Bend It Like Beckham was a successful home-grown film

The body hopes it will help them match the success of hits such as Bend It Like Beckham and Ali G In Da House.

Many homegrown films suffer at the box office because the costs of individual prints - up to �1,000 a time - make them too expensive to distribute widely.

This fund will enable film companies to circulate more copies for screening.

Most UK films are released with just 70 copies.

In contrast, blockbusters like the Harry Potter films may number up to 1,000 prints.

'Distinctively British'

Companies can now apply for up to �300,000 from the fund, which will cushion their losses if the film does poorly.

The amount given depends on how well a film performs, with support reducing as UK box office takings rise.

Peter Buckingham, the Film Council's head of distribution, said the move would help to showcase the work of new film-makers.

"It will give UK audiences greater choice and more chance to see entertaining, distinctively British films," he said.

Is this all the British film industry needs to start booming? What else would boost the business?

Read your comments below.

"Distinctively British" had better not be yet another excuse not to sniff at commercialism and bash Hollywood as in the past. Scottish, Welsh and Irish filmmakers aren't so arrogant as to tell me that not only can life be depressing, but that I have to pay to watch their film in which they tell me so - only the English have done so, and one big hit every four to five years is the price paid for it.
K Henry, England

This is a pathetic and pointless piece of PR by the Film Council. For a start, the amount involved is paltry. In Germany, an identical system hands out over �15m every year to local films that pass 100,000 admissions in German cinemas. They also give production funding and distribution support up front as well.

Secondly, who will benefit? Probably no more than five films/ distributors a year. How does the Film Council believe that this will 'boost' the UK film industry? Especially as it is likely to be the US distributors that will access the cash. To qualify, a film must gross �750,000 at the box office first - that will take a lot of prints and advertising, and is unlikely to be spent on 'new film-makers' as Peter Buckingham would have us believe.
Simon Williams, UK