Jolt.film will launch another controversial film later this month. “The Bibi Files,” a film about controversial Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu which contains features footage of Israel’s Prime Minister while being interrogated under suspicion of corruption that led to his indictment in 2019, comes out for viewing on Dec. 11.
Last September, Netanyahu sought to prevent “The Bibi Files” from being shown during the Toronto Festival. As was the case last week, the documentary, written by Alexis Bloom, produced by Oscar winner Alex Gibney, and which premiered this summer, was able to screen over fest hours after an Israeli court rejected a suit against it for misusing unreleased interrogation footage. This last week courts were closed for a holiday and the Ontario court decided the litigation was held under a law that was neutral regarding a majority of its issues.
Given its political nature “The Bibi Files”, like many other controversial political docs, did not find any mainstream streamer after its first showing on September 9. Bloom and Gibney ultimately decided to bring the film to Jolt, a film distribution platform which was launched in March after Ross Kauffman’s documentary “Of Medicine and Miracles.” Recent Jolt releases include Hollywoodgate and No One Asked You. In December Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s Gaucho Gaucho will also be available on Jolt’s streaming service.
“I’ve been looking into these unconventional ways of distributing because I feel like in light of this (corporate) merger mania, it’s badly needed,” explains Gibney. ‘There are films, good films being produced which the audiences intend to see and it’s as though the major industry players are actually intervening in some way and ensuring that those good films are not viewed by the viewers who intend to see them. So, this appears to be a terrific chance to do something a bit innovative and out of the box.
“I am sure people are dying to hear what this film is all about because Israel is being printed everywhere, every hour. Yet for some reason, nobody wanted to touch this film. Alex and I simply believed that rather than having to compromise with the film, such as sanitizing the divisive areas, we should look for another great option technology provides us with, which is Jolt. The streamers emerged rapidly and then after a while, became commonplace. Who knows, perhaps Jolt could be the ideal platform for all the films which the streamers do not wish to take or are reluctant to get hold of.”
Jolt, which aims to provide a cinematic shock to an indie film that has been a hit on the festival circuit but has struggled to secure traditional distribution, has been developed by the same team that created Impact Partners, a documentary finance company that funds socially relevant topics and is one of the most active investors in the independent non-fiction market.
“In the last 2 years, the streamers have walked away,” states Jolt and Impact Partners co-founder Jim Swartz who is also the founder of, Accel Partners, one of the early investors in Facebook. “Nobody wants to touch anything that’s politically, or issue-driven that may potentially offend this group or that group. So, the industry is in turmoil and people are going around saying, ‘What should we do? Our position is that we need state aid. Without becoming embroiled in all these claims we just got bored and said, ‘Let’s try to do something about it. Let’s build a dynamic and a filmmaker-forward platform’.”
The managed platform does not charge filmmakers anything for getting into the platform. In due course, the platform intends to feature around 20- 25 films during the year which actually consist of both docs and narratives. The filmmakers have the final say on Jolt’s ticketing and management of the ticket sales determines the price, “The Bibi Files” will cost 12 dollars to watch. All the data collected goes to the relevant filmmaker of the particular Jolt.tw movie.
‘We have developed a powerful and advanced audience discovery large language model LLMAI model’ admits Swartz. ‘Each film that we undertake, for a month, from a human viewpoint, for every film that we take on, we go out and look for the top 10 audiences for a movie. Then we go on social and build very narrow short ads to those audiences on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, etc. We are able to quickly establish an audience for a picture on an individual basis.’
This isn’t supposed to be a storage facility for cinematographic works docus is removed from the Jolt site after 90 days. Quite a number of marketing costs are recovered first, and then, Jolt pays filmmakers according to the split of 70/30, (to filmmakers 70 percent). Whatever profits Jolt makes as an entity, it reinvests into maintaining the platform. The filmmakers do not lose ownership of the films and all the rights associated with them in the future.
That is precisely what Jolt has been hoping for “The Bibi Files”. This time the film is about Netanyahu. One might say that this person has long kidnapped the attention of the entire world for some reason. It won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who the target audience for the docu is. Rather it’s more on Jolt’s fingers crossed, that the movie makes the company more credible and more filmmakers will want to collaborate with the company.
Alexis and Alex are both putting faith in Jolt by adding, ‘You know what? The systems are broken. We are going do this our own way because this film deserves a giant audience and we feel good about going direct audiences,’” says Jolt’s CEO, Tara Hein-Phillips. “This is an important factor in enabling filmmakers to walk away from substandard offers. They are showing people that going with different alternatives could really be viable for them.”
Swartz further notes, “If we do this one “Bibi Files” once every 6 months or even once every year, we will create an enterprise that handles the films that do not get large audiences. We would like to be in a position where doing a film like this will give us enough funds to be able to tackle smaller audience or niche audience type films.”
Other industries in the entertainment sector have successfully bypassed traditional distribution channels, bringing profits directly to the consumers.
Some comedians have made a name for themselves by recording their stand-up comedy and then selling the clips on merchandise via their sites. In 2012, Louis CK made headlines when he posted his standup special “Live at The Beacon” online and sold it for only $5, earning $1,000,000 in just 12 days!
“We’re not looking to create a global empire here, one is marketing film in the normal business marketing tools,\” comments Swartz.
“The Bibi Files” will be released in November to qualify for an Oscar nomination.
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