The Museum of the Shifting Picture and the Alfred P. Sloan Basis as we speak introduced the winners of the 2025 Sloan Pupil Grand Jury Prize and Sloan Pupil Discovery Prize, representing the very best of Sloan’s nationwide movie program.
The winners of the Grand Jury and Discovery Prize are, respectively: Quinn Spicker (AFI) for his function script “God Makers” and Nora Kaye (Brooklyn Faculty) for her function script “The Head Circumstances.”
Per as we speak’s official announcement, Spicker’s script follows the “true story for the battle over ChatGPT, tutorial researcher Helen Toner takes on tech-industrialist Sam Altman in an try to manage the way forward for AI.” Kaye is the primary filmmaker from Brooklyn Faculty to win the Discovery Prize and her script is chronicles “two good, cussed girls — a rebellious younger scientist and her exacting former professor — (who) should overcome their mutual hatred to save lots of the professor’s fading thoughts, testing their unorthodox Alzheimer’s remedy in a excessive stakes experiment that blurs the road between genius and recklessness.”
Spicker and Kaye will every obtain $20,000, trade publicity, and year-round mentorship from each a science advisor and a movie trade skilled. They are going to be celebrated on April 9 on the Museum of the Shifting Picture with a work-in-progress script studying, cocktail reception, and different festivities — open to the general public (RSVPs will open quickly).
Established in 2011 (Grand Jury Prize) and expanded in 2019 (Discovery Prize), the Sloan Pupil Prizes purpose to advance the skilled paths of various, rising filmmakers as they transition from faculty into the movie trade.
For the previous 26 years, the Sloan Basis has awarded annual screenwriting prizes at six accomplice movie faculties, and every faculty nominates one successful candidate for the best-of-the-best Grand Jury Prize. The Discovery Prize represents an enlargement of the Sloan movie program to 6 public universities who every submit an authentic screenplay that has not beforehand gained a Sloan prize.
This yr’s winners have been chosen from 10 finalists by a jury of scientists and filmmakers that included filmmaker Jonathan Bogarín (“306 Hollywood”), Dr. Gabriela Chiosis (The Gabriela Chiosis Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Most cancers Heart), Dr. Justus Kebschull (The Kebschull Lab at John Hopkins College), filmmaker Robert Kolodny (“The Featherweight”), filmmaker Eliza McNitt (“SPHERES”), filmmaker Tasha Van Zandt (“A Life Illuminated”), and Crew ORCA founder Dr. Edie Widder.
“We’re delighted to offer our annual Grand Jury and Uncover Prizes to Quinn Spicker’s ‘God Makers’ and Nora Kaye’s ‘The Head Circumstances,’” wrote Doron Weber, vice chairman and program director on the Sloan Basis, in an official assertion. “Each initiatives, one a couple of feminine engineer ensnared in Sam Altman’s takeover of OpenAI and the opposite in regards to the shifting relationship between two feminine scientists engaged on Alzheimer’s analysis, highlight the position of ladies in STEM and the significance of collaboration and empathy in science and expertise.”
This marks the fifth yr that the Sloan Pupil Prizes are awarded below the stewardship of the Museum of the Shifting Picture. Their stewardship is a part of the Museum’s wider Sloan Science & Movie initiative, which “offers alternatives for the creation, distribution, exhibition, and dialogue of movies that amplify understanding of scientific themes.”
In selecting its winners, the jury supplied citations that talk to the strengths of every script. Spicker’s script is “keenly constructed and propulsively written, … (and) tackles a pivotal second in human historical past. In anchoring the script within the perspective of a girl in STEM, Quinn Spicker has crafted a contemporary, nuanced tackle the story audiences suppose they learn about Sam Altman, ChatGPT, and the way forward for synthetic intelligence.”
As for Kaye’s script, the jury famous that by “balancing relatable emotional stakes with laugh-out-loud humor, ‘The Head Circumstances’ distinctive tone and glowing dialogue make it an engrossing learn. Nora Kaye’s charming two-hander explores the non-public motivations and moral challenges confronted by scientists who dedicate their careers to combatting devastating illnesses like Alzheimer’s.”
The jury additionally awarded honorable point out to Grand Jury Prize finalist Ellie Melick (Carnegie Mellon College) for her function script “SLEDHEAD,” which follows what occurs “when her cousin — and hero — loses a protracted battle with psychological sickness, U.S.A. Skeleton athlete Ingrid Anderson places her Olympic goals on the road to assist neurological researchers examine how sliding sports activities harm the mind.”