“There was a lot of shit, let’s make no bones about it”

One of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow, award-winning filmmaker Hope Dickson Leach headed west for her debut feature. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Somerset Levels, The Levelling is a powerful drama tackling themes of recession, bereavement and family conflict. Game of Thrones star Ellie Kendrick is cast as Clover, a young veterinarian who returns to the flood-devastated family farm after the sudden death of her brother, Harry. Determined to uncover the truth of what happened, she confronts her distant, ill-tempered father Aubrey (David Troughton). Hope will be present to talk about her film after a preview screening at the Watershed on May 5. The Levelling then opens on May 12, with additional screenings booked at the Everyman and Curzon cinemas. See our listing for full details.

How easy or hard did you find it to make the transition from shorts to your first feature?

It took a long time to make my first feature – which I know is pretty common. It’s partly because you’re asking for a lot more money, but also because the forms are very different. Short films can be playful in a way that is harder to do in features, where people expect certain things of the narratives they pay to see in cinemas. My journey was also complicated by becoming a mother, which meant that I had a lot less of the spare time you need in the film industry to be present at networking events. But also my priorities changed. I still desperately wanted to make films, but I also had this other part of my life that needed me massively, and that consumed me utterly. The juggle is ongoing but I’ve been lucky enough to find people around me to support me on this crazy adventure as parent-filmmaker.

Which came first – the Somerset floods or your idea for The Levelling? It struck me that the floods had great metaphorical potential but weren’t absolutely essential to tell the story.

The story started as a family drama – a family who couldn’t communicate and had to face the consequences of that. I’m very keen on context being something that supports and deepens the central story and when I saw Matilda Temperley’s photos of the floods, I was drawn to the imagery and devastation. The more I learnt about it the more it seemed to be the perfect metaphor for the story I was telling: the floods happened because the channels were neglected and allowed to silt up. Only when the community came together and fought to re-instate the dredging was the area able to function fully again.

Ellie Kendrick in ‘The Levelling’

The film begins almost as a mystery thriller, but then transitions into a more emotionally deep exploration of grief and family tensions. Was that your intention from the outset?

This was always a story about grief and family tensions. I knew that was material I wanted to explore. Specifically the period after something terrible happens, when you have a small window to respond and change things – an opportunity that is so rarely taken up. But to organise this material into a story there needed to be a central question, something that would drive us deeper into the event and what led up to it. Thinking of it like a thriller, or a detective story allowed me to stay with our main character, to experience it from her point of view, but also to understand the story as something that had stakes, consequences, and therefore would be satisfying from the audience’s point of view.
Were you familiar with the Somerset Levels before you wrote the screenplay?

Honestly, no. I feel incredibly lucky to have discovered this beautiful part of the country and to have been made so welcome by all the people there who helped me with my research for the story and then with shooting the film itself.

Was it an arduous shoot? Those farms are rather, erm, mucky.

There was a lot of shit, let’s make no bones about it. Filming on a working dairy farm around milkings, there’s no getting around it. Luckily our crew were amazing, and really worked hard with the difficult situations that were thrown at them. The schedule was built so that we would space out our dairy farm days, to give both the crew and the farmer a break, which meant there was just enough time for everyone to clean the cables before we had to go back again… On the plus side we were incredibly lucky with the weather, which was a massive relief, because as a low budget film we didn’t have many options, and obviously we needed to save the rain for the end of the movie for narrative reasons.

Hope Dickson Leach on the mucky set of ‘The Levelling’

That hare was brilliant. Did you employ a special hare wrangler?

Yes! We had 4 hares that we switched out – they were actually filmed in other scenes too, but in the end we just kept them to the water sequences. Keen nature lovers may notice that they are actually Belgian hares, because British hares can’t be kept in captivity.
I was repeatedly reminded of the Dardenne brothers. Is that a comparison you would welcome?

I love to hear that. Yes – our key references when designing the photography of the film were the Dardennes (close following shots) and Bruno Dumont (long, wide shots). It was a shorthand the cinematographer and I had – ‘Dardenne this one?’ Obviously I’m also drawn to their attention to detail of the way people work. I think there is something so visceral in seeing the detail of what people actually DO when they work that fitted incredibly well into the psychology of this film and this character.
Ellie Kendrick must have had no shortage of offers after Game of Thrones. Did she tell you what drew her to The Levelling?

She loved the script, which was the biggest piece of luck in my life. She is the most incredibly talented actor, so visceral, so generous, rigorous and committed. I learnt so much from working with her and she made every day on the shoot a total delight for everyone.

David Troughton in ‘The Levelling’

The film is a compelling drama that also paints a fairly bleak picture of life in rural Somerset. How has it gone down with locals?

We haven’t had any screenings in Somerset itself yet, but some people from Somerset who helped us with the film, for example the location owners, have been incredibly positive. I think there is something really valuable about showing how hard farming life is, but also how meaningful. I didn’t want to neglect the fact that farmers love the land, they love nature, and that is something you don’t often get to see. Farms have been painted as rosy places in films and TV, the media tends to be critical of farmers and the truth is a lot more complicated. They provide an absolutely crucial role in society and are faced with challenges very few other lifestyles and professions every have to consider. I think it’s time we had an honest conversation about how we support farmers.

You also don’t shy away from portraying things that the dairy industry would rather we didn’t dwell on – such as the culling of male calves. How important to you was such authenticity?

Authenticity was incredibly important to me. For us to understand the reasons why Harry’s life was so hard, as well as what Clover returned to after the damage inflicted by the floods, we needed to see the details. This was the only way the film would be emotionally authentic, and that was my top priority with a story like this.

How much should we read into the fact that Clover is both a vet and a vegetarian? Was this simply to underline the distance between her and Aubrey?

In developing Clover’s history and her falling out with her father, I explored the different ways she would be as stubborn as him, and also determined to forge her own path. She loves animals, and this led to this character choice. In terms of her story I believe she left imagining she would come back eventually to take over the farm, to redesign it according to her own belief system. She’s idealistic and strong minded. However, returning seven years later, she’s softened a little, her father has softened a lot, and she realises that the truth lies somewhere in between their points of view.

You worked with Todd Solondz on Palindromes. Is he as misanthropic as one imagines?

Todd is one of the kindest, most generous people I’ve ever worked with. He loves his characters, he loves his casts and crews, and he works very hard to make difficult work in an industry that often asks you to be softer. I’m so grateful for the time I spent with him.

Dredging the Levels

You’re a co-founder of Raising Films, which campaigns to “make the film industry more parent friendly”. How can this be achieved?

There are lots of small ways we can start to effect change: job sharing, extra childcare costs being covered, working with schedules that fit around family life, committing to 5 day shooting weeks. But there is also a structural challenge that needs to be addressed – we need to examine how films are developed, made and distributed, and see if this is the most inclusive approach that we can employ. This isn’t just about parents and carers but about saying there are models of working in place that exclude lots of different people, and by re-examining our biases and the things we believe to be necessary, we might start to welcome different populations into our industry, which will allow our stories and films to be richer and more exciting.
You’re also a big supporter of the F-Rating system pioneered by the Bath Film Festival. Has this succeeded in having any effect on the industry yet?

I think what Holly [BFF’s F-Rating pioneer Holly Tarquini] has done is great. I would love to believe we don’t need to talk about being women anymore, but that simply isn’t the case. The numbers aren’t changing – women still make up such a small portion of the people creating culture all over the world. We need to fight any way we can to bring truthful representations of women to the screen, and creating an appetite for female-centric work is a crucial part of that fight.