Over the UK lockdowns I saw the improvised mill-towns I grew up in transform surreally into adultness jungles in which kids would run lawlessly, their fantasies becoming temporary realities. It was these smaller stories of working class youth and the uneasy worlds of play they create that I wanted to explore.

Whilst the kitchen-sink genre has done a lot for working-class filmmakers like myself, I occasionally find it limiting and so Dog Factory seemed the perfect space to inspect the magic realism of Lancashire estates and back allies whilst staying close to its truth.