Sacramento Office of Arts + Culture

Program Overview

Sacramento Film + Media is committed to sustaining and growing film and television production in the City of Sacramento. The Film + Media Grant Program supports this aim by subsidizing permit fees and reducing the costs of safety personnel and reimbursing qualified expenses for production companies when these activities occur in the City of Sacramento.

Sacramento Film + Media will award six $10,000 production grants and two $5000 post-production grants during fiscal year 2023 in two grant rounds. Grant funds that remain available due to a lack of eligible applicants in the prior period will be rolled over to the next round. Grants will be for:

1. Required services and permitting fees by City of Sacramento staff and/or departments, including police, fire, permit fees, parking fees (inter-department transfer of funds); Reimbursement awards where an applicant has demonstrated a need that exceeds City services support, where qualified expenses occur within the city (i.e., hotel nights, rental cars, rental equipment, location fees, catering, local hires, post-production, etc.); or

2. Reimbursement awards for post-production support.

Eligibility

The Sacramento Film + Media Grant program is open to productions filming at least 50% of the project in the Sacramento region with at least two locations in the City of Sacramento. It is also open to productions where 75% of post-production is done locally. Eligible productions include feature length films, short films, episodic television, television pilots, television movies/miniseries, documentaries, docuseries, commercials, music videos, and unscripted television. Production companies may only apply for one grant per round. Production companies may apply for multiple rounds but may only be awarded two grants in a twelve-month period, including a post-production grant. Applications must be submitted prior to physical production commencement to be considered eligible, and post-production applicants must have 75% of physical production completed to be considered eligible.

Funding support for a grantee may be revoked at any time if it is determined that the production does not fit within the criteria of the Guidelines, or the applicant provided false or misleading information to the City.

Application Deadlines & Submittal Periods

Three production grants and one post-production grant will be awarded in each of two separate rounds. Deadlines and submittal periods for each round are below:

1. Round 1 Deadline: January 15, 2023 11:59 p.m. PDT

Round 1 Application Submittal Period: October 15, 2022 through January 15, 2023

2. Round 2 Deadline: May 15, 2023 11:59 p.m. PDT

Round 2 Application Submittal Period: February 15, 2023 through May 15, 2023

Applicants may submit at any time during the application submittal period, but the submission must be received by the deadline date. Applicants are asked to submit for projects that will begin physical production within 180 days from the award date.
Complete guidelines and how the applications are scored can be found Here. If you still have questions after you've read the guidelines, please email filmoffice@cityofsacramento.org