Inspirational Women In Hollywood: How Kimberly Montini of Cranium Entertainment Is Helping To Shake Up The Entertainment Industry

…How we remember is by creating movies and content that remind people of the history and sacrifices those have made to be where we are today. Also creating content that interweaves diverse characters and stories so that the viewer doesn’t realize it’s happening. When the viewer sees it as normal everyday life is when I feel like we’ve done our jobs as storytellers. It does not need to be “in your face”, but if it’s natural and reminds people that we are all the same. At our core, our values are all the same. We want love, happiness and to live a peaceful life.

As a part of our series about Inspirational Women In Hollywood, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kimberly Montini.

Kimberly Montini produced her first feature film, the indie darling, “Fat Girls” (2006) alongside the late indie film producer, Ash Christian, founder of Cranium Entertainment. As the Head of Development, she has continued to produce and develop several projects with Cranium Entertainment, of which she has several projects currently in development and pre-production. Cranium Entertainment’s mission is to develop and produce interesting and thought-provoking feature films for both specialized and mainstream audiences. In addition to producing, Kimberly recently partnered with the talent management company, Mattie Management, to launch its literary management division due to her extensive work with developing screenplays with writers.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, a smallish town in southern Louisiana’s Cajun country. My grandparents immigrated there from Poland after the war without any other relatives, so our family was very small. We were also one of the few Jewish families in the area so I had a bit of a reformed Jewish upbringing. I had a relatively happy home life until the recession hit in the ’80s and my father lost his grocery business. It wasn’t until this time that I realized how easy it was to lose it all; vowing that I would never be in the same situation when I grew up. We moved when I was 12 to Dallas which was the “big city” for a small-town girl like me. My parents starting their careers over in their late 30’s was hard on us as a family and they fought a lot. We lived paycheck to paycheck, but my parents always provided and gave us everything we needed and lots of love.

Photo Credit: Jesse Korman

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

I started a bit later than most in this career path. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and I was the one grandchild who always probed with questions about what happened during the war. In my mid-twenties, I started interviewing her and documenting the stories, hoping to write a book someday. I always thought her story would be a good movie and that’s when I started researching writing screenplays. As a business school major, I knew nothing about the film business but I was very curious. During my research, I discovered a free movie-producing workshop offered in Hot Springs, Arkansas, about a 4-hour drive from Dallas. I spent the weekend in Arkansas and never looked back since. It was as if the clouds parted and I finally found my calling as a producer. I’ll never forget the feeling of exhilaration and excitement at this crossroad in my life.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

When Ash Christian and I teamed up to produce his first movie, “Fat Girls”, he was only 18 years old. He wrote the screenplay and starred in the leading role. The film is a coming-of-age story about a gay high school kid growing up in small-town Texas. We had scouted this small town called Canton, Texas and had everything lined up to shoot there: hotels, meals, and shooting locations including a high school. Knowing this might not be a gay-friendly environment, we kept the script under wraps, but somehow it got leaked. Three days before we would begin shooting, they held a town hall meeting and voted to block us from filming a gay movie in their town. We had only 3 days to find another home, but we did find one in a neighboring town. However, it was a good story that got us a lot of press, so it was actually a blessing in disguise.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

This isn’t really a mistake, but a huge lesson which ties into the story of the making of the film, “Fat Girls”. We had only a one-day shoot in Los Angeles for the movie. We were shooting a nursing home scene with elderly actors. The day before the shoot, one of the actors we had just cast passed away from natural causes — he was 88. We also lost the nursing home for a reason I don’t recall. We had no choice but to recast right away and find another location. It’s more of a dark comedy moment because what else could we do but laugh at all of the obstacles that had come our way making this film. After laughing it off and with an air of LA attitude, I walked into a run-down hotel close by the airport and pretended to be a publicist and demanded 2 hotel rooms as if this was a normal occurrence. We converted the rooms to look like a nursing home and it worked out beautifully. This series of incidents really showed me that you can’t let anything stand in your way when you are determined and focused. There is always a solution. You just have to be willing to be flexible and open-minded to see it.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I was born with a profound hearing loss and am legally deaf. My mother was a regular teacher at the time, but once she found out about my hearing loss, she went back to school to study for her master’s degree in deaf education and eventually became a deaf education teacher. I spent half of the day in a deaf school and the other half in regular elementary school classes. She saw I was doing well in both, and since it’s a hearing world, she pulled me out of the deaf program and mainstreamed me entirely. She encouraged me to stop signing and to always speak. She pushed me with a loving but firm hand. She didn’t believe in handicapping a handicapped child and always encouraged me to believe that I could do anything I wanted. I am able to live a mostly normal life and thrive because of her and I owe her a debt of gratitude forever.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

You must 100% have the passion for this business in order to survive. It is challenging, but you know more than you think you do. You’d be surprised how it really is all about logic and commons sense. I always tell people starting out to volunteer at film festivals, network and volunteer to work on short film projects in your area. You won’t get paid, but what you will gain from the experience is much more valuable. You just have to put yourself out there and do it.

