A Dunfermline filmmaker has completed work on a new short film which explores the modern political climate.

Based on a fictionalised 2024 Presidential Election campaign, the film was shot locally using extras from the city.

Writer and director Chris Hamilton said: “I wrote it just before the pandemic, around the time of the 2020 election.

“At the time I had just started a corporate job in media production. Growing up I’d always been interested in politics, and the world that we live in at the minute is very divided right now, full of fire and fury.

“I was very interested and outraged at how people are kind of taken hostage by unthinkable ideas, how it makes them act, and emboldens them to enact oppressive viewpoints on everybody else.

“The piece was kind of a response to that. Particularly how women are treated, and how people exist in those extremist, far right spaces.

“I had a daughter last year, and with the election coming up I thought ‘this is the right time to tell this story.’”

Mr Hamilton was keen to give local people an opportunity to become involved. He continued: “Being autistic, I found it difficult to find opportunities in the film industry. This film was a case of ‘ok let’s make an opportunity and find other people to collaborate with.’

“I really wanted to stick to the opportunity being for people that didn’t always get the chance to work in film.

(Image: Submitted) “I reached out to a lot of students and people who had recently graduated, to allow them to step into those roles for the first time. That was kind of the whole ethos of the project going forward.

“We shot in Dunfermline and Edinburgh, and a lot of extras came to the filming here at the Carnegie Hall, which was really cool.”

But the film also attracted international attention, with American composer Jonathan Bartz offering to write the film’s score.

Mr Bartz has previously worked on Hollywood productions such as Indiana Jones and Avatar.

Now the plan is for Mr Hamilton to find a suitable local venue to hold the premier, and then promote the piece through various film festivals.

(Image: Submitted)