Eight Oscars were awarded to "Slumdog Millionaire" at the 81st Academy Award ceremony, which took place in Hollywood (USA) on February 22nd 2009. This Brittish film, that has been awarded with some of the most prestigious prizes including Best Film and Best Director for Danny Boyle, was co-funded under the EU's film support programme MEDIA.

EU Media Commissioner Reding congratulated all the makers of “Slumdog Millionaire” for their success, and declared that “the scale of the triumph, be it the eight Oscars or its popularity with audiences worldwide, shows that the support by the EU's MEDIA programme is paying off.”

As Commissioner Reding added EU's MEDIA Programme which has partly funded “ Slumdog Millionaire”, tries to make sure that films made in the EU get a chance to meet judge and jury, in the form of audiences worldwide and competing for international prestigious awards. The success of Slumdog Millionaire shows, more than ever, that MEDIA funding is money well spent, as it helps Europe's cinema spread its cultural diversity around the globe.

In this occasion, seven films funded by the EU's MEDIA film support programme competed in thirteen categories at the Academy Award ceremonies. Apart from “Slumdog Millionaire”, the MEDIA programme was also represented by three of the nominees for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, including Entre les Murs ("The Class", France), winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes film festival.

Last year, two films funded by MEDIA, the EU film support programme, brought home Oscars, including the Best foreign language film prize which went to the Austrian-German co-production "The Counterfeiters" (Die Fälscher).

"Slumdog Millionaire" received €830,000 support from the MEDIA programme for distribution in 2008 and 2009, while the total budget of the film is estimated to be € 11 million.

Oscar prizes awarded to "Slumdog Millionaire"

• Best picture
• Best director
• Best adapted screenplay
• Best original score
• Best original song
• Cinematography
• Film editing
• Sound mixing