The film The Killing of John Lennon has attracted criticism in some quarters.

Not so much because of the subject matter - the murder of the former Beatle in New York City on December 8, 1980 - but the direction of the storyline.

The film is narrated by the actor Jonas Ball, in his role as Mark Chapman, Lennon's killer. The words are taken from Chapman's own diaries. In effect, our guide through the story, which is told in the format of a documentary, is the killer himself.

It is partly this aspect of the film, produced by former Bradfordian Rakha Singh, that some people have found tasteless. Others simply don't want to be reminded of how John Lennon died. In Bradford, opinion has been more understanding.

Tony Earnshaw, head of film programming at the National Media Museum, said: "I think it's absolutely amazing. It's a film about reflected glory through murder, tracing the route of a stalker."

Bill Lawrence, the NMM's head of cinema, said: "It was the most interesting British film that I saw at the Edinburgh festival. It is not straightforward; its photography has a dream-like quality"

He said the film would be shown at Pictureville in February.

The film was released in this country on December 7, the day before the anniversary of the killing.

Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, has so far made no public comment about the film, which opens in New York in January.

The film's producer is Rakha Singh. Born in India, he lived in Bradford from the age of three until he was 19. He cut his teeth working as a film editor, researcher and programme maker in British television. The Killing of John Lennon is his first venture into feature films.

"We have made no contact with Yoko Ono. She may not like the idea, but the film does show what an evil person Chapman was," he said.

The style of the film - raw and grainy colour - may have something to do with the limited budget available to Rakha Singh's company, Picture Players Ltd.

"When we showed it to all the top Hollywood studio presidents and vice-presidents, they thought it was a ten million dollar movie. It cost £800,000 and took four years to make. One year we had no money at all," he added.

A good deal of it was shot in location in New York. That was only accomplished probably because he contacted an American billionaire of Indian extraction who owned a dozen hotels in central New York.

He gave the film unit and the actors accommodation at just 50 dollars a head per night rather than 400 dollars.

Location shooting in Hawaii, where Chapman lived, proved to be more problematic. The company had labour difficulties.

"It was what the unions were like in television 20 years ago."

Why, then, did he take up a project without the guarantee of financial backing, a distributor, an exhibitor, and especially without a star?

"Andrew Piddington wrote and directed. He used to work for Central Television, as I did. We did not work together, though. Then I met him in London and he told me he had written a script. As soon as I heard the title I thought, Great!' "It took me five months to raise the money. I sent out 800 e-mails to all the rich people I could think of. Nobody replied. Eventually I found a property investor through contacts who liked the idea. He spoke to his friends and 15 of them put in various amounts. We got £125,000 to get started. They got a tax incentive."

Since the film's release Jonas Ball has been signed up by a top Hollywood agent, as has the director Andrew Piddington. But what of Rakha Singh?

"We probably won't see any money. The exhibitors will get their share first, and then the investors. We are bottom of the pile.

"But making the film gives me creditI have got two good ideas that Frederic Raphael wants to write. One is about E M Forster, the other is a James Herbert thriller. I am trying to get film development money for these projects," he said.

A married man who now lives in Nottingham with his wife and two children, doesn't he get depressed to have absolutely no interest shown in the John Lennon script by the British Film Council, Channel 4 or the BBC?

"You've got to think positively about these things. I am not bitter. If your idea is good it will get made. ET and Star Wars were turned down. Gandhi took 20 years to get made."

If he has any regret it is that his film won't be shown at the Odeon in the centre of Bradford, nor at the ABC that used to exist in Broadway.

Since his departure from Bradford in 1978 the latter has been demolished; a similar fate awaits the former.