What drives you to get up every day and work in TV and Film? What change do you want to see in the industry going forward?

It’s the passion for the projects I’m working on that drives me. I love what I do because I choose to work on projects that have stories I want to watch on the screen. I also only choose to work with kind individuals, so it makes it easy to work with people you actually like. I have a strict “no asshole” policy. Life is too short and no money is worth stressing over. The stress will eventually filter into the rest of my life: family, friends and co-workers. What I hope to see is more people adhering to the “no asshole” policy and just be kind. How much better the world would be if we all just adapted to this policy, and the assholes of the world wouldn’t be able to succeed and just disappear.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

It’s been a difficult year because the founder of Cranium Entertainment passed away in August of 2020. We had many projects in development and he was the one at the forefront dealing with the projects. I was usually more behind-the-scenes in developing, working with scripts and writers. Since he passed, I had to step back into the producing role and take a more active role beyond development. I could never step into his shoes as he was one-of-a-kind and no one could replace him. But, doing this brought me so many more opportunities such as partnering with a fantastic writer’s networking organization called Roadmap Writers (https://www.roadmapwriters.com).

Over this past year working with Roadmap and mentoring writers, I met some incredible writers and have even optioned some of the screenplays which are currently in development. I found a new love and passion for working with writers from all over the world. I couldn’t produce all of their material, so when the amazing talent manager, Mathea Webb of Mattie Management, decided to expand her management into repping writers, I knew it was a perfect fit for me. I can produce the projects I love as well as help develop the careers of such talented writers who come from all walks of life.

Cranium has several exciting projects in development, including a documentary about the youngest Civil Rights activist from MLK’s team: Reverend Peter Johnson. Another is a feature film biopic about a famous musician’s life during the Civil War. The drama feature “As Sick As They Made Us” is currently in post-production, and written and directed by Mayim Bialik and starring Dustin Hoffman, Candice Bergen and Dianna Agron.

I’ve also launched a development company called HO3 Entertainment which focuses on developing holiday movie content, spreading joy and nostalgia. Ash Christian and I have always loved holiday movies such as “A Family Stone” and “The Holiday”. Our two most recent projects under HO3, “Dumped on Christmas” and “A Klezmer Christmas”, are currently being pitched to television networks.

We are very interested in looking at diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture and our youth growing up today?

It was ingrained in my upbringing, being Jewish and a descendent of a Holocaust survivor, to “never forget”. How we remember is by creating movies and content that remind people of the history and sacrifices those have made to be where we are today. Also creating content that interweaves diverse characters and stories so that the viewer doesn’t realize it’s happening. When the viewer sees it as normal everyday life is when I feel like we’ve done our jobs as storytellers. It does not need to be “in your face”, but if it’s natural and reminds people that we are all the same. At our core, our values are all the same. We want love, happiness and to live a peaceful life.

