Cinematographer Alexi Klochkov and director Watson Arek join other talented individuals in the 66-minute documentary that circles the life of Bibi Netanyahu when it was under investigation. The released documents were called the Bibi Files and contain raw footage from interrogation sessions. That is the basis of ‘The Bibi Files’ documentary, one of the most talked-about films of the year. It will launch on Jolt film on December 11th.
A few months ago in September, Netanyahu tried to use a restraining order that he set out against the film titled The Bibi files in order to stop what was going to be the first screening for the film at the Toronto Film Festival. They intervened at the last minute as a prominent US distributor brought the case to the Court just hours after a hearing. It was proven that the Canadian documentary filmmakers Abigail and Aliza no longer needed to impose a ban on the terrorists fraudulently exploited in the Israeli courtroom. This kind of footage could only be obtained with permission from the subjects of the footage.
Despite the nature of the political documentary film, ‘The Bibi Files’ got limited market buyers after its premiere at the 2023 Toronto film festival. Bloom and Gibney eventually opted to pitch the movie to Jolt, an Amazon-like model for film distribution that started in the rivers in March this year. The medical documentary ‘Of Medicine and Miracles’ was the first film released through this distribution platform. Recently, the platform has released a number of documentaries, including ‘Hollywood gate’ and ‘No One Asked You.’ Jolt will also have a distribution agreement for the movie Shakedown, which is already highly acclaimed.
“I have been exploring other ways of distribution because I think this need has become quite critical after this corporate integration that has taken place,” comments Gibney, who is a member of the Jolt’s advisory board. “There are films, good films being made and audiences want to watch them but it is as if the major stakeholders are really stepping in between and preventing those audiences from being able to view those good films. So this appears to be a nice chance to try and do something that is different than what people are used to.”
He adds, “Even though Israel is every day, all the time, in the papers, everybody was afraid to touch this film. Alex and I, for our part, simply believed that we should not have to make compromises, such as watering down the sensitive elements of the film, and that we could even better utilize one of the very latest, cutting-edge technologies, which is Jolt. The streamers arrived and in the past few years became too common. Perhaps Jolt may end up being that sort of platform that offers the films which the streamers may not want or be able to take on.”
Jolt was intended to enhance an independent film that would have performed well in film festivals worldwide but has struggled to acquire standard distribution. Jolt was the brainchild of the same group that created Impact Partners, a documentary financing firm focusing on social issue enterprises that holds one of the largest investment portfolios in the independent non-fiction industry.
“In the past two years, the streamers have withdrawn,” starts Jim Swartz, co-founder of Jolt and Impact Partners and founder of the venture capital firm Accel Partners that was a one of the first investors in Facebook. “Nobody wants to touch anything that’s hypothetically gonna irritate this or that constituency’s nose, be it a political film or issue-based picture. So, everyone is lamenting the crisis of this particular industry and thinks, ‘What should we do about it?’ Declaring that it is high time for a government-sponsored distribution strategy for these types of films. All that tired us and we said, ‘Let Chris try to do something about it. Let’s actually try to create a space that IS for filmmakers and not just a space that claims to be for filmmakers.”
The film-promoting site, which claims it will release 20 to 25 films over the period of a year including both documentaries and narratives, is free of charge for filmmakers. The filmmakers also set Jolt’s ticket prices for its films. Their attendance is $12 for ‘The Bibi Files’ and other events that Jolt plans to organize. Thereafter the Jolt company applies marketing models built utilizing big data analytics and machine learning in order to reach the target audience for each particular film, and create demand for it. Each of the filmmakers who represented Jolt receives all of the accumulated information for further use in their further innovative works.
“We developed a robust state of the art Large Language Model AI Audience Discovery,’ Swartz continues. That is, once we take on a film, for a single month, not just from a human perspective but a machine intelligence perspective as well, we conduct research on ‘who are the top 10 audiences for a particular film’. After that, we go on social media and create ads for Tik-Tok, Facebook, Instagram, and others to address those specific audiences. Thus, audience building is a matter of days period for any particular film we wish to work on.”
It is not intended to be a storage facility for a number of films’ heads. They don’t stay on the site for longer than 90 days and the majority of docs will be removed for Jolt. Whenever initial marketing investments are recovered, Jolt follows it up with revenue sharing by the filmmakers, 70 30 (70% to the filmmakers). Jolt relies on any income generated to keep the platform for profit running. All films and other rights are still fully owned by the directors.
It seems that Jolt has finally managed to find the perfect opportunity in “The Bibi Files.” This film is certainly about Netanyahu-the man who most on the globe seems to be curious about for one reason or the other. It will not take much data analysis to identify the audience for the docu. Rather, the expectation is that the film will help to legitimize the company Jolt and attract more filmmakers to the company.
“Alexis and Alex are feeling congenial towards Jolt—‘You know what? The systems don’t work. So we are going to do it ourselves, because this movie deserves a big audience and we are confident about going straight to the people,’” explains Jolt’s CEO, Tara Hein-Phillips. “That is a big piece of making it more acceptable for filmmakers to say no to bad deals. They are showing people that going with different alternatives could really be viable for them.”
Swartz explains: “If we have to record ‘Bibi Files’ one time in six months and one more time in a year, then we’ll create a business that regards every such film as a loss leader. The film making which has a huge audience will be aimed at recouping enough investment so as to do independent films as well.”
Some stand-up comedians made a killing after recording their stand-ups and selling the content on their websites. Louis CK is an example; in 2012 he sold his standup special “Live at The Beacon” recorded during the new York show for $5 on his website, earning a million dollars in 12 days.
“We are not trying to build a big empire here,” says Swartz. “All we are doing is applying the normal business marketing tools to the film world.”
The film “The Bibi Files” should secure the Oscar qualifying run in November this year.
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