Lloyd A. Simandl

Lloyd Anthony Simandl (born Luboš Antonín Šimandl in 1948 or 1950) is a Czech-Canadian film director and producer. He began his entertainment career in Canada in the late 1970s, before returning to his native Czech Republic in the mid-90s. He has mainly done business through his companies North American Pictures and North American Releasing. He is best known for low budget action and softcore films. Many of his works dabble in bondage themes, and he later created a label specializing in this type of product called Bound Heat.

Personal life

Simandl was born Luboš Antonín Šimandl in Cheb, in the westernmost part of then Czechoslovakia. He was born 1948 according to some sources, He attended music school, but was kicked out at 15. He graduated from a high school in České Budějovice, in the southwest of the country. In 1968 however, Czechoslovakia was invaded by a Soviet-led military coalition. Simandl moved to Canada and settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

He first worked at a shoe factory to learn the English language, before going to medical school. Simandl was listed as a faculty member there between 1982 and 1993, when his official status was changed to "on leave," although by the late 1980s he was already dedicating his time to filmmaking.

Career 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