Film Council to boost British sci-fi

UK science fiction filmmakers have received a welcome boost from the Film Council's £15m New Cinema Fund.
Created to help new writers get their ideas onto the big screen, New Steps Beyond will favour scripts in a similar vein to cult hits 'Cube', 'Dark Star' and 'Hardware', which all put a different twist on the genre.
The Film Council maintain sci-fi has potential for creative and commercial development.
A spokesperson said; "We're not looking for a future we have already seen, but a completely new vision - one which explores the outer limits of our current imaginations."
The films will be made in conjunction with UK producers Box Film.
Gub Neal, founder of Box Film, said: "We relish the opportunity to encourage new talent to tackle the sci-fi genre, particularly at a time when British film-makers should be provoked into thinking more about genre storytelling.
"With sci-fi there is a fantastically exciting range of possibilities to be explored - we hope that this scheme will help demonstrate just how varied those possibilities are."
The exact amount of available funding has not yet been released.
(GB)