Rainforest Films
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| Industry | Entertainment |
|---|---|
| Fate | Dissolved by lawsuit |
| Founded | 1994 |
| Founder | |
| Defunct | 2014 |
| Headquarters | Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
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Key people
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| Products | Film, television, home entertainment |
| Website | Official site |
Rainforest Films was a film production company founded in 1994 by Rob Hardy and Will Packer that produced films geared towards African-Americans.
With fraternity brothers William Packer and Gregory Anderson producing, Rob Hardy wrote and directed Chocolate City, a $20,000 film that Blockbuster distributed through its video stores. The film about a young man’s profound experience on a black college campus, was shot using 16mm color film on the campus of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. In 1994, on the eve of the success of Chocolate City, Hardy and Packer created Rainforest Films. One of the most important goals of Rainforest Films is to create work that will uplift, instead of degrade, the African-American spirit.
After relocating from Tallahassee to Atlanta, Georgia, the company produced the erotic thriller Trois in 2000. Funded, produced and distributed independently, Trois became the fastest black indie film to ever surpass the $1 million mark at the box office. With this achievement, Rainforest Films landed at the #34 spot of The Hollywood Reporter’s Top 500 Film Distributors of 2000, and resulted in Trois being named one of Daily Variety’s Top 50 Highest Grossing Independent Films of the Year.
In 2002, Rainforest Films released the critically acclaimed motion picture Pandora’s Box at the American Black Film Festival. Later that year, The Hollywood Reporter listed Rob Hardy and William Packer amongst the New Establishment of Black Power Brokers in Hollywood. Rainforest Films acquired the US distribution rights to Master P’s gritty prison drama Lockdown in 2003. The film received a limited theatrical run but eventually became one of Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment’s top selling independent releases of the year.
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