Loran Dunn

(She/Her)

Loran’s breakthrough project is the feature film Hoard.

It’s no secret that independent film producers face many challenges at the start of their careers and yet Loran Dunn, producer of fellow BAFTA Breakthrough Luna Carmoon’s Hoard (2024), is showing what can be done with the right idea and the talent to make it. Loran met Luna through Sky Arts, Creative England and National Youth Theatre’s initiative ShortFLIX, supporting underrepresented talent in the UK, and is deeply passionate about her future, noting that “people will go to the cinema because it’s a Luna Carmoon film”.

Loran grew up near Bristol, spending her youth absorbing it’s incredible fringe theatre scene and a wealth of films playing at beloved independent cinema, the Watershed. She studied filmmaking at Manchester School of Art with the intention of directing, but soon realised it was the genesis of the process that excited her most, discovering both compelling stories and the magicians who could bring them to life. After making a series of well-received shorts, her first feature length release was documentary A Deal with the Universe (2018), followed by her sophomore outing – and first narrative feature – Hoard.

Loran also co-founded the UK Producers Roundtable, which released an industry-backed report in 2020 concerning the challenges faced by the UK’s independent producers.

In their own words…

“Producing is the ability to have lots of different ideas on the go at any one time. It’s extremely collaborative, developing different story worlds with other creatives, you’re constantly working in the realm of ideas and possibility, and you don’t have to be confined by any particular style or genre, it’s very energising. What a producer does is invite a wealth of different people, from financiers, to cast, to crew, to come on a journey with you, to make this idea that doesn’t even exist yet, a reality. To dare to dream. You have to inspire people about what a film could be, and that’s the most exciting part for me.”