PRESENTED BY JULIE MORDECAI AND SARAH SELLMAN
This content will be updated when SeriesFest: Season 12 submissions officially open on August 20, 2025.
View all festival funds and awards
New for SeriesFest: Season 11 (2025), this fund aims to support a creative, or team, who identifies across a spectrum of social categories that shape their experiences—and the stories they would like to tell through television.
INTENT
This fund is created to foster and uplift the voices of neurodiverse, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and creators telling stories from their lived experience. The purpose of this fund is to identify and financially support independent creators who have important stories to tell that positively impact and image the communities described above, and to further promote the role of intersectionality in the creation of meaningful stories. We believe in stories that see the world through more than a single marginalized identity and have the capacity to steward the film industry towards a deeper meaning making.
PROCESS
This year’s fund intends to financially support production of an independent pilot 10-60 minutes in length, based on the merits of the script submitted through SeriesFest. SeriesFest identifies a short list of filmmakers and creators whose creative team is made up of person or persons who self identifies as being from a rural lived experience and identifies as one or more of the following criteria:
- LGBTQIA+
- Neurodiverse
- BIPOC
- Disabled
The creative team to be considered includes writers, directors and producers.
This fund’s sponsors are Sarah Sellman and Julie Mordecai. Sarah is a queer + neurodiverse filmmaker and artist who grew up in rural Colorado, and Julie is a Colorado based investor and supporter of SeriesFest. During the annual festival, Julie and Sarah will meet with a selection of filmmakers to further understand the impetus behind the projects and their creative teams.
At the conclusion of the festival, none, some, or all, up to three filmmakers will receive a one-time financial donation of $10,000.00 from the Intersectionality Fund. In Future Years, those who receive this grant will be eligible for a second tier of funding towards production.
ELIGIBILITY
- Scripts and Pilots with writers and/or directors, producers who identify as one or more of BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neurodiverse, or disabled.
- The project must feature characters who have lived rural experience and identify as one or more of BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, neuodiverse, or disabled, with a recurring role in the series.
- Creators who feature a lived rural experience will be given priority consideration.
SERIESFEST FUND OVERVIEW
PRIZES & AWARDS
The creator(s) selected for this opportunity will receive funds to further their career in the television industry.
Up to three filmmakers will be selected for a one time $10,000.00 donation.
RIGHTS AND CLEARANCES FOR MUSIC OR OTHER COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
At the time of submission, you are not yet required to obtain all rights and clearances. If your pilot is selected, you must clear all copyrighted materials before it can be publicly screened. It is the sole responsibility of the entity submitting the project to secure permission from the copyright holder of the material in question, whether it is music, stock footage, or any other elements that could violate an existing copyright. Quite often, rights holders offer reduced rates for festivals, so you should contact them directly to avoid any potential rights infringements. You will be required to sign a release stating that materials used in the pilot do not violate any existing copyright.
FINAL SELECTIONS
If your work is selected, you must fulfill the following requirements by the date(s) designated by SeriesFest:
- You must execute a release agreement wherein you:
Indemnify and hold harmless SeriesFest, SeriesFest LLC, its parent company, its affiliates, and
subsidiaries and any of their respective directors, officers, employees, and representatives
against any claim arising out of exhibition of your film at SeriesFest. - Agree to participate in a reasonable number of customary promotional and publicity activities
[including press junkets, telephone interviews, sending press packages, and public
appearances to promote the SeriesFest - You own the project IP and have the rights to any affiliated source material
Thank you to our sponsors
Julie Mordecai & Sarah Sellman
Sarah Sellman is a queer + neurodiverse filmmaker and artist who grew up in rural Colorado. Julie Mordecai is a Colorado based investor and supporter of SeriesFest.
