In an age when short-form content can seem as disposable as a mobile-phone video, Peter & The Wolf is something of a lesson in longevity.

The 30-minute stop-motion animated film, adapted from Prokofiev's classic and directed by Suzie Templeton, premiered at London's Royal Albert Hall in 2006 and continues to roll out around the world with theatrical screenings accompanied by live orchestras. In February it picked up the Academy Award for best animated short film.

"I was looking at producers who were three or four years ahead of me out of film school and I was kind of disappointed," says producer Hugh Welchman, a graduate of the UK's National Film and Television School, on the film's genesis. "They were spending three or four years making their first feature and it would go out in cinemas for a couple of weeks, go to a few festivals and then disappear. So I set myself the task of trying to find a project that would last for 10 years."

Peter & The Wolf has been shown on platforms including screenings with orchestras, TV airings, a DVD release and a book with a CD, alongside merchandising and educational material. "It was important for us to start with the orchestral releases and that helped in terms of giving us more credibility," Welchman says. "We sold this at feature-film prices."

Finance for the film, which had a budget of $3.2m (£1.6m) was pieced together from several sources. A third was raised through pre-sales to TV - including Channel 4 in the UK - a third was deferrals and the final third was private equity through an Enterprise Investment Scheme.

Shot in Poland, Peter & The Wolf was produced by Welchman's BreakThru Films, Poland's Se-Ma-For Studios and Norway's Storm Studios with finance from Nesta, the Polish Film Institute and Switzerland's ArchAngel.

Although this was not Welchman's first project - he won the Cannes Cinefondation Prize for his first film Crowstone and produced two short films for Monty Python - it has put BreakThru more firmly on the map. The company, founded in 2002, has also worked on acclaimed animated feature Free Jimmy and managed the visual effects for La Vie En Rose. Other key members of the BreakThru team include executive producer Simon Olswang and producer Tamsin Lyons.

BreakThru is currently developing a range of projects, including low-budget horror Sh!, about a virus that spreads through sound; Alex, adapted from the comic strip in The Daily Telegraph; The Hound Of Ulla, based on an Irish/Celtic myth; and The Last Thakur, made with the Nfts, More4 and Curzon Artificial Eye, billed as "a Spaghetti Western set in Bangladesh".