Mark Damon's new production and financing company Foresightunveiled its first three projects yesterday (27): Captivity, BeyondFriendship and Marlowe.

Damon also announced that his first hire is Tamara Stuparich De LaBarra as vice president of production and acquisitions.

She most recently worked at Damon's former company Media 8Entertainment, where she was involved in the development of Monster and The Upside of Anger, and most recently worked on thedevelopment and production of Lovewrecked.

Foresight plans to produce four to five pictures a year for theglobal marketplace, and is scheduled to start production on Captivity, a Russian-American co-production, inlate March in Moscow.

Roland Joffe will directthe psychological thriller from a screenplay by Larry Cohen about a youngfashion celebrity and a chauffeur who fall in love while trying to escape fromthe clutches of a psychopath.

Captivitywill be co-produced with Ramco, a Russian production company with offices inMoscow and Los Angeles, and according to Damon will be the first significantinternational project to shoot at Moscow-based Mosfilm Studios.

Damon, Leonid Minkovski, Sergei Konov and Gary Mehlman will serveas producers, Jill Gatsby is co-producer, Alexandra Mehlman associate producer,while Tamara Stuparich De La Barra will oversee production for Foresight.

The project is currently out to casting and will be the first offour pictures that Damon plans to shoot in Moscow with Ramco.

Beyond Friendship is based on the best-selling novel O Jerusalem, and will shoot in Rhodes in early Aprilunder director Elie Chouraqui, who will also produce with Andre Djaoui, Damonand Jean-Charles Levy.

The story centres on twoAmerican friends, one Jewish and the other Arab, as the United Nations votes onthe partition of Palestine, creating the state of Israel in 1948.

Marlowe,which will also be shot by Joffe, is scheduled to begin production in Italy,Serbia and the UK in August.

The story focuses on thefamous writer and renaissance man Christopher Marlowe and is styled as anromantic adventure. The co-production with Movieweb of Italy is being producedby Damon and Massimo Pacilio.

Other Foresightprojects in the pipeline include Red Lips, White Lies, with J B Rogers attached to direct andset to be produced with Faye Schwab and Chase Mishkin; and Higher, with John McNaughton attached to directand set to be produced with Faye Schwab and Brad Gilbert.

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