PBS and Futuro Media Group were among the hundreds of recipients of National Endowment for the Humanities grants awarded last week.
PBS received nearly $500,000 for It’s Lit!, a PBS Digital Studios series of short films about literature.
PBS has produced 11 episodes for the series. Each episode runs less than 10 minutes and has drawn more than 100,000 views on YouTube. The most popular video explains the evolution of young adult literature.
NEH also awarded Futuro Media Group, producer of NPR’s Latino USA, a $500,000 grant and $100,000 match to produce UNLADYLIKE2020, a series of 26 short animated documentaries featuring “little-known Progressive Era women,” according to NEH. Subjects of the series include women who were the first to become a bank president, earn an international pilot’s license and sing opera at Carnegie Hall.
Numerous independent documentary filmmakers also received funding. The Southern Documentary Fund received $600,000 for the forthcoming PBS series South by Somewhere. Chef Vivian Howard will host the series, which looks at culinary traditions in the American South. Howard previously hosted the PBS cooking show A Chef’s Life.
NEH awarded a total of $29 million in the funding round.