Focus Features has picked up worldwide rights to Hany Abu-Assad's follow-upto Paradise Now.

Abu-Assad pitched the as-yet-untitled contemporary drama to Focus and iswriting the screenplay. Senior vice president of production Kahli Small issupervising development for production president John Lyons.

Paradise Now earned an foreign language Academy Award nominationthis year and picked up a string of awards from Berlin and the Hollywood ForeignPress Association, among others.

"As Paradise Now showed, Hany is a filmmaker of tremendous compassion andskill," Focus chief executive officer James Schamus said. "We arethrilled to be a part of his next project, which is sure to stir even moreinterest and passion than his last."