Steven Soderbergh, shown at Cannes in May, was relieved to finally get a deal for Che. (Francois Mori/Associated Press)

A slimmed-down version of Steven Soderbergh's lengthy biopic Che has won a North American distribution deal.

IFC has agreed to release the 4.5-hour film in cinemas in Los Angeles and New York in December, a move that will allow it to qualify for the Academy Awards.

"To have somebody say, 'We get it, we like it, we think this is a commercial movie, we're going to push it really hard.'... That's nice to hear after people saying, 'There's no way that we're going to release this movie, you're out of your minds,'" a relieved Soderbergh said in Toronto after signing the deal.

He had drawn criticism for the length of the film about the young socialist revolutionary, which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival this week.

Soderbergh also had been unable to get U.S. investment because he filmed the biopic in Spanish.

"Everybody saw it, everybody had an opportunity to get involved and they all said, 'If it's in Spanish, we're not interested,"' he said.

Star Benecio del Toro drew praise for his performance, but the film got a lukewarm reception at festivals where it has played. Soderbergh first screened it in Cannes in May, but has since cut 11.5 minutes out of the picture.

Even that was too much for the director, whose earlier works include the long-running Traffic.

"The whole experience was so painful, I just don't want to look at it for a long time," he said. "It was brutal, it was really brutal."

Che has been airing in two segments — the first taking Che Guevara from his origins in Argentina to the success of the Cuban revolution and the second the story of his failed revolution and death in Bolivia.

"I was fascinated by Che's relentless engagement," Soderbergh said. "Full-on, all-day, every day, year after year, under the most difficult circumstances, he never wavered."

Producer Laura Bickford and Soderbergh told a press conference Wednesday afternoon that IFC will initially release Che's two parts back-to-back as part of a limited-run "road show." Then it will be split into separate films for regular commercial release.

"At the end of the day, I know it's an unusual commercial proposition — not unheard of, you know. Forty years ago people were doing this. I guess I felt that some books are 180 pages and some books are 650 pages," Soderbergh said, defending the decision to tell such a vast tale as "the right call."

"If you're gonna do it in any detail, it may just have to be this long," he said.

With files from the Associated Press