Daisy-May Hud­son: ​‘I want to make films that crack people’s hearts open’

In 2013 Daisy-May Hud­son was study­ing for a degree in Eng­lish and Dra­ma in Man­ches­ter. At the same time, her fam­i­ly back in Essex were being evict­ed from their home, out­priced on the rental mar­ket and forced to go through the social hous­ing sys­tem. Hud­son rushed home, picked up a cam­era and decid­ed to film their expe­ri­ence which result­ed in her acclaimed doc­u­men­tary Half Way. For her first fic­tion­al fea­ture film, Lol­lipop, Hud­son draws from her real-life expe­ri­ence and the women who have inspired her along the way.

LWLies: Your film has many the­mat­ic lay­ers to it and one of those is a beau­ti­ful trib­ute to the com­plex­i­ties of moth­er­hood. Can you talk me through the many moth­er char­ac­ters we meet and how you decid­ed to por­tray them in the film? 

Hud­son: Mol­ly was inspired by these women I met out­side the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment who were protest­ing to have their chil­dren back after they had been removed by social ser­vices. Also anoth­er moth­er who became an advi­sor to the film who also had her chil­dren removed. They were these Lioness women who were so deter­mined by that unbreak­able bond between a moth­er and child. I’m also real­ly inter­est­ed in gen­er­a­tional trau­ma and the mir­ror­ing of moth­er and daugh­ter rela­tion­ships. Mol­ly is so deter­mined to be a cycle break­er but she ends up falling into some of the same cycles that her mum went through. She par­ents her moth­er just like her daugh­ter par­ents her. And of course, Ami­na, they just have this mag­i­cal con­nec­tion that hap­pens on screen but also off screen when Idil and Posy get togeth­er. They have this abil­i­ty to see each oth­er beyond their roles as mothers.

I loved Ami­na and Molly’s ride or die friend­ship. In your writ­ing of female friend­ship what were the most impor­tant things for you to depict? 

I think there’s a mag­i­cal thing that hap­pens when we allow our­selves to be seen and it takes coura­geous vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. When we do it there’s this depth of con­nec­tion where we can meet with some­one that is trans­for­ma­tion­al. That’s what hap­pens with Mol­ly and Ami­na. They start by hid­ing and fear of show­ing the dark­est parts of our­selves. Ulti­mate­ly, they show those parts, and they fall in deep­er love, a deep­er sis­ter­hood. The thing I’ve always felt about Mol­ly is that she had always been in sur­vival mode and Ami­na pro­vides a safe space where she can put down her guard. She can lean back into love. That soft­ens her and enables her to start lov­ing her­self and mak­ing new choic­es and then show­ing up to life in a dif­fer­ent way. Ami­na real­ly feels this deep grat­i­tude for Mol­ly because she actu­al­ly feels seen as a woman beyond all expec­ta­tions. That was so heal­ing for Ami­na, but also for Idil in real life.

You’ve been very care­ful not to paint any of the peo­ple we meet in your film as vil­lains. The social hous­ing sys­tem was some­thing you and your fam­i­ly expe­ri­enced first-hand so can you talk to me about the things you drew from real life? 

The thing we came up against as a fam­i­ly was the lim­i­ta­tions of the rules. You may be speak­ing to a human being but they are work­ing with­in this frame­work. When I was research­ing for the script, I was meet­ing real­ly gen­uine peo­ple who went into the job because they cared and want­ed to make a dif­fer­ence. Then they get lim­it­ed by this red tape… par­tic­u­lar­ly this dehu­man­is­ing lan­guage that they are trained to say. I remem­ber when we were home­less, we kept being told, ​‘in due course.’ It’s this pur­ga­to­ry basi­cal­ly. It was real­ly impor­tant to me that there was no bad­die or good­ie because I don’t think peo­ple go into a job to become bad guys. Also I think we’re just one choice away from being on the oth­er side of the table. When we were cast­ing I want­ed to find peo­ple that looked like Mol­ly, or could be Molly’s friend or aun­tie… that’s the thing about work­ing class com­mu­ni­ties you can be on any side of the table just try­ing to do your best and do right by your family.

What are the guid­ing fac­tors for the type of cin­e­ma you want to make? 

I want to make films that crack people’s hearts open in the most beau­ti­ful way. For me human­i­ty is about expe­ri­enc­ing this full spec­trum of emo­tion. That can be the deep­est grief but the high­est heights of joy. I think that’s what you expe­ri­ence in Lol­lipop.