Focus Features International Hires Emil Elmer for Sales Duties

LONDON – Former Miramax Films and Pathe executive Emil Elmér is joining Focus Features as svp, international sales.

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He will ramp up the label’s sales efforts reporting to Alison Thompson, president of international sales and distribution at Focus in the British capital.

FFI is gearing up for the Festival de Cannes and its Marche du Film with the festival set to kick off with Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, starring Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Jason Schwartzman, backed by Focus.

FFI will also be on hand in Cannes with a slew of movies to sell including the untitled international suspense thriller starring Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall for director John Crowley, which begins production in the U.K. next month.

Thompson said: “Having first-hand experience of working with Emil, I’ve long been impressed by his outstanding knowledge and thorough approach to the international business. He has the wealth of experience that is an absolute necessity in our business, and his expertise and valuable relationships will bolster the company as we celebrate Focus’s 10-year anniversary and field a particularly exciting slate of movies this year.”

Elmér began his career at Miramax Films, where he spent over eight years and was variously part of the company’s acquisitions, production, and marketing and publicity departments.

Long based in the U.K., he was involved in the company’s acquisitions of the multi-Academy Award-nominated Amélie and Les Choristes (The Chorus) and the Oscar-winning The Barbarian Invasions, among other titles.

More recently, he spent three years as head of acquisitions for Pathé Distribution, where he tracked projects worldwide for distribution in the U.K. and was a full-time consultant for a film financing company, working on projects from the production phase through the world sales process.

Focus Features, Focus Features International, and Universal Pictures International are part of NBCUniversal which Comcast Corporation owns a controlling 51% stake in.