General funding for MTDB during fiscal years 2011 and 2012 will be $5 million each year. The General Assembly designated that $300,000 of fiscal year 2011 funding will be set aside for a Welcome Center Assistance Program, allowing the state and individual counties to reach operating agreements for centers that have closed or are scheduled to close.

The state legislature also kept the Maryland Film Office budget for fiscal year 2011 at the same level as the current year – approximately $1 million. Similarly, the new budget for the Maryland State Arts Council will remain level with fiscal year 2010 at $13.3 million. The Arts Council supports more than 250 arts organizations, which provide arts and educational programming across the state while maintaining arts industry jobs.

New state legislation will impact tourism
The Maryland General Assembly, which just ended its 90-day session, passed measures that have major implications for the tourism industry. The new legislation relates to jobs creation, Maryland wineries and the revitalization of historic buildings.

“I applaud the General Assembly’s effort to move our jobs initiatives forward,” said Christian S. Johansson, secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. “This legislation, which helps to rebuild our economy, will have major significance for small business in Maryland – especially in industries like tourism where small businesses prevail.”

Gov. Martin O’Malley signed into law legislation that offers any Maryland business a $5,000 tax credit for every unemployed Marylander that it hires. The Jobs Creation and Recovery Tax Credit is part of a larger jobs program that also includes the expansion of small-business loan guarantees. About 95 percent of tourism-related enterprises are small businesses.

The Winery Modernization Act clears up inconsistent regulations about what a winery can and cannot do. Maryland wineries are tourism draws and a source of jobs in rural areas. They provide the state with more than $40 million in economic impact, according to a University of Baltimore survey that looked at 2006 figures when there were 28 wineries in the state – 13 fewer than today.

This legislation also requires the Comptroller to report to the General Assembly (by the end of 2010) on the viability of direct shipments of wine to consumers in the state.

And, the state legislature extended Maryland’s Heritage Structure Rehabilitation Tax Credit, a progra also available for newer buildings in Main Street districts. Since it started in 1996, more than $347 million in revitalization projects have been completed.

Bicentennial generates film, digital-media projects
When the new visitors’ center at Fort McHenry opens March 3, 2011 – the 80th anniversary of the adoption of the Star-Spangled Banner as the National Anthem – a new orientation film will be unveiled. A production company was filming it at Holly Hill Farm in Anne Arundel County this month with the assistance of the Maryland Film Office and 150 costumed actors.

This is one of the film and digital-media projects – featuring Maryland locations and employing Maryland residents – that have emerged in conjunction with plans for Maryland’s celebration of the War of 1812 bicentennial. Here are several others:

• 90-minute War of 1812 documentary, produced by Florentine Films for WNED-public TV and the Public Broadcasting Service, set to air nationally in fall 2011.
• 60-minute travelogue featuring the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail, produced by Maryland Public Television for the Division of Tourism, Film and the Arts, set to air in fall 2011.
• Free web-based learning game for youths, 9 to 13, produced by Fort McHenry and the Friends of Fort McHenry.

Arts advocates gather on Capitol Hill
Hannah Byron, assistant secretary for Tourism, Film and the Arts, and Theresa Colvin, executive director of the Maryland State Arts Council, were among the arts, education, entertainment and policy leaders who went to Washington, D.C., this week, April 12-13, for the 23rd annual National Arts Advocacy Day. Americans for the Arts, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the arts, coordinated the event.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi received the 2010 Congressional Arts Leadership Award, one of a series of Public Leadership in the Arts Awards given annually by Americans for the Arts and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

National Arts Advocacy Day is the only national event that brings together a cross-section of cultural and civic organizations, along with hundreds of grassroots advocates from across the country, in order to promote public policies and funding that support the arts.

Americans for the Arts will celebrate its 50-year anniversary at an annual national conference in June, scheduled this year in Baltimore.

1812 stakeholders meet on Upper Eastern Shore
The Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission – along with the Eastern Shore 1812 Consortium, Kent County Office of Tourism Development and Queen Anne’s County Tourism Office – presented the Upper Eastern Shore Star-Spangled 200 Conference, April 1, for stakeholders in the state’s upcoming War of 1812 bicentennial celebrations.

More than 60 participants gathered at the Kitty Knight House Inn and Restaurant, located in Georgetown along the banks of the Sassafras River. Mary Margaret Revell Goodwin, executive director of the Eastern Shore 1812 Consortium, joined historian Ralph Eshelman and Scott Sheads, a ranger from Fort McHenry, for a discussion of the Upper Eastern Shore’s connections to the War of 1812.

The group then began a tour that started at Caulk’s Field, site of a battle in 1814. Subsequent stops included: The Inn at Mitchell House in Chestertown, where the mortally wounded British Captain Peter Parker was reportedly taken after the Battle of Caulk’s Field; Bowlingly, site of a manor house in Queenstown where British landed in 1813 and defeated the local militia; and Slippery Hill, site of another Queenstown-area skirmish in 1813.

This event was the fourth in a series of six conferences designed to promote partnerships among regional stakeholders and to familiarize stakeholders with Maryland’s role in the War of 1812. Two more conferences – North Point (Baltimore County) and Baltimore City – are planned for this year

Rockville JCC presents annual Jewish Film Festival
Ten award-winning international films – focusing on unusual personal stories – will be shown at the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Greater Washington’s second annual Jewish Film Festival, April 22 – May 2, in Rockville. Tickets are available online.

“Support from the Maryland Film Office has been vital for staging this community event,” said Molly Rosenberg, a JCC spokesperson. “Audiences get an opportunity to see a diverse group of high-caliber films that they’d probably never hear about if it were not for the festival.”

After considering 80 films, festival organizers selected 10 – which were made in Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Switzerland, Tunisia and the U.S. The character-driven subjects include: Israeli sumo wrestlers; a Jewish comedian who had converted from Catholicism; and an African-American girl with Jewish-lesbian parents.

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