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Among Penny Woolcock's many television credits are the docu-dramas Tina Goes Shopping and Tina Takes A Break, and the award-winning opera The Death Of Klinghoffer. The fiftysomething writer-director now makes her feature debut with The Principles Of Lust, an unsettling tale of a wannabe writer (Alec Newman) caught up in a dangerous underworld.

What was the inspiration behind The Principles Of Lust?

I read this unpublished manuscript by the writer Tim Cooke. What interested me was its notion of what you do in a relationship once the initial sense of heightened lust passes. Do you keep trying to reproduce that with different people, or with more extreme experiences in the way that Billy (played by Marc Warren) does? Or do you try and make something else happen that is a bit less exciting but has a different meaning to it.

How did you research your own script for the film?

I talked to people about bare-knuckle fighting, and a friend introduced me to an East End stripper, Lara Clifton, who I ended up casting in the film [as 'Hole']. As for the sense of being on the margins and wanting to write novels and make films, that's something I'm familiar with throughout my life - that didn't require any research!

You've previously worked as a director in television. How different was it to make a feature for the cinema?

I found making a film gave me a certain freedom. I didn't have to censor myself, I didn't have to worry about when it was being shown. I think there's a real pressure in television to make sure the audience understands everything immediately, otherwise they'll switch off. With film you can take people on more of a journey and unfold things gradually rather than spelling everything out and coming up with bite-sized chunks.

Apparently you didn't rehearse your actors on The Principles Of Lust?

No I didn't rehearse them at all. What I did was spend time with them in different locations before shooting to get to know them, and so that they could see the situations their characters would be in. We also used handheld cameras all the time so the actors could go wherever they wanted and we could follow them. It makes the performances fresher, although you can't do beautiful lighting like that.

Despite its northern setting, The Principles Of Lust feels in many ways a very un-British film - it's not your typical kitchen sink drama...

I think partly it's a film about ideas and feelings. It's about staying alive in your own life. It's not a didactic film at all, it's not trying to tell you what's going on in Britain today. It's much more interior and unconscious. It could be filmed in any provincial town anywhere in Britain or Europe.