Business and Legal Issues in Independent Feature Film Financing, Production, and Distribution

Marilyn G. Haft specializes in the business and legal affairs of the multimedia and communication industries, including the film, television, digital and publishing sectors, representing companies as well as individuals in those businesses.

Ms. Haft has been a partner at a number of law firms and was a test case constitutional law litigator at the national level for six years when she litigated in the State and Federal courts across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ms. Haft has served as General Counsel and Managing Director of a financial services company that provided short-term funding requirements for major film studios, independent film producers and distributors. In that capacity, she was responsible for co- creating the financing structure of the transactions. Ms. Haft was also General Counsel to a publicly traded multimedia and digital acquisitions company, where she was responsible for all aspects relating to acquisitions, including intellectual property issues involving patent, copyright, trademark and trade secrets. Ms. Haft was selected and listed by her peers as an Entertainment Super Lawyer in the New York Times Magazine section for the last eight years from 2008 through 2015, and was singled out as a Top Woman Super Lawyer from 2012 through 2015.

Ms. Haft is also an award-winning independent film producer and has worked at NBC News and ABC News as a producer on Peter Jennings' specials. She Executive Produced an Emmy award-winning documentary on Preston Sturges for "American Masters" on National Public Television, and co-produced “Grace is Gone," the John Cusack movie that won the Audience Award at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. She also coproduced two 2008 Sundance films, “Diminished Capacity," starring Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen and Alan Alda, and "Birds of America" starring and co-produced by Hillary Swank. She was a producer on the 2010 film "Handsome Harry" starring Steve Buscemi, Aidan Quinn and Jamey Sheridan.

Ms. Haft served the Carter Administration as Associate Director of the Office of Public Liaison in the White House, Deputy Counsel to Vice President Walter Mondale in the White House, and as a U.S. Representative to the United Nations. She is presently the President of the Board of the Friends of the World Federation of the United Nations Associations.

Ms. Haft is a graduate of the New York University School of Law and is a member of the Bars of New York State, the District of Columbia and the US Supreme Court.