HONG KONG – Japanese production shingle Entertainment Farm has unwrapped plans to launch a film investment fund that will be located in Singapore.

          Fund will begin raising $30-50 million from Asian investors over the next three months. It plans to invest in a slate of movies produced in Asia and the U.S.

Announcement was timed to coincide with the screening of the Entertainment Farm-produced "The Princess of Nebraska" by Wayne Wang, as opening movie of the Singapore International Film Festival. Fest unspools Friday and runs through April 14.

          Fund will be launched to investors through a new Singapore-registered unit Entertainment Farm Pte. Ltd with projects brought to it by Entertainment Farm's managing director of int'l, Yukie Kito and green-lighted by Entertainment Farm topper Yasushi Kotani.

          "We will be targeting Asian projects by internationally acclaimed directors with international appeal, such 'The Namesake' and 'A Thousand Years of Good Prayers'," Kito said.

          Fund gives company the ability to fully-finance smaller films or take minority stakes in larger projects costing up to $10 million. It is expected to be fully disbursed within two years and have a minimum five year operational life.

          "We expect to target a limited number of institutional, financial, corporate and private investors. There will be no debt component or leverage, it is all equity," said Yano Satoru, director of Entertainment Farm Pte. Ltd. "This is a new way of working for a Japanese company and we are keeping the amount raised modest as we want to raise it quickly, we have projects waiting for finance."

Fund is already eyeing an untitled project to be helmed by Iris Yamashita ("Letters from Iwo Jima") and a San Francisco-set drama by Japanese helmer Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

          Although Entertainment Farm was "aggressively" courted by the Singapore government, fund is not expected to contain coin from the Media Development Authority or any other agency. "If we were to accept Singapore government money we would be expected to engage Singapore, to invest in Singapore films or do post-production here," Yano said. "We are not yet confident of doing that and prefer to keep a free hand, though there are other attractions to Singapore such as tax and international exposure."

© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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