Mitchell Goldman's USdistribution outfit The Premiere Marketing & Distribution Group -which he announced at AFM last year - has finally unveiled its debutslate which will kick off with Slap Her, She's French, a comedy originally housed at Fox Searchlight, onJune 7. Action drama Madisonstarring Jim Caviezel will follow on Aug 23.

Premierewas launched by Goldman, former head of distribution at New Line Cinema, torelease studio-level independent films on a minimum of 2,000 screens and with aminimum opening week P&A expenditure of $16m. Backing for the company comespartly from a $100m revolving credit facility with JP Morgan.

"We were trulyoverwhelmed by the sheer number and quality of submissions that we havereceived since launching the Company, and narrowing them down to this firstgroup was no easy task," said Goldman in a statement. "We aredelighted that the producers of these films have entrusted their projects tous, and in turn, I can readily assure them that we will devote our fullresources to them."

Among the other filmsscheduled for release in the next year is Tales Not Told, a love story cum thriller which marks thedirectorial debut of producer Debra Hill (Halloween, The Fisher King) and is produced by Samuelson Productions andWinchester Films. Peter and Marc Samuelson are producing, Gary Smith and HadeelReda are executive producers. A release date of Jan 10, 2003, has beenearmarked.

And for Feb 21, 2003,Premiere has set Aurora Island, anew love triangle drama directed by Martha Coolidge produced by Steve Perry (LethalWeapon 2, 3 & 4, Die Hard 2) andstarring Kim Basinger, Joaquin Phoenix and Mandy Moore.

Among the other films towhich Premiere has committed are Stanley Tong's English language Chinesefilm The Legend Of Mulan starringChang Chen (the bandit in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Steve Haberman's sci-fi horror movie NotHuman which is being produced byBrooksfilmm Julian Simpson's action heist picture One Way Split being executive produced by H Michael Heuser and hisStorm Entertainment, a film of the comic book Preacher to be directed by Rachel Talalay also from Storm,action drama The Prince which isbeing written and directed by Preston Whitmore (Fled, Lockdown) set in the underworld of San Francisco and The Wedding Contract, an action comedy directed by producer RobertGreenhut and starring Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver and Isabella Rossellini.