Lottery Boost for Wider Distribution

Shane Meadows' coming-of-age comedy/drama gets lottery boost for wider distribution
Somers Town, the new film from award-winning director Shane Meadows, is one of several films to receive support from the UK Film Council's Prints and Advertising Fund, which continues to provide funding for the distribution of art-house, foreign and classic films to give audiences more choice.

LONDON – 28 August 2008. Somers Town, the new film from award-winning director Shane Meadows, is one of several films to receive support from the UK Film Council's Prints and Advertising Fund, which continues to provide funding for the distribution of art-house, foreign and classic films to give audiences more choice.

Optimum Releasing received £140,000 for BAFTA-winning director Shane Meadows' black and white comedy/drama about the friendship that grows between a runaway teenager from the Midlands (Thomas Turgoose) and a Polish boy whose father is working on the construction of the new St Pancras. The award widened the film to 60 screens and enabled an enhanced advertising campaign in the lead up to its release on 22 August. The film won the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature Film at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Revolver Films received £170,000 for Jonathan Levine's The Wackness, the funny and charming offbeat drama starring Ben Kingsley which tells a universal story of first love and broken hearts to a hip hop soundtrack. The film won the Dramatic Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and the funding has doubled screen numbers from 50 to 100, with additional 35mm prints and digital copies, and will increase publicity and advertising around the film's release on 29 August.

Metrodome received £43,418 for The Chaser, a slick Korean serial-killer thriller from director Hong-jin Na, to pay for additional prints, digital distribution and advertising costs; and £5,000 to widen the distribution of Santosh Sivan's Before the Rains, a beautifully photographed film about an English spice merchant who settles in Kerala during British colonial rule in 1937.

Awards were also made to broaden the availability of the following films:

Bloom Street Productions received £5,000 for Karl Francis' Hope Eternal, a complex and emotive film that explores issues of African civil war and human trafficking through the story of a Madagascan nurse working at a child hospice in the Congo who falls in love with a Welsh doctor.

Artificial Eye received £5,000 for The Banishment, Andrei Zvyagintsev's stunningly shot follow up to the acclaimed The Return; £5,000 for Reha Erdem's Times and Winds, a poignant story of best friends struggling with the strict discipline of a traditional Turkish upbringing; and £4,976 for Romance of Astrea and Celadon, a pastoral love story set in fifth century Gaul from director Eric Rohmer.

Momentum Pictures received £5,000 for Nic Balthazar's Belgian hit Ben X about a bullied teenager suffering from autism who finds refuge in playing online computer games. Inspired by true events, the film explores the blurred lines between virtual reality and real life.

Lions Gate UK received £5,000 for Angel, François Ozon's first English language film set in Edwardian England about the only daughter of a widowed grocer who is determined to escape her impoverished life by becoming a famous author.

Trinity Filmed Entertainment received £5,000 for Ulrich Seidl's Import/Export, a story of harsh lives surrounded by violence and sexual exploitation. A Ukrainian nurse searches for a better life in the West, while an unemployed Austrian security guard heads East for the same reason.

The Works received £5,000 for Baltasar Kormákur's Jar City, a gripping Icelandic crime thriller about a seemingly routine homicide investigation that unearths a far bigger conspiracy.

Slingshot Productions received £5,000 for Suroosh Alvi and Eddy Moretti's Heavy Metal in Baghdad, a raw and unsentimental music documentary about the lives of the four members of Acrassicauda, Iraq's first - and to date, only - heavy metal band.

P&A Fund awards

The Wackness
£170,000

Somers Town
£140,000

The Chaser
£43,418

Angel
£5,000

The Banishment
£5,000

Before the Rains
£5,000

Ben X
£5,000

Heavy Metal in Baghdad
£5,000

Hope Eternal
£5,000

Import/Export
£5,000

Jar City
£5,000

Times and Winds
£5,000

Romance of Astrea and Celadon
£4,976


A list of the UK Film Council's National Lottery awards can be found on our website at www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk

For more information contact:

Tara Milne/Caroline Nagle
UK Film Council Press Office
T: 020 7861 7901/ 7508
E: tara.milne@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk /
caroline.nagle@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk

Notes to Editors:

1. Prints and Advertising Fund

The UK is one of the most expensive countries in the world in which to release films, and this can lead to limited choice for cinema-goers. While blockbusters such as Harry Potter are often released in the UK with more than 1,000 film prints, the average number of prints for a foreign language specialist film is under ten.

The UK Film Council has created a single fund, the UK Film Council's Prints and Advertising Support Fund, also known as the P&A Fund, with an annual budget of £4 million. This fund also offers support to more commercially focused 'British' films that nevertheless remain difficult to market.

This fund is not intended to substitute pre-existing investment but rather is seeking to add value to the investment already being made by distributors in each film.

The fund aims to benefit audiences by:

widening access in terms of the range of films available;
widening opportunities to view such films across the UK; and
widening audience awareness of the range of films potentially available.