Thomas Hofbauer is the writer, producer and director of In The Company Of Strangers. He has been working in the entertainment industry for the last 22 years. He started out as a comedian back in 1985 and spent portions of the next eight years traveling around the eastern half of the United States.

Four years were spent in Los Angeles pursuing an acting career. At the end of his first LA stint, he returned to Toledo with three finished screenplays and a ton of rejection letters. He and his writing partner wrote and produced a sketch comedy show pilot called Around the Bend. They shopped it but did not meet with success.

His next challenge was putting together an improvisational comedy troupe, The Around the Bend Players. This troupe continues its long, successful run in the Toledo area with performances running the gamut from a weekly show to private parties and corporate events.

In January of 2001, Hofbauer decided that the time was right to produce his original screenplay, In The Company Of Strangers. He spent the remainder of his winter finishing and polishing the script and stocking up on credit cards. In April he held auditions. In May he continued searching for funding and on June 20, the cameras rolled. Twenty four shooting days later, he had his first feature in the can and eight credit cards maxed out.

Strangers was shot with the new SONY Cine Alta High Definition 24P Digital Video camera and posted on a Macintosh G4 with Final Cut Pro.

In 2004, Hofbauer teamed up with Cleveland filmmaker Deb Halinski to direct and produce ADDICT, a documentary about Todd Crandall, a northwest Ohio man who survived 13 years of serious drug and alcohol addiction before becoming clean and starting on a new addiction - that of running Ironman Triathelons.

Late in 2003, Hofbauer was contacted by LA based filmmakers Kirby Dick and Eddie Schmidt and asked to be part of the team that created Twist of Faith, a moving documentary about the pedophilia crisis in the Catholic Church in Toledo, Ohio. This story follows the struggles of Toledo firefighter Tony Comes as he comes grips with the abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of a diosese priest. Twist of Faith went on to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005. It was also nominated for an Academy Award that same year.

Tom is in the planning stages of an untitled documentary for which he hopes to start shooting footage in July of this year (2006).