Canadian-UK financier Grosvenor Park, which has specialised in funding films through the UK's sale and leaseback system, is now planning to have a piece of the action in Germany's $2.3bn (DM5bn) private media fund sector.

It has set up Munich-based Grosvenor Park Media GmbH to offer

private German investors the opportunity to put up at least $22,500 (Euro

25,000) each into its Grosvenor Park Film Productions Nr. 1 fund. This aims

to raise $13.0m (Euro14.4m) financing for the production of Oliver Parker's

adaptation of Oscar Wilde's classic The Importance Of Being Earnest.

Featuring a glittering cast including Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell,

Rupert Everett as Algernon Moncrieff and Colin Firth as Jack Worthing, the

film is being produced by the UK's Fragile Films with Miramax Films. Miramax has rights in all English-speaking territories. World sales elsewhere are being handled by Good Machine International.

Since the fund has to be involved in all aspects of the

production for its investors to obtain the German tax advantages as "hands on"

"co-producers", the fund acquired the underlying and ancillary rights

from Fragile Films, concluded a production services agreement with Important

Films Ltd which will supervise the production on the fund's behalf; and has also signed a license agreement with Fragile Distribution Ltd for the film's global exploitation.

Earnest is Parker's second Wilde adaptation after his 1999 film An Ideal Husband, which also starred Everett.