Christine Vachon, Lynette Howell and Cassian Elwes have teamed up with Twitter, Vimeo, The Black List, Sundance Institute, Women In Film, and Indiegogo to establish the award aimed at helping young female directors.

The Horizon Award launches with a campaign on Indiegogo to help fund the award. The goal is to raise $15,000, of which Elwes said he would match the first $5,000.

The Horizon Award is open exclusively to women and will focus on students who are currently in college or recent graduates within six months of graduation.

The winner will earn an expenses-paid trip to the 2015 Sundance Film Festival under the mentorship of the three producers as well as others such as Michelle Satter of Sundance Institute and Cathy Schulman of Women In Film.

The partners cited a 2012 study published by Women In Film and Sundance Institute that said females made up 9% of directors in the top 250 grossing films of that year at the US box office.

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