A lecturer who created a “hopeful” film about immigration will premier it at a film festival.

Robert Bradbook, an animation lecturer at Middlesex University, in The Burroughs, Hendon, will showcase Dead Air at the London Film Festival tonight and tomorrow (October 17 and 18).

The 39-year-old’s movie combines atmospheric digital animation with live-action performances from actors Jonah Russell and Victoria Bewick.

It revolves around a tranquil island which is disrupted when a bridge is built to it and the fear the development instils on the community.

The arrival of DJ Pete shakes things up as he causes a stir amongst the locals with his fresh and irreverent radio show.

The story of the island and people on it is a metaphor for people in the UK, and the changes bought on by ongoing immigration.

He said: “When the new bridge threatens the residents’ ideas of what their island should be, we discover that communities are always evolving and no one is immune to change.

“The underlying message of the film is a hopeful one. Communities have been developing and people have been arriving from faraway places since the year dot. In essence - it’s not something to worry about.”

Mr Bradbook, who is originally from Weston-Super-Mare, studied geology as his first degree and worked as a cartographer before specialising in animation.

The live actor sequences in ‘Dead Air’ were filmed in the state-of-the-art ‘green screen’ studio at Middlesex.