By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

FOCUS FEATURES ACQUIRES WORLDWIDE RIGHTS TO PARIAH

FOCUS FEATURES ACQUIRES WORLDWIDE RIGHTS TO PARIAH, DEBUT FEATURE FROM WRITER/DIRECTOR DEE REES, EXECUTIVE-PRODUCED BY SPIKE LEE;

DRAMA WORLD-PREMIERED AT THIS YEAR’S SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

NEW YORK, January 28, 2011 – Focus Features has acquired worldwide rights to the contemporary drama Pariah, the debut feature from writer/director Dee Rees. Pariah world-premiered In Competition this past week at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Spike Lee is among the feature’s executive producers. Pariah is produced by Nekisa Cooper.

In tandem with the Pariah acquisition, Focus has engaged Ms. Rees to write a screenplay. The script deal is for a new feature-length film that the writer/director would conceive.

Pariah is one of the Festival’s most acclaimed entries this year; Kyle Smith of The New York Post wrote that Pariah is “emotionally satisfying…with a likeable and believable heroine at its core.” Andrew Barker of Variety wrote that actress Adepero Oduye gives “a wonderful lead performance.”

The feature is an expansion of Ms. Rees’ short film of the same name, which screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Ms. Oduye, who had starred in the short film, portrays Alike (pronounced “ah-lee-kay”), a 17-year-old African-American woman who lives with her parents (Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell) and younger sister (Sahra Mallesse) in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood. Alike is quietly but firmly embracing her identity as a lesbian. With the support of her best friend Laura (Pernell Walker), she is especially eager to find a girlfriend. Wondering how much she can confide in her family, Alike strives to get through adolescence with grace, humor, and tenacity – sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, but always moving forward.

Focus Features CEO James Schamus said, “Dee Rees has made a debut film that celebrates with astonishing artistry the journey of a young woman who simply never gives up on the power of love. We’re thrilled to join her on this next step of a remarkable journey.”

“We’re thrilled to be working with Focus Features. They’re such smart marketers and they love movies, so that we knew Focus was the perfect home for Pariah. We are excited for the film to reach the broadest audience possible,” said Ms. Rees.

In addition to Mr. Lee, the executive producers of Pariah are Jeff Robinson, Sam Martin,

Mary Jane Skalski, Susan Lewis, Ann Bradley, Stefan Nowicki, Benjamin Weber, Joey Carey, Julie Parker Benello, Wendy Ettinger, Judith Hefland, Douglas A. Eisenberg, and Matthew J. Simon.

Focus Features and Focus Features International (www.focusfeatures.com) comprise a singular global company. This worldwide studio makes original and daring films that challenge the mainstream to embrace and enjoy voices and visions from around the world that deliver global commercial success. The company operates as Focus Features in North America, and as Focus Features International (FFI) in the rest of the world.

In addition to Pariah, the Focus Features slate includes Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right, nominated for 4 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actress (Annette Bening), and winner of 2 Golden Globe Awards including Best Picture [Comedy/Musical]; Academy Award-winning writer/director Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, which won the Golden Lion Award for Best Picture at the 2010 Venice International Film Festival; Kevin Macdonald’s Roman epic adventure The Eagle, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell; Cary Fukunaga’s romantic drama Jane Eyre, starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender; Joe Wright’s adventure thriller Hanna, starring Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, and Cate Blanchett; Mike Mills’ comedy/drama Beginners, starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer; and Lone Scherfig’s romance One Day, based on the bestselling novel, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess.

Focus Features and Focus Features International are part of NBC Universal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 88% owned by General Electric and 12% owned by Vivendi.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon