Microsoft cofounder and Dreamworks’ largest outside shareholder Paul Allen is making the official launch of his feature film company Clear Blue Sky Productions at the Toronto International Film Festival Sept. 6. This is where the company’s first two projects, Inspirations and John Sayles’ Men With Guns, will receive their world premieres.

‘The Toronto film festival is a great vehicle for us to show off these projects and make our entrance onto the market,’ says associate producer Eric Robison, who will use the venue as a launch pad to secure distribution for Inspirations, introduce Clear Blue to key industry players from around the world, and scout for potential projects.

The Washington-based company, which plans to develop, finance and produce three to five features in the $1-million to $5-million range per year, has kept a low profile since it formed last December, says Robison; the plan was to wait until the fruits of the first filmmaking efforts were complete. Having secured its first two projects at the same festival, the time is ripe to aggressively begin promoting its entry onto the American production landscape.

Inspirations, a low-budget documentary developed and produced in-house, features international artists from a variety of mediums, among them architect Tadao Ando, musician David Bowie and painter Roy Lichtenstein, discussing the creative process and artistic motivations. It’s the baby of Britain’s Michael Apted, best known for Nell, Gorillas in the Mist, and the Up doc series (7 +7, 21, 28, 35 Up), who directs the film. Eileen Gregory, one of the film’s producers, doubles as the sales agent and all rights are available.

Clear Blue’s second project is John Sayles’ latest effort, Men With Guns. The company is a financing partner along with l.a.’s Lexington Road Productions and the Independent Film Channel.

The $2.5-million feature, shot on location in Mexico, stars Argentinean actor Federico Luppi (Cronos, A Place in the World) as a highly respected doctor who has spent years training younger counterparts to enter the forbidden and remote jungles of a fictional Latin American country in order to bring medicine to Indian tribes that are without access to modern drugs. The foreign-language film was shot in Spanish and a number of Indian dialects.

Sony Pictures Classics is distributing in the u.k., North America, Latin and South America while CiBy Sales has rights for the rest of the world.

‘High-concept, artistically driven scripts with intriguing characters and concepts that push the envelope’ are on Clear Blue’s shopping list. Robison is looking across the board from docs to dramas but stresses that he’s aiming to catch wide audience appeal.

Although established directors were attached to its first two films the company is open to working with emerging directors, producers and actors. At this stage in the game Clear Blue’s focus is to work within the North American marketplace and possibly in the u.k., says Robison.

A distribution arm is not in the company’s plans, he adds.

Clear Blue is helmed by president and exec producer Jody Patton (Allen’s sister). Other principals include Zoe Friedman Melendez in development, Tom Werner overseeing business administration, and Jason Hunke in communications. All are in town for tiff, taking part in Rogers Industry Centre micromeetings and the Symposium as a means to make connections with directors and producers and enhance the company’s profile.

At the sales office, Kelley Alexander says Men With Guns and Inspirations have piqued international interest at tiff because of the long track records of both directors and potential wide appeal.

Sayles’ previous work, Lone Star, reached the largest audiences of any of his earlier films, the first of which was Return of the Secaucus Seven in 1980, and Alexander anticipates high buyer turnout at screenings, with reps eager to see how Sayles has followed his greatest commercial success.

As a veteran filmmaker who has crossed between documentary and drama production, Apted’s latest endeavor is also expected to be high on must-see lists, says Alexander.

Clear Blue currently has two projects in embryonic development which they are not ready to announce, one of which is slated for production in 1997.