LOS ANGELES – After the successful program Drama Travels to the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival (LAGFF), the next step was, of course, further exchange as LAGFF Travels to Drama, opened new horizons for the selected short filmmakers who presented their works at the 17th LAGFF. It was a unique opportunity for Greek filmmakers of the Diaspora to participate in the celebration of short films at the Drama International Short Film Festival (DISFF) September 4-10 @dramafilmfestival. DISFF is considered to be one of the best short film festivals in Europe, which recently got the American Academy of Motion Picture’s certification regarding Oscar qualification for short films.

In addition to its ongoing grant programs, the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture delivers American Rescue Plan Act funds through Creative Recovery LA. Over $31 million is awarded to over 750 arts, cultural, and equity-building organizations, a historic County investment in the nonprofit creative sector.

Over $26 million of that sum comes from Los Angeles County’s allocation of the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) relief and recovery programs. To distribute these one-time funds, the Department of Arts and Culture designed and implemented Creative Recovery LA. This initiative supports the nonprofit creative sector that is facing ongoing challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, and focuses on organizations located in and serving communities most impacted by COVID and inequity. With a $26.4M total, 668 grantees, and over 1,900 individual grants awarded through the program’s innovative 5-in-1 grant opportunity design, Creative Recovery LA is believed to be the largest single publicly funded arts grant program in the history of the Los Angeles region.

The rest of the $31 million is funded by the Department of Arts and Culture’s flagship Organizational Grant Program, which sustains LA County’s cultural ecosystem with funding to arts organizations of every artistic discipline, budget size, and geography, and the innovative Community Impact Arts Grant initiative, which supports municipalities and social service and social justice nonprofits that use the arts in their community service programs.

LAGFF is among the 750 Creative Recovery LA grantees and noted its thanks to the federal and state administrators, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors and to the Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture directors and staff for this initiative.

More information is available online: https://www.lagff.org/.