Young Maria (Lily-Beau Leach) and her mother (Hayley Squires). Pic: Still from Hoard.
Lewisham-born director Luna Carmoon screened her Lewisham-based debut feature Hoard at the Rio Cinema in Dalston on Monday October 14.
The film was followed by a Q+A session as part of a MUBI screening platform’s newly launched season Not Just A Girl, which highlights the perspectives of young women.
“Hoard” is set in Lewisham, where Carmoon grew up and still lives. The story follows Maria, who lives with her hoarder mother but gets put into foster care at seven years old. Ten years later, Maria seeks to resurrect memories from her childhood with her older foster brother.
Speaking about how she came to write the screen play, Carmoon touched upon grief and connected it to Maria’s experience in the film: “I left school when I was 18, and everyone I knew could afford to go to university, and I was left in this weird zone. And all of a sudden you have to look at yourself and look at your life, and you become stuck in this motionless wave of everyone moving on, apart from you. And I think the past definitely came to haunt me in a way”.
“I think that often is a thing that happens with us, that a lot of people don’t feel grief straight away, and they just assume it’s never going to come knocking, and it just sort of plays hide and seek with you, and then one day you are just eating your rice krispies and it hits you like a double-decker bus, and particularly when all of a sudden, your routine stops”.
Most of the filming was done at locations in southeast London and Lewisham, including Reigate Road and Reigate Road Open Space close to Hither Green.
Carmoon said on the night: “Where we shot is like two minutes from my house, and that house was identical to my house.”
Hoard, which was released in cinemas in May this year, stars Saura Lightfoot-Leon and Stranger Things actor Joseph Quinn, and has received several awards at film festivals across Europe.
Earlier this month, Carmoon was also awarded the BFI & Chanel Filmmaker Award for creative audacity, providing her with financial support of £20,000 for future projects.
