Warner BrosPictures Japan (WBPJ) has been awarded three top honours from Japan's MotionPicture Exhibitors Association, capping its position as the territory'sdominant foreign distributor of the last three years.

Thecompany picked up the Grand Prix Award for Best Foreign Film Distributor of theYear as well as awards for Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets and TheMatrix Reloaded, the number one and number two biggest grossing importedfilms of 2003 respectively. WBPJ's managing director William Ireton made theannouncement.

Thedistributor's releases grossed Yen35bn ($320m) at the box office last year,breaking its two previous records of Yen32bn and Yen29bn in 2002 and 2001respectively. Over the past three years the company has reported a nearly 30%market share for imported films.

"Asour top international territory, Japan has a very high bar to meet in terms ofbox office performance, but Bill and his team have exceeded our expectations inmanaging last year's slate of highly anticipated releases," VeronikaKwan-Rubinek, president of distribution at Warner Bros Pictures Internationalsaid in a statement.

"Whenplanning our global marketing strategies for 2003's tentpole films, we knewthat our campaigns in Japan would play a key role in our success and ourJapanese office has worked tirelessly on helping to create and execute them,"Sue Kroll, president of marketing at Warner Bros Pictures International added.

"Weare honoured that our efforts have been recognised by the Motion PictureExhibitors Association and we have been further motivated to apply ourselvesonly to the highest standards when working on bringing the studio's 2004 slateto Japanese audiences," Ireton said.