Good Bye, Lenin!, has passed the £1m mark at the UK box office, making it only the seventh European subtitled film in the last ten years to achieve such success, the UK Film Council has revealed.
The film's UK release - by UGC Films UK - was supported by the Film Council's Distribution and Exhibition Fund to the tune of £90,000, which was used to underwrite the cost of additional prints and wider advertising.
Good Bye, Lenin!, is one of six specialised films to receive total funding of £565,000 from the UK Film Council's Distribution and Exhibition Fund - which aims to expand the range of films available to UK audiences.
According to a Film Council statement, audiences for specialised films (such as art-house, foreign language and film classics) are a growth area but the costs in getting these films into cinemas across the UK limit their availability.
Commenting on the support, Pete Buckingham, head of the UK Film Council's Distribution and Exhibition Fund said: "I am delighted that Good Bye, Lenin! has been such a big success in the UK, it proves that there is an undoubted appetite for subtitled films in this country.
"Because the cost of releasing specialised films is so high they often have a very limited release and it has been almost impossible to see them at cinemas outside London's West End. This National Lottery support for film distribution and exhibition will make a wider variety of films available to cinema-goers across the country."
Other films supported in the latest round of the UK Film Council's Print and Advertising (P&A) Fund are:
Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool - backed by £70,000, enabling it to be shown on 40 screens instead of 28;
Sylvain Chomet's Belleville Rendez-Vous received £80,000 boosting the release from 40 to 60 prints;
Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away received £40,000 increasing the number of prints from 35 to 55;
David Mackenzie's Young Adam received £60,000 allowing the film to be shown on 125 screens rather than 65 and in mainstream cinemas that rarely show specialised films;
Spanish coming-of-age film Krampack received £15,000, doubling the number of prints available from three to six.
In addition, Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things is being supported by up to £300,000 by the Film Council's UK Film Distribution Programme.
This programme aims to help commercially focused British films get a wider release by underwriting the distributor's commitment to the film in releasing it on more than 175 prints and spending over £750,000 on prints and advertising.
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