects

A Song Called Quest submitted by Amadou Diallo

Three jazz musicians reunite after 15 years. But as they play a song from their heyday, old wounds surface, and the long-held secret behind their breakup is revealed.

Best Friends Forever submitted by Liz Manashil

Reconnecting years after high school, a group of friends uncovers old resentments as they slowly succumb to a supernatural infection during a bachelorette party.

Body Shop submitted by Maria Mealla

In an alternate reality where body shops replace hospitals, a young mechanic discovers a wealthy client pressuring her boss to loan her a Latina body for a night out. Appalled by the request and determined to stop it, she takes measures into her own hands.

Confession submitted by Shareen Anderson

Once a rising star in hip-hop’s golden age, Trevell Coleman, aka G. Dep, lived a double life — celebrated on stage, tormented in silence. After seventeen years haunted by a secret that wouldn’t let him rest, he walked into a Harlem police precinct and confessed to a decades-old killing no one knew he’d committed. Confession is a haunting and deeply human documentary about guilt, faith, music, and the price of telling the truth.

Darla submitted by Emma Miszewski

Darla follows a retired pageant queen who must unexpectedly play host to her heartbroken, divorcee, thousand year old alien cousin Eürgaenon. Like it or not, Darla must learn that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that some people have more than two eyes.

Daydreamer submitted by Caroline Renard

Dani’s curated and idealistic life starts shattering when the figments of her imagination and her grips on reality start blurring.

Dollhouse Murders submitted by Christina O'Neil

A struggling artist’s sugar daddy finances her art and new studio—until her latest series of hyper-stylized dioramas of murdered men fractures their transactional relationship, igniting a slow, unsettling psychological spiral over power and creative control.

Evergreen submitted by Natalie Jasmine Harris

A young woman travels to the Blue Ridge Mountains with her grandmother’s late-in-life love to scatter her ashes, uncovering buried stories, unexpected kinship, and a new understanding of love.

First Resort submitted by Claudia Restrepo

A struggling and insecure actor finds himself at a gay men’s clothing-optional resort in Palm Springs for his best friend’s goodbye party, where he clashes with the friend’s Adonis coworker.

Forget Me Not submitted by Michael Cooke

After a painful breakup, Marcus and Sienna, two memory-altering wizards living quietly in Brooklyn, erase each other from their minds. When a powerful relic tied to their past resurfaces, they are forced back into one another’s orbit, confronting the consequences of a love that refused to disappear.

Lakeside submitted by Sid Gopinath

Eleven year-old Krish wrestles with his understanding of fatherhood and friendship on a pivotal camping trip with his father and godfather.

No Easy Way Back submitted by Thea Lux

When two sisters try to intercept a cash drop in the unforgiving Oklahoma wilderness, their stubbornness surrounding unresolved family trauma nearly gets them killed.

Notes on a Recurring Tone submitted by Haydon Mayer

In the wake of her mother's death, a grieving field recordist becomes consumed by a mysterious set of frequencies — convinced she's at the brink of a vast sonic conspiracy.

Pathways submitted by Alex Loucas

A man runs 155 miles across southern California in pursuit of the person he hopes to become.

Pride & Honor submitted by Mai Iskander

PRIDE & HONOR follows Lilly Stephan Steffanides, a terminally ill Navy veteran who rose from 24 years of homelessness to help lead a landmark federal case that restored honor and benefits to over 100,000 LGBTQI+ veterans—achieving their own dying wish of a military discharge upgrade and funeral with full military honors.

River Warrior subitted by Cassia Sherrill

After enduring a four-year drought, an off-grid farmer embarks on a kayaking journey from her hometown creek in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina all the way to the Gulf—seeking to reconnect with and redefine her relationship to water.

Slipping Through My Fingers submitted by Grace Eitrheim

Once destined for Juilliard, pianist Anya returns home after chronic illness derails her future. As her mother wavers between tenderness and denial, and encounters with old friends stir longing and loss, Anya struggles to redefine herself in a world that feels just out of reach.

The Chatter submitted by Michael Schatz

When a lonely chatter for an adult content creator forms a real connection with a subscriber, he’s faced with an impossible choice between honesty and the comfort of illusion.

The Department of Dirty Tricks submitted by Sam Kim

The story of the CIA's covert operations arm tasked with sabotage, coups, and psychological warfare – including the secret bankrolling of artists and an animated adaptation of Animal Farm. Told through interviews, archival footage, and declassified CIA files, this documentary traces the Department's rise and fall and how it created the playbook for psyops today.

