Hope Dickson Leach talks about directing the new British film The Levelling which is set in Somerset

The Levelling is a British drama set in and on the Somerset Levels.

This part of the county hit the local and national news in 2014 when the area experienced devastating flooding which impacted on people's lives and businesses.

Taking the flood as a start point, the film centres around trainee veterinarian Clover Catto (Ellie Kendrick, Game of Thrones) returns home one day to the farm where she grew up after hearing news that her brother Harry has passed away.

Finding the family home in ruins following recent floods that devastated the area, Clover is forced to confront her father Aubrey (David Troughton, The Hollow Crown) and the dark cloud that hangs over the farm.

As time passes, Clover’s discoveries send her on a journey of reckoning - with the land, her family and herself.

The film is directed by director/writer Hope Dickson Leach.

This is Hope's first feature length film.

Her award-winning thesis film, The Dawn Chorus, played at festivals worldwide and Screen International made her a ‘Star of Tomorrow’ and Filmmaker Magazine named her one of the ’25 New Faces of Independent Film’.

Asked if she feel the issues in the film were human-made, in the sense of allowing the silt to build up and not to be cleared lead to a flood and the problem of allowing issues to build up in families by not talking to each other so you get this flood of emotions.

She said: "I think that is a really interesting way of looking at it.

"It is less about what people have done and what they have not. It is a case of not doing things, not being ready and not keeping on top of things.

"I would say what is interesting is the relationship we have with the land and the countryside.

"We as 'city people' do not understand how people in the country live.

"We learn more about that and what brings people together in this crisis.

"It is not a metaphor it was a project which amplifies a family situation which works on different levels.

"It is very powerful as there are internal conflicts and journeys.

"She has to believe in her heart as she is super logical and she tries to apply this logic to her emotions and that is not the way she should be doing things.

"Clover has all this logic and emotion to deal with which she has got to get out of her head and the only way she can achieve this is by talking.

"Ellie really brought Clover to life and allows her to feel things.

"We could see Ellie as Clover going through this turmoil as it played on her face and it was a very upsetting tale to tell. What Clover has to do she has to do it herself."

Not only did Hope's characters learn and develop through the film, she herself learnt more about herself as a person.

Explaining this Hope said: "What I learnt from this film was the ability to trust myself by trusting others.

"It might sound strange but it is true. Before this film I used to have everything planned out to the minute and then execute it.

"But for this film I knew if I wanted the type of performances I got then I could not do that this time.

"What I also learnt was to open up. I was nervous but it was a good thing to do.

"For me as a person this was a huge thing to do not having everything planned and I learnt a massive amount about myself."

What Hope described as 'her grief years' have reached fruition and the end with this film.

In her short films, she explored family situations where people are trying to get over something terrible that has happened in their lives.

The Levelling takes it to a new level as it lifts the pain bar as it shows the impact and pressure one family are put under by the floods combined with their own emotional problems.

Hope said: "A lot of my films have been about grief and I wanted to keep exploring it in this film.

"We all go through grief in our lives at one point or another. It is not just about loving other people it about loving yourself.

"It is about saying good bye to things in the past and how you continue to live after relationships end.

"In my short films, I explored family situations where people are trying to get over something terrible that has happened in their lives.

"This was a story, which explored that even further. What happens to a family who doesn’t talk and are then finding themselves in difficult situations and how do they get beyond that?

"So it started with something quite internal.

"Then I read about the stories of the farmers in Somerset and all the people whose homes, businesses and lives had been flooded and damaged.

The Environmental Agency didn’t dredge the rivers. They allowed them to silt up. And so the floods happened and destroyed everything.

"The rivers, the man-made channels that it was so essential to maintain and to look after – in order to make the countryside work, for life on The Levels to sustain itself – had been neglected, and led to disaster.

"This felt like a poignant external representation of the family drama I was developing: a vital part of life that had been neglected for short term convenience led in the long run to something much worse happening.

"What I hope to achieve with the Somerset Levels was to show it was farming country and to show it was also a place where people lived and worked.

"We wanted people to see the character of the land and for the character of Clover who had been away from it for a long time to come back and fall in love with it again.

"There is nothing more important than understanding the natural world.

"In many respects we (humans) have stewardship of the land and we have to work with it.

"We should have a clear understanding on how we get to work with the land and not allow flooding like this to happen."