North American Pictures / North American Releasing Simandl established his production company North American Pictures in Winnipeg in 1977. It was also there that he met cameraman and longtime collaborator
Michael Mazo. His first film, the softcore
Autumn Born starring ill-fated
Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten, was his only feature shot in Winnipeg, and his next work was done in the
Vancouver area. Due to his poor understanding of the distribution business, Simandl lost money on his first film and took several years to regroup. He still found employment churning out some commercials, To better finance and control his catalogue, Simandl established a sister outlet called North American Releasing in 1984, partnering with
University of Alberta business graduate John Curtis, who previously worked for a New York distributor. Both companies are sometimes collectively known as the North American Group. This enabled him to return to features with another roughie, 1986's
Ladies of the Lotus. Early on, the company employed some unorthodox tactics, such as advertising for sales positions that required a product purchase in the local
classifieds, or repackaging their film
Empire of Ash as the non-existent sequel
Empire of Ash II. Until the end of the 1980s, Simandl's shoots were
16 mm affairs, which he essentially treated as a summer hobby. The resulting slate, which included North American's first
35 mm, million-dollar film
Xtro II, In 1993, Curtis left NAR to form Everest Pictures. After his departure, James Westwell and A. William Smyth of film accounting firm TVD, who had co-produced several NAR films, acquired a fifty percent stake in Simandl's company.
First Czech productions and relocation In 1992, Simandl returned to his customary niche with
Chained Heat II, a sequel to the
1983 women-in-prison film, and his first to be shot in the Czech Republic. That year, he re-incorporated his production outfit North American Pictures in
Prague, estimating that he could save around 40 percent of his budgets by outsourcing there. He also opened an office for North American Releasing in
Los Angeles. including of indoor filming space,
Continued activities In 1996–97, NAR's legal counsel Michelle Gahagan was made a partner in the company, soon becoming Simandl's only co-shareholder and
COO. By 1998, the company employed a staff of about fifteen across Canada and the Czech Republic. In 1999 however, she left for the short-lived Sextant Entertainment, leaving Simandl as the company's sole principal. Rumors of a market introduction resurfaced in September 2000, but did not materialize either. Using his Canadian connections, Simandl lobbied to lure other producers to the Czech Republic, and managed to get part of the
Peace Arch Entertainment series
The Immortal outsourced to him. He also teamed up with stuntman turned producer Danny Virtue for ''Ariana's Quest
, a made-for-TV movie starring Rena Mero, which they hoped would spawn a series in the mold of Xena: Warrior Princess''. However, the little seen pilot was not picked up, and the relationship with Peace Arch, who was again the intended buyer, ended in litigation. By the early 2000s, the
VHS rental market that was friendliest to Simandl's action films was shrinking fast. The producer scaled back his operations and focused squarely on his go-to brand of white slavery erotica, this time with a historical slant. Among them was another attempt at a historical TV series,
The Lost Legion. That did not pan out, although two test episodes were repackaged as a 2014 straight-to-video feature, which ended up with
Lionsgate in the U.S. By the second half of the 2010s, the Milín studios were available for sale. Simandl was appointed head of studio operations for BritCan. ==Selected filmography==