Jimmie Fails

Jimmie Fails was born in San Francisco, CA. He picked up an interest in filmmaking during high school, at which point he and schoolmate and friend Joe Talbot began collaborating on amateur film projects. The two worked together on the idea for a film about Fails' life story, eventually turning to Kickstarter in 2015 in an effort to fund the concept. After bringing a separate film project, the short "American Paradise" (2017)-which Talbot wrote and directed and in which Fails starred-to the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Fails and Talbot returned to work on their original idea, which had earned widespread attention. The result of their efforts was the film "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" (2019), which they wrote together, and which Talbot directed and Fails starred in. The feature debuted at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, at which it won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.