Germany-based sales company Sola Media has picked up rights to nature documentary The Turtle's Song, from UK producers Film & Music Entertainment and Big Wave Productions.

Sola has world rights excluding Austria and Finland to the theatrical feature produced by F&ME's Mike Downey, Sam Taylor and Zorana Piggott and Big Wave's Sarah Cunliffe.

The project will be directed by Emmy winner Nick Stringer, who will track the 20-year journey of the giant loggerhead turtle around the world.

The project's $3m financing is being completed before the shoot starts in April in Florida. The film will be delivered in November 2007.

F&ME's Sam Taylor said that the company would announce a major US nature TV station deal after Berlin.

'We were looking for films in the same lines as The Story of the Weeping Camel for a long time,' said Sola's Beatrix Wesle, who also handled world sales for that internationally successful nature project. 'When we saw the promo of The Turtle's Song I thought it was just perfect.'

Added Sola CEO Solveig Langeland: 'I was immediately fascinated by the international appeal of The Turtle's Song.'

Other partners on board for The Turtle's Song are Helmut Grasser of Austria's Allegrofilm, Marko Rohr and Ilkka Matila at Finland's Matila Rohr Productions and the Austrian Film Institute.

F&ME's other major 2007 productions will include Michael Kalesniko's $15m FAKE! and Dominic Murphy's $2m White Lightnin'. Other films in development are Rent Boy! with puppet theatre The Wright Stuff and Jane Bussman; an adaptation of Thomas Keneally's Victim Of The Aurora; a collaboration with Tartan's Hamish McAlpine on James Ellroy's Killer On The Road; and a literary Cold War-set mystery written by Steve Attridge and Mike Downey.