Wide world of small films

Al Gore isn’t the only former Democratic senator who ran for president in 2000 moving into the world of

small films.

Bill Bradley is one of eight luminaries listed in the “advisors and investors” section of Jaman.com. The new site offers viewers access to a huge library of independent and world cinema.

The collaboration may not be as odd as it seems. The start-up, whose online doors opened just six weeks ago, has the same lofty goal as some politicians: to bring people together.

Jaman is the brainchild of Gaurav Dhillon, a businessman born and raised in India. He founded the Silicon Valley software company Informatica in 1992 and spent 12 years as CEO. He then took a year off to do the things you don’t have time for when you run a billion-dollar company — have fun and travel the world.

“It became clear to me that very high-quality media was being produced in these countries,” Mr. Dhillon says by telephone. “You can’t buy this media here. Gosh, I thought, we could build a company to provide media of all types not being served by the hit-based Hollywood model.”

Mr. Dhillon put his own money into the venture, which started with 1,000 films under contract when it went online six weeks ago. It’s signed 300 more since then. That’s about four times the number of films available on ITunes. Only 300 better-than-DVD-quality films are online right now, but they’re adding at least 20 a week.

Jaman has plenty of films to choose from: Mr. Dhillon notes that less than 1 percent of all films made around the world get U.S. distribution. To find the best of those, Jaman partners with film festivals.

“One of our execs is in Hong Kong at this minute at the film festival there,” the CEO reports. “If it won an audience award, it’s precisely the kind of film we want.”

Acquisitions include “We Shall Overcome,” a film about a boy in 1969 Denmark inspired by Martin Luther King that won the best feature film prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, and “Black,” a 2005 Indian blockbuster that swept that country’s equivalent of the Oscars.

You might be able to see films like this in your local theater — once a year, if you’re lucky enough to live in a city with a film festival. With Jaman’s viewing software, you can view them on your PC, Mac or television.

Filmmakers will soon be allowed to upload their films themselves. “It will revolutionize how students in film schools will spread the word about their short films,” Mr. Dhillon predicts. “You see what MySpace has done for independent music.”

But Jaman claims an even higher aim. “We want to engender a social awareness of other cultures,” Mr. Dhillon says.

The site uses new technology to allow film buffs to communicate with each other in new ways. For example, Jaman gives viewers the ability to talk about a film, scene-by-scene, while they’re watching it.

Viewers can also discuss not just the films themselves but also the deeper issues they bring up. A documentary about the rain forests being destroyed in Brazil, Mr. Dhillon says, could inspire a discussion on how best to preserve the environment.

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