Hot Springs Film Festival Receives $5K for Diversity Sidebar

The Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences has awarded $5,000 of special support to the 2016 Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival through the Academy’s FilmWatch program.

The Academy issued 16 of these grants nationally, ranging from $4,500 to $25,000. The grant will help the HSDFF create a special festival sidebar for its 25th year called Women Behind the Lens: Diverse Perspectives. The program will showcase and promote female documentarians from a wide spectrum of cultures and experience.

This is the second consecutive year that the HSDFF has been awarded an Academy grant. In 2015 the organization received $10,000 for a sidebar program entitled Women Behind the Lens: Black and Latina Filmmakers. 

The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival will be held October 7-16, 2016 at the Arlington Hotel and Spa.

The festival, established in 1992, is an Academy Award qualifier in the category of Documentary Short Subject. As a qualifying festival, recipients of the festival’s Spa City Best Documentary Short Award qualify for Academy Awards consideration without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.