How many films show a character his or her future

A.� It's a well established film technique. In Frank Capra's It a Wonderful Life, made in 1946, a guardian angel showed suicidal George, played by James Stewart, how Bedford Falls would have fared had he died. More recently, Back to the Future, saw the parents of a young man, played by Michael J Fox, as teenagers.� It showed its character and audience visions of the future.

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Q.� Is this technique being used today

A.� Nick Hornby, the novelist famous for its laddish books, is currently writing a film about the dilemmas of a successful career woman. In the film, Fast Forward, Lara, a thirty-something television executive is confronted with the choices facing millions of women torn between married motherhood and a carrer after she sees a video�of her future. The film has been described as capturing the current film genre - of making a comedy with a serious point.

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Q.� Who is making the film

A.� Hornby's co-author on the film is the actress Emma Thompson. The film, being made by Revolution Films, has been financed by Universal Studios, and looks likely to catch the same wave of popularity as Bridget Jones's Diary, the film about a neurotic young single woman.� Thompson and Hornby are said to have discussed the film nearly two years ago, but are still working on the screenplay. The pair both read English at Cambridge in the 1970s.

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Q.� What other films has Hornby made

A.� Fever Pitch, about a man's passion for Arsenal, and High Fidelity, about a man's passion for pop music, have both been turned into films but Fast Forward is being written as a film not a novel. Hornby's work in the past has concentrated on portraying the obsessions of a British male culture, and writing from a successful career woman's point of view is a departure.

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His latest book How to be Good , in which the marriage of the main character, Kate, is under strain after she begins an affair, was published last month.�

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Thompson, who won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for Sense & Sensibility to add to her best actress award for Howards End, has recently turned down a lot of film projects to look after her baby daughter.

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By Katharine MacColl