LOS ANGELES--The online movie distribution company Jaman has made a niche for itself in the online film distribution market, focusing on indie and international films rather than big Hollywood hits.
The site offers 3,500 films--the kind that do well at film festivals, like The World's Fastest Indian and Redacted. Films can usually be rented for $1.99 or purchased for $4.99, and some can be watched for free with ads. Jaman CEO Gaurav Dhillon, who spoke with Andy at OnHollywood, said he expects free ad-supported content to be the more pervasive business model in the future.
So while Apple, Wal-Mart, Netflix and Amazon compete over online distribution rights for mainstream films, Jaman heads to the film festivals to make deals. Many of the films on Jaman's site don't get distributed at all in the US, so there's not as much competition.
Dhillon invested $3.5 million of his own money to start the company in 2006. The company has attracted a number of notable advisers and investors, including top Hollywood agent Jeff Berg, former senator Bill Bradley, William R. Randolph Hearst III and the celebrated Hollywood producer Ed Pressman.
Jaman's platform called Cascade makes it possible to transfer and watch the videos on different devices, including computers, iPhones, TiVo and DivX.
--Kelsey Blodget, Associate Producer