New Berlin and Paris-based production outfit Simply Committed, co-founded by producer Peter Paulich and German-American actor Thomas Heinze, will announce the first projects stemming from its partnership with US producing stalwart Ed Pressman at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Quite separately, Simply has also committed to a joint venture with Expand Images, a European leader in game-shows and animated programming which is part-owned by StudioCanal.

Together, Simply and Expand are creating a new company, Screensaver International to produce English-language feature and TV projects for the international market. Already slated are three family films including Paradise Found, a film about the time spent by French painter Paul Gauguin on the island of Tahiti that stars Kiefer Sutherland and Nastassja Kinski. To be directed by Australian filmmaker Mario Andreacchio at locations in Queensland (standing in for Tahiti) and in Prague (for Paris), Paradise Found is a French-Australian co-production with Andreacchio's Adelaide Motion Picture Company. International sales are being handled by Le Studio Canal Plus; Becker has theatrical distribution rights in Australia.

Also due to start shooting this April in Vancouver and Toronto is Animal Tales. Screensaver will be working closely on these projects and its future development slate with Canal Plus, Studio Canal and/or their new family stable-mate Universal Pictures with Simply Committed's Paulich and Le Sabre's Georges Campana acting as co-executive producers and former ProSieben executive Karin Schockweiler as Screensaver's head of development. If that's not enough, Simply Committed has additional plans for several high profile TV films and one German language feature film per year.