The Interview submitted by Ksenia Naughton

The Interview is a bittersweet fairytale about a desperate young female immigrant who opts for the help of a mysterious device that removes her foreign accent to land her dream job. But at what cost?

The Pearl submitted by Elitia Barnes

A one night snapshot of a local venue, The Pearl, where three friends, ex-lovers, and former bandmates crash back into each others' lives, sparking unresolved tension, shared memories, and the music that keeps them connected.

The Sound of Belonging submitted by Gina Margillo

In a disconnected Miami, a scruffy urban choir unites voices of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities, and toughs it out through obstacles of homelessness, mental health, and funding, to create radical belonging, in four-part harmony.

The Wait submitted by Sekiya Dorsett

On the day of their final IVF embryo transfer, a Black queer couple stuck in a sterile fertility-clinic waiting room is pulled through a series of ancestral portals that test their bond and reframe what it means to build a family.

Track 27 submitted by Edouard Holdener

In the early 70s, a broken-hearted young man stranded in the desert seeks the help of an older motel owner in making a cassette.

Waspringa submitted by Molly Greville

Three adult siblings reunite for a reluctant family sailing trip in New England, where old grudges, petty rivalries, and awkward confessions churn beneath the surface. Liv, caught in a low-grade obsession with a distant crush, navigates the trip while dodging her parents’ denial about her sexuality, her brother’s smug competitiveness, and her sister’s fresh-out-of-rehab volatility. Over a long weekend of bickering, the siblings find unlikely solidarity — not by resolving anything, but by escaping together.

Zeenat And The Men Who Give Her Pause submitted by Richa Rudola

A menopausal woman in a loveless marriage finds a quiet spark with a younger colleague during fleeting elevator rides. As her emotional and sexual buttons are pushed, she must decide how far she is willing to rise.

Colorado Projects

Barnacles submitted by Alex Bugg

A woman must recover control of her life after a crustaceous rash spreads across her body.

Beyond the Barre submitted by Melody Hu

Beyond the Barre is a documentary that follows eight women aged 50 to 77 who challenge the narrow ideals of ballet by continuing to dance with aging bodies, offering a bold, graceful portrait of movement beyond expectation, and art that deepens with time.

Breaking Ground submitted by Erin Preston

Breaking Ground follows a hardworking Latina mother of three as she pursues an impossible dream: homeownership in Boulder. When the city builds a modular home factory where high school students get hands on learning while constructing affordable homes, Maribel's journey becomes a testament to what's possible when communities decide everyone deserves to belong.

God is a Pelican submitted by Carmela Murphy

“God is a Pelican” is a stop-motion animated short that follows two misfit middle-school girls’ intense, queer, and turbulent friendship as they create their own religion. After playground sermons, midnight pond baptisms, and unruly followers, the religion sparks a school-wide panic, which ultimately leads to a Judas-like betrayal.

Miss Lonelyheart's Memory Light submitted by Florence Young

An 8-year-old girl with PTSD runs away from a foster home to confront her violent, deadbeat dad, and to piece together the fractured memory of her mother’s death.

Moonflower submitted by Adrienne deFaria

Raped by the same man, two women set out to enact fatal revenge in America's forgotten West.

Pageant Queen submitted by Alicia Leeper

At 76, lightning-struck, glitter-drenched Aurora Colorado actress Kathi Bearns pursues a long-denied second act, seeking sisterhood, self-worth, and beauty for the first time as she competes in the Ms. Colorado Senior America Pageant.

Plato Grande 1x01 "The Prodigal Son" submitted by Jordan Spalding

When charismatic-bordering-on-neurotic celebrity chef and restarauteur Thayer Grande accidentally gives hundreds of industry insiders and critics food poisoning, he flees to his humble beginnings, the family restaurant, El Plato Grande where he decides to remake himself but the Grande is in danger of going under in the wake of his father's deportation, and now he must save it and learn what it really means to be a Grande, or risk losing his last chance to repair his reputation.

Squad submitted by Michael Hyon Johnson

A teen cadet, desperate to carve his name into his school’s legacy, unravels when a rival outshines him and his friends turn his sacred ambitions into a joke.

The Hostage submitted by Jay Sherer

The Bastard and The Old Man kidnap The Kid, holding him hostage until he swears to sabotage a secret government plan called The Doorway Project. As police sirens bear down on their location, The Old Man's desperation forces him to take matters into his own hands.

The Silence in Between submitted by Daniel Wright

At the start of his youth orchestra season, eighth-grader Brennan Leslie still has no instrument — until a recently-donated antique violin lands in his hands.