Anchor Bay Films Acquires Tribeca Festival Audience Favorite City Island

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Writer/Director Raymond De Felitta's Laugh-Out-Loud Comedy Features An Outstanding Ensemble Cast Including Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Steven Strait , Alan Arkin, Emily Mortimer, Ezra Miller, and Dominik Garcia-Lorido

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Anchor Bay Films announced today it has acquired all distribution rights for North America, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand to writer/director Raymond De Felitta's comedy about family secrets and lies, City Island. This all-star comedy, which won the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival Heineken Audience Award, features Academy Award(R) nominee Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Steven Strait, Academy Award(R) winner Alan Arkin, Emily Mortimer, Ezra Miller, and Dominik Garcia-Lorido. Academy Award(R) winner Jan A.P. Kaczmarek ( Finding Neverland) composed the lyrical score.

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"We are thrilled to acquire such a crowd-pleasing comedy," said Anchor Bay Entertainment President, Bill Clark. " City Island features a fantastic ensemble cast, led by the talented Andy Garcia, whose performance Variety lauded as 'virtuoso' and his audition scene a 'comic mini-masterpiece.'"

Added Anchor Bay Films' Senior Vice President of Acquisitions, Kevin Kasha, "Everyone has crazy family members, which may be why people connect so strongly with City Island . This film is guaranteed to entertain and we're proud to be including it in the Anchor Bay Films line-up."

In City Island, audiences are introduced to the Rizzos, a family that might get along a lot better if only they could tell each other the truth. At its heart, City Island is a funny, touching and smart family tale about the secrets of the past catching up with the lies of the present, and accepting that nobody's perfect - least of all your loved ones.

"I couldn't feel my movie was in better hands," said De Felitta, an Oscar(R) nominee for his live action short Bronx Cheers, whose credits include Two Family House and The Thing About My Folks. "Anchor Bay Films is boldly filling a sorely felt gap in indie film distribution and their passion and belief in City Island 's future convinced me they were the right place for this movie."

The deal for City Island was negotiated by Clark, Kasha, and Richard Turner for Anchor Bay Films, and Andrew Ruf for Paradigm Motion Picture Finance Group, which packaged the project, Mark Halloran and Michael Roban for Lucky Monkey Pictures, Irwin Tenenbaum and Kenneth Weinrib.

The film is a joint venture between Andy Garcia's CineSon Productions, Inc., Raymond De Felitta's Medici Entertainment, Inc., Lauren Versel's and Maria Teresa Arida's Lucky Monkey Pictures, LLC, Zachary Matz's Filmsmith and Gremi Film Productions. Producers are Garcia, De Felitta, Versel, and Zachary Matz. Executive Producers are Maria Teresa Arida, Lucia Seabra, Milutin G. Gatsby, Michael Roban, Greg Hajdarowicz. The foreign sales company is U.K-based WestEnd Films.

Anchor Bay Films is unique in that it offers the creative community a fully integrated distribution capability and an international solution extending beyond the U.S. Anchor Bay Films, a division of Anchor Bay Entertainment, is on the ground providing quality distribution with operations in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, as well as distribution capabilities in other key territories. The company focuses on a platform release strategy for its films with an eye toward maximizing their potential across all ancillary distribution platforms. Anchor Bay Films acquired Spread, starring Ashton Kutcher and Anne Heche, at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, and most recently, The Open Road, starring Jeff Bridges and Justin Timberlake.

About Anchor Bay Entertainment

Anchor Bay Entertainment is the home entertainment division of Starz Media, LLC. It includes the Anchor Bay Films and Manga Entertainment brands. It distributes feature films, children's entertainment, fitness, TV series, documentaries, anime and other filmed entertainment on DVD and Blu-ray formats. It is the exclusive distributor in the U.S. of the theatrical titles from Overture Films. Headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA, Anchor Bay Entertainment has offices in Troy, MI, as well as Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Starz Media ( www.starzmedia.com ) is a controlled subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation attributed to the Liberty Capital Group.

SOURCE Anchor Bay Films

2009-06-19 13:32:00