A CUMBRIA-born filmmaker has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund his latest project – a modern-day adaptation of a John Keats poem set in the Lake District.

Michael Groom, originally from Carlisle, is using the crowdfunding site in an attempt to raise £1,700 of the overall £5,000 needed for the short film.

‘The Merciless Beauty’ is a 21st century re-telling of Keats’s ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ – “a timeless tale of love, infatuation and melancholic desire, in which an errant knight becomes obsessed with a mysterious beauty who ultimately lures him to his doom.”

Michael has worked in film since 2003, in a variety of roles covering pre-production, production, post-production, and delivery, including on ‘Prometheus’, ‘Clash of the Titans’ and ‘A Mighty Heart’.

His latest short ‘The Selkie’s Lover’ (with Shirley Henderson) is currently doing well on the festival circuit, but ‘The Merciless Beauty’ is his most ambitious short film yet.

The Kickstarter campaign states: “The wonder and vivid energy of the Lakes will translate onto film to create a moody and dramatic, head-turning spectacle that demands your attention from the off.

“Michael grew up in the Lake District and knows it well – all the hidden gems away from the more-often trodden tourist tracks."

The campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1005171588/the-merciless-beauty) is open until November 8.