A budding director says the premiere of his film has been marred by the theft of his camera equipment from the cinema which showed it.

Patrick Kinzonzi says his Canon 600D camera, Canon 50mm prime lens and Canon 550D camera were taken from a “secure” projector room at Vue Stratford City.

His film, The Regret, was shown there on December 3.

Patrick, a former Canning Town youth worker, says he now faces a “financial predicament” and “reputational damage”.

This is because he has lost pictures including a wedding, forcing him to reimburse money to clients.

The 33-year-old said: “I’m now in a position where I’m unable to work and gain income.”

After discovering the equipment was missing at 11.30pm on December 9, Patrick – who says he was escorted to the room on two occasions by staff – called the police to investigate.

A police spokeswoman confirmed officers were called at 12.53am “to reports of a burglary at an address in Westfield, Stratford”.

She said: “Officers attended and have exhausted all reasonable lines of inquiry open to them at this time, including reviewing CCTV.”

However, Patrick says four days of footage from inside the cinema was not viewed as he was told the resources were not available to do so.

A spokesman for Vue said every reasonable step had been taken to examine the complaint.

He said: “We co-operated fully with the police investigation and conducted an internal investigation, including a thorough review of CCTV footage and staff interviews.”