When you see it, you know it. When you see a film that is so timeless, beautiful, and raw like “Hoard,” you know that you have to share it with everyone. The film is now screening in limited release in the U.S. Loving the film so much made it so special to have the opportunity to speak with director Luna Carmoon about her feature debut. The film is about a girl, Maria (Saura Lightfoot-Leon), who grows up as a young child with a mother who is a hoarder and who is losing her senses of reality. When her mother is taken away from her, we see her ten years later as a teenager during her last days of school in her foster home. We see what happens when her trauma creeps back up into her life when she meets Michael (Joseph Quinn) who also grew up with trauma. This shared trauma between them sparks something within them and within us the audience. This film is evocative to watch, and reminds me of raw and beautiful films I’ve seen from the UK in the past from directors like Andrea Arnold,and Ken Loach. Carmoon and I talked about the making of her film and what she hopes people see in it.
Luna Carmoon’s Venice prize-winner ‘Hoard’ is now screening in select theaters in the U.S. The film stars Saura Lightfoot-Leon, Lily-Beau Leach and Deba Hekmat alongside Joseph Quinn, Hayley Squires and Samantha Spiro.
What inspired this story and project?
Oh god, what inspired . . . I guess a lot of inspiration came from being in that weird limbo period that we were all in during the first lockdown. My brain sort of entered the staff room of the past during that time, and I was reading a lot. I got COVID at the time, and I lost my sense of smell, which is sort of integral to your memories. I then started to taste the essences of my memories instead of smelling them.
I always say I don’t really know who wrote “Hoard,” it just sort of flew through me. I always knew the first thing I really wanted to do for a feature would be kind of like an early sort of Ian McEwan book like First Love, Last Rites and The Cement Garden. Also, the music I was listening to inspired the film. I listened to a lot of Fun Boy Three, which was the music I was listening to while writing this film. I was also listening to music from the soundtrack I Start Counting (1970) composed by Basil Kirchin and Lindsey Moore, which influenced the sound of our film. Then I started watching a lot of the films from the 1960s for which Basil Kirchin composed music.
So the inspiration came from a lot of sensory memories I had and a lot of things that have happened in my life and not happened. During the lockdown these characters kind of saved me while we were all going stir crazy in the confinements of our four walls. So I owe a lot to that to how the story unfolded.
Was this story inspired by your own story at all?
“Hoard” is not autobiographical. I’m not Maria, that didn’t happen to me. Gary Oldman talks about how, in his directorial debut “Nil by Mouth,” a lot of his experiences are peppered throughout. And the things that are from my life, just myself and my family knows that. But every character is born out of a real person in my life or at least an amalgamation of a few people. Laraib is my best friend. She did have an enthusiasm for life and fell in love with a chic man.
And in the film, that is a complete recreation of my living room. I based the living room on the photos in our family albums, And we measured the entire living room space so it was spatially identical as well. It was eerie.
And yeah, there were idiosyncrasies and things that I pulled from my own experience. Some people were just born out of the idea of a moment or a fleeting feeling of a friendship that I had at on time. “Hoard” is all of my blood, guts, and water, so in that way, it is very much me.
Can you talk about the casting and working with these amazing actors, especially your star Saura Lightfoot-Leon?
I always said I wouldn’t work with anyone that I didn’t want to have around for a roast dinner. I very much have a no-asshole policy and I just want to connect with people on a deep human level. I like to think that I am an actor’s director and working with actors is my favorite thing. I mean, I’ve worked with non-actors and actors and there’s a big sort of a flourishing mix. We’ve got old titans like Cathy Tyson, who was always Sam for me because I adore “Mona Lisa,” and I think she is fab. Samantha Spiro I love and she was my Michelle. Haley Squires was my mother from the get-go. I love a lot of her British TV work and I just feel like she is the British Anna Magnani and she just deserves it all.
I knew that whoever was going to play Maria had to be a dancer and was not only able to understand movement, but also understand it as a language. Her parents are two famous contemporary dancers. Sol León, her mother, just choreographed the dances for the new Luca Guadagnino film “Queer.” So Saura Lightfoot-Leon has that rhythm that they have. She just fit from the get-go and is really a special performer. I had watched Joe in a lot of period pieces, and it was my sister who reminded me about him. I have this thing about sort of dark-colored eyes, like big black marbles. You’ll notice that no one has blue eyes in any of my work [laughs].