I’ve always been an activist and very outspoken about equality across the board. I have two young elementary-aged children who are half-Hispanic. These are the foundational years that set the tone for the rest of their lives. I purposely send my kids to a school outside of our mostly white neighborhood to a more diverse international school because it is so important for them to be exposed to diversity and other cultures. I look for diversity or how to make a project diverse in every project I develop.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. You don’t need to live in LA to “make it”. — Soon after we toured festivals with “Fat Girls”, I was encouraged to move to Los Angeles. At 30-years-young, I packed up a moving van and drove across the country with my Audi towed behind. Not surprisingly, I didn’t quite assimilate to the culture there. These were also the days before google maps. I got tired of printing out directors and not knowing where I was going while sitting on a gridlocked highway. A year later, I ended up shipping my Audi to my mom and moving back even further across the country to New York City. It was a better fit for me at the time and it pushed my career in an even better direction.
2. Network. Network. Network — I would not be where I am if I had not volunteered at film festivals and its where I met Ash Christian when we were both volunteering at the Deep Ellum Film Festival in Dallas 20 years ago. Go to meetings and introduce yourself to people. Offer to work on their projects for free. Show them what you are capable of.
3. You know more than you think. — I was actually recently reminded of this when I took on the position to also manage writers. I already had plenty of development experience and worked with writers in the past. The only difference was that instead of producing the projects myself, I’m pitching the projects to other production companies. Don’t take the cumulative experience you have in other areas for granted. You will be surprised at how much you already can bring to the table.
4. You do not need a film degree. — I graduated with a computer science business degree and obtained my MBA before I knew I wanted to be in the business. I wished I had the film education, but I have an extensive business background that brings another level of experience to the table. You don’t need to go back to school to get a film degree. It’s more about your passion, talent and ability to get stuff made.
5. Swallow your pride. — This is not a business for the faint-hearted. Be open to constructive criticism. Back in my early days, I ran a local independent film group of about 500+ local filmmakers and it used to drive me crazy to see really bad productions wasting time and money. It was at this time that started a benefit event called the “IndieClub Gong Show” hosted by a famous drag queen where filmmakers screened short films and celebrity judges gonged the bad ones. Many got gonged, but the good ones did get through. It was a very successful annual event, and it really put some of those egos in check.

Can you share with our readers any selfcare routines, practices or treatments that you do to help your body, mind or heart to thrive? Please share a story for each one if you can.

It’s so easy to get stuck behind a computer staring at a screen all day. It’s important to step away and take the time to disconnect. Be with your family and loved ones. Spend time with your pets. Recently for my birthday, which luckily is on labor day weekend, I turned my phone completely off. I let everyone know that I was taking a hiatus for a couple of days and it was the best decision I ever made. I also make the time to take a walk outside and exercise, even if it’s just 10–15 minutes. It’s so important for our mental and physical well-being. All of my best ideas come to me when I am out on a walk or exercising. It gets my creative juices flowing and my body gets a bit of a break.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.” ~ Warren Buffet

I love quotes and have many that inspire me, however, this one resonated with me and I have it taped onto my whiteboard. It’s so easy to get affected by what other people say that may offend you or hurt you. It’s also a lesson I teach my children. Words only have power if you give them power by letting them affect you. Take what others say with a grain of salt. Listen, but don’t let it control you.

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I mentioned this earlier, kindness has such a huge impact on everyone around you. Being kind yourself is good for your soul. You aren’t left with regrets of kindness no matter how terrible the situation is. If you treat others with kindness, then most likely they will treat you with kindness in return. I want to spend the rest of my days surrounded by kindness and I think it creates a ripple effect of everyone and then everything around you. If I left the world today, my only wish is for people to remember me as a kind soul that brought joy into their lives.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

I would love to one day have lunch with Oprah Winfrey. Before she passed, I would have said Oprah’s good friend, Maya Angelou. These are intelligent women who embody kindness and empathy. Also, powerful women have influenced so much good after overcoming much adversity. I know if we did have lunch, Oprah would spend most of her time asking me questions listening to my story. I would then soak up all of her advice and wisdom. Also, of course, I’d probably pitch a project or two to her.

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online? Y

You can find Cranium Entertainment at: www.craniumentertainment.com but the best way to get to me is on my Instagram at: @kimberly_montini I am also on LinkedIN and Facebook, but both profiles are private.

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

THANK YOU for this opportunity.

About The Interviewer: Growing up in Canada, Edward Sylvan was an unlikely candidate to make a mark on the high-powered film industry based in Hollywood. But as CEO of Sycamore Entertainment Group Inc, (SEGI) Sylvan is among a select group of less than ten Black executives who have founded, own and control a publicly traded company. Now, deeply involved in the movie business, he is providing opportunities for people of color.

In 2020, he was appointed president of the Monaco International Film Festival, and was encouraged to take the festival in a new digital direction.

Raised in Toronto, he attended York University where he studied Economics and Political Science, then went to work in finance on Bay Street, (the city’s equivalent of Wall Street). After years of handling equities trading, film tax credits, options trading and mergers and acquisitions for the film, mining and technology industries, in 2008 he decided to reorient his career fully towards the entertainment business.

With the aim of helping Los Angeles filmmakers of color who were struggling to understand how to raise capital, Sylvan wanted to provide them with ways to finance their creative endeavors.