First Floor Features, the Dutch production house responsible for 1998 Oscar-winner Character, has put together a star packed production slate following its merger with Guy Walks Into A Bar.

Its partner is a Los Angeles-based production and management group headed by Todd Komarnicki. The merger is intended to allow the combination of US facilities and talent with a Dutch film library, production skills and access to tax-based finance.

"The alliance has an eye on eventually entering the sales and distribution arena," said First Floor founder Laurens Geels in a statement, although for the foreseeable future pictures are likely to continue being sold through Kathy Morgan International.

The two companies' collaboration began with First Floor's production of novelist and screenwriter Komarnicki's feature debut Resistance. The $15m film, which stars Bill Paxton, Julia Ormond and Sandrine Bonnaire, is now in post-production with delivery scheduled for autumn this year.

New pictures on the slate include Alejandro Agresti's $5m Valentin, an Argentinian-set drama about a lonely boy, starring Agresti and Carmen Maura, which is also in post-production. In preparation is The Last Face, a Euros17.8m love story starring Javier Bardem and Robin Wright-Penn which shoots next month; Views And Sounds, a crime story to be directed by Geels himself from October; and, Canto, an operatic thriller directed by Florence Strauss.

First Floor is in casting discussions with Juliette Binoche, Vincent Cassel and Sandrine Bonnaire.