Shervin Youssefian  is a young 27-year old Armenian filmmaker 
who took filmmaking to a whole new level. After graduating from 
the University of Northridge, he immediately founded Miran Films; 
a Los Angeles based Production Company. After a few years of 
producing commercials for TV, he concentrated on completing 
several feature-length screenplays that he would hopefully sell 
to the market and enter the Hollywood industry.
 
He submitted the material to film festivals and producers but he 
soon realized that it was all in vain and cost too much money. 
Film festivals will generally take your money and give you a pat 
on the back and see you on your way. Producers will generally 
look at an unknown writer’s material if they are currently out of 
work, and if they are currently out of work, it could only mean 
one thing: they are not creative enough to create their own 
opportunities. 
 
After receiving a countless number of rejections from literary 
agents, Youssefian decided that he would take matters into his 
own hands. He sat down and completed his fifth screenplay 
entitled Machiavelli Hangman in only a few days. Once the first 
draft of the 95 page script was ready, he called around and 
began forming a production team that would begin the amazing 
Machiavelli Hangman journey. 
 
The project was a big secret because of the controversial 
political content of the script and its completely innovative 
narrative structure. As more professionals read the script and 
joined the team, Youssefian formed another organization called 
Armenian Filmmaker. This was an idea that launched a big movement 
within the Armenian community of Los Angeles because it 
encouraged the 200,000 or so Armenians to contribute a single 
dollar toward the 200,000 dollar budget of the film. After only 2 
months, the website had received up to 60,000 dollars in 
contributions. Many investors of different background were so 
impressed that they stepped up to finance the project.

This success was a combination of a few different things. "It was 
the gesture of doing something great and asking the community to 
help along with having a really great script. These guys were 
genuine and full of talent, so it was very easy to give them 
encouragement in whatever shape and form," says Arman Stepani, 
one of the contributors to the project.

Machiavelli Hangman is currently in production and is set to be 
released later this year. This would mark the first film in world 
cinema to have been completely funded by a local community. 

"If you think about it, this equates to having distribution 
before production. The audience is paying for this film to be 
made before it even goes into theatres!" adds Stepani. 

Jennifer Wang is a senior reporter for the Hollywood 
industry. This is her scoop on Machiavelli Hangman: 
http://www.hangmanmovie.com