In the light of the present crisis in arthouse distribution, Ghent's Flanders International Film Festival (FIFF) will be revising its awards policy for the 30th edition from October 7-18.

While the festival will be increasing the total prize money by 10% to just over Euros 81,000, the major change is that the money attached to the festival's top competition winners will go entirely to the distributors which acquire the titles and release them theatrically in the Benelux territories. Until last year, the prize monies were split between the winning film's distributor and the director, composer or scriptwriter.

FIFF, whose competition focuses on "The Impact of Music on Film" awards four prizes worth Euros 57,500 - the Grand Prize for Best Film (Euros 25,000), Best Music (Euros 15,000), Best Script (Euros 12,500) and Best Director (Euros 5,000), while the remaining money goes to the winners of the festival's shorts competitions and the winner of the FNAC Audience Award.

Another innovation at this year's event is that the competition will be open exclusively to Benelux premieres, 70% of which have no local distributor attached at the start of the festival.