Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son

Filmmaker Lorna Tucker spent part of her teenage years sleeping on the streets of London. 25 years later, she’s using her experiences to help shine a light on the growing homeless crisis in the UK in the eye-opening documentary Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son. With the number of people sleeping on the streets in Britain hitting record numbers, Tucker travels across the country to talk to a collection of homeless people so that audiences can hear their stories, alongside the steps that should be taken to resolve these issues for good.

Purposefully gritty, everything about this campaign film is direct and to the point. It brings the voices of its subjects to the forefront without any unnecessary distractions so that they can be heard plainly. Whether it’s the tragic mixture of circumstances that led them to becoming homeless, stories of addiction, or recollections of the frightening things that have happened to them, the documentary aims to humanise these people and remove any stigmas audiences may have towards the homeless population.

Although the participants frequently display raw emotion as they open up in front of the camera, and some of the tales shared centre around horrific violence and abuse, Tucker wisely avoids fetishising or exploiting her subjects’ traumas. This documentary is intended to inform viewers, not shock them. By keeping the humanity of these people front and centre throughout, Tucker never lets viewers lose sight of the main points of her film.

This documentary is just as much of a powerful call to action as it is an awareness piece. Policymakers and support workers speak frankly and clearly about the flaws in the current systems for keeping people off the streets and explain how they can be remedied. Woven together with the heartfelt and deeply moving stories of human tragedy and recovery, Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son is the first step toward changing the conversation around homelessness for the better.

Andrew Murray

Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son is released in select cinemas on 16^th February 2024.

Watch the trailer for Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son here: