For Faculty · Arts Club of Washington Scholarship Competition

From the Chair of the Scholarship Committee and the Club President

A letter to film faculty

Dear colleagues,

For department chairs and scholarship / financial-aid offices — please share with either or both.

We're writing to invite your students into the Arts Club of Washington's 2026–27 scholarship competition in Documentary Filmmaking — and to ask you to help them find the door.

For 110 years the Club has kept a home for working artists at the James Monroe House on I Street. This cycle the competition turns fully to documentary: find a true story and tell it well. Three monetary scholarships will be awarded, judged on the work alone. Winning films are screened for our members and guests at the club — a real audience, in a house that has belonged to the arts since 1916 — and the winners are celebrated at a reception on April 11, 2027.

Entries open October 1, 2026, and close February 28, 2027. Students submit a documentary of ten to twenty minutes (any YouTube link — private, unlisted, or public — kept active through the April reception), a short written statement, and one recommendation letter from a faculty member who knows their work. The competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students at accredited colleges and universities in DC, Maryland, and Virginia — all majors welcome, community colleges included, and there's no entry fee.

So here's our ask: mention the competition to your students, and consider writing for the ones whose work deserves a room. We've posted guidance on recommendation letters — what our independent jury finds most useful — along with the full rules and calendar on the site below. And if anything is unclear, write to us; a person answers.

Warmly, and with thanks for the work you do,

Scott Monett
Chair, Scholarship Committee

Jameson Freeman
President, Arts Club of Washington

Take a copy for your department

Your part

The recommendation letter

One letter per applicant, submitted as a PDF with the application.
From a faculty member familiar with the student's work — any department.
What helps the jury: how you know the student, what the work shows about their eye and persistence, and why this student, this year.
Deadline matches the submission deadline: February 28, 2027.

Your institution is almost certainly on our invited-universities list — 36 schools across DC, Maryland, and Virginia with film or media programs, each invited by name.

Outreach kit