Concordia-SODEC Emerging Filmmaker Competition

The School of Cinema is pleased to announce a call for submission to the 2025 Concordia-SODEC Emerging Filmmaker Competition. Film production and Animation graduates will be eligible in alternating years.  The 2025 iteration of the competition is for live action fiction or live action documentary short film projects. 

The winning applicant—individual screenwriter, director or producer—or creative team thereof, will have the opportunity to join the 2026-2027 or 2027-2028 cohort of SODEC’s Aid to Emergent Creation Program (Programme d’aide à la creation émergente), moving directly to the development stage (worth up to $15,000) as long as their project is matched to a company and producer(s) also eligible according to the rules of SODEC’s Aid to Emergent Creation Program. Subsequently, eligible projects will have the opportunity to move to the production stage (worth up to $115,000) if their project meets the program’s criteria.

An evaluation committee will be appointed at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema to choose the winning project.

Eligibility:

The principal applicant or applicants comprising the creative team (screenwriter, director, producer) must be graduates of Concordia University’s BFA Film Production or Film Animation, or MFA in Cinematic Arts, who have completed their degrees during the last five years.  Creative team members may not be full-time students in a secondary school, college, undergraduate university program, or vocational training program. Concordia students graduating in May are eligible for the current calendar year competition (e.g. if you graduate in May 2025, you are eligible to apply for the October 2025 deadline).

Not all the members of the creative team need be graduates of Concordia’s School of Cinema; however, each member must meet all the criteria of SODEC’s Aid to Emergent Creation Program.

All members of the creative team will have had Quebec as their tax residence for a minimum of two years.

Only projects of 30 minutes duration or less will be considered (15 minutes or less is preferred).

The winning applicant will be contacted at the latest by December 31, 2025.

Application requirements:

The following must be submitted as a single pdf file (with links where relevant).

• A maximum 250 word synopsis or treatment for a dramatic work or proposal for a documentary.
• Either a maximum 250 word project description (notes outlining creative intentions) OR the same as a maximum 5-minute video from the creative team.
• CV of the producer, screenwriter(s), and, if applicable, the director.
• The budget and financing structure of the project in development.
• A short description of the discoverability strategy tailored to the specific nature of the project.
• The affiliated production company’s track record (if one is already attached to the project).

All applicants are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the SODEC’s Aid to Emergent Creation Program:

https://sodec.gouv.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/programme-aide-creation-emergente-2024-2025-3.pdf

Deadline: October 1, 2025. 

All applications need to submitted through Slideroom. 

Please direct all inquiries to cinema@concordia.ca.