Ken Loach says he has “great respect” for Jonathan Glazer in raising the subject of Gaza in his Oscars acceptance speech for “The Zone of Interest,” asserting that the director was “very brave” to say what he did. “And I’m sure he understood the possible consequences, which makes him braver still, so I’ve got great respect for him and his work,” he tells Variety.
The veteran filmmaker and campaigner is speaking ahead of the U.S. release of “The Old Oak,” a feature that also happens to be his last. After a career of more than 60 years, the British director — a two-time Palme d’Or winner who is behind a library of beloved films including “Kes,” “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” “Land and Freedom,” “Sweet Sixteen,” “My Name is Joe” and “I, Daniel Blake” — is calling it a day.
Loach has announced his retirement before, of course,...
The veteran filmmaker and campaigner is speaking ahead of the U.S. release of “The Old Oak,” a feature that also happens to be his last. After a career of more than 60 years, the British director — a two-time Palme d’Or winner who is behind a library of beloved films including “Kes,” “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” “Land and Freedom,” “Sweet Sixteen,” “My Name is Joe” and “I, Daniel Blake” — is calling it a day.
Loach has announced his retirement before, of course,...
- 4/2/2024
- by Alex Ritman
- Variety Film + TV
Ken Loach has said that The Old Oak will be his final film, and, in its humble way, it represents a good stopping point for the iconoclastic British filmmaker. The film isn’t some self-consciously summarizing coda but the latest in a long line of intimately scaled looks at the myriad ills facing Britain’s working class. Set, like many of Loach’s films, in the country’s post-industrial northern region, The Old Oak is alive to the decline that’s reduced a once booming mining town to a place with a decimated economy. But it also adds a crucial update to Loach’s long-running survey of domestic strife by incorporating the growing migration from the Middle East and the racial and nationalist tensions that have arisen from it.
The film opens with locals openly airing their scorn at a bus of Syrian refugees as one of the transplants, Yara...
The film opens with locals openly airing their scorn at a bus of Syrian refugees as one of the transplants, Yara...
- 3/30/2024
- by Jake Cole
- Slant Magazine
The 1970 edition of the Cannes Film Festival was noted for giving rise to several bold new voices. Robert Altman arrived as an established (and notoriously troublesome) TV director but left a Palme d’Or winner with M*A*S*H, his launchpad to becoming one of the most pivotal figures of contemporary cinema. In the Directors’ Fortnight competition, then a year old, the German absurdist comedy Even Dwarfs Started Small gave audiences a hint of what a 20-something festival first-timer named Werner Herzog might have up his creative sleeve.
Over in the Critics’ Week sidebar, a rising English director named Ken Loach also was making his Cannes debut (like Herzog with his second feature).
The bespectacled 33-year-old had arrived as part of what he describes as a “rather snooty” U.K. delegation that didn’t have much time for someone then known for hard-hitting TV docudramas and not considered part...
Over in the Critics’ Week sidebar, a rising English director named Ken Loach also was making his Cannes debut (like Herzog with his second feature).
The bespectacled 33-year-old had arrived as part of what he describes as a “rather snooty” U.K. delegation that didn’t have much time for someone then known for hard-hitting TV docudramas and not considered part...
- 5/16/2023
- by Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ken Loach has said that The Old Oak, his latest feature, will be his last. Probably.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of what will mark his 15th film premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, the veteran filmmaker, who turns 87 in June, acknowledged that “realistically, it would be hard to do a feature film again.
“Films take a couple of years and I’ll be nearly 90,” he said. “And your facilities do decline. Your short-term memory goes and my eyesight is pretty rubbish now, so it’s quite tricky.”
Loach said that while he had little issue on The Old Oak dealing with the physical demands of long working days required during production, it has become harder to sustain, “with good humor,” the “nervous emotional energy” he needs to set the tempo during a shoot and to keep that momentum going.
Loach, of course, has “retired” before. When he brought...
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of what will mark his 15th film premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, the veteran filmmaker, who turns 87 in June, acknowledged that “realistically, it would be hard to do a feature film again.
“Films take a couple of years and I’ll be nearly 90,” he said. “And your facilities do decline. Your short-term memory goes and my eyesight is pretty rubbish now, so it’s quite tricky.”
Loach said that while he had little issue on The Old Oak dealing with the physical demands of long working days required during production, it has become harder to sustain, “with good humor,” the “nervous emotional energy” he needs to set the tempo during a shoot and to keep that momentum going.
Loach, of course, has “retired” before. When he brought...
- 4/24/2023
- by Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Nabil Ayouch’s grittily authentic tale of a rapper turned teacher helping his students find their creative voices is a class act
The Arabic title of Franco-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch’s empowering hip-hop fable translates loosely as “rise your voice”, while in France, where the film competed for the Cannes Palme d’Or, it’s known as Haut et fort – “high and loud”. Both monikers perfectly capture the vibrant spirit of this stirring street musical, described by its creator as arising out of “the desire to make a film to give voice to young people”. On one level it’s a patchwork of popular cinematic tropes, combining the strength-through-music themes of films as diverse as 8 Mile and School of Rock with the inspirational classroom formats of everything from Blackboard Jungle to Dead Poets Society. But there’s also a strong whiff of the discursive politics of Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom,...
The Arabic title of Franco-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch’s empowering hip-hop fable translates loosely as “rise your voice”, while in France, where the film competed for the Cannes Palme d’Or, it’s known as Haut et fort – “high and loud”. Both monikers perfectly capture the vibrant spirit of this stirring street musical, described by its creator as arising out of “the desire to make a film to give voice to young people”. On one level it’s a patchwork of popular cinematic tropes, combining the strength-through-music themes of films as diverse as 8 Mile and School of Rock with the inspirational classroom formats of everything from Blackboard Jungle to Dead Poets Society. But there’s also a strong whiff of the discursive politics of Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom,...
- 5/1/2022
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
For 50-plus years, British filmmaker Ken Loach has been a crusading white knight for the working class. His heroes are laborers, carpenters, union organizers, social workers, immigrant house cleaners, pub-dwelling punters, football-fanatic postmen. Kids, whether it’s the falconry-obsessed lad of Kes (1969) or the drug-dealing teen of Sweet Sixteen (2002), are usually fighting the effects or suffering the after-effects of economic inequity. Even his historical dramas set during the Irish War for Independence (The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Jimmy’s Hall) and the Spanish Civil War (Land and Freedom) tend to...
- 3/4/2020
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Hamilton Entertainment, BeaglePug, Footprint Films, and Enriched Media Group produce Australia-uk co-pro.
Gary Hamilton’s Arclight Films has struck major new deals on the Daniel Radcliffe true-life prison break thriller Escape From Pretoria led by a sale to Signature in the UK.
Besides the UK, rights have also gone in Latin America (Turner). Additional recent deals include Benelux (Dfw), Scandinavia and Iceland (Mis. Label), Italy (Minerva), Japan (At Entertainment), Poland (Monolith), Portugal (Films4You), Turkey (Sayez Films), and Israel (Shoval).
Arclight previously announced completed deals with: Ksm GmbH for Germany, Top Film for Cis, Inopia Films in Spain, Spentzos for Greece,...
Gary Hamilton’s Arclight Films has struck major new deals on the Daniel Radcliffe true-life prison break thriller Escape From Pretoria led by a sale to Signature in the UK.
Besides the UK, rights have also gone in Latin America (Turner). Additional recent deals include Benelux (Dfw), Scandinavia and Iceland (Mis. Label), Italy (Minerva), Japan (At Entertainment), Poland (Monolith), Portugal (Films4You), Turkey (Sayez Films), and Israel (Shoval).
