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As many beneficiaries of the program well know, Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship program supports an inclusive variety of projects: shorts, features, both narrative and nonfiction. Plus the occasional new media project, special event or advocacy initiative. And in each month’s Fiscal Spotlight column, we announce three new projects entering the program worth of your support. But maybe you’re curious how some of those prior subjects have turned out. Today’s your lucky day! Because it’s time for another FiSpo Update highlighting the recent achievements of previous Fiscal Spotlight subjects.

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Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship program opens the door to nonprofit funding for independent filmmakers and media artists. The projects and makers participating in the program express a uniqueness of vision, celebrate diversity and advance the craft of filmmaking through the creation of these special works. To see the...

The Los Angeles filmmaker Nina Menkes, a recipient of the lifetime achievement award at Mar del Plata film festival, reveals who she trusts with film recommendations.

Since my job is teaching film at California Institute of the Arts, that’s the only thing we talk about. I trust my colleagues for recommendations — they are usually right. Bérénice Reynaud, James Benning, Pia Borg, Lee Anne Schmitt as well as UCLA Film & Television programmer Kj Relth and Academy Film Archive preservationist Mark Toscano, to name a few. I also listen to my students for film tips as they are sometimes more up...

Title: Queen Mimi XLrator Media Director: Yaniv Rokah Cast: Marie “Mimi” Haist with special appearance by Zack Galifianakis Running time: 75 min Rated: Unrated (language) In Theaters: May 13, 2016 Marie “Mimi” Haist was divorced in the 1970′s and forced to live on the streets in her 50′s. In the past few decades she found her place at home in a laundromat in Santa Monica. With her snappy attitude, she befriended many struggling actors whom found her endearing. Zack Galifianakis and Renee Zellweger both have made a mission to help Mimi get a place of her own, pay her rent and other living expenses. Galifianakis had taken Mimi to several red [ Read More ]

The post Queen Mimi Documentary Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

She went from middle class housewife to living on the streets to rubbing shoulders with A-list celebrities, and now her amazing life story is the subject of a new documentary. Queen Mimi, a film by amateur Israeli filmmaker Yaniv Rokah, opens Friday in Santa Monica - the same quiet beachfront city where Marie "Mimi" Haist, now 90, has lived as a local celebrity for the past four decades. Rokah, an aspiring actor at the time, was working as a barista at a coffee shop when he first met Mimi. Friends familiar with the area knew her as the "Queen of Montana...

She went from middle class housewife to living on the streets to rubbing shoulders with A-list celebrities, and now her amazing life story is the subject of a new documentary. Queen Mimi, a film by amateur Israeli filmmaker Yaniv Rokah, opens Friday in Santa Monica - the same quiet beachfront city where Marie "Mimi" Haist, now 90, has lived as a local celebrity for the past four decades. Rokah, an aspiring actor at the time, was working as a barista at a coffee shop when he first met Mimi. Friends familiar with the area knew her as the "Queen of Montana...

Marie 'Mimi' Haist may not be a household name, but to Santa Monica, California locals, she's considered royalty, of sorts. This spring, her inspiring story will be told in the documentary Queen Mimi, arriving April 15 from XLRator Media. Today we have an exclusive look at new photos, along with the first trailer for this new film, which shows how a homeless woman inspired the likes of Zach Galifianakis and Ren&#233e Zellweger.

When you feel like a queen, even a laundromat can be a palace. Marie 'Mimi' Haist defied her adulterous husband and moved onto the streets in her 50s, living in parking lots and doorways until finding her "home" one stormy night between rows of washers in a Californian laundromat. Encouraged to stay by a more than generous laundry owner, Mimi's 'the past is the past' philosophy endeared her to regular fluff and fold clients and, after more than 20 years,...

Elliot Kotek.

California-based Australian Elliot Kotek is combining his twin passions of creating technology to help humanity and making documentaries.

The co-founder of media and technology company Not Impossible, Kotek is producing a feature-length documentary Project Daniel and he.s just released online a 6-minute doc Don.s Voice.

In a separate venture he has just completed Queen Mimi, a feature doc profiling 89-year-old Marie .Mimi. Haist, who was homeless for 35 years. Living and working in a laundromat in Santa Monica she befriended actors Zach Galifianakis and Renée Zellweger and turned her life around.

Kotek has financed Not Impossible.s shorts by corporate sponsorships, highlighting technology devised by his firm.

Project Daniel is a spin-off of the short film Project Daniel - Not Impossible's 3D Printing Arms for Children of War-Torn Sudan, which followed the visit of Mick Ebeling, the firm's CEO and co-founder, to Sudan's Nuba Mountains in...

Moving Pictures asked Yaniv Rokah to sit down with writer-director Nina Menkes ahead of this weekend’s Downtown Independent screenings of “Dissolution” and “Phantom Love.” Rokah, an L.A.-based actor, has interviewed Paul Haggis and written reviews for Moving Pictures and is in talks to co-produce Menkes’ next film, “Heatstroke.” He caught up with the auteur for coffee as she prepares to move to Cairo.

By Yaniv Rokah

(June 2011)

Experimental filmmaker Nina Menkes’ work has been compared with some of the all-time greats, including Antonioni, Cassavetes and Lynch. The Los Angeles Times called her “one of the most provocative artists in film today.”

Predominately exploring the feminine psyche through films such as “Massaker” (Fipresci Prize recipient at the Berlin International Film Festival), “Queen of Diamonds” (nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival), “The Bloody Child” (a Sundance Film Festival and Locarno International Film Festival selection...

Moving Pictures asked Yaniv Rokah to sit down with writer-director Nina Menkes ahead of this weekend’s Downtown Independent screenings of “Dissolution” and “Phantom Love.” Rokah, an L.A.-based actor, has interviewed Paul Haggis and written reviews for Moving Pictures and is in talks to co-produce Menkes’ next film, “Heatstroke.” He caught up with the auteur for coffee as she prepares to move to Cairo.

By Yaniv Rokah

(June 2011)

Experimental filmmaker Nina Menkes’ work has been compared with some of the all-time greats, including Antonioni, Cassavetes and Lynch. The Los Angeles Times called her “one of the most provocative artists in film today.”

Predominately exploring the feminine psyche through films such as “Massaker” (Fipresci Prize recipient at the Berlin International Film Festival), “Queen of Diamonds” (nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival), “The Bloody Child” (a Sundance Film Festival and Locarno International Film Festival selection...

In the shade of a garden, out the back of the Roosevelt Hotel, Moving Pictures and the Montana State Film Office hosted an intimate gathering. Attendees ranged from filmmakers such as Drake Doremus (“Douchebag,” “Spooner”) fresh from finishing his latest feature to Slamdance-winning helmer Heidi Van Lier (“Chi Girl”) to award-winning short filmmaker Daphne Lambrinou (“Paperboat”) to “Dante Inferno” director Sean Meredith.

Roaming the private event with AFI filmmakers were cinematographer David Klein (best known for his collaborations with Kevin Smith, and all set to shoot every second episode of this season’s “True Blood”), Fandango’s John Halecky, Newport Beach Film Festival’s top brass, “Life Ascending” producer Sarah Gaboury, sketch comedy king Matt Pittenger, Israeli actor Yaniv Rokah (“The Beast”) as well as Howard Burns (Moving Pictures’ own editor-in-chief) and the Montana State Film Commissioner Sten Iversen. The evening was the perfect entrée to tonight’s gala screening...