A DIRECTOR from St Helens has been travelling alongside his short film which has been screened this year at festivals around the world.

Dan Hodgson's six-minute film 'Love is Blind' has also been nominated for the best UK short film title at the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA), which are held this Sunday.

Former Rainford High pupil Dan, who turns 34 this weekend, most recently travelled to Dinard in France, where his film was shown before 'Mr Holmes' - and then he went to The Hamptons, near New York, for another event.

Dan said: "I went for a walk on the beach in the Hamptons, walked past Steven Spielberg without realising it, and then got a call saying we'd been nominated for awards.

"They said we'd been nominated for three awards in a New York film festival. We won one of them - the jury's award - so I was delighted to be in the right place at the right time to go and accept the award. The ceremony was at the Skylark bar overlooking The Empire State Building."

Dan was presented with the flaming faun statuette by the screen writer of 'Precious' Geoffrey Fletcher.

He is thrilled to have been nominated for a BIFA award.

He said: "They will be presented by the comedian Richard Ayoade. We have been nominated with a real variety of films - two animations, a film called 'Balcony' which has had a really good reception, and another comedy.

"It has been an amazing year. I especially loved Cannes; it was amazing."

'Love is Blind', made with the help of Film London and production company Bird Flight Films, is Dan's "fresh take on the traditional love triangle" and he is hoping to follow on from it with a feature-length comedy which he would like to set in St Helens.

He said: "I've nearly finished writing the second draft of a full-length film. I do like dark comedies but this isn't so dark - it would be more similar in tone to 'The Full Monty'."

Dan, who studied psychology at Sheffield University, followed by an MA in radio production in Bournemouth, has worked with the BBC and Channel 4.