Arclight previously announced completed deals with: Ksm GmbH for Germany, Top Film for Cis, Inopia Films in Spain, Spentzos for Greece,...
- 12/5/2019
- by 36¦Jeremy Kay¦54¦
- ScreenDaily
Sorry We Missed You
One of Britain’s most notable filmmakers of all time, the two-time Palme d’Or winning Ken Loach will be set with his new social issue drama Sorry We Missed You in 2019. Produced by his regular collaborator Rebecca O’Brien and is the director’s fourth consecutive film handled by eOne. His latest stars Kris Hitchen (who previously had a supporting role in Loach’s 2001 title The Navigators) along with Debbie Honeywood, Katie Proctor, Alfie Dobson and Rhys Stone. As mentioned, Loach is one of a select few auteurs to win thePalme d’Or twice, having competed a total of thirteen times winning the Ecumenical Jury Prize in 1981, 1990, 1995, 2009, and 2016, a Fipresci Prize for 1991’s Riff Raff and 1979’s Black Jack, and the Jury Prize in 1993 and 2012.…...
One of Britain’s most notable filmmakers of all time, the two-time Palme d’Or winning Ken Loach will be set with his new social issue drama Sorry We Missed You in 2019. Produced by his regular collaborator Rebecca O’Brien and is the director’s fourth consecutive film handled by eOne. His latest stars Kris Hitchen (who previously had a supporting role in Loach’s 2001 title The Navigators) along with Debbie Honeywood, Katie Proctor, Alfie Dobson and Rhys Stone. As mentioned, Loach is one of a select few auteurs to win thePalme d’Or twice, having competed a total of thirteen times winning the Ecumenical Jury Prize in 1981, 1990, 1995, 2009, and 2016, a Fipresci Prize for 1991’s Riff Raff and 1979’s Black Jack, and the Jury Prize in 1993 and 2012.…...
- 1/7/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Engel also co-founded UK distributor New Wave Films.
Art-house “trailblazer” Pamela Engel, known for co-founding distributor Artificial Eye and programming London cinemas including the Lumiere, Chelsea Cinema, Camden Plaza and the Renoir, has died aged 82.
A huge figure in the UK’s independent film business, Engel’s death has sparked messages of praise across the distribution and exhibition sectors.
Born Pamela Balfry in 1934, the UK executive started out in the late 1950s as a secretary for then Sight and Sound editor Penelope Houston.
She would go on to work as an assistant to Richard Roud at the London and New York Film Festivals before joining Derek Hill’s art-house venue Essential Cinema in the late 1960s.
Odyssey
Balfry and first husband Andi Engel established distributor Artificial Eye in 1976, thus “beginning an odyssey of distribution and exhibition unlikely ever to be surpassed,” in the words of former London Film Festival director Sheila Whitaker.
Despite separating...
Art-house “trailblazer” Pamela Engel, known for co-founding distributor Artificial Eye and programming London cinemas including the Lumiere, Chelsea Cinema, Camden Plaza and the Renoir, has died aged 82.
A huge figure in the UK’s independent film business, Engel’s death has sparked messages of praise across the distribution and exhibition sectors.
Born Pamela Balfry in 1934, the UK executive started out in the late 1950s as a secretary for then Sight and Sound editor Penelope Houston.
She would go on to work as an assistant to Richard Roud at the London and New York Film Festivals before joining Derek Hill’s art-house venue Essential Cinema in the late 1960s.
Odyssey
Balfry and first husband Andi Engel established distributor Artificial Eye in 1976, thus “beginning an odyssey of distribution and exhibition unlikely ever to be surpassed,” in the words of former London Film Festival director Sheila Whitaker.
Despite separating...
- 7/17/2017
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Ken Loach meets the fans outside the Grand Hotel Pupp at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Photo: Film Servis Kviff Ken Loach and Paul Laverty received a rapturous welcome at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Photo: Film Service Kviff Rarely can a film festival and two filmmakers seem such a perfect match as the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival with its egalitarian approach and a preoccupation with social issues and director Ken Loach and his writing collaborator Paul Laverty who share the same values.
The match was celebrated when Loach and Laverty (Cannes Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake, Bread And Roses, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Carla’s Song among many), were given an ecstatic welcome by audiences when they received Crystal Globes for Outstanding Contributions to World Cinema, while Land And Freedom and Sweet Sixteen were screened in a section that marked 30 Years of the European Film Academy.
The match was celebrated when Loach and Laverty (Cannes Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake, Bread And Roses, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Carla’s Song among many), were given an ecstatic welcome by audiences when they received Crystal Globes for Outstanding Contributions to World Cinema, while Land And Freedom and Sweet Sixteen were screened in a section that marked 30 Years of the European Film Academy.
- 7/5/2017
- by Richard Mowe
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Making his first appearance in competition as a director (after having previously written Laurent Cantet's Palme d’Or-winning The Class), Robin Campillo already has a triumph on his hands with 120 Beats Per Minute, which centers on the efforts of the activist group Act Up in Paris, patterned after the New York group of the same name formed in 1989. Enriched by Campillo's own experiences with AIDS activism in the 1990s, the film—which runs close to two-and-a-half hours, one of the longer titles in competition—has a canvas both intimate and expansive, brimming with both specificity and bracing sincerity. It's the rare film that documents both a personal story and a larger movement with verve and grace, creating a compelling, often moving experience.The opening alone, which sees four new members integrated into Act Up’s weekly meetings, is impressive, laying out not just the group’s organization and rules (e.
- 5/22/2017
- MUBI
Author: Andy Furlong
This week HeyUGuys caught up with talented screenwriter Paul Laverty, the man who gave life to so many memorable characters and stories. In an extremely fascinating interview Paul talks about the latest film he wrote, The Olive Tree, directed by Icíar Bollaín. He also talks in depth about his creative process, what it is like working with Ken Loach, and Irish History.
One of things I have always appreciated about your writing is that it often has undertones of very socially relevant themes, such as the environment, poverty and recession – as indeed we see in The Olive Tree – but your characters never feel like just mouth pieces for these issues but rather fully fleshed out, real people that, through the audiences observation, become a window into these problems. How do you strike a balance between the themes you want to talk about in an overarching sense, without...
This week HeyUGuys caught up with talented screenwriter Paul Laverty, the man who gave life to so many memorable characters and stories. In an extremely fascinating interview Paul talks about the latest film he wrote, The Olive Tree, directed by Icíar Bollaín. He also talks in depth about his creative process, what it is like working with Ken Loach, and Irish History.
One of things I have always appreciated about your writing is that it often has undertones of very socially relevant themes, such as the environment, poverty and recession – as indeed we see in The Olive Tree – but your characters never feel like just mouth pieces for these issues but rather fully fleshed out, real people that, through the audiences observation, become a window into these problems. How do you strike a balance between the themes you want to talk about in an overarching sense, without...
- 3/14/2017
- by Andy Furlong
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Shortly before news broke of British auteur Ken Loach’s latest production (a surprise since his 2014 title Jimmy’s Hall was intended to be his last film) his 1990 film Hidden Agenda received a Blu-ray release. An interesting footnote in Loach’s extensive filmography, the film is a definite departure from a director whose work is usually invested in portraits of British Socialist realism. Sandwiched between 1986’s Fatherland (a co-production with West Germany, also seeing a Blu-ray release this November courtesy of Twilight Time) and 1991’s Riff-Raff, Loach tried his hand at a political thriller based on actual events. It took home the Jury Prize at that year’s Cannes Film Festival (of the many times Loach has competed for the Palme d’Or, he’s won this particular distinction three times, and the Palme itself in 2006) and caused a significant furor in the UK thanks to its blunt references to...
