Bangkok, Apr 6 (IANS): Censors in Thailand have banned a film based on Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth" after the movie used news footage of Thai political protests, BBC reported.

"Shakespeare Must Die" is a Thai-language adaptation of the play in which an ambitious Scottish general murders the king and kills again to hold on to his throne.

The film's director, Ing Kanjanavanit, termed the ban as ridiculous.

"Very few films are banned here," she said. "It is amazing they would find a poet dead 400 years such a threat." She said Thailand's people were "living in a climate of fear".

According to BBC, the movie's themes of greed and power appear to have unnerved Thai officials, who apparently likened the film to a coup in 2006 that removed then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra from office.

Though the film is set in a fictional country, it uses news footage of Thai political protests, it said.

The movie also uses the colour red, which has apparently angered the authorities, BBC said.

Red was the colour used by anti-government demonstrators, most of them Thaksin supporters.

The Thai government -- led by opponents of Thaksin -- had granted funding for the film. But it was submitted to the censors under a new administration, led by Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's sister, whose party came to power in elections last July.