Paul Cowan and Chris Wheeldon have launched new UK production company Territorial Film Developments (TFD), which will finance and produce at least three thrillers or comedies per yer with a budget under $1.9m (£1m).

The company's first feature is Black Water, being made with the Australian Film Commission. The crocodile thriller is in post-production in Sydney, written and directed by Andrew Trauki and David Nerlich. Michael Robertson is producing in Sydney. As previously reported, AV Pictures sold 11 territories on the film during Berlin 's EFM.

Also on the slate are Richard Blanshard's supernatural horror movie Soothsayer, set for production in late spring 2007. Barry Langley wrote the story about a young girl who encounters evil forces in a remmote manor house.

TFD is also developing Paul Wiffen's Carmilla, a lesbian vampire story to be filmed in Hungary in summer 2007. Cicely Tennant, Simone Kaye and Paul Wiffen wrote the story set in the 19th-century Austro-Hungarian empire.

Other projects currently on the TFD slate include Les Blair's inner-city youth drama Good Morning Tottenham, to be produced with Rebecca O'Brien; and Ivor Powell's Shroud, about two American girls who try to humiliate a TV celebrity survival expert.

TFD has backing through a UK Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), but Cowan and Wheeldon say that it is primarily a production, not a finance, company. The company's non-executive directors include Cobalt Pictures' Rodney Payne, HandMade's Michael Ryan, and Infinity Video's Adrian Munsey.

TFD will launch the website MovieMogul.co.uk, which will provide exclusive producion information to investors.

Cowan and Wheeldon formed Territorial Film Investments in 2000 and later formed Planet Films and Planet Films Ghana. Cowan has worked on a line producer on films including The Crying Game and Backbeat. Wheeldon is an experienced location and production manager who has worked on The Wings Of The Dove, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, Ali and I Dreamed Of Africa .

Cowan and Wheeldon said in a joint statement: 'With Black Water coming through as strongly as it has, we believe we have proven that there is scope here for creating something really quite special within the industry. It's small, it's personal, it's designed to be profitable and what's more we want to remind everyone in the business, it can be fun too.'

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