- 11/10/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Michael Giacchino took Film Composer of the Year, while Antonio Sanchez took Film Score of the Year for Birdman.
Sitting alongside the 42nd annual Gent Film Festival in Belgium (October 13-24), the 15th edition of the World Soundtrack Awards doled out its musical honours with a coinciding orchestral concert featuring the works of leading composers Alan Silvestri, Patrick Doyle and Daniel Pemberton.
Michael Giacchino was awarded with top honours as Film Composer of the Year for Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, Inside Out and Jurassic World. He was previously the World Soundtrack Award’s Discovery of the Year in 2005 for his work on The Incredibles.
Antonio Sanchez was also a big winner, beating out Bruno Calais (Song Of The Sea), Alexandre Desplat (The Imitation Game), Hans Zimmer (Interstellar) and Johann Johansson (The Theory Of Everything) for Best Original Film Score of the Year (Birdman).
Sanchez also nabbed the Discovery of the Year Award.
“I remember...
Sitting alongside the 42nd annual Gent Film Festival in Belgium (October 13-24), the 15th edition of the World Soundtrack Awards doled out its musical honours with a coinciding orchestral concert featuring the works of leading composers Alan Silvestri, Patrick Doyle and Daniel Pemberton.
Michael Giacchino was awarded with top honours as Film Composer of the Year for Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, Inside Out and Jurassic World. He was previously the World Soundtrack Award’s Discovery of the Year in 2005 for his work on The Incredibles.
Antonio Sanchez was also a big winner, beating out Bruno Calais (Song Of The Sea), Alexandre Desplat (The Imitation Game), Hans Zimmer (Interstellar) and Johann Johansson (The Theory Of Everything) for Best Original Film Score of the Year (Birdman).
Sanchez also nabbed the Discovery of the Year Award.
“I remember...
- 10/28/2015
- ScreenDaily
“La Jaula de Oro” which translates to “The Golden Cage” now goes under the title “The Golden Dream”. The film, repped by Films Boutique, has sold widely. In U.S. it was acquired by HBO, but this week it is playing in L.A. at the TCM Chinese and Cinepolis Pico Rivera in East L.A. If you want an extra special treat, you will see it. It will also open Friday, September 4 at Village East Cinema in NYC and in DC at Cinema Pop-Up after Sept 11th.
Watch the Trailer / Showtimes and Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker Fri 9/4, Sat 9/5, Sun 9/6 at the 7pm show.
It will continue through more cities before HBO puts it on cable. It has won awards at every festival screening, starting with Cannes 2013 where it played in Un Certain Regard and won A Certain Talent Prize for the ensemble and the Gillo Pontecorvo Award and François Chalais Award - Special Mention for the strength of the visual aspect, the violence of truth and its emotional intensity. It won 9 Ariel Awards, the Mexican equivalent to the Oscar.
“La Jaula” transcends the usual depiction of young immigrants taking La Bestia through Central America and illegally entering the United States. After “El Norte”, “Sin Nombre” and “Mary Full of Grace”, we have become inured to this long festering problem of immigration. However, this poetic yet realistic and heartbreakingly beautiful depiction of three teenagers (one is a girl) from the slums of Guatemala traveling to the U.S. in search of a better life is pure heart. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, an Indian from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish. Traveling together in cargo trains, walking on the railroad tracks, they form bonds that create the magic of this film.
The beauty of every shot is proof that Diego Quemada-díez was a cinematographer before this debut directorial tour de force.
Diego was interviewed at the premiere by Ian Bernie, festival programmer for Bombay and the New Orleans Film Festivals, former director of the renowned Lacma film program.
Diego:
The social reality in Latin America requires cinema to be deeply engaged with the world as it is. I am interested in making films firmly rooted in our contemporary society.
True realism has it all: fantasy and reason, suffering and utopia, the happiness and pain of our existence. I want to give voice to migrants – human beings who challenge a system established by impassive national and international authorities by crossing borders illegally, risking their own lives in the hope of overcoming dire poverty.
This film is not a documentary, rather it is a fiction based on reality, reenacting it from a place of authenticity and integrity. We constructed the narrative and poetics of this odyssey from the testimony of hundreds of migrants and from the personal sentiments of each and every person who participated in the creative process.
As we identify with Juan and Chauk, we depart from our own daily lives and embark on a grand emotional adventure that delivers us to profound discovery – a journey dispelling the notion that happiness awaits us in a distant place, a journey offering reflection on the borders that divide nations, a journey towards awareness of what separates us as human beings.
We made this adventure in the hope of deconstructing those conventions that imprison us so we can reinvent our own reality. My dream is that these boundaries that separate us dissolve, allowing us to board another train.
One whose destination doesn’t matter, a train whose passengers all know our all existence is interconnected, a train whose obstacles inspire us to celebrate our existence with respect and conscience that transcends nationalities, races, classes and beliefs.
The words of a Mexican man named Juan Menéndez López, spoken just before boarding a moving cargo train with seven of his companions, became the intention I wanted to communicate with the film, “You learn a lot along the path. Here, we are all brothers. We all have the same need. What’s important is that we learn to share. Only in this way can we move ahead, only in this way can we reach our destination, only a united people can survive. As human beings, there is no place in the world where we are illegal.”
Once you have the intention it acts like a magnet, the film starts speaking and we follow it. But to articulate an idea on film we need to do it thru actions, characters, conflict. A metaphor can help us articulate the idea.
In the painting called American Progress from Manifest Destiny, the unquestioned western model of "Progress" or "Civilization" spreads through the land. Then I discovered that behind migration there is a territorial conflict, still current in America. Two ways of looking at the world, with very diferent belief systems, still clashing.
So I thought "I will tell the story of the conflict of two cultures", a story of ‘Cowboys and Indians’ through the clash between a Tzotzil Indian and a mixed race Guatemalan who believes in the Western model. They have completely opposite views of the world, one more materialistic and mental, the other more grounded, more in touch with his soul, his feelings. Throughout the story there is a transformation of the protagonist due to the Indian, not the other way around as the western societies usually expect.
I wanted to question our model of "Progress".
What if it is the western model that needs to change and not the indigenous way?
The opening ten minutes were without words.
Diego: Show me, don’t tell me.
The ending seven minutes themselves are incredible, filmed in a cold, dehumanized Colorado meat-packing warehouse where our hero ends his journey, transformed within himself.
Diego: He was alone; migrants have a lot of loneliness. Many testimonies I gathered ended in ‘We were 15 when we left and none of us arrived’ or ‘one of us arrived’. Very few make it and I wanted to convey this.
A migrant starts the journey looking for the gold (for the money) and as soon as he/ she arrives is trapped due to current legislation. Many pay a high price to get to the U.S. For many it becomes a trap.
Tell us about the genesis of this project.
Diego: I spent seven years researching the story, finding locations, speaking with migrants, gathering their testimonies that the screenplay is based on.
In the production itself, I followed Ken Loach’s techniques, filming in chronological order, without the actors knowing what would happen next. That way they have a life experience instead of acting. I would read them the script five minutes before we shot. We would do this every day, for every scene and based on their words I would rewrite it on the set.
Tell us more about your technique for shooting this film.
