Veteran indie filmmaker Jim Jalmusch premiered his new film, “My Father's Brothers” at the Venice Film Festival today. There they asked about Mbi, the streaming platform that journalists co-produced the film.
“I was disappointed and confused by this relationship,” Yamsh said, but his own “relationship with Mbi started earlier and they were great to work with this film.”
Many filmmakers, including those with Mbi, have accepted money from Sequoia and signed an open letter criticizing the streamers as they said that support from Israeli defence technology startup Kera “meaning that Mbi's financial growth as a company is explicitly linked to Gaza's genocide.” (The Mbi founder and CEO later argued that “the proposal that our work is related to funding the war is simply not true.”)
On his part, Jarmusch said at a press conference for his film that he was “not a spokesman” to Mbi, but rather “stopping money from various sources to fund my film.”
“Every business money is dirty,” he said.