Buena Vista International Germany (BVIG) has picked up thechildren's adventure film The Three Investigators: The Mystery Of SkeletonIsland which will begin shooting in SouthAfrica this August.

BVIG reportedly paid a seven-figure sum for the German rightsin a transaction which also includes the option for further films of thefranchise to be developed from the popular Three Investigators series of books.

Florian Baxmeyer, whose short film Die Rote Jacke was nominated for an Academy Award in 2004, will directthe Euros 10m project which is being co-produced by Studio HamburgInternational Production, the English-language division of Studio HamburgProduktion, with the German private media fund German Film Productions GFP.

The Three Investigators: The Mystery Of Skeleton Island marks GFP's first foray into English languageproduction after focusing until now on German feature film and televisionproduction such as the comedy Der Wixxer, Dominique Deruddere's The Blood Wedding and the award-winning TV two-parter DasWunder Von Lengede.

Earlier this week, GFP's managing director David Groenewoldannounced the launching of a New York-based film fund National Film Fund toback English language independent feature films and TV productions in the US.