Michael Hoffman's Tolstoy drama The Last Station, starring Anthony Hopkins, Meryl Streep and Laura Linney, has received the fourth largest amount awarded by the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) to an international production this year.

The allocation of $1.9m (Euros 1.34m) was only surpassed by Speed Racer (Euros 9m), The International (Euros 5.8m), and Valkyrie (Euros 4.8m) - and by two German productions, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (Euros 2.7m) and Anonyma - A Woman In Berlin (Euros 1.4m).

The $ 17m co-production between Berlin's Egoli Tossell Film and the UK's Zephyr Films is being handled internationally by The Little Film Company and is set to be released in all German-speaking territories by Universal Pictures International (UPI) Germany.

To date, the DFFF has paid out over $77.5m (Euros 54.6m) production support to 87 projects since January 1, 2007.

Other projects to have support confirmed this week include Florian Gallenberger's $28m (Euros 20m) China-set drama John Rabe, which received $1.66m (Euros 1.17m) ahead of its October 18 start of shooting, Hans Christian Schmid's documentary Die Wundersame Welt Der Waesche, Wim Wenders' The Palermo Shooting, and Fatih Akin's docu-thriller Dumping Waste In Paradise.

It remains to be seen whether the DFFF's $85m (Euros 60m) budget for this year will be sufficient given that - with only $7.6m (Euros 5.4m) remaining - funding decisions are still pending on such projects as Heinrich Breloer's costume drama Buddenbrooks, Stephen Daldry's The Reader, Andreas Dresen's Whisky Mit Wodka, and Jaco van Dormael's $50m (Euros 35m) English-language Mr Nobody which is due to to shoot in Germany from this December.

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