Focus Features Launches Unprecedented Website Destination For Movie Lovers

In going beyond the traditional movie-company restrictions, FilmInFocus builds on Focus’ status as a motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company committed to bringing moviegoers the most original stories from the world’s most innovative filmmakers. FilmInFocus will host several hundred links for and to the world film community; and offer in-depth original content covering the entire spectrum of filmmaking, the movie business and its people and places, and the rich evolving history of cinema appreciation. The site’s many active links will run throughout articles and posts.

Original editorial content and feature stories are being curated by Peter Bowen, Scott Macaulay, and Nick Dawson of Refresh Media. The latter are editors and writers at Filmmaker Magazine, which is a strategic partner for FilmInFocus.

Courtesy of another strategic partner, Faber and Faber Ltd., the site’s film history editorial content will be supported and enhanced by the publisher’s storied archive of cinema-related books. Faber editors/authors Walter Donohue and Richard T. Kelly are consulting on, and generating content for, FilmInFocus.

Also a strategic partner for the site is book publisher Random House, Inc., the Random House Films division of which – headed by President Peter Gethers – has a production partnership with Focus.

Mr. Schamus said, “In visiting and spending time on movie-related websites over the years, we realized that there was no one easy-to-navigate place for grown-up movie lovers to participate in genuine dialogues about the joy of movies and the admiration of great filmmaking. We want FilmInFocus to not only market our own films – there is plenty of Focus-related content – but more importantly to actively encourage and celebrate the diversity of opinions and interests that make moviegoers such a vibrant community all over the world.

“We want people to feel free to join spirited but civil discussions. Accordingly, we’ve already marshaled an enormous amount of content and resources to be up and running. Whether you’re an iconic American director or someone in a small overseas town who simply watches movies all the time, there is now a resource and a home base for you. We hope that you will feel welcome and engaged at FilmInFocus.”

Film historians, bloggers, and talent from all over the world are and will be participating in FilmInFocus, many of them in exclusive content and/or interviews with Messrs. Bowen, Macaulay, and Dawson. Participating actors and moviemakers will include, but never be limited to, those making films with Focus.

Faber and Faber CEO Stephen Page said, “I am delighted that Faber is partnering with Focus in this bold new online venture, and very excited about the terrific prospects for the site. The Faber page within FilmInFocus represents another advance in Faber’s longstanding commitment to the very best in writing about cinema, and we look forward to exploring new avenues and debates about the cinematic art form through this new medium.

“James Schamus’s vision of a site that will be an indispensable resource for serious movie lovers is one that we are proud to share, and for which we will be contributing essential writing on film that complements our acclaimed book publishing in the field.”

Founded in 1929, Faber and Faber (www.faber.co.uk) has been a publisher of distinction for nearly 80 years. One of the UK’s leading independent houses, Faber publishes Fiction, Non-fiction, Children’s titles, and specialist lists of Poetry, Drama, Music, and Film. Faber has been the publisher of eleven Nobel laureates for Literature, among them Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, and Harold Pinter. The company’s publishing of books about cinema began in the 1930s, including a book by Michael Powell about the making of his The Edge of the World (1937). It became a fully-fledged list in the mid-1980s, expressly dedicated to publishing the writings, reflections and opinions of the world’s leading filmmakers, in their own words: from Scorsese on Scorsese and Lynch on Lynch to the annual journal Projections, Richard Williams’ The Animator’s Survival Kit, and Mike Figgis’s Digital Film-Making.

Current and upcoming Focus Features releases include Joe Wright’s Atonement, nominated for 7 Golden Globe Awards (more than any other film this year); Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes, which is world-premiering as the Opening-Night film of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival; Bharat Nalluri’s Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams; Shane Acker’s animated fantasy epic 9, starring Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly; Henry Selick’s stop-motion animated feature Coraline, starring

Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher; Cary Fukunaga’s immigrant thriller Sin Nombre; Joel and Ethan Coen’s Burn After Reading, starring George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, and Brad Pitt; writer/director Jim Jarmusch’s new film, tentatively titled The Limits of Control, starring Isaach De Bankolé; Gus Van Sant’s Milk, starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk; and Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, winner of the Best Picture [Golden Lion] Award at the 2007 Venice International Film Festival.

courtesy: Allied Adv.