Funds Granted for Leimert Park and Little Tokyo/Arts District Installments

$20,000 will be awarded to Departures, KCET's oral history and interactive documentary project about Los Angeles area communities, to cover Leimert Park in South L.A. and Little Tokyo and the Arts District in downtown. The news was announced today by the California Council for the Humanities, which has partnered with the Skirball Foundation, to fund "projects that record and reveal contemporary California life" for the California Documentary Project.

Set for release later this year, the Leimert Park installment will focus on the neighborhood's notoriety as the city's heart of the black arts scene, and the Little Tokyo/Arts District series will chronicle the city's historic Japanese American cultural district and neighboring arts enclave.

Currently, Departures staff is working on a Boeing-funded Arroyo Seco installment that will primarily focus on Highland Park. It is scheduled to launch in the summer. Previous releases have covered the L.A. River, Chinatown, Venice and Richland Farms, Compton's agricultural neighborhood.