Duncan Jones' new movie takes inspiration from late dad David Bowie

Duncan Jones' new film Mute draws on his relationship with his late father David Bowie and features tributes to the rock legend.

The filmmaker was extremely close to his dad, who died at the age of 69 in January 2016, but has been estranged from his mother Angie, since he was 13 years old.

Duncan says Mute, a science-fiction thriller which follows a speechless bartender searching for his missing girlfriend and is set in the future in Berlin, Germany, a city he visited with his father as a child, has parental relationships as a central theme.

"You know I think there's a lot of subtext in Mute that I'll become more aware of as time wears on," he tells Britain's The Times newspaper. "An awful lot of the story revolves around the nature of parenthood. What makes a good parent?"

The 46-year-old wrote a draft script, which he ran by his dad, nearly 15 years ago, and he explains that he has returned to the project "because there was too much personal stuff in there".

Duncan has also paid tribute to his dad by using paintings David created while living in Berlin in the 1970s as artwork in the movie - and his production designer Gavin Bocquet says that the rocker's passing has inspired his son to reference him more in his work.

"I don't know whether Duncan would have felt so comfortable doing that before," Gavin explains. "He wanted to keep his creative world completely separate from his dad's. Now he can encompass that a little bit."

The film's star Alexander Skarsgard, who plays bartender Leo Beiler, told The Times that his director was delighted to return to the city where David recorded three albums in the 1970s for filming.

"It's not a coincidence that (the film is) set in Berlin," he says. "You can tell Duncan is very excited to be back here."

Mute debuts on the Netflix streaming service on 23 February (18).