Diego: We worked with over 600 migrants in this movie and many people from the villages we passed by. We incorporated our actors into each location surrounded by real people and real locations, then we just filmed like a documentary, becoming an observer of what was happening on front of us. I tried to get the best from fiction and the best from documentary: Dramatic structure, to be able to reenact events instead of talking about them, working with real people, real locations, showing contemporary events that speak about issues of our time.
The hero’s internal journey is a metaphor of our own life and our death. Each of us in our own journey of life meets obstacles; we fall, we stand up, we learn things, we grow or we give up. We are never the same when we arrive at the destination where we believed our dreams would be fulfilled.
I believe we can learn a lot from migrants, from their extreme odyssey. They are people who risk their lives to help their loved ones. They are heroes so I wanted to tell their story through an epic poem.
On a deeper level, I talk of my own life through others. Like twenty years ago when my mother died and I had to keep going. Things happen to you but you go on, you continue however you can. Migrants do that; some people stumble and fall in the journey and still they keep going as best as they can.
How did you find the migrants?
Diego: In regards to the extras in the film, the casting crew would arrive three days before we arrived at each location, so when we got there we could include migrants and people from the villages.
How was this film financed?
Diego: Through a Mexican tax incentive. That is why there are so many movies now being made in Mexico. Last year 140 films. Each very different.
Biography
Born in the Iberian peninsula, Diego has lived in the American continent for the past two decades as nationalized Mexican. His first job in the film industry was in 1995, in Ken Loach's film “Land and Freedom” as a camera assistant to the director of cinematography. A year later, he migrated to the U.S. where he continued his career in film. His graduation film at the American Film Institute (AFI) as writer/director/Dop, “A Table is a Table”, won the Best Cinematography award given by the American Society of Cinematographers (Asc).
He has collaborated as camera operator with directors Spike lee, Alejandro Gonzalez-iñarritu, Tony Scott, Fernando Meirelles, among others, as he wrote and directed his own short films and documentaries. In 2006 he premiered his second short film “I Want to Be A Pilot” at the Sundance Film Festival. The film played at over 200 festivals and won over 50 awards, including Audience Award at La Mostra Sao Paulo Film Festival, Special Mention at the Amiens Film Festival.
That same year he directed in Mexico his short documentary “La Morena”, that premiered at Morelia Film Festival in 2007. In 2010 he won one of the scholarship awarded by Cinéfondation, which enabled him to participate in the Cannes Film Festival Atelier workshop with his first long-feature film, “La Jaula de Oro”. As we said above, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard’s Official Selection and won Un Certain Talent Award and The Gillo Pontecorvo Award and François Chalais Special Mention Award. In its Mexican premiere at the Morelia Film Festival, the film won three awards: Audience Award, Best First Film and Press Guerrero Award. As a Director he has won Best Director at Vladivostock Ff, Best New Director at the Chicago Ff, Best Director at Thessaloniki Ff, Best Director at Havana New York Ff, Best Director at Luis Buñuel Calanda Ff in Spain, Best Director from Satjavit Ray Foundation at the London Ff and Jean Renoir Award in France. It also won Best First Film in Lima, La Habana, República Dominicana and Best Film in Mumbai, Mar de Plata,Thessaloniki, Zurich.
It won nine Ariel Awards from the Mexican Film Academy, including Best Film, Best First Film and Best Original Screenplay, as well as Best Iberoamerican Film at the Fenix Iberoamerican Awards held in Mexico City. Up to now the film has received over 80 awards.
As a writer, aside from his screenplays, he has also written a poetry book called I “Dreamed I Found My Octogonal Room”.
More information on the film below:
"La Jaula de Oro" (The Golden Dream)
A film by Diego Quemada-Diez (Mexico/Spain, 102 min. In Spanish and Tzotzil with English subtitles)
Opens Friday, September 4 Village East Cinema 181-189 Second Avenue (at 12th Street) New York City, (212) 529-6998
Watch the Trailer / Showtimes and Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker Fri 9/4 and Sat 9/5 at the 7pm show.
The most awarded Mexican film in history -with over 80 international accolades- Diego Quemada-Diez's acclaimed debut feature "La Jaula de Oro" tells the story of three teenagers from the slums of Guatemala travel to the Us in search of a better life. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, a Tzotzil kid from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish. Travelling together in cargo trains, walking on the railroad tracks, they soon have to face a harsh reality.
Watch the Trailer / Showtimes and Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker Fri 9/4, Sat 9/5, Sun 9/6 at the 7pm show.
It will continue through more cities before HBO puts it on cable. It has won awards at every festival screening, starting with Cannes 2013 where it played in Un Certain Regard and won A Certain Talent Prize for the ensemble and the Gillo Pontecorvo Award and François Chalais Award - Special Mention for the strength of the visual aspect, the violence of truth and its emotional intensity. It won 9 Ariel Awards, the Mexican equivalent to the Oscar.
“La Jaula” transcends the usual depiction of young immigrants taking La Bestia through Central America and illegally entering the United States. After “El Norte”, “Sin Nombre” and “Mary Full of Grace”, we have become inured to this long festering problem of immigration. However, this poetic yet realistic and heartbreakingly beautiful depiction of three teenagers (one is a girl) from the slums of Guatemala traveling to the U.S. in search of a better life is pure heart. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, an Indian from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish. Traveling together in cargo trains, walking on the railroad tracks, they form bonds that create the magic of this film.
The beauty of every shot is proof that Diego Quemada-díez was a cinematographer before this debut directorial tour de force.
Diego was interviewed at the premiere by Ian Bernie, festival programmer for Bombay and the New Orleans Film Festivals, former director of the renowned Lacma film program.
Diego:
The social reality in Latin America requires cinema to be deeply engaged with the world as it is. I am interested in making films firmly rooted in our contemporary society.
True realism has it all: fantasy and reason, suffering and utopia, the happiness and pain of our existence. I want to give voice to migrants – human beings who challenge a system established by impassive national and international authorities by crossing borders illegally, risking their own lives in the hope of overcoming dire poverty.
This film is not a documentary, rather it is a fiction based on reality, reenacting it from a place of authenticity and integrity. We constructed the narrative and poetics of this odyssey from the testimony of hundreds of migrants and from the personal sentiments of each and every person who participated in the creative process.
As we identify with Juan and Chauk, we depart from our own daily lives and embark on a grand emotional adventure that delivers us to profound discovery – a journey dispelling the notion that happiness awaits us in a distant place, a journey offering reflection on the borders that divide nations, a journey towards awareness of what separates us as human beings.
We made this adventure in the hope of deconstructing those conventions that imprison us so we can reinvent our own reality. My dream is that these boundaries that separate us dissolve, allowing us to board another train.
One whose destination doesn’t matter, a train whose passengers all know our all existence is interconnected, a train whose obstacles inspire us to celebrate our existence with respect and conscience that transcends nationalities, races, classes and beliefs.
The words of a Mexican man named Juan Menéndez López, spoken just before boarding a moving cargo train with seven of his companions, became the intention I wanted to communicate with the film, “You learn a lot along the path. Here, we are all brothers. We all have the same need. What’s important is that we learn to share. Only in this way can we move ahead, only in this way can we reach our destination, only a united people can survive. As human beings, there is no place in the world where we are illegal.”
Once you have the intention it acts like a magnet, the film starts speaking and we follow it. But to articulate an idea on film we need to do it thru actions, characters, conflict. A metaphor can help us articulate the idea.
In the painting called American Progress from Manifest Destiny, the unquestioned western model of "Progress" or "Civilization" spreads through the land. Then I discovered that behind migration there is a territorial conflict, still current in America. Two ways of looking at the world, with very diferent belief systems, still clashing.
