The south London suburb of Bromley received an unexpected early Christmas gift last summer when the cast and crew of the provocative new film Pillion arrived to transform its streets into the setting for a BDSM romantic drama.
Directed by Harry Lighton in his feature debut, the film has already generated significant buzz as one of the year's most talked-about releases. The Queen's Gambit star Harry Melling plays Colin, a hapless car park attendant, while The Northman actor Alexander Skarsgård portrays Ray, a brooding biker who enters into an unexpected dominant/submissive relationship with him.
From Surrey to South London
The film represents a significant shift from its source material, Adam Mars-Jones's 2020 novel Box Hill. While the book was set in leafy Surrey during the 1970s, Lighton's adaptation moves the action to present-day Bromley at Christmas. The director revealed that budgetary constraints drove the location change, explaining that filming needed to occur close to London to avoid accommodation costs for the cast and crew.
The seasonal transformation, however, was entirely the filmmaker's choice. 'I'm obsessed with Christmas films,' Lighton confessed. 'Every film I've made has had a Christmas element. I liked the idea of combining that sort of syrupy Christmas feeling with hardcore sex and seeing how an audience would combine those two things.'
Summer Christmas in Bromley
During August 2024, Bromley's town centre became the unlikely site of Christmas festivities as the production erected a towering Christmas tree. Lighton recalled the surreal experience of hearing locals comment on the premature decorations during summer filming. 'I'd sit by the Christmas tree and hear all these locals walking past and saying how Christmas comes earlier each year,' the director laughed.
The Christmas tree location serves as the setting for a pivotal scene where Colin meets Ray on a chilly Christmas Day evening for what he assumes will be a romantic date. Instead, their encounter leads to a kinky hook-up down a backstreet behind Primark.
Secret Filming and Unplanned Guests
The intimate scene required careful planning and privacy measures. 'We had modesty screens up and people doing crowd control to make sure nobody would walk past – both for the sake of the actors and the public,' Lighton explained. The crew eventually found a suitable alleyway by a Gail's Bakery that offered sufficient protection.
Filming the scene between 11pm and 5am on a Friday night presented its own challenges, with drunk revellers emerging from nearby bars and nightclubs. 'Everyone was coming out of nightclubs off their tits and trying to join in,' Lighton noted, 'and it's supposed to be a quiet scene.'
Another scene depicting Ray and Colin taking a 'day off' from their dom/sub dynamic was filmed guerilla-style with hidden cameras in the same area. The production also had an unexpected brush with local colour when Bromley Spider-Man, a local fixture, occasionally dropped into shots during long lens filming on the high street.
Although the unplanned cameo didn't make the final cut, Lighton acknowledged the spontaneous fun it brought to the filming process in this surprising corner of south London.
