Rookie Oxford film director Vicky Jewson is hoping to be given some money for her birthday - a cool £150,000.

Miss Jewson will celebrate her 21st tonight with a special screening of a rough cut of her film, Lady Godiva, which is mainly shot in the city.

All the cast and crew will be invited to the event at the Phoenix Cinema in Walton Street and Miss Jewson is hoping a few more potential financial backers turn up to boost production costs, which currently total £700,000.

Given the extra cash, Miss Jewson hopes to be able to shoot the opening scene of the film - the only sequence left to be filmed - using a top actress. She is looking at locations in the south of France.

She said: "It will be an opportunity for current investors to look at the project and for everyone involved to have a look at what they have done.

"Finding more money would really be the cherry on the cake."

Lady Godiva is inspired by the legend of the 11th century noblewoman who rode naked through Coventry in a protest against taxes imposed by her husband.

It has already taken nearly two years to get to this stage for Miss Jewson, a former pupil of Wychwood School in north Oxford.

But she is determined not only to make a successful career out of film-making, but to build a fully fledged film studio in Oxford in the next 10 years, capitalising on its success as a location for the likes of the Harry Potter films and TV's Inspector Morse.

Miss Jewson said: "I would love to bring a whole new economy here.

"A proper studio with offices, edit suites, in-house location managers, transport and catering could make a very profitable and sustainable business and also help re-energise the British film industry. It is time to put Oxford on the map."