RIDLEY SCOTT - RIDLEY RESEARCHING ANOTHER BLACK HAWK DOWN

Movie-maker RIDLEY SCOTT is planning another BLACK HAWK DOWN-style war film and he's heading to the war-torn Middle East to research it. The British director received great acclaim for his 2001 movie, set in Somalia, and is plotting a follow-up set in Iraq. He says, "I think the 22 hours (of Black Hawk Down) is a marvellous, distilled, relevant way of describing war. The fact it actually happened gives it even more credence. "I'm going to enter the Middle East shortly to actually get into the whole process of what's going on right now, because it's so chaotic, and because it is so fascinating that we don't learn by history at all. "We've, in fact, become even more ignorant by history. We never look backwards and say, 'Can we learn from then and apply to what we can today?' "I think what I learned from Black Hawk Down, is that movies are so powerful, movies can really change things and it becomes an educational process. I think that's the healthiest way of attacking anything now. That's what I'm looking for."