Hollywood Foreign Press gives (another) $75,000 to LACMA for film program

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The beleaguered film program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art got a welcome infusion of cash on Wednesday when the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. announced at a special luncheon that it is donating $75,000 to the museum in support of the endangered screening series.

A spokeswoman for the HFPA said that the new donation to LACMA is intended to go toward a ‘three-year strategic plan to build a sustainable film program.’ The donation is the same amount that the HFPA gave the museum last year for the series.

In 2009, LACMA announced that it would be ending its 40-year-old weekend screening series due to budgetary reasons. But the museum reversed its decision following a public outcry and pressure from a number of prominent filmmakers including Martin Scorsese. LACMA extended the life of the screening series to this summer thanks to a $75,000 donation from HFPA as well as a donation from Time Warner Cable and Ovation TV of the same amount.

In June, the museum said it was extending the program to summer 2011 despite a continued weak financial outlook for the series.

The LACMA film program specializes in retrospectives of Hollywood and international directors and stars. The museum is still looking to raise a $5 million endowment for the film program that would put the series on stable financial ground.

In total, HFPA said Wednesday that it is giving away a little more than $1.5 million this year to 41 film schools and nonprofit organizations. Other recipients include the Film Foundation, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the American Cinematheque and the L.A. County High School for the Arts Foundation.

The HFPA is the organization behind the annual Golden Globe Awards. Its announcement on Wednesday took place at a luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills attended by various celebrities including Nicole Kidman, Eva Longoria Parker and Annette Bening.

-- David Ng