IFP's unique yearlong mentorship program supports first-time feature directors when they need it most: through the completion, marketing and distribution of their films.  Focusing exclusively on features with budgets below $1 million, this highly immersive program provides filmmakers with the technical, creative and strategic tools necessary to launch their films and careers. IFP Labs work to ensure that talented, emerging voices receive the support, resources, and industry exposure necessary to reach audiences. Submissions are open to all first-time feature documentary and narrative directors with films in post-production. Twenty projects (10 documentaries and 10 narratives) are selected for the annual program. All Lab projects automatically participate in the Project Forum of IFP’s Independent Film Week. You must be an IFP member to apply.

Lab alumni projects include Charles Poekel’s Christmas, Again (Factory 25), Lyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s (T)error (The Film Collaborative), Darius Clark Monroe’s Evolution of a Criminal (Independent Lens), David Thorpe’s Do I Sound Gay? (Sundance Selects) Aron Gaudet & Gita Pullapilly’s Beneath the Harvest Sky (Tribeca Film), Stacie Passon's Concussion (RADiUS), Alexandre Moors' Blue Caprice (Sundance Selects), Penny Lane's Our Nixon (CNN Films and Cinedigm), Daniel Patrick Carbone's Hide Your Smiling Faces (Tribeca Film), Lotfy Nathan's 12 O'Clock Boys (Oscilloscope), Dee Rees' Pariah (FocusFeatures), and Terence Nance's An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (Variance Films).