And sisters Honey and Petra had never been in front of the camera before. Neither had Lily-Beau Leach, who plays young Maria, nor had Deba Hekmat who plays Laraib. So there were a mix of people who had never acted in front of the camera, so you had these titans and fresh faces. We all were kind of like this one big family. Everyone really just loved and cared about each other.
With Saura and Joe, I didn’t do any kind of chemistry test because I knew that they would be drawn to each other. So when it came to film the intimate scenes and then the darker ones, they really wanted to go to those spaces because they felt safe enough. We worked with an amazing intimacy coordinator, Louise Kempton. The film wouldn’t be like it is if it hadn’t been for her. She really gave them the space to ground themselves and get to know each other’s bodies.
I love how you create these fantasy worlds within the characters’ real worlds. Can you talk about working with your cinematographer Nanu Segal to create these worlds?
I mean Nanu is such a special person, and has the ability to be there for the cast and crew, but also be a wallflower. It’s almost like she is wearing this invisible cloak, and everyone adored her. I think both of us stressed our first AD out because we were just so relaxed the entire time. And we were shooting a lot. My editor has been working in the industry for 14 years, and she was like, ‘I’ve never had these many set-ups in a day.’ The most set-ups we did was 34 in one day, and the least that we did was 21. So the days were quite relentless. But I don’t think it would be the film that it is without her just because of her chilled nature. And everyone felt really safe going to those places in front of her. Most of my sets were closed, even when they are not intimate scenes. So half of the crew didn’t even know what we were filming half the time. She was just really down for capturing what I felt I needed in a way that was really natural, quite adaptable and relaxed. And that relaxed nature just lent into making everyone feel safe. It’s so important because if you have a stressed-out DP, you can just feel it, and it trickles down into sets. Working with her was incredible.
What do you hope people see in your film?
I hope they see the ugliness in themselves, and I mean that in a really raw and beautiful way. I think we’ve been in a weird dilution phase of film and storytelling in the way that I think the last sort of five years have felt like we’re kind of making films that aren’t timeless in the world that we wish we lived in. And unfortunately, I think when you watch and dilute things away, it’s more damaging than not showing these things at all. I want to make films that are forever, and not just for now. And I think that we can all agree that we’re going to be ugly forever as we have been from the dawn of time.
I think we crave to see that in one another, you know? I remember when “Sharp Objects” came on the TV, and I felt like so many women saw themselves in Amy Adams’ character, and some of the other characters. It’s really strange that we haven’t seen more characters like those. We like ugly women who are not diluted and not apologetic, and that don’t transform, and don’t just have something happen to them. Because so often, we see female characters transform, and then they’re perfect, they are fine, and they are settled.
That was something that I never wanted for Maria. I wanted to show that you can go through ample amounts of traumatic things in your life and sometimes they can come and hit you like a double-decker bus years later. We don’t always heal from things, and if we do, they still come back to haunt us. And that’s okay because that’s being human. I’m not interested in characters who have these arcs where they’re completely fine by the end. Like suddenly they’re completely remorseful and kind and gentler. I’m not interested in characters that are like them. I’m interested in characters who reflect the people in my life. You can have monsters in your life, and you can keep them in your life, but you can love them in your life still. I hope people see the ugliness and the beauty in that and see what we actually are opposed to what we wish we were. Because that’s just as damaging I think.
Anything that you can talk about that you’re working on?
I’m just finishing up sending out the first draft of my next thing. Everyone wanted me to shoot it in September, but it’s not ready. I never want to do things if they don’t feel ready. I don’t want to be a part of that factory. Not that I’ve got the luxury privilege. I live in a shed in my family garden with my granddad, mom, and my sister. But I just don’t want that. I want whatever I leave on this earth to be fully of me. I promised myself on my first feature there would be no blood because there’s a lot of blood in my shorts. So I saved it all for the next thing. And there’s gallons upon gallons upon gallons of blood.
