EU cash helped Oscar-winning film

The European Commission has claimed a share in the Oscar-winning glory of 'The King’s Speech' – because the film was made with a little help from EU finance.

Director Tom Hooper completed the movie on a shoestring budget – by Hollywood standards – of less than €11.7m.

And nearly half a million of it – €563,000 – came from the EU Media fund for cinema, specifically to support distribution costs.

Another Media-backed film, 'In A Better World', directed by Denmark’s Susanne Bier, collected an Oscar last night for best foreign language film.

EU Commissioner for Culture Androulla Vassiliou said: “What a great night for the European film industry and the Media programme. Europe loves cinema and the world loves our films.

“My congratulations to Tom Hooper and Susanne Bier, who showed that you don’t need a massive budget to make world-beating films.

“This shows that the European film industry can compete with the best.”

The EU Media programme is specifically aimed at promoting a European film’s distribution beyond the country in which it was made.

The same fund contributed to Danny Boyle’s 'Slumdog Millionaire', as well as a number of films by UK directors Ken Loach and Mike Leigh.

None of the profits from 'The King’s Speech' will find their way into EU coffers, despite the film’s huge success.

“Our funding programme does not work like that,” said one Commission official.

“We give money out under the EU Media programme to help promote European film-making and encourage distribution. Our funds were not directly associated with the making of the film and we don’t make profitability a condition of funding.”