The photographer and filmmaker behind many of PJ Harvey’s most striking music videos is to be honoured with the first-ever retrospective of her work – in a community hall in Hackney.
Maria Mochnacz will attend the free screening at Morland Estate Community Hall on Gayhurst Road on Saturday 28 November, where she will be interviewed on stage before taking questions from the audience.
The evening is the last of the year for Morland Estate Film Club, a monthly community cinema that shows films made in north and east London, or by filmmakers based there.
Mochnacz first met Harvey in the late 1980s and became one of her closest creative collaborators for more than two decades, directing the video for her 1991 debut single ‘Dress’ and shaping her image through photography, album artwork and styling.
Around 20 videos and film extracts are on the programme, including Harvey’s ‘Down By The Water’, ‘50ft Queenie’, ‘Man-Size’ and ‘A Perfect Day Elise’, alongside work for Robert Miles, Dot Allison, Victoria+Jean, Subcircus and Dirty Harry. Short segments from her tour films Reeling with PJ Harvey and On Tour: Please Leave Quietly will also be shown.
Sheridan Seraphin, the club’s curator, who will conduct the interview, has been a fan since he was a teenager in the 1990s, when the look of ‘A Perfect Day Elise’ made a lasting impression on him.
Two years ago he emailed Mochnacz to ask about the techniques behind that video while preparing a short film of his own. She shared them, and the pair have kept in touch ever since.
“It dawned on me that there has never been a music video retrospective on Maria, which I felt was a shame as I consider her work to be very important to the golden age of music videos,” said Seraphin.
Mochnacz was “reluctant at first”, he said, but warmed to the idea when she realised how much of her work had been made in London. “Maria is a very private person and I felt I had fully gained her trust when she said yes.”
On the night, Seraphin plans to ask about her creative process and “how her collaboration with PJ Harvey has helped shape them both as artists”.
He describes the club as “a space outside financial barriers” where people can “come together, share, discover and discuss”.
“Hackney is still a working-class area at heart, so I want residents to know that events like this, on their doorstep, are possible.”
Seraphin, a north London-born writer and director, said he set up the club because of the lack of opportunities for working-class filmmakers like himself, creating a space where artists need not worry about “social barriers like finance or class”.
Organisers expected about 20 people at the first screening, but around 65 showed up.
“Community members came up to me and said it had boosted their morale,” said Seraphin.
He curates the programme himself, finding filmmakers at festivals or on Instagram, and says the club is “on the lookout for humanism and truth”.
Past highlights include a screening of Jamie Thraves’ The Low Down, shot in Hackney Downs and Dalston, with the director in attendance. Seraphin, who interviewed Thraves on the night, said the experience was as thrilling as winning an award for his own films.
Robin Mahoney, who lives around the corner from the estate, let the club screen his Glastonbury: The 35th Anniversary Edition for free and supplied DVDs to raise funds, while Mayor of Hackney Zoë Garbett has recommended the club.
Next year's line-up opens with Scala!, the documentary by Hackney-based filmmakers Jane Giles and Ali Catterall. The club is also in talks with actor Clare Perkins about a screening of Hackney-set drama Bullet Boy, and Seraphin hopes to persuade Mike Leigh to show Naked and Meantime.
Workshops, and possibly a film festival, could follow towards the end of 2027, depending on funding.
Before then, a Halloween edition takes place this Saturday (31 October), including a short starring local actor Sam Spruell.
Seraphin’s own short The F*** It List won Best Proof of Concept at this year’s Brighton Rocks International Film Festival, while Breath Of Another opened the 2026 Windrush Caribbean International Film Festival.
For the Maria Mochnacz event, food and wine will be served on the night and expect places to go quickly. Anyone who books but can no longer attend is asked to return their ticket so others can go.
Maria Mochnacz Retrospective + Q&A takes place on Saturday 28 November, 6.30pm–9.30pm (doors 6pm), at Morland Estate Community Hall, Gayhurst Road, London E8 3EY. Entry is free and open to all ages. Book via Eventbrite.
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