Producer andformer Artisan president Bill Block has teamed up with three entertainmentindustry veterans to launch the Beverly Hills-based international sales,financing and production house QED International.

Block is joinedin the new enterprise by senior vice president Kimberly Fox, the former head ofinternational sales at Kathy Morgan International, chief operating officer PaulHanson, the former chief financial officer of management and production companyKey Creatives, and vice president of production Elliot Ferwerda.

Fully funded byequity investors, QED will introduce the company to Berlin this week along withan inaugural product line-up that includes John Heffernan's graphic noveladaptation Just A Pilgrim, Andy Fickman's thriller Cul DeSac, and Isaac Webb's mystery Second Wife.

The company willrepresent titles in the domestic and international market place and producepictures independently and in partnership with the US majors and foreigndistributors.

"We lookforward to working with producers, assisting them in packaging their projects,arranging financing and representing them overseas," Block said.

"We arelaunching QED at this time because we see an opportunity in the landscape for afocused sales agency that fully services studio and independent producers, thatextends beyond just the deal, to marketing, delivery, and distribution to ourterritorial partners."

"QED offersstrong studio, foreign distribution and talent relationships with a trackrecord of funding, packaging and producing motion pictures," Hanson added."We are committed to delivering to our production and distributionpartners, both foreign and domestic, quality studio-level motionpictures."

Block iscurrently partnered with Ken Kamins and David Greenblatt at Key Creatives. Hisproducer and executive producer credits include First Born and VanillaSky.

Fox served atKathy Morgan International for six years and spearheaded the internationalsales of dozens of features from New Line, Warner Independent Pictures andLions Gate, among others.

Prior to KeyCreatives, Hanson served in financial, operational and production capacities atArtisan Entertainment.

Ferwerdapreviously served as a consumer marketing consultant specialising in theyouth-oriented music business.