Jeffrey Jacobs is President of Jacobs Entertainment Inc, a film buying and marketing firm. He has 35 years of experience in the exhibition, marketing and distribution of American independent and international cinema in the U.S. He is perhaps best known as the founding film buyer for the Angelika Film Center in New York City which under his supervision (from opening day in 1989 until 1997) became the highest grossing art cinema in the country. He was the Managing Director and Film Buyer of the Paris Theatre from 1998 to 2009. At present, he programs over 60 movie theatre screens across the country including the Nitehawk Cinemas in Brooklyn and the Bryn Mawr Film Institute in PA.
In 2005, Mr. Jacobs produced and directed the critically-acclaimed feature-length documentary, A Sidewalk Astronomer, about astronomy, cosmology, and John Dobson — developer of the Dobsonian telescope. The New York Times called it, “an inspiring film about an inspired teacher.”
Prior to his work on behalf of the Angelika, Mr. Jacobs was Vice President of theatrical marketing and sales for the International Film Exchange where he was responsible for national distribution, advertising, and publicity on numerous films, including the Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film, Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears, and Academy Award Best Feature Documentary Best Boy.
As director of theatrical marketing and sales for Macmillan Films, he handled distribution of a repertory library that included films by Truffaut, Kurosawa, Ray, Bunuel, Antonioni, and Fellini, among other famous international directors. He was also Assistant National Sales Manager at New Yorker Films and a co-programmer of the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Prior to his work in exhibition and distribution, Mr. Jacobs worked in freelance film production as an editor, production manager, and assistant director. He was the assistant director for James Ivory on his film Savages. In 1973, he wrote a management survey for the Film Department of WGBH-TV, Boston, one of public television’s largest production facilities. He is a graduate of Brandeis University and received an M.F.A. from the Graduate School of Film and Television at UCLA.