Hamburg-based TV production house MME: Me, Myself and Eye Entertainment has acquired a majority stake in Neue Impuls Film Produktionsgesellschaft (NIF) in a move to expand its portfolio to include film and television fiction production.

NIF, whose credits include the Danish-German-Italian co-production of Lars Hesselholdt's family film Katja's Adventure and, most recently, Vanessa Jopp's Engel & Joe, with star Robert Stadtlober in the lead, will in turn be able to benefit from MME's extensive production experience in the youth/music, reality/ documentary and lifestyle/entertainment genres.

Through NIF, MME plans to establish a presence in the German TV market, one of its first projects being a TV series based on the Perry Rhodan science fiction novels.

Although MME will now have a majority shareholding, NIF is to continue to operate as an independent production unit with the previous shareholders Rolf Dieckmann, Michael Eckelt, multiplex operator Hans-Joachim Flebbe and Volker Stolberg still onboard. Managing director Eckelt will now be joined by MME board member Joerg A. Hoppe as a second managing director.