Room 9 Trailer

Take a look at Room 9 , South Africa's answer to The X-Files

Before District 9 , South Africa hadn't left much of a footprint on the science fiction map. But Neill Blomkamp's movie changed the genre landscape, paving the way for the paranormal investigations of Room 9 .

"I did a show many years ago called Charlie Jade for a Canadian company and that was fascinating because I came to Cape Town to do this science fiction triple universe show," Room 9 creator and director Darrell Roodt tells SFX . "It was really interesting to work on and I never understood why we weren’t doing this ourselves, why it took Canadians to come into South Africa and imagine this for us.

"I was always really intrigued by shows like CSI and all those American investigation things and I just though it’d be cool if we could put one in a South African context or an African context and see how it played out."

You can watch the trailer below, ahead of the show's debut on The Africa Channel on Monday 8 July. You'll be able to read more about Room 9 on sfx.co.uk next week.

Richard is a freelancer journalist and editor, and was once a physicist. Rich is the former editor of SFX Magazine, but has since gone freelance, writing for websites and publications including GamesRadar+, SFX, Total Film, and more. He also co-hosts the podcast, Robby the Robot's Waiting, which is focused on sci-fi and fantasy.