Richard Jobson drama focuses on 15 testimonies from British servicemen and women involved in the Iraq conflict.

The Somnambulists, a new UK feature with a unique approach to the Iraq conflict, has begun production in the UK.

The drama is directed by former TV presenter and singer Richard Jobson (New Town Killers, A Woman In Winter) and produced by Jobson and Alan McKenna for No Bad Films.

The film, intended as an imagined response to real-life eye-witness accounts of the impact of war on the front line and in the UK, was influenced by the work of photographer Joanna Kane, whose death masks exhibition The Somnambulists took place at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

The cast is made up of unknown actors. Principal photography gets underway on May 8.

Jobson said: ‘Like many people I was angered by the Iraq war and like most people did nothing about it. This is my response to that apathy. In the film although it appears that the speakers are the ghostly presence, it is in fact we the audience who are the somnambulists, it is we who were sleep walking in the build up to the war and its tragic aftermath.’