Focus Features Brings Anna Karenina to the Big Screen

Focus Features, a division of NBCUniversal, brought another highly anticipated title to movie theaters this fall with director Joe Wright’s bold new vision of Anna Karenina, the epic story of love.

Stirringly adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s great novel by Academy Award winner Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love), the film marks the third collaboration of director Wright with Academy Award nominated actress Keira Knightley and Academy Award nominated producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster, following their award-winning box office successes Pride & Prejudice and Atonement.

The timeless story powerfully explores the capacity for love that surges through the human heart, while illuminating the lavish society that was imperial Russia. The time is 1874. Vibrant and beautiful, Anna Karenina (Keira Knightley) has what any of her contemporaries would aspire to: she is the wife of Karenin (Academy Award nominee Jude Law), a high-ranking government official to whom she has borne a son, and her social standing in St. Petersburg could scarcely be higher. In attempting to attain happiness, the decisions Anna makes pierce the veneer of an image-obsessed society, reverberating with romantic and tragic consequences that dramatically change her and the lives of all around her.

Focus Features has established itself as a leader in developing original and daring films that challenge the mainstream to embrace and enjoy voices and visions from around the world. Bridging commercial success and groundbreaking cinematic achievement, movies from Focus Features over the past 10 years include works like Brokeback Mountain, Lost in Translation, Coraline, Milk, The Pianist, The Kids Are All Right, Beginners and Moonrise Kingdom. Anna Karenina now takes its place among them.