Speakers: Ken Loach

‘The duty of a film director is to focus more on the soul of the spectator.’

Ken Loach discusses some of the transformative films he has made and why he wanted to make them, and his method of telling the stories of those who are seldom heard.

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Ken Loach was born in 1936 in Nuneaton. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School and went on to study law at St Peter’s Hall, Oxford. After a brief spell in the theatre, Loach was recruited by the BBC in 1963 as a television director. This launched a long career directing films for television and the cinema, from Cathy Come Home, which changed the way people viewed homelessness, and Kes, voted one of the greatest British films of the twentieth century, to Land And Freedom, Sweet Sixteen, The Wind That Shakes The Barley (Palme d’Or, Cannes Film Festival 2006), Looking for Eric, and The Angels’ Share. His latest trilogy of films gives voice to some of the poorest in our society:  I, Daniel Blake focuses on the effect of austerity on a man who loses his job (Palme d’Or, Cannes Film Festival 2016). Sorry We Missed You (2019) reveals the pressures of the gig economy on a white delivery van driver and his wife who is a carer trying to make ends meet. His latest film, The Old Oak (September 2023) is a powerful story of hope, compassion and solidarity as a pub landlord confronts locals’ hostility towards Syrian immigrants. This film was his fifteenth to be shown at Cannes, more than any other director, and received a 15-minute standing ovation.

This lecture is also available as a live, in-person event. For tickets, click here. 

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