Australian actor/writer/director Matthew Newton, here with Three Blind Mice, has two new scripts in development.

People People is about a 40-year-old married couple trying to stay together. 'It's about comfort versus freedom,' Newton says. 'It's like an anti-rom-com, about how we relate to each other.'

He also has LA-set genre piece about a professional killer, The Dotted Line. 'I want to deconstruct the genre and find what's truthful about a character like that,' he says.

Newton isn't sure yet which film will shoot first, but he hopes to be in production by early 2009 on one of them.

Newton has also been in Los Angeles prior to TIFF to discuss a larger US project.

Three Blind Mice, also written by and starring Newton, is about three young Australian navy officers who have one last night in Sydney before going to Iraq.

The film won a special commendation when it premiered at the Sydney Film Festival. The film is a small-budget independent project that he shot for three weeks on location with night shoots.

Distribution deals are still being discussed - Odin's Eye is selling.

'It got fantastic reception on the home front,' Newton says. 'But also people here are really responding to it, I tried to make it about behavioral truths that transcend language and culture. I wanted to make an anti-war film but it's really about male friendships too.'