Multi-Award Winning Film HATE CRIME Signs Deal with Leading Home Entertainment Company Image Entertainment for Video Distribution

Business Wire, April 6, 2006

LOS ANGELES -- The movie that has been called a "hypnotic, unforgettable story" by PlanetOut, HATE CRIME has recently signed a deal with leading independent home entertainment company Image Entertainment for video distribution. Founded in 1981, Image Entertainment has over 2500 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 200 exclusive audio titles in release.

Writer/Director Tommy Stovall's HATE CRIME has been an enormous success throughout 2005 on the independent film festival circuit, including awards for Best Supporting Actor (Chad Donella) and Best Supporting Actress (Lin Shaye) at the Breckenridge Festival of Film. Stovall also won at Breckenridge for Best Director, for garnering amazing performances from his actors. The film has been playing to great success in Barcelona, Germany and Italy, and in addition to its showings at the prestigious Palm Springs Film Festival, HATE CRIME garnered the Best Feature/Audience Choice Award and Best Feature/Executive Director's Choice Award at The 2005 Sedona International Film Festival, and the Audience Choice Award at the 2005 Q Cinema in Ft Worth, TX.

Set in Dallas, Texas, the film juxtaposes an ordinary, middle class, church-going gay couple against a homophobic, reactionary young man and his co-horts. Robbie Levinson and Trey McCoy find their usually peaceful existence threatened when Chris Boyd, the son of a fundamentalist preacher, moves in and steadily grows more menacing in his behavior towards them. When a hate crime is committed against them, Robbie's quest for justice takes him outside the realm of the authorities, igniting a series of unexpected consequences and revelations.

HATE CRIME stars Seth Peterson ("Providence") as Robbie, with Bruce Davison ("X-Men" 1 & 2, "Runaway Jury"), Giancarlo Esposito ("Usual Suspects," "Homicide: Life on the Street"), Cindy Pickett ("Ferris Bueller's Day Off"), Chad Donella ("Final Destination"), Susan Blakely ("The Towering Inferno"), and Lin Shaye ("There's Something About Mary") among the ensemble cast.