61 funds a writer based in Canada can apply to: 42 at home and 19 from Europe and the world. 16 take an application from the writer alone.
61 listed.
Nothing matches. Try another stage, or leave the country on "any country": international funds are listed under every country they are open to.
National and regional funds, broadcasters and foundations at home.
Indigenous Screen Office with the Canada Media Fund
The Canada Media Fund's Indigenous money is handed to the Indigenous Screen Office to run, with higher contribution rates than the general programs: up to 84 percent of a predevelopment…
Canada Media Fund
Television and digital series development in Canada mostly runs through this fund, but a broadcaster has to commit first: the money follows a development deal rather than a pitch.
Telefilm Canada
Canada's federal feature film agency pays for script drafts and packaging through a production company, from a first draft to the attachment of a director and distributor.
Indigenous Screen Office
An Indigenous writer can apply here alone, without a producer or broadcaster, for research, script drafts, story editing, knowledge keepers and pitch materials.
Canada Council for the Arts
Since 2026 the Council's Artistic Creation grant stands in for two retired components, Concept to Realization and Research and Creation, and it is the arts council route for a screenwriter…
National Film Board of Canada
Not cash for writing but help finishing a film: the NFB reimburses post-production bills or opens its own Montreal suites to independent English-language filmmakers.
Telefilm Canada
Three ring-fenced streams inside Telefilm's feature programs: development, production and a Talent to Watch component for a first micro-budget feature.
Canada Media Fund
Single, authored documentaries have a selective CMF round of their own, in English and in French, each spring.
Telefilm Canada
The main production financing for Canadian fiction features, sorted into windows by language and budget level.
Indigenous Screen Office
Shorts, pilots, web series, features and broadcast series can all come to this autumn round, and an individual may apply without a company.
Indigenous Screen Office
The larger of the ISO's two production rounds, for Indigenous companies with budgets above a million dollars.
Canada Media Fund
A selective CMF round reserved for Black-owned companies and companies owned by people of colour, covering series production in both official languages.
Canada Media Fund
The one CMF development route that does not wait for a broadcaster: a company receives a slate allocation and chooses which of its own English or French projects to develop with it.
Telefilm Canada
First features on budgets under half a million dollars get most or all of their financing here, with no repayment.
Telefilm Canada
Feature documentaries headed for cinemas have their own Telefilm program, separate from the fiction Production Program, with one intake each spring.
Alberta Media Fund, Government of Alberta
Alberta's provincial fund pays for scripts in three phases and then for smaller productions, both as grants with fixed intake windows twice a year.
Screen Nova Scotia
Small early-development grants for emerging Black, Indigenous, racialized, 2SLGBTQIA+, disabled or official-language-minority writers and producers in Nova Scotia, paying for pitch decks…
Manitoba Arts Council
A general creation grant open to every discipline, so a Manitoba screenwriter applies as a writer or media artist for time to write or to develop a work in progress.
Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec (CALQ)
Quebec's standing creation grant takes applications any day of the year, which is rare among public arts funders.
Manitoba Film and Music
Manitoba lends development money rather than granting it, in phases up to a CAD 35,000 cap, once a distributor or fund has put in the first fifth of the budget.
Creative Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan funds first drafts, final drafts and company slates as grants that only become repayable if the film is shot elsewhere.
Alberta Foundation for the Arts
Script or screenplay writing is named on the page as a phase this grant can pay for, which makes it one of the few provincial grants a screenwriter can take to the page stage alone.
Ontario Creates
Early-stage development grants for Ontario companies that do not yet qualify for the IP Fund, typically a producer without the credits to attach a qualifying executive producer.
Arts Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia pays its artists to make new work across every discipline, media and literary arts included, and accepts script samples as support material.
SK Arts (Saskatchewan Arts Board)
Writing a script is an eligible creation project in Saskatchewan when the filmmaker who will direct it is the applicant; the guidelines use exactly that case as an example.
Ontario Creates
Ontario replaced its Film Fund with this stream in 2026: non-repayable money for development and production of features and digital series made in the province.
SODEC, Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (Québec)
Fiction features, shorts and one-off documentaries made in Québec apply here after development, in rounds spread through the year.
SODEC, Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (Québec)
Québec's cultural agency pays production companies to write fiction features and medium or feature documentaries, in a selective round twice a year, with a separate strand for animated…
Creative BC
Matching money for British Columbia producers who have already landed a development deal: Creative BC adds up to half of what the broadcaster, distributor or agency committed, as an…
Creative BC
The province's own production grant, created in 2020 and now one round a year: up to CAD 200,000 for a BC-owned feature or documentary, with priority for emerging creators and systemically…
Independent Production Fund (IPF), funded by Cogeco Communications
Equity for scripted television series that already have a Canadian broadcaster, from the fund Cogeco finances through the IPF.
