Things can change. Filmmaker Lorna Tucker’s humanising documentary delivers a searing truth that homelessness can happen to anyone, and reminds us hope is never lost
Words: Greg BarradaleBig Issue Activism Reporter Photography: Louise Haywood-Schiefer
SOMEONE’S DAUGHTER, SOMEONE’S SON
The sky is lit up as the sun sets over West London. We can see out all across the city from the big marble kitchen table cluttered with books, glasses and paintbrushes. But for Lorna Tucker, there are parallel cities.
“I spend most of my time walking in a ghost world. I can go to a meeting in Soho and get super excited, and then I’ll step outside of a club and there’s the ghost of my friend who died of an overdose, or I walk through Rupert Street where I suffered horrific abuse,” she says. “And it still smells the same. I still remember everything, and my friends who were killed in Berwick Street, I can still see the shine of the lamp on the blood.”
I sip what I later realise is a very strong coffee. Tucker has already had six when she shows up, with her trousers tucked into her socks – a trick that Vivienne Westwood taught her. One of the mugs, emblazoned with “suck my dick”, is by Nick Cave – she received it from someone as a gift. But as a teenager, just a couple of miles down the road, Tucker slept rough.
A man selling The Big Issue became her guardian angel, and her picture appeared in the missing people column in the pages of this magazine. This week, her career in filmmaking has taken her to our front cover. How do you get out of that? How do you get here?
‘I’ve never seen a film that has shown you clearly there’s an end to homelessness’
We’re talking because her newest film, Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son, is personal. Tucker’s previous films include the Netflix documentary Call Me Kate, about Katharine Hepburn; 2018’s Westwood, a portrait of the late legendary designer; and Amá, a documentary on the abuse of Native American women.
Now, she has become the subject, telling the story of her experiences of living on the streets, along with those who have been through it too, those who are going through it, and policymakers and campaigners with an idea of how to solve it. Even if it is sometimes spoken about like gravity, or earthquakes, homelessness is not inevitable. As we’ve seen with the Post Office drama, art can galvanise, and make an issue bubble over into a public scandal. “I’ve never seen a film that has shown you clearly there’s an end to homelessness,” says Tucker. She hopes Someone’s Daughte