So I thought "I will tell the story of the conflict of two cultures", a story of ‘Cowboys and Indians’ through the clash between a Tzotzil Indian and a mixed race Guatemalan who believes in the Western model. They have completely opposite views of the world, one more materialistic and mental, the other more grounded, more in touch with his soul, his feelings. Throughout the story there is a transformation of the protagonist due to the Indian, not the other way around as the western societies usually expect.
I wanted to question our model of "Progress".
What if it is the western model that needs to change and not the indigenous way?
The opening ten minutes were without words.
Diego: Show me, don’t tell me.
The ending seven minutes themselves are incredible, filmed in a cold, dehumanized Colorado meat-packing warehouse where our hero ends his journey, transformed within himself.
Diego: He was alone; migrants have a lot of loneliness. Many testimonies I gathered ended in ‘We were 15 when we left and none of us arrived’ or ‘one of us arrived’. Very few make it and I wanted to convey this.
A migrant starts the journey looking for the gold (for the money) and as soon as he/ she arrives is trapped due to current legislation. Many pay a high price to get to the U.S. For many it becomes a trap.
Tell us about the genesis of this project.
Diego: I spent seven years researching the story, finding locations, speaking with migrants, gathering their testimonies that the screenplay is based on.
In the production itself, I followed Ken Loach’s techniques, filming in chronological order, without the actors knowing what would happen next. That way they have a life experience instead of acting. I would read them the script five minutes before we shot. We would do this every day, for every scene and based on their words I would rewrite it on the set.
Tell us more about your technique for shooting this film.
Diego: We worked with over 600 migrants in this movie and many people from the villages we passed by. We incorporated our actors into each location surrounded by real people and real locations, then we just filmed like a documentary, becoming an observer of what was happening on front of us. I tried to get the best from fiction and the best from documentary: Dramatic structure, to be able to reenact events instead of talking about them, working with real people, real locations, showing contemporary events that speak about issues of our time.
The hero’s internal journey is a metaphor of our own life and our death. Each of us in our own journey of life meets obstacles; we fall, we stand up, we learn things, we grow or we give up. We are never the same when we arrive at the destination where we believed our dreams would be fulfilled.
I believe we can learn a lot from migrants, from their extreme odyssey. They are people who risk their lives to help their loved ones. They are heroes so I wanted to tell their story through an epic poem.
On a deeper level, I talk of my own life through others. Like twenty years ago when my mother died and I had to keep going. Things happen to you but you go on, you continue however you can. Migrants do that; some people stumble and fall in the journey and still they keep going as best as they can.
How did you find the migrants?
Diego: In regards to the extras in the film, the casting crew would arrive three days before we arrived at each location, so when we got there we could include migrants and people from the villages.
How was this film financed?
Diego: Through a Mexican tax incentive. That is why there are so many movies now being made in Mexico. Last year 140 films. Each very different.
Biography
Born in the Iberian peninsula, Diego has lived in the American continent for the past two decades as nationalized Mexican. His first job in the film industry was in 1995, in Ken Loach's film “Land and Freedom” as a camera assistant to the director of cinematography. A year later, he migrated to the U.S. where he continued his career in film. His graduation film at the American Film Institute (AFI) as writer/director/Dop, “A Table is a Table”, won the Best Cinematography award given by the American Society of Cinematographers (Asc).
He has collaborated as camera operator with directors Spike lee, Alejandro Gonzalez-iñarritu, Tony Scott, Fernando Meirelles, among others, as he wrote and directed his own short films and documentaries. In 2006 he premiered his second short film “I Want to Be A Pilot” at the Sundance Film Festival. The film played at over 200 festivals and won over 50 awards, including Audience Award at La Mostra Sao Paulo Film Festival, Special Mention at the Amiens Film Festival.
That same year he directed in Mexico his short documentary “La Morena”, that premiered at Morelia Film Festival in 2007. In 2010 he won one of the scholarship awarded by Cinéfondation, which enabled him to participate in the Cannes Film Festival Atelier workshop with his first long-feature film, “La Jaula de Oro”. As we said above, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard’s Official Selection and won Un Certain Talent Award and The Gillo Pontecorvo Award and François Chalais Special Mention Award. In its Mexican premiere at the Morelia Film Festival, the film won three awards: Audience Award, Best First Film and Press Guerrero Award. As a Director he has won Best Director at Vladivostock Ff, Best New Director at the Chicago Ff, Best Director at Thessaloniki Ff, Best Director at Havana New York Ff, Best Director at Luis Buñuel Calanda Ff in Spain, Best Director from Satjavit Ray Foundation at the London Ff and Jean Renoir Award in France. It also won Best First Film in Lima, La Habana, República Dominicana and Best Film in Mumbai, Mar de Plata,Thessaloniki, Zurich.
It won nine Ariel Awards from the Mexican Film Academy, including Best Film, Best First Film and Best Original Screenplay, as well as Best Iberoamerican Film at the Fenix Iberoamerican Awards held in Mexico City. Up to now the film has received over 80 awards.
As a writer, aside from his screenplays, he has also written a poetry book called I “Dreamed I Found My Octogonal Room”.
More information on the film below:
"La Jaula de Oro" (The Golden Dream)
A film by Diego Quemada-Diez (Mexico/Spain, 102 min. In Spanish and Tzotzil with English subtitles)
Opens Friday, September 4 Village East Cinema 181-189 Second Avenue (at 12th Street) New York City, (212) 529-6998
Watch the Trailer / Showtimes and Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker Fri 9/4 and Sat 9/5 at the 7pm show.
The most awarded Mexican film in history -with over 80 international accolades- Diego Quemada-Diez's acclaimed debut feature "La Jaula de Oro" tells the story of three teenagers from the slums of Guatemala travel to the Us in search of a better life. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, a Tzotzil kid from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish. Travelling together in cargo trains, walking on the railroad tracks, they soon have to face a harsh reality.
- 9/4/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
UK veteran producer Simon Perry has been appointed head of production at Swedish regional film centre Film i Väst in Trollhättan, aka Sweden’s Trollywood.
Perry - former head of British Screen Finance and, more recently, the Irish Film Board from 2006-11 – has signed a two-year contract with the centre and started in his new job this week.
He replaces Swedish producer Jessica Ask, who left to join independent production company Anagram Film & TV.
“We are happy to welcoming Perry to Film i Väst, and look forward to a collaboration with one of the world’s most experienced co-producers on the international scene,” said CEO Tomas Eskildsson.
Film i Vast operates on an annual budget of $11.5m (Sek 93m).
Perry, a film journalist, independent filmmaker and producer with his own Umbrella Films, was head of state-financed development and production company British Screen Finance (later known as the UK Film Coucil) from 1991.
Since 2000 he has concentrated on teaching...
Perry - former head of British Screen Finance and, more recently, the Irish Film Board from 2006-11 – has signed a two-year contract with the centre and started in his new job this week.
He replaces Swedish producer Jessica Ask, who left to join independent production company Anagram Film & TV.
“We are happy to welcoming Perry to Film i Väst, and look forward to a collaboration with one of the world’s most experienced co-producers on the international scene,” said CEO Tomas Eskildsson.
Film i Vast operates on an annual budget of $11.5m (Sek 93m).
Perry, a film journalist, independent filmmaker and producer with his own Umbrella Films, was head of state-financed development and production company British Screen Finance (later known as the UK Film Coucil) from 1991.
Since 2000 he has concentrated on teaching...
- 1/13/2015
- by jornrossing@aol.com (Jorn Rossing Jensen)
- ScreenDaily
Best British movies of all time? (Image: a young Michael Caine in 'Get Carter') Ten years ago, Get Carter, starring Michael Caine as a dangerous-looking London gangster (see photo above), was selected as the United Kingdom's very best movie of all time according to 25 British film critics polled by Total Film magazine. To say that Mike Hodges' 1971 thriller was a surprising choice would be an understatement. I mean, not a David Lean epic or an early Alfred Hitchcock thriller? What a difference ten years make. On Total Film's 2014 list, published last May, Get Carter was no. 44 among the magazine's Top 50 best British movies of all time. How could that be? Well, first of all, people would be very naive if they took such lists seriously, whether we're talking Total Film, the British Film Institute, or, to keep things British, Sight & Sound magazine. Second, whereas Total Film's 2004 list was the result of a 25-critic consensus,...
- 10/12/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Homage to the British filmmakers work to feature at the festival in February, where he will receive an honorary Golden Bear.
British director Ken Loach is to be awarded the Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 6-16).
The award ceremony will be accompanied by a screening of Raining Stones, Loach’s film about a man who makes disastrous choices in trying to raise the money for his daughter’s first Communion dress. It won the jury prize at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.
Berlin will also host a homage to Loach’s work, including 1966 TV drama Cathy Come Home, about a young mother who becomes homeless after her husband loses his job.
It was seen by 12 million people on its first broadcast - a quarter of the UK population - and is regularly cited as one of the best, most influential British TV dramas and led to the setting up of the...
British director Ken Loach is to be awarded the Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 6-16).
The award ceremony will be accompanied by a screening of Raining Stones, Loach’s film about a man who makes disastrous choices in trying to raise the money for his daughter’s first Communion dress. It won the jury prize at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.
Berlin will also host a homage to Loach’s work, including 1966 TV drama Cathy Come Home, about a young mother who becomes homeless after her husband loses his job.
It was seen by 12 million people on its first broadcast - a quarter of the UK population - and is regularly cited as one of the best, most influential British TV dramas and led to the setting up of the...
- 11/29/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Jimmy’s Hall, which has begun shooting in Ireland, is likely to be Ken Loach’s last narrative feature - but he will continue to direct documentaries.
Ken Loach’s upcoming drama, Jimmy’s Hall, will likely be his last, according to regular producer Rebecca O’Brien.
“This is probably the last narrative feature for Ken,” O’Brien told ScreenDaily. “There are a few documentary ideas kicking around, and that will probably be the way to go, but this is a serious period-drama with a lot of moving parts so it’s a big thing to put together. I think we should go out while we’re on top.”
O’Brien, who has produced more than a dozen features with Loach since 1990, said that the 77 year-old director is likely to continue to make documentaries and TV work but that he is “unlikely” to make another narrative feature.
“It’s such a huge operation and Ken doesn...
Ken Loach’s upcoming drama, Jimmy’s Hall, will likely be his last, according to regular producer Rebecca O’Brien.
“This is probably the last narrative feature for Ken,” O’Brien told ScreenDaily. “There are a few documentary ideas kicking around, and that will probably be the way to go, but this is a serious period-drama with a lot of moving parts so it’s a big thing to put together. I think we should go out while we’re on top.”
O’Brien, who has produced more than a dozen features with Loach since 1990, said that the 77 year-old director is likely to continue to make documentaries and TV work but that he is “unlikely” to make another narrative feature.
“It’s such a huge operation and Ken doesn...
- 8/8/2013
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Jimmy’s Hall, which has begun shooting in Ireland, is likely to be Ken Loach’s last narrative feature - but he will continue to direct documentaries.
Ken Loach’s upcoming drama, Jimmy’s Hall, will likely be his last, according to regular producer Rebecca O’Brien.
“This is probably the last narrative feature for Ken,” O’Brien told ScreenDaily. “There are a few documentary ideas kicking around, and that will probably be the way to go, but this is a serious period-drama with a lot of interconnecting elements so it’s a big thing to put together. I think we should go out while we’re on top.”
O’Brien, who has produced more than a dozen features with Loach since 1990, said that the 77 year-old director is likely to continue to make documentaries and TV work but that he is “unlikely” to make another narrative feature.
“It’s such a huge operation and Ken doesn...
Ken Loach’s upcoming drama, Jimmy’s Hall, will likely be his last, according to regular producer Rebecca O’Brien.
“This is probably the last narrative feature for Ken,” O’Brien told ScreenDaily. “There are a few documentary ideas kicking around, and that will probably be the way to go, but this is a serious period-drama with a lot of interconnecting elements so it’s a big thing to put together. I think we should go out while we’re on top.”
O’Brien, who has produced more than a dozen features with Loach since 1990, said that the 77 year-old director is likely to continue to make documentaries and TV work but that he is “unlikely” to make another narrative feature.
“It’s such a huge operation and Ken doesn...
- 8/8/2013
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Three Guatemalan teenagers' attempts to cross the murderous Mexico-us border region makes for gripping viewing
Even when Ken Loach doesn't have a film in competition in Cannes, his influence is still keenly felt. Spanish director Diego Quemada-Diez was a camera assistant on Loach's Carla's Song, Land and Freedom and Bread and Roses, and there is something very Loachian in this tough, absorbing, suspenseful drama showing in the Un Certain Regard section about three Guatemalan kids trying illegally to cross the Mexican border into the Us.
He has avowedly stuck to Loach's realist directing style: shooting in narrative sequence and using a semi-improvisatory approach on location. It is interesting that while British directors such as Andrea Arnold and Clio Barnard have hyper-evolved the Loach idiom into beautifully realised and photographed dramas of naturalism, Quemada-Diez is arguably closer to the gritty, grainy original.
The title comes from a Mexican ballad, Jaula de Oro,...
Even when Ken Loach doesn't have a film in competition in Cannes, his influence is still keenly felt. Spanish director Diego Quemada-Diez was a camera assistant on Loach's Carla's Song, Land and Freedom and Bread and Roses, and there is something very Loachian in this tough, absorbing, suspenseful drama showing in the Un Certain Regard section about three Guatemalan kids trying illegally to cross the Mexican border into the Us.
He has avowedly stuck to Loach's realist directing style: shooting in narrative sequence and using a semi-improvisatory approach on location. It is interesting that while British directors such as Andrea Arnold and Clio Barnard have hyper-evolved the Loach idiom into beautifully realised and photographed dramas of naturalism, Quemada-Diez is arguably closer to the gritty, grainy original.
The title comes from a Mexican ballad, Jaula de Oro,...
- 5/23/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Few filmmakers bring to life social issues as vividly as Ken Loach. Whether helming grand historical dramas about family, love and civil war (The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Land and Freedom) or character-driven films detailing the plight of the working class (Kes, Riff-Raff, Sweet Sixteen, Bread and Roses) Loach is a master of creating universal stories that are immensely relatable regardless of time or place. His latest effort, a documentary, The Spirit of ’45, which had its world premiere at this year’s Berlinale, continues the grand tradition with a story as relevant today as it was over half a …...
- 3/27/2013
- by Ariston Anderson
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
British filmmaker Ken Loach has never been one to hide his politics. In fact the throughline to his long, exemplary career, whether on TV or in theaters, whether documentary or narrative, whether small-scale domestic drama (“Sweet Sixteen,” “Kes,” “Ladybird, Ladybird”) or sweeping historical epic (“The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” “Land and Freedom”), has always been one of social awareness and overtly left-wing sensibilities. His characters are often working class people chafing against the injustice and disenfranchisement of their societal roles in the face of powerful contemporary or historical forces. And nowhere is this more in evidence than in his latest film, documentary “The Spirit of ‘45,” which details the rise and fall of the British welfare state: the post-war socialist program of social reform and nationalization of industry, and the subsequent partial or total dismantling of these moves...
