Film groups get $500,000 from Academy

May 24, 2011 by Ian Evans

As we’ve mentioned before, the annual Oscar ceremony is just the most visible of the Academy’s activities, but year-round they host and help many educational and film preservation activities. To that end, the Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded 68 grants totalling more than $500,000 to nonprofit organizations and institutions of higher learning throughout the United States as part of its annual Institutional and Internship Grants programs. The grants will fund film-related internships, job training programs, filmmaking workshops, scholarly seminars, visiting artist programs and screening series.

“The Academy strives to make the motion picture industry as accessible as possible to new talent and the public,” said Grants Committee Chair Andrew Marlowe. “Among the wide variety of programs earning the Academy’s support are internship and job training programs that provide students in underserved communities direct access to the industry, a key stepping-stone that might be otherwise unavailable.”

The Academy Foundation’s Grants Committee selected the following programs for 2011—2012:

Internship Grants

  • $12,500
    • California Institute of the Arts (Valencia)
    • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • $10,000
    • Columbia University School of the Arts (New York City)
    • Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)
    • Emerson College (Boston)
    • Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles)
    • New York University — Kanbar Institute of Film & Television
    • New York University — Moving Pictures Archive and Preservation Program
    • Stanford University
    • University of California, Los Angeles — Film and Television Program
    • University of North Carolina School of the Arts (Winston-Salem)
  • $9,000
    • University of Southern California (Los Angeles)
  • $7,500
    • DePaul University (Chicago)
    • Florida State University (Tallahassee)
    • Hampshire College (Amherst, MA)
    • University of Chicago
  • $6,765
    • Purchase College, State University of New York (SUNY)
  • $5,000
    • Columbia College Hollywood (Tarzana, CA)
    • Montclair State University (New Jersey)
    • University of Arizona (Tucson)

Institutional Grants

  • $15,000
    • FilmAid International (New York City) — African refugee camp screening program
    • Inner-City Filmmakers (Los Angeles) — Job training program
    • Streetlights (Los Angeles) — Job training program
  • $10,000
    • American Film Institute (Los Angeles) — Directing workshop for women
    • George Eastman House (Rochester, NY) — Visiting artist series
    • Los Angeles County Museum of Art — Film program
    • Writers Guild Foundation (Los Angeles) — Education programs
  • $7,500
    • The ACME Network (Los Angeles) — The ACME Animation Program
    • American Documentary (New York City) — History of Documentary film project
    • California Institute of the Arts (Valencia) — Skirball Screening Series at REDCAT
    • Facets Multi-media (Chicago) — CineChat series
    • Film Independent (Los Angeles) — Project: Involve
    • Film Streams (Omaha) — Visiting artists program
    • The Flaherty/International Film Seminars (New York City) — 57th Flaherty Film Seminar
    • Frameline (San Francisco) — Frameline at the Center screening series
    • International Documentary Association (Los Angeles) — Doc U seminar series
    • Maysles Institute (New York City) — Producers program
    • The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — Visiting artists program
    • Museum of the Moving Image (New York City) — Avant-garde filmmaker retrospectives
    • National Association of Latino Independent Producers (Santa Monica, CA) — Latino Producers Academy
    • UCLA Film & Television Archive — L.A. Rebellion screening series
    • Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT) — Guest speakers program
  • $6,000
    • Jacob Burns Film Center (Pleasantville, NY) — Filmmaker residencies
    • Northwest Film Forum (Seattle) — Visiting artist program
    • Ringling College of Art and Design (Sarasota, FL) — Visiting artist program
  • $5,000
    • Appalshop (Whitesburg, KY) — AMI Advanced Lab program
    • Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York City) — Cuban film screening series
    • Cinema St. Louis (St. Louis) — “Vincentennial,” a Vincent Price retrospective
    • Hofstra University (Hempstead, NY) — Documentary Perspectives screening series
    • Hot Sun Foundation (Nairobi, Kenya) — Kibera Film School
    • IFP (New York City) — Independent filmmaker labs
    • Los Angeles Filmforum — Screening program
    • Millennium Film Workshop (New York City) — Personal Cinema screening series
    • New York Stage and Film Company (New York City) — Powerhouse Filmmakers Lab
    • Ninth Street Independent Film Center (San Francisco) — Canyon Cinema screening program
    • Purchase College, SUNY — Filmmaking workshops and seminars
    • San Francisco Cinematheque — Restoration and preservation program
    • San Francisco Film Society — Artist-in-residence program
    • South Arts (Atlanta) — Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers
    • Squaw Valley Community of Writers (CA) — Screenwriting program
    • Tribeca Film Institute (New York City) — Tribeca All Access program
    • University of Colorado Foundation (Boulder) — Brakhage Symposium
    • Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH) — Visiting artist program
    • Yale University (New Haven, CT) — Films at the Whitney screening program
  • $4,000
    • University of North Carolina School of the Arts Foundation (Winston-Salem) — Visiting artist program
  • $3,500
    • IFP Chicago — Producers workshop series
    • IFP Minnesota (St. Paul) — Independent Producers Conference and IFP Pro Program
  • $3,000
    • Northeast Historic Film (Bucksport, ME) — Summer film symposium

Since its establishment in 1968, the Academy Foundation has distributed more than 778 institutional grants totalling more than $6.8 million in funding. The Academy Foundation — the Academy’s cultural and educational wing — annually distributes more than $1 million to film scholars, cultural organizations and film festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad. It also presents the Academy’s rich assortment of screenings and other public programs each year.