Join­ing host Leila Latif are Lau­ra Ven­ning and Yas­mine Kandil.

Truth & Movies is the pod­cast from the film experts at Lit­tle White Lies, where along with select­ed col­leagues and friends, they dis­cuss the lat­est movie releas­es. Truth & Movies has all your film needs cov­ered, review­ing the lat­est releas­es big and small, talk­ing to some of the most excit­ing film­mak­ers, keep­ing you across impor­tant indus­try news, and reassess­ing great films from days gone by with the Truth & Movies Film Club.

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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.

The past couple of years have seen an influx of women filmmakers bringing timely, working-class stories to the big screen with lived reverence and fresh talent, from Rocks to Scrapper to Bird. The latest addition to this new social realist niche is Lollipop, a gut-punching debut from writer-director Daisy-May Hudson. The film follows Molly (Posy Sterling), a young mother released from jail but placed in a different prison when she tries to reunite with her children, who are being held in foster care. She finds herself in a hellish Catch-22: she can’t gain custody of her children without a roof over her head, but she can’t get a house via state assistance because her kids don’t live with her.

Hudson’s sharp film, inspired by her own experiences, passionately takes aim at the pitfalls and paradoxes of the social care system. After painfully short supervised visits with her children and missing out on key moments of their growth, Molly reaches a breaking point. Hudson isolates Molly when her conscientious smile cracks as, off-screen, the voices of social workers dictate that her children will remain in foster care until she has sorted herself out. Cinematographer Jaime Ackroyd frames Molly through the worker’s legs, like the bars of a cell. Sterling’s restrained performance transforms into something explosive; anger crumbles into devastation as the system repeatedly and harshly fails her. “You need to do more for me,” she begs, only to be met with: “There’s nothing more I can do.”

Though some of the film’s most devastating moments occur inside the council office, it’s also where Molly reunites with her greatest supporter, college friend Amina (Idil Ahmed), who is living in a hostel for homeless families. Both women are soldiers fighting with a fierce love for their children. Their sisterhood interrupts the solemn tone as they find pockets of joy amid the devastation, gossiping in bed and dancing to UK garage music.

These moments highlight the distinct absence of men in Lollipop, bar Molly’s 5-year-old son Leo (Luke Howitt). The companionship of other women is the foundation of Molly’s life, underscored by the challenging relationships with the all-women care workers or her overbearing but inattentive mother, Sylvie (TerriAnn Cousins).

The impressive nature of the performers is thanks to casting director Lucy Pardee, who recognised Sterling’s powerhouse leading potential but also discovered the brilliance of Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads. The latter, who plays Molly’s 11-year-old daughter Ava, takes centre stage when she tearfully pleads with her mother to obey the rules to avoid getting in more trouble. But Molly is desperate. The mother-daughter back-and-forths are sensitively penned and downright heart-wrenching to witness. It’s a stark reminder of the pain caused by a system that slashes welfare spending and demands a person to jump through hoops with their legs tied. Hudson’s film makes room to acknowledge that this is a family affair. Molly is at the epicentre, but the reverberations impact everyone around her.

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