- 2/14/2013
- by Jessica Kiang
- The Playlist
★★★★☆ Icíar Bollaín's 2010 film-within-a-film Even the Rain is a political drama set during the Bolivian Water Wars of 2000. A labour of love, by screenwriter Paul Laverty's own admission, having been ten years in the making, Laverty's own script went through several re-writes until the film went into production. It was entrusted not to director Ken Loach, but Bollaín, whom Laverty met whilst filming Loach's Land and Freedom (1995).
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 8/20/2012
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The top three won't budge, thanks to distributors wary of Euro 2012, while Rock of Ages crumbles and Red Lights flickers out
The immovable objects
For the third successive week, the top three places at the UK box-office are occupied by Prometheus, Men in Black 3 and Snow White and the Huntsman. The current market is the most becalmed since January 2010, when Avatar, Sherlock Holmes and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel dominated over a lengthy period. It's a case of strong product arriving for the half-term holiday, followed by two successive weekends of weaker films, with studios deterred by competition for eyeballs from Euro 2012 football. Prometheus leads the pack with a solid £19.45m, ahead of the likes of X-Men 3: The Last Stand (£19.22m) and Angels and Demons (£18.79m) in the all-time UK rankings. Top earner for the year remains The Avengers, in 17th place in the all-time chart, with £50.96m.
The immovable objects
For the third successive week, the top three places at the UK box-office are occupied by Prometheus, Men in Black 3 and Snow White and the Huntsman. The current market is the most becalmed since January 2010, when Avatar, Sherlock Holmes and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel dominated over a lengthy period. It's a case of strong product arriving for the half-term holiday, followed by two successive weekends of weaker films, with studios deterred by competition for eyeballs from Euro 2012 football. Prometheus leads the pack with a solid £19.45m, ahead of the likes of X-Men 3: The Last Stand (£19.22m) and Angels and Demons (£18.79m) in the all-time UK rankings. Top earner for the year remains The Avengers, in 17th place in the all-time chart, with £50.96m.
- 6/19/2012
- by Charles Gant
- The Guardian - Film News
A secret? Eric Cantona is a giggler
Ken Loach, 75, was born in Warwickshire. After grammar school, he went to Oxford University where he read law. He started his career in the theatre and went on to become a BBC television director in 1963. He worked on Z Cars and then the Wednesday Play, where he directed the classic Cathy Come Home. In 1969, Loach made the award-winning film Kes. His other movies include Land And Freedom, Sweet Sixteen, The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Looking For Eric. The Angels' Share, his new film, is out now.
What is your greatest fear?
I would have said relegation for Bath City, the football club I support, but we've just been relegated.
What is your earliest memory?
Getting my fingers trapped in a deckchair when I was three or four.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Tony Benn, for moving to...
Ken Loach, 75, was born in Warwickshire. After grammar school, he went to Oxford University where he read law. He started his career in the theatre and went on to become a BBC television director in 1963. He worked on Z Cars and then the Wednesday Play, where he directed the classic Cathy Come Home. In 1969, Loach made the award-winning film Kes. His other movies include Land And Freedom, Sweet Sixteen, The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Looking For Eric. The Angels' Share, his new film, is out now.
What is your greatest fear?
I would have said relegation for Bath City, the football club I support, but we've just been relegated.
What is your earliest memory?
Getting my fingers trapped in a deckchair when I was three or four.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Tony Benn, for moving to...
- 6/1/2012
- by Rosanna Greenstreet
- The Guardian - Film News
This smart fable stars Gael García Bernal as a heartthrob Herzog whose film crew starts to perpetuate the exploitation they hope to denounce
With Ken Loach's The Angels' Share bound for Cannes, here's a timely reminder of the film-maker's considerable influence. Regular Loach screenwriter Paul Laverty and director Icíar Bollaín (who acted in Land and Freedom) have constructed a smart, socially aware fable about a Spanish film crew – headed by Gael García Bernal as a kind of heartthrob Herzog – who arrive in Bolivia to shoot an epic about Columbus's entry into the New World, only to start blindly perpetuating the exploitation their own project seeks to denounce. As production gradually unravels amid protests over the privatisation of the region's water supply, some tense, pointed action ensues. Bollaín cranes her camera to highlight the real-world injustices developing beyond the on-location ego trips. There are striking performances from Luis Tosar as...
With Ken Loach's The Angels' Share bound for Cannes, here's a timely reminder of the film-maker's considerable influence. Regular Loach screenwriter Paul Laverty and director Icíar Bollaín (who acted in Land and Freedom) have constructed a smart, socially aware fable about a Spanish film crew – headed by Gael García Bernal as a kind of heartthrob Herzog – who arrive in Bolivia to shoot an epic about Columbus's entry into the New World, only to start blindly perpetuating the exploitation their own project seeks to denounce. As production gradually unravels amid protests over the privatisation of the region's water supply, some tense, pointed action ensues. Bollaín cranes her camera to highlight the real-world injustices developing beyond the on-location ego trips. There are striking performances from Luis Tosar as...
- 5/17/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Ulysses Gaze Review Pt.2: Harvey Keitel, Erland Josephson, Maia Morgenstern Ulysses' Gaze ends with his soliloquy of grief. The character's despair, even though he is now in sole possession of the reels, suggests that his real interest was never the old film footage. How it ties in to his own quest for past memories is uncertain. In fact, there is an air of self-delusion and disingenuity in his grief. As a performer, Harvey Keitel seems to be dreamily floating throughout much of the film. This approach mostly works, save for a few much too florid speeches. Erland Josephson seems a bit hyperactive as the historian, while Maia Morgenstern gives perhaps the film's finest performance — or rather, performances — even if some of the roles seem a bit too far out. Ulysses' Gaze also offers a magnificently effective score by Eleni Karaindrou, especially with great viola passages by Kim Kashkashian, which...
- 1/25/2012
- by Dan Schneider
- Alt Film Guide
Part of our Oscar 2010 coverage.
Leading up to the Oscars on March 7, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Scott Macaulay interviewed The Hurt Locker cinematographer Barry Ackroyd for our Spring 2009 issue. The Hurt Locker is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow), Best Actor (Jeremy Renner), Original Screenplay (Mark Boal), Best Cinematography (Ackroyd), Best Editing (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis), Best Original Score (Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders), Best Sound Editing (Paul N.J. Ottosson) and Best Sound Mixing (Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett).
Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd has shot almost 50 features with numerous directors, but when it comes time to discuss his work on Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, his collaborations with two other helmers need to be referenced. The first is Ken Loach, the director Ackroyd is most associated with. The Manchester,...
Leading up to the Oscars on March 7, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Scott Macaulay interviewed The Hurt Locker cinematographer Barry Ackroyd for our Spring 2009 issue. The Hurt Locker is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow), Best Actor (Jeremy Renner), Original Screenplay (Mark Boal), Best Cinematography (Ackroyd), Best Editing (Bob Murawski and Chris Innis), Best Original Score (Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders), Best Sound Editing (Paul N.J. Ottosson) and Best Sound Mixing (Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett).
Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd has shot almost 50 features with numerous directors, but when it comes time to discuss his work on Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, his collaborations with two other helmers need to be referenced. The first is Ken Loach, the director Ackroyd is most associated with. The Manchester,...
