Luna Carmoon

(She/Her)

Luna’s breakthrough project is the feature film Hoard.

Luna Carmoon’s debut feature, Hoard (2023, Vertigo Releasing), was described by Sight and Sound as “visceral, pungent and playfully macabre”. It tackles the themes of obsession, mental health, family, loss, and love and infatuation, with eye-grabbing performances by Hayley Squires, Joseph Quinn and newcomer Saura Lightfoot Leon, told through a mix of social realism and surrealist imagery.

Luna’s family has no connection to film but they were nonetheless very influential in her career choice, particularly her nan, who would often sit with her to watch everything from Sybil (1976) to Cujo (1983). Perhaps unwittingly, Luna was soaking up and contextualising all she was seeing. Unable to afford film school, she successfully applied to ShortFLIX, an initiative supporting underrepresented talent in the UK and funded by Sky Arts National Theatre, which allowed her to make her first short, Nosebleed (2018), ultimately leading to Hoard, produced by fellow BAFTA Breakthrough Loran Dunn.

In their own words…

“I want to make as many films as men get to make statistically. That’s my goal… My favourite British films are from the 60s, 70s and mid-80s, where people sounded like me but there was this vibrancy. It wasn’t all poverty porn or like Upstairs, Downstairs… I’d like to make films where the people are real, but like Nicholas Roeg, Peter Weir or Ken Russell, make them weird, strange and off-kilter, all the things I love about those directors’ work that I feel is lacking in the UK right now. I want them to be their own entities.”