MUMBAI: Philippe Lioret‘s Welcome is the winner of the 2009 European Parliament LUX Film Prize after having received a majority of European Parliamentarians‘ votes.

Worth around $131,000 (€87,000), the prize will help in the subtitling of the film in all 23 of the European Union‘s official languages, including the adaptation of the original version for visually- or hearing-impaired people and also the production of a 35-mm print or a contribution to the DVD release for every EU member state.

Set in Calais, France, Welcome tells the story of a swimming instructor who chooses to help out a young Kurdish refugee who needs to swim across the English Channel to join his girlfriend. It is produced by Christophe Rossignon of France‘s Nord-Ouest Productions.

The LUX Prize is awarded annually by the European Parliament for fiction or animation films illustrating or questioning the founding values of European identity, revealing Europe‘s cultural diversity or providing insights into the EU integration debate.

This year‘s finalists, along with Welcome, were Kamen Kalev‘s Eastern Plays (Bulg-Swe) and Hans Christian-Schmid‘s Sturm (Ger-Den-Neth).