- 11/14/2011
- by Jason Guerrasio
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Back on the big screen in a new print that serves well the excellent naturalistic photography by Chris Menges (whose first feature film this was), the 75-year-old Loach's 1969 masterpiece of social criticism and humanist cinema is at the centre of the current well-deserved celebration of his 50 years as a film-maker. David Bradley is wonderful as the semi-literate Yorkshire schoolboy from a sink estate who shows up the inadequacy of the educational system by mastering a complex book on falconry to train a kestrel that becomes a symbol of freedom and spiritual affirmation in a world of cruelty and willed indifference. The bird's destruction and burial are as tragic, affecting and socially meaningful as anything in 20th-century art. I note new riches every time I see this film (for example, the noble kestrel is found nesting high in an old ruin from pre-industrial days), as well as happily revisiting such familiar ones as the contrasted teachers,...
- 9/10/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
The leftwing film director talks about the riots, his early work on television and the documentary he made for Save the Children 40 years ago that is about to be screened for the first time
About halfway through our interview, I call Ken Loach a sadist. The mild-mannered, faintly mole-like film director blinks hard, chuckles, and carries on. We are discussing a key aspect of his film-making: the element of surprise. Loach has spent his career depicting ordinary people, telling working-class stories as truthfully as possible, and he works distinctively – filming each scene in order, often using non-professional actors, encouraging improvisation.
They don't tend to see a full script in advance, and move through his films as confused as the audience about what lurks around the next corner. I ask Loach which surprise was most memorable, and he laughs incongruously through a few examples. He talks about an incident when an actor walked through a door,...
About halfway through our interview, I call Ken Loach a sadist. The mild-mannered, faintly mole-like film director blinks hard, chuckles, and carries on. We are discussing a key aspect of his film-making: the element of surprise. Loach has spent his career depicting ordinary people, telling working-class stories as truthfully as possible, and he works distinctively – filming each scene in order, often using non-professional actors, encouraging improvisation.
They don't tend to see a full script in advance, and move through his films as confused as the audience about what lurks around the next corner. I ask Loach which surprise was most memorable, and he laughs incongruously through a few examples. He talks about an incident when an actor walked through a door,...
- 8/29/2011
- by Kira Cochrane
- The Guardian - Film News
Barcelona Review editor Jill Adams selects her favourite films showcasing the vibrantly colourful, and gritty, Catalan capital
As featured in our Barcelona city guide
Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother), Pedro Almodóvar, 1999
What is arguably Almodóvar's greatest work begins with tragedy in Madrid, but soon moves to Barcelona, beginning with a breathtaking night-time glimpse of the Sagrada Familia, where the sheer buoyancy of the city steers the film in a powerful and dazzling new direction. Here Manuela (the magnificent Cecilia Roth) reunites with her old friend, the witty and wonderful transsexual prostitute Agrado (Antonia San Juan) – whose flat overlooks the Palau de la Música – while inadvertently immersing herself in the world of theatre and helping a naive young nun (Penélope Cruz). Art mirrors life mirrors art in this vibrantly colourful (literally), multi-layered tribute to women ("We are all women!'" says Almodóvar) that beautifully captures the dynamism and...
As featured in our Barcelona city guide
Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother), Pedro Almodóvar, 1999
What is arguably Almodóvar's greatest work begins with tragedy in Madrid, but soon moves to Barcelona, beginning with a breathtaking night-time glimpse of the Sagrada Familia, where the sheer buoyancy of the city steers the film in a powerful and dazzling new direction. Here Manuela (the magnificent Cecilia Roth) reunites with her old friend, the witty and wonderful transsexual prostitute Agrado (Antonia San Juan) – whose flat overlooks the Palau de la Música – while inadvertently immersing herself in the world of theatre and helping a naive young nun (Penélope Cruz). Art mirrors life mirrors art in this vibrantly colourful (literally), multi-layered tribute to women ("We are all women!'" says Almodóvar) that beautifully captures the dynamism and...
- 6/21/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Ken Loach brings the horrors of the war in Iraq back home to Liverpool in this gripping conspiracy thriller
All films are political, though most unconsciously so. Along with a handful of others (one thinks of the great Soviet directors of the 1920s, of the Italians Francesco Rosi and Gillo Pontecorvo, of the American John Sayles), Ken Loach is that relatively rare figure, the consciously political film-maker. Only the occasional Loach film lacks some well-considered left-wing agenda, and Route Irish, his response to the war in Iraq, takes up themes he has pursued on several occasions, including crimes committed in the name of the state, the brutalisation of militarism, the exploitation of the demoralised unemployed and the thoughtless ill-treatment of native populations.
Scripted by his regular screenwriter Paul Laverty, Route Irish is a characteristic Loach film, a gripping conspiracy thriller not unlike Hidden Agenda, his film on the Troubles. Quite...
All films are political, though most unconsciously so. Along with a handful of others (one thinks of the great Soviet directors of the 1920s, of the Italians Francesco Rosi and Gillo Pontecorvo, of the American John Sayles), Ken Loach is that relatively rare figure, the consciously political film-maker. Only the occasional Loach film lacks some well-considered left-wing agenda, and Route Irish, his response to the war in Iraq, takes up themes he has pursued on several occasions, including crimes committed in the name of the state, the brutalisation of militarism, the exploitation of the demoralised unemployed and the thoughtless ill-treatment of native populations.
Scripted by his regular screenwriter Paul Laverty, Route Irish is a characteristic Loach film, a gripping conspiracy thriller not unlike Hidden Agenda, his film on the Troubles. Quite...
- 3/20/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
As street demonstrations gain traction even in the UK, what can our young radicals learn from the cinema of protest?
Even a cursory look at the news over the past few months will tell you one thing: street protests and radical movements are gaining traction. Our students would seem to so far have had somewhat less political impact than the demonstrators in Tunisia, but they don't appear to have been disheartened, calling for a national walkout in favour of the Education Maintenance Allowance (Ema) on Wednesday, and a national demonstration on Saturday against fees, cuts, and general swinishness from those on high. So what can our own young radicals learn from the movies?
The first port of call for any budding revolutionary has to be The Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo's thrillingly realistic recreation of the urban guerrilla campaign during the Algerian war of independence. Obviously, the stakes were...
Even a cursory look at the news over the past few months will tell you one thing: street protests and radical movements are gaining traction. Our students would seem to so far have had somewhat less political impact than the demonstrators in Tunisia, but they don't appear to have been disheartened, calling for a national walkout in favour of the Education Maintenance Allowance (Ema) on Wednesday, and a national demonstration on Saturday against fees, cuts, and general swinishness from those on high. So what can our own young radicals learn from the movies?
The first port of call for any budding revolutionary has to be The Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo's thrillingly realistic recreation of the urban guerrilla campaign during the Algerian war of independence. Obviously, the stakes were...
- 1/31/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Made in Dagenham has made the Ford machinists famous but there is a long history of women striking for equality at work
In Made in Dagenham, Rita O'Grady, the leader of the women strikers, is asked, "What does it feel like to make history?" Rightly, she looks perplexed, as those "ordinary people" who make history are seldom aware at the time of the historical significance of their actions. That usually only ever becomes apparent with hindsight.
But make history the Ford women machinists did. Their action was the inspiration for the Equal Pay Act 1970 – even if only coming into force on 29 December 1975 and still not making equal pay a reality were its outcomes.
Yet women strikers before and afterwards also deserve their place in the pantheon of the struggle for women's equality in the workplace. Starting with the London matchgirls strike over working conditions in 1888 and the London bus-girls' strike...
