Germany's State Minister of Culture Christina Weiss will increase the total prize-money allocated to the German Film Awards (Lolas) by Euros 310,000 to Euros 3.125m this year.

An additional Euros 250,000 is being made available for a seventh title to be nominated in the "Best Feature Film" category, and a total Euros 60,000 will go to the winners of the "Best Screenplay" Lola.

In recent years, the Screenplay German Film Award had been presented during the Berlinale in February. The award in 2002 went to Wolfgang Becker and Bernd Lichtenberg for their collaboration on Good Bye, Lenin! and to Thomas Wendrich for his project Nimm Dir Dein Leben.

After lobbying from Germany's Screenwriters Guild, the Culture Ministry agreed to incorporate the award into the main ceremony in Berlin in June.

Thus, two Lolas with purses of Euros 30,000 each will be presented to the authors of a filmed and an as-yet unfilmed screenplay. The screenwriters are required to invest at least Euros 25,000 of the prizemoney in the production of a new screenplay.

In addition, the Ministry has announced that it has redefined the category of "Outstanding Individual Achievements" and will be awarding four Lolas for Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction/Production Design and Musical Score.