US producer Brad Krevoy's feature project Basshole is being lined up as his third production to be backed this year by private German film fund IWP International West Pictures as part of its six/seven-picture production slate for 2001.

Krevoy's Motion Picture Corporation of America (MPCA) has already partnered with IWP on Steve James' $8.6m (DM20m) historical drama Joe And Max, starring Til Schweiger, Leonard Roberts, Richard Roundtree and August Zirner, which continues shooting at the Babelsberg Studios until June 18. Their other project together is Mort Nathan's $20m comedy Boat Trip, starring Cuba Gooding Jr, Horatio Sanz and Roger Moore, which is moving between locations in Bonn, Cologne, the Magic Media Company (MMC) Studios and the Aegean Sea to the end of the month.

According to producer Klaus Rettig of Cologne-based production house Gemini Film, one of IWP's co-founders, the comedy Basshole is "about two identical twins who could not be more different, who are both fond of fishing in a strange lake with strange fish".

Another project likely to be selected for financing from IWP is the drama Bookies, which was brought to the German fund by LA producer Alan Greenspan. The film is set against the background of illegal betting at American high schools and universities where two friends get into real danger with the mob for stealing their business.

Neither film has a director confirmed as yet, although Mark Ilsley (Happy, Texas) had been attached to Bookies last year when Intermedia was set to finance the project. Both productions will be partly shot in Germany.

IWP was launched this spring by Gemini Film and the CommerzBank subsidiary CommerzLeasing und Immobilien AG (CLI) with plans to invest $38m (Euros45m) during 2001 into at least six English-language features geared to the international market. The first project backed by IWP was John Bradshaw's action comedy Triggermen, produced on location in Toronto by IWP with Canada's Now Entertainment Group. The film stars Pete Postlethwaite, Amanda Plummer, Donnie Wahlberg, Michael Rapaport and Adrian Dunbar.

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