October Films was a major U.S. independent film production company and distributor founded in 1991 by Bingham Ray and Jeff Lipsky as a means of distributing the 1990 film Life Is Sweet. It is unrelated to the UK-based factual television production company October Films Limited, founded in 1989 and still trading successfully.A series of mergers and acquisitions began when Universal Pictures (then a division of the Seagram Company) bought a majority stake in October Films in 1997.