Mark Lipman’s film Gaining Ground received an $80,000 production grant from the Riley Foundation.

Robin Hessman’s film My Perestroika recently received a $10,000 grant from Chicken and Egg. Congratulations!

Robbie Gemmel received a $15,000 post production grant from the Fledging Fund for his film Cape Wind.

Austin Hoyt received a $600,000 production grant from NEH for his project The Big Show in Bololand, a one hour documentary on the work of the American Relief Administration to combat starvation in the new Soviet Union.

The Film Posse (Tracy Heather Strain and Randy MacLowry) received a $15,000 grant from the New York Community Trust for their film on playwright Lorraine Hansberry.

Stephen Lyons received a $65,000 scripting grant from the NEH for his project Across the Pacific, a two hour documentary about the 1935 crossing of the Pacific Ocean by the Pan American Airways flying boat known as the China Clipper

A big thank you to Coordinator Jonah David and the Newton South Film Festival for their donation to Filmmakers Collaborative from the proceeds of their spring ‘09 film festival.

Tracy Heather Strain is one of eight local artists who recently received a no-strings-attached $15,000 fellowships from the Boston Foundation as a member of the first group of Brother Thomas Fellows.

The fellowships are made possible by the Brother Thomas Fund, established at the Boston Foundation in 2007 to honor the legacy of Brother Thomas Bezanson, a Benedictine monk and ceramic artist credited with elevating the status of ceramics from craft to fine art in the United States with the extraordinary quality of his work and his artistic vision.

The fund, which has been supplemented by discretionary grants from the Boston Foundation’s Permanent Fund for Boston, will help “struggling” artists, which was the wish of the donor. The individual fellowships are granted biennially, based on an intensive review by a seven member panel convened by Ann McQueen, Senior Program Officer at the Boston Foundation.