Quebecor Fund (Fonds Québecor)
A top-up to the distributor's advance for French-language Canadian features, paid through the distributor and repaid from the film's returns, with extra money for an online marketing plan.
Hot Docs with the Slaight Family Foundation
A niche documentary fund founded in 2020 for films about music and musicians, Canadian or seen through Canadian eyes, paying a handful of projects each year.
Bell Fund
Series production money from one of Canada's certified independent production funds, triggered by a broadcaster or streamer commitment.
Canada's dedicated children's media fund, backer of more than a thousand programs, has paused its funding programs while it waits for new contributions.
Rogers Group of Funds
Since 1996 this fund has topped up the financing of Canadian documentaries once a platform has licensed them, with no recoupment and a cap of CAD 100,000.
Rogers Group of Funds
Independently produced Canadian series with a private broadcaster and a streamer both on board can draw up to half a million dollars here, as a grant below CAD 350,000 and as equity above…
Independent Production Fund (IPF)
Scripted short-form series, meaning web and digital-first fiction, are the whole point here. The development advance pays for scripts, a bible, an audience plan and a proof-of-concept shoot.
Bell Fund
A slate rather than a single project: a Canadian producer develops several original series at once and moves the money between them as the market responds.
Quebecor Fund (Fonds Québecor)
Development money for Québec television concepts and formats meant to sell abroad, where a French-language broadcaster has already put in development money.
Here the subject matters as much as the script: a feature, series or web series only qualifies when well-being, health or living conditions drive the story, and a Canadian health…
TELUS (TELUS Local Content)
A cable company's community fund for people in British Columbia and Alberta who have never worked in broadcasting: grants of CAD 10,000 to 20,000 for a short documentary series, a digital…
European and international funds, and funds from other countries that take applications from here.
Panavision
No cash changes hands, but a camera package from the house that shot most of Hollywood can be the biggest line in a first film's budget.
Eurimages, the Council of Europe's cultural support fund
Forty member states, Canada, Turkey, Ukraine and Switzerland among them, pay into this Council of Europe fund for co-produced features.
Catapult Film Fund
Seed money for documentaries at the point where nobody else will pay: a grant to shoot and cut the sample that raises the rest.
Perspective Fund
A private documentary funder that reads inquiries all year and writes checks of USD 25,000 to 150,000 without taking rights or credits below USD 150,000.
International Documentary Association, with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
A production fund for documentaries built on reporting, created in 2017 as an answer to misinformation.
Ford Foundation
The foundation behind much of American social-issue documentary takes direct proposals from filmmakers through a periodic open call, scored on fit with Ford's justice themes…
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The best known paid year of writing in American film: a USD 35,000 stipend to finish a new feature screenplay, open to unproduced writers anywhere in the world.
Chicken & Egg Films
Paid thinking time for women and gender-expansive documentary directors between films: a USD 10,000 research grant or a USD 20,000 development grant, with the stage chosen by the applicant.
From the Heart Productions
Small cash, large bundle: the winner takes USD 3,500 and a package of donated post, music and consulting worth several times that, for a film meant to do some good.
Post-production money for feature documentaries that are shot but not cut, from the San Francisco festival's foundation arm.
SFFILM, with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation
One of the few American grants that pays a screenwriter directly to write, and it can also fund packaging or the edit of the same film later.
CNC, Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, with the Institut français
The French door for filmmakers from anywhere else: a grant of up to EUR 300,000 for a feature co-produced with a French company, and a smaller sum to finish a film already shot.
Association Beaumarchais-SACD
A writer alone, writing in French from anywhere in the world, can win EUR 5,000 for a first or second fiction feature.
Association Beaumarchais-SACD
The television twin of the Beaumarchais feature bursary: EUR 5,000 to an emerging writer for an original series or single drama in French, with web series welcome.
Trentino Film Commission, Trentino Sviluppo (Provincia autonoma di Trento)
A production fund for works shot in Trentino, with the committee meeting about every three months and approved projects listed on the portal back to 2011.
Regione Autonoma della Sardegna and Fondazione Sardegna Film Commission
Money for bigger films that bring a shoot to Sardinia, in three categories by budget size, with a documentary strand. The round was reopened in autumn 2026 for the remaining funds.
Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia, through Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Commission
A production fund scored on how much of the film happens in the region, with three closing dates a year and a ranking issued within 30 days of each.
IDM Südtirol Alto Adige, Film Fund and Commission
Open to producers from any country, which is rare for a regional fund, as long as the shoot touches South Tyrol.
A rare worldwide grant for a first or second feature at the development stage, with real money behind it: up to USD 20,000 to write and package a narrative feature, more later for…