Why Jon Reiss and 8 Above?

I love helping filmmakers. It has been my passion since 1981 when I started working in film at a punk rock documentary collective in San Francisco - Target Video. That is where I got my first taste of distribution - booking our documentaries on event tours throughout the United States and nearly every country in Europe. Since no one would distribute our films, I learned how to do it myself. I have repeated this process with many of my other films since then. I have also seen how countless incredible films face the same challenges over the years. I have committed myself to helping other filmmakers ensure that their work finds audiences.

For the past twelve years, I have advised hundreds of filmmakers on how to release their films. In 2010, I wrote a book called Think Outside the Box Office, which was the first manual to help filmmakers through this process. More recently, I started directly supervising the release of many films from post production through their VOD releases and beyond. My company has also started releasing films theatrically in what we call “Impact Event Theatrical” releases to great success, even in the topsy-turvy current landscape where some people claim that no one goes to movie theaters anymore.  We are on the ground every day making this current market work for our filmmakers and their films.