What We Do

With a focus on documentaries and over 25 years of experience in launching award-winning films, 7th Art handles sales and releases in all markets: theatrical and non-theatrical, festival, educational, television, cable, and home video, including digital and VOD. Our expertise and knowledge of the independent film landscape has led to major festival awards and multiple Academy Award nominations for our films.

Who We Are

Since 1994, Seventh Art Releasing has been distributing award-winning independent and foreign films domestically and abroad with the mission to bring unique films to the widest possible audience.

7th Art was founded by Udy Epstein and is headed by Udy Epstein with Eunice Tan.

Academy Award® Winning and Nominated Releases

Udy Epstein is a graduate of American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film and TV Studies (MFA 1990), a producer of the feature film, Midnight Edition, and a writer of Tattoo (first MOW produced by Israeli TV, 1990). He established 7th Art in 1994 as an independent production and distribution outfit for specialized independent films.
Seventh Art Releasing is noted for its releases of award-winning feature documentaries such as:

Academy Award® winner – The Long Way Home (1997)
Student Academy Award® winner – Making Up!

Academy Award® Nominees for Best Documentary Feature:
The Farm, Angola USA
Speaking in Strings
Long Night’s Journey Into Day
Balseros

Academy Award® Nominees for Best Documentary Short:
Chau Beyond the Lines
The Wildest Show in the South: The Angola Prison Rodeo
Eyewitness: The Legacy of Death Camp Art
Incident in New Baghdad

Academy Award® Nominated Animated Short Films (2024):
A Letter to a Pig

Other films include:
Prix Europa and IDFA winner, Photographer – Fotoamator
Coming to Light – American Masters/ PBS
The Nazi Officer’s Wife – A&E
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple – PBS
Steal a Pencil for Me (Red Envelop/ Netflix), Oswald’s Ghost – PBS
The Execution of Wanda Jean, Pleasure and Pain – a music documentary about Ben Harper
the Hughes brothers’ American Pimp – MGM
Better Living Through Circuitry, Pop & Me
Meeting People is Easy – a music documentary about Radiohead for EMI
50 Children- the Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus – HBO
Art and Copy – PBS
Portrait of Wally, Jews and Baseball and many more…

Production credits include:
Creature – HBO, The Breast Cancer Diaries, The Art of Flight, Call it Democracy, Word Wars – Discovery/ Netflix, Wrestling Alligators

Recent films in distribution include Underfire: The Untold Story of PFC. Tony Vaccaro – HBO, Jerry Lewis: The Man Behind the Clown – Telluride, The Last Blintz, The Silenced Walls, the Art of Silence – Hot Docs, Paul Newman- Behind Blue Eyes, Dream Girl: The Making of Marilyn Monroe, and The Muses of Bashevis Singer.

Award Winning Festival & Theatrical Favorites

• Portrait of Wally (Tribeca Int’l Film Festival)
• The Swell Season (Tribeca Int’l Film Festival)
• How to Start a Revolution
• Love During Wartime (Tribeca Int’l Film Festival)
• The First Movie (Telluride Film Festival, SXSW)
• Jews & Baseball: An American Love Story
• The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground
• 45365 (SXSW Best Documentary Award, FIND Spirit Award)
• Art & Copy (Sundance Film Festival)
• New Muslim Cool (PBS POV Premiere Film)
• No. 4 Street of Our Lady
• The Queen & I (IDFA, Sundance Film Festival, HBO)
• Word Wars
• Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple
• Photographer (Fotoamator) – Amsterdam and Prix Europa winnerRecent Releases

CONSULTING & SERVICING

We also provide consulting and releasing services to independent producers, production companies, record labels, and studios. The company has released films for HBO, MGM, Universal Music Group, MCA Universal, EMI, Virgin Records, National Film Board of Canada, A&E, Columbia Tri-Star, and Discovery Communications.

With expertise in music documentaries in particular, 7th Art has provided releasing, press, event, and booking services for such films as: 

• George Harrison: Living in the Material World
• White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights
• Ben Harper: Pleasure + Pain
• Peter Gabriel: Growing Up on Tour
• Rock The Bells
• The Swell Season
• Radiohead: Meeting People is Easy