Two Bradford friends have beaten international competition to win a major award for a science-fiction film script.

David Gilbank and Paul Renhard won the Best Science Fiction Screenplay award at the Indie Producer awards held in Hollywood on Sunday. The pair wrote the screenplay, entitled Cull, in their spare time.

Mr Gilbank, 42, said: “We’re obviously very excited about winning the award.

“One of the judges who voted for us worked on films such as Ali and Nixon, which puts the award into perspective. One of the backers worked on Avatar.

“We never expected to win, although we knew it was an entertaining script.

“Now that Hollywood has taken notice, we hope to write some more.

“Screen Yorkshire has been a big help for us. They did a critique of an early draft which allowed us to tinker with a few things.”

Mr Gilbank and Mr Renhard have just finished their latest script, an action thriller set in Bradford.