Frontline Arts 2021 Documentary Video
About Frontline Arts Buffalo & the Video
In 2019, Frontline Arts Buffalo hosted a series of community forums at El Museo, Ujima Company, African American Cultural Center, and Locust Street Neighborhood Arts. These forums explored crucial topics to our arts ecosystem here in Buffalo such as systemic financial precarity, our collective legacy, and identifying false solutions to real problems.
With the support of a Statewide Community Regrant funded by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by Arts Services, Inc., FAB was able to produce this short video showcasing the incredible impact frontline arts organizations have on the well-being of our communities and highlighting the deep disparities that keep them perpetually in survival-mode.
Since forming in 2018, Frontline Arts Buffalo has been actively advocating for the needs of frontline arts organizations in our region. Following the FAB forums, the group worked with Erie County to make the cultural funding tiers more accessible to frontline organizations, consulted on DEAI work for cultural organizations, and most recently advocated for the inclusion of the Frontline Arts Fund in the American Rescue Plan package for the City. This 2.5 million dollar fund was passed with full support from the Common Council of Buffalo in late 2021.
About the Filmmaker
Lukia Costello is the Founder and Executive Director of the MicroMania film festival, an annual short film festival. Of this experience, Costello says, “It has been a powerful experience to build this story with Frontline Arts Buffalo, and I look forward to contributing more to the visual storytelling of our wonderful arts and cultural organizations in Erie County." More information can be found here: https://sparkfilmmakers.org/.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with members of Frontline Arts Buffalo and invited guests featured in the film. We will discuss the foundational work of FAB as well as our continuing work for a more just, equitable, and beautiful arts landscape in Buffalo.
A second screening will be scheduled later in the Spring, details to be announced.
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