FILMING has begun for a new £350,000-budget movie set and shot in the North-East.

Lady Macbeth stars Christopher Fairbank, best known for playing Moxey in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and Florence Pugh, who starred in The Falling.

Filming started last week (Monday, September 21) and will take place at Lambton Castle near Chester-le-Street, Seaham beach on the County Durham coast and Cow Green Reservoir, in upper Teesdale.

The project is benefitting from iFeatures funding, aimed at supporting British filmmaking outside London.

The story follows Katherine (Pugh), the bored wife of an industrialist who begins an illicit affair with Sebastian, played by US-born singer-songwriter Cosmo Jarvis, a worker on their farm.

Fairbank plays Katherine’s domineering father-in-law Boris and Paul Hilton, who appeared in the 2011 version of Wuthering Heights, takes the role of Alexander, Katherine’s husband.

The story is based on a Russian novella, published in 1865 in a magazine run by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The decision to move the setting to 19th century Northumberland was taken by scriptwriter Alice Birch and director Will Oldroyd, a former Durham University student.

“I fell in love with this area and so I wanted to come back here and make a film,” Mr Oldroyd said.

“Lambton Castle has been absolutely perfect. We’ve had a really good week. I’m chuffed with how it’s going.”

Several local jobs have been created as part of the project and associate producer Pete Smyth said the region had been extremely welcoming.

Lambton Castle, the ancestral seat of the Earls of Durham, has become something of a filming hotspot in recent years, having featured in the BBC period drama The Paradise and psychological drama Estranged.

Filming will continue until mid-October. The film will be ready by next summer and then be taken to various film festivals.

Where it is screened will depend on interest, but Mr Smyth said it had already attracted the attention of some distributors.

It will also be shown on the BBC, as BBC Films is supporting the project, along with Creative England, the British Film Institute and Creative Skillset.