MINOT — Former Gov. Doug Burgum's daughter, Jesse Burgum, has made a name for herself as a filmmaker. In December, I wrote about her being named to the Forbes "30 under 30" list (she was 28 at the time).

Along with her partners, she "has raised $27 million in funding and has developed a 14-film roster," the Forbes profile told us.

In a September 2024 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Jesse Burgum portrayed herself as an up-by-the-bootstraps businesswoman who built her production company, Pinky Promise Films, without financial help from her family. "I always say that Pinky Promise is the result of what happens when an actress grows up in a household full of businesspeople because it really is the intersection of those things," she said.

"There’s a lot of stuff that you just pick up around the dinner table that I think you wouldn’t necessarily know based on my resume or schooling, which is a degree in classical acting," she continued. "So I’ve certainly learned a lot from them — and definitely through relationships and their past experience I was able to get an email address. But then it was like, 'OK, good luck.' (I started) cold emailing people."

Her partner in the business, Kara Durrett, stressed that those funds didn't come from Jesse Burgum's famously wealthy father.

"There was a rumor for five seconds in the industry when we first started four or five years ago, where people would think it’s Jesse’s dad’s money. Her dad is not an investor in the company," Durrett said. "Jesse spent months building a business plan and building an actual structure and a model that makes sense. In the beginning, I used to get very protective as a friend, like, 'How dare you doubt what she did.' Now it’s actually quite fun for me to see other people realize that they just fully underestimated a woman who went out and raised this much money on her own."

But according to Doug Burgum's recently filed financial disclosures, which are requisite for his service in President Donald Trump's administration, he has made significant investments in his daughter's film career.

That disclosure shows a personal loan made to Pinky Promise LLC valued between $1 million and $5 million, and reports interest income from that loan of an amount between $100,000 and $1 million.

The report also shows investments in Honk for Jesus LLC (less than $1,000) and I Don't Understand You LLC ($100,000 to $250,000) as well as revenues from If You LLC ($77,919) and Starling LLC ($33,813).

Those are all titles of films produced by Pinky Promise.

According to the Internet Movie Database, Jesse Burgum has produced 11 movies since 2022.

She's also acted in six, including "Tankhouse," a movie that was filmed in Fargo and produced, in part, by Click Content Studios, which is owned by Forum Communications Company.

Rob Port is a news reporter, columnist, and podcast host for the Forum News Service with an extensive background in investigations and public records. He covers politics and government in North Dakota and the upper Midwest. Reach him at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to his Plain Talk podcast.