Nina Yang Bongiovi’s new venture will support inclusive stories. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the “Fruitvale Station” producer, alongside fellow Asian American film and tech execs, has launched AUM Group, a film fund committed to multicultural movies. AUM will also develop and acquire creative intellectual property.
Bing Chen, Maggie Hsu, and Kevin Lin of Asian American nonprofit collective Gold House are also among the AUM team, as are XRM Media’s Michael Y. Chow, MNM Creative’s Michael K. Shen, and venture capitalist Jason A. Lin.
“Passing,” the story of two light-skinned black women — one of whom passes as white — is among the projects on AUM’s slate. Starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga, the pic is an adaptation of the Nella Larsen novel and marks actress Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut. It’s expected to hit theaters sometime this year.
Yang Bongiovi and Co. came up with the idea for AUM Group when “Crazy Rich Asians” debuted and quickly became a box office smash. “Several of [AUM’s] principals were involved in Gold House’s #GoldOpen movement to promote the film via theater buyouts and other community campaigns,” the source details. Since then, AUM Group’s investors “have meticulously calculated internal rates of return of successful multicultural films … and are confident that the films they back will succeed in the market.”
Time and again, stats reveal that films with diverse casts net the highest box office receipts, yet movies with inclusive representation — on-screen and off — still tend to be the exception, not the rule. People of color comprised just 17 percent of lead/co-lead roles in the top 100 films of 2019, per the Inclusion Initiative. They directed only 13.5 percent of the top 1,300 films from 2007-2019.
“If artists of color can come together as one community, we can really make some changes in our industry. And that’s really the goal of the multicultural fund,” Yang Bongiovi said. “When we are able to support African American artists as well as Asian American artists, indigenous artists, Latinx artists, that’s going to give us strength in shifting culture.”
“We don’t have to be at the mercy of a green light committee,” she continued. “We’ll go, and you’re going to acquire it, and at a premium. No more lowballing us or telling us our projects are worth less, because we have funding that will not only fund development, but also production,” the “Roxanne Roxanne” producer stressed. “We’ll take the lion’s share [at AUM Group] and say, ‘Come along with us. See how we produce, launch careers, and treat our artists.’ And you can actually be profitable while shifting the culture in Hollywood.”
Yang Bongiovi serves as a producing partner at Significant Productions, whose future projects will receive support from AUM. Her credits include “Sorry to Bother You,” “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” and “Dope.” She won Independent Spirit Awards for Best First Feature for the former as well as “Fruitvale Station.”
