Constantin Film confirmed its leading position as Germany's top production house and distributor by walking away with almost a third of the Euros 22.6m retroactive "reference" funding handed out by the German Federal Film Board (FFA).

The box-office success last year of such (co) productions as the Oscar-winning Nowhere In Africa, Paul Anderson's Resident Evil, Doris Doerrie's Nackt and the teen comedy Knallharte Jungs brought Constantin Euros 5.4m to invest in the production of new German features.

The second place was taken by Karl "Baumi" Baumgartner and Reinhard Brundig's Pandora Film whose co-productions of Winged Migration, The Man Without A Past, Mostly Martha and Samsara generated Euros 1.41m "reference" support, while "hot" young production outfit Hofmann & Voges Entertainment was the third most successful producer, receiving Euros 1.27m thanks to the commercial success of Feuer, Eis Und Dosenbier and Erkan & Stefan II - Gegen Die Maechte Der Finsternis.

Menawhile, Constantin's distribution arm picked up Euros 1.17m "reference" support to invest in future releases of German films, ahead of X Verleih's Euros 271,944 for its release of such films as Heaven, Solino and White Noise and Senator Film Verleih's Euros 264,381 for their distribution of films like Was Nicht Passt, Wird Passend Gemacht and Vaya Con Dios.

According to the FFA, 77.5% of the Euros 19.5m in retroactive production support was awarded to feature films, with only 15.1% going to films for children and young people and 7.4% to documentaries.

It was a different picture in 2002, though, when films for children and young people attracted some 39% of the funds and feature films mustered only 58.6%.

At the same time, the theatrical success of Winged Migration - which posted 824,985 admissions last year - helped documentaries to more than double their slice of the cake from 3.5% to 7.2%.