A GRIPPING thriller written and put together by a local lad turned filmmaker receives its northern cinema premiere this month.

Ben Parker’s first full length feature film The Chamber gets an exclusive preview screened at Kendal's Brewery Arts Centre on Sunday, February 26, before going on general release with Studio Canal on March 10.

Ben - who was born in Cambridge but brought up from an early age in Kendal - stays on for a Q&A after the showing.

The Chamber is billed as a claustrophobic survival thriller set beneath the Yellow Sea where the pilot of a small submersible craft and a trio of secretive American military-types - who are desperate to recover something from the ocean floor - become trapped underwater in a fight for survival.

With a 90-minute running time, the talented former Kirkbie Kendal School student has produced a tense, edge-of-your-seat piece of cinema, with a four-strong cast that includes Johannes Kuhnke, who has starred in two big Swedish shows, 112 Aina and Maria Wern. He plays Mats, the pilot of the The Aurora sub, a mild-mannered guy dragged into the middle of a mysterious mission in North Korean waters.

Charlotte Salt, plays Edwards, who commands the US dive team.

Recently starring in the film Blood and Glory, she's been a familiar face in TV and film, including roles in BBC’s The Musketeers, The Tudors, Bedlam, Wildfire and the US show Entourage. Each person in the team has a specific talent, and Edwards’ gift is getting things done with the least amount of information released.

James McArdle is one of Britain's brightest new stars. He garnered plenty of acclaim as James I in The James Plays and can also be seen in the blockbuster film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

In the part of Parks, he's the tactical force on the mission - the muscle.

Last, but certainly, not least, is Elliot Levey, whose recently starred in films The Lady In The Van and Florence Foster Jenkins. Well respected on both stage, TV and the big screen, he's appeared in films such as Spooks: The Greater Good and television roles in Da Vinci’s Demons, The Wrong Mans, Jamaica Inn and Parade’s End.

In The Chamber he plays Denholm the tech-infiltrator. Once on board The Aurora, it's Denholm’s job to figure out how to operate all systems and adapt to them quickly.

After a 10 year career in film advertising, Ben took the leap to creating award winning films of his own in 2011, directing the short film Shifter. Described by Screen Daily as “superbly crafted with a killer twist,” Shifter’s festival run included Frightfest (London UK), FantasticFest (Austin, US) and played in conjunction with Ben Wheatley’s Kill List in London’s Curzon cinemas. Since, Ben's been developing several feature projects with producers in the UK and abroad.

"I went to Leeds Met to do film and design," explains Ben. "Then I went to London and designed film posters for a living. Short films followed and then, off the back of my last short - Shifter, I got the money together to do a feature film.

"We were working on a haunted house film after the short but that didn’t happen and we went to The Chamber. It took three years in total, I think. It was a long time."

Another good reason to checkout the film is for the score, where Ben pulled off a real coup; the music has been composed by Manic Street Preachers' frontman James Dean Bradfield along with long-time collaborators and producers Dave Eringa and Loz Williams.

The soundtrack adds to the film's dark and atmospheric mood.

"James had the script passed to him by the Welsh producers," says Ben. "I couldn’t tell you why he read the script, but when he did, he really loved it. He had said that he’d like to help us get it made, so he could see it made real. And obviously convincing him to do the soundtrack was a big part of the film being greenlit."

When Ben trots up the red carpet to the Kendal arts centre for the Gala screening on February 26, it will complete a journey that's gone full circle for the burgeoning 37-year-old filmmaker.

"I worked at the Brewery for many years and, I think, the best job I ever had was being usher there, watching films and taking tickets." He laughs: "I don't think I'm going to top it."

For further information telephone 01539-725133.