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News Link: May 20, 2025 LACS Statement on Register Shira Perlmutter

Upcoming Members Only Event:

June 5, 2025 at 6:15pm

Fifth Annual Jamie Lichtman Members’ Soirée

A Fireside Chat with Kiska Higgs

President of Production and Acquisitions, Focus Features

Interviewed by Howard Meyers

EVP & Global Head of Business Affairs, Focus Features

Location: Peacock Restaurant on the Universal Studios Lot

Register Here

Join us for a compelling and lively conversation with Kiska Higgs, who oversees a diverse slate of acclaimed domestic and international films for the leading specialty film producer and distributor in the United States. Join us as she discusses the evolving landscape and current challenges in specialty filmmaking, shares insights from her career, and offers a behind-the-scenes look at how Focus brings compelling stories to the screen.

Kiska Higgs

President of Production and Acquisitions, Focus Features

Higgs has served as President of Production and Acquisitions for Focus Features since 2020, where she oversees the studio’s films and team across development, production, and acquisitions for the studio’s domestic and international titles.

Focus Features’ upcoming slate includes Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons; Ronan Day-Lewis’ directorial debut Anemone, starring and co-written by Daniel Day-Lewis; Song Sung Blue, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson; Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao, based the New York Times bestselling novel, starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley; and the highly anticipated third instalment of the Downton Abbey franchise, among others.

Howard Meyers

Executive Vice-President and Global Head of Business Affairs, Focus Features

Meyers is the head of business affairs for Focus Features, the specialty films arm of NBCUniversal. He manages teams in both the U.S. and the U.K. and oversees all worldwide deal-making including motion picture production and development, acquisitions, negative pick-ups and other distribution and financing arrangements. He is the chief architect of Focus’ talent deals, and has structured and negotiated the financing, talent and rights deals for some of the most daring and critically acclaimed films of the past two decades, including Academy Award winners Brokeback Mountain, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and BlacKkKlansman.

Howard has been with Focus since its inception in 2002 and prior to that, he was Senior Vice President, Business Affairs for USA Films where he worked on such Academy Award-winning films as Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic and Robert Altman’s Gosford Park. He was also previously a business affairs executive for MGM/United Artists and a legal affairs executive at Warner Bros., where he worked on such films as The Matrix and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Howard began his career as an entertainment attorney at the law firm of Hill Wynne Troop & Meisinger.

Howard is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

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Officers

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Dan Nabel

Riot Games

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Ian Slotin

NBCUniversal

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Jacqueline Charlesworth

Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz