The Town of North Hempstead was awarded a $75,000 state grant Friday to help expand the marketing efforts of the Gold Coast Film Festival.
Regina Gil, the festival’s founder and executive director, said the money is a welcomed boost to the festival.
“This grant validates the festival,” Gil said. “The grant helps the town, and it helps the festival, which helps the community.”
She said the festival has done a lot with its limited marketing budget already, but that this grant will help get more people aware of the festival.
“This will double the attention,” Gil said.
Gil said the festival does not have any plans yet on how the money will be spent, but she did say that the money is not just being given to them by the town. She said the festival will be working with the town on looking at ways to enhance the profile of the festival.
Beyond the attention that the grant will help generate, the Gold Coast Film Festival has also been nominated for the first time for the best film festival on Long Island by the Long Island Press in their annual Best of Long Island competition.
Gil said just to be nominated is an honor.
“We just completed our fourth festival, and as we go into our fifth year it is evident now that word has gotten out beyond just a handful of people on the North Shore,” said Gil, who is also executive director of the Gold Coast Arts Center. “People are coming in from Manhattan. It’s gone quite beyond our original demographic.”
Although voting has been open since October, Gil said, she found out just Thursday that the festival was included on the list.
Voting closed Dec. 15, but the winners of all the different “best of” lists will be announced Jan. 22.
“Our board was thrilled,” Gil said. “It was a leap of faith for the board to spend what was needed to be spent to create another entity.”
The Gold Coast Film Festival is an offshoot of the Gold Coast Arts Center.
Gil said that even if the film festival does not win, she is happy to see people focusing on culture and the arts in Great Neck.
This year’s festival, which ran in November, drew record attendance.
Screenings of the films were help in Great Neck, Port Washington, Roslyn and Manhasset.
The films ranged from documentaries – such as “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work,” about the late comedian, and “Mudbloods,” a story of people who play the fictional game “quidditch” from the Harry Potter novels – to foreign language films – including “Zero Motivation,” “The Wonders” and “The Dove Flyer,” all from Israel, and “Cold Eyes” from South Korea.
