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Internationally recognised as one of the world’s most highly regarded and successful launch pads for genre movies, the UK’s leading genre event, SCI-FI-LONDON, has now taken its own giant step into world of movie production with the crowd-funded sci-fi comedy feature, The Search For Simon, directed by Martin Gooch (Death) and starring Tom Price (Torchwood), Carol Cleveland (Monty Python), Simon Jones (The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy) and Sophie Aldred (Doctor Who) with a guest appearance by gaming legend Ian Livingstone. And you are invited to join in the final countdown to raise vital funds to finance the movie’s post-production via the crowd-funding website, indiegogo.com.

In return for any pledges made, the filmmakers are offering a variety of cool and unique perks, ranging from signed DVDs of the completed film, official T-shirts and tickets to the movie’s world premiere screening and after-show party to copies of exclusive not-available-anywhere-else deck plans of the top secret “Shroomship” and having your name included in the movie’s closing credits!

The Search For Simon is a comedy science-fiction feature film about a man named David and his lifelong search for alien life. When David was 10 years old, his younger brother Simon disappeared from his life forever. His father told him that Simon “now lives with the space people”. A year later, David’s father died and his mother refused to talk about what really happened. As a result, David dedicates himself to investigating extra-terrestrial phenomena, looking for the space people and the truth he knows must be out there.

Described by director and co-writer Martin Gooch as, “Shaun of the Dead rubbing up against The X-Files with a little Blair Witch Project, UFOs and a Sherman tank thrown in for good measure…” the film will also feature music by The Priscillas and Captain Sensible of The Damned.

Although the final countdown to the film’s completion has now begun, there is still time to get involved in The Search For Simon before the Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign ends on 3rd April 2013. Simply go here, choose your pledge and become a part of sci-fi movie-making history.

The Search For Simon will premiere at the 12th SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival at London’s BFI on 3rd May 2013.

Brand New-U has began principal photography and will shoot for four weeks in London and Dublin. Brand New-Uis a UK-Irish–Netherlands co-production, written and directed by Simon Pummell (Shock Head Soul, Bodysong) and produced by Janine Marmot (No Greater Love, Bodysong). The film stars Lachlan Nieboer (Suspension of Disbelief, Cross of Honour) and Nora-Jane Noone (The Descent, The Magdalene Sisters). Peter Greenaway’s regular collaborator Reinier van Brummelen is the Director of Photography.

Brand New-U is produced by Janine Marmot (Hot Property Films) in co production with Conor Barry and John Keville (SP Film) and Reinier Selen (Rinkel Film) in association with Keith Griffiths’ Illuminations Films (Berberian Sound Studio, Uncle Boonmee) and Finite Films. The film is financed by the BFI Film Fund, the Irish Film Board, the Netherlands Film Fund and Finite Films. International sales will be handled by The Match Factory.

Brand New-Uis a psychological thriller and obsessive love story, a film stripped down and re-arranged into the looping logic of a nightmare.

Imagine discovering you’re not unique, other versions of yourself – IDENTICALS – are hunting you down and only the strongest will survive. Brand New-U is a film about a man – SLATER – who must kill his old selves to create himself anew and his search for NADIA, the woman he loves.

The Brand New-U transmedia project traverses a range of media – feature film, urban projection, geo-specific augmented reality, and online media – to bring a distinctive fictional image-world to contemporary audiences.

Simon Pummell’s work with moving images across multiple platforms has won him international recognition, including numerous awards, and film festival career retrospectives. His projects exploring the boundaries of cinematic forms include: feature film, animation film, artists’ television, and large-scale projection in the gallery and live theatre. He is best known for the feature documentary Bodysong that won a BAFTA and a BIFA among other awards. His most recent film Shock Head Soul premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival 2011, the associated gallery installation ‘The Sputnik Effect’ was shown at TENT Gallery Rotterdam during the IFFR 2012. In 2005/6 he was a NESTA UK Dream Time Research Fellow. In 2008/9 he continued his research as a Harvard University Film Study Centre Fellow. He is currently Research Professor and Director of the Media Design & Communication Programme, Piet Zwart Institute, WdKA, Rotterdam University.

“I’m really excited to be starting this mind bending and ground breaking film and I’m incredibly grateful for the support of the BFI, Irish Film Board, the Netherlands Film Fund and Finite Films and look forward to working with The Match Factory”. – Janine Marmot

This year Network Distributing have acquired the rights to a catalogue of exceptional British heritage titles which they are releasing as part of “The British Film” collection.

One of the first titles to be newly transferred and released as part of the collection is The Ealing Studios Rarities Vol. 1.

We have a fantastic clip from The Ealing Studios Rarities Vol.1, out on the 8th April.

Perfectly incapsulating a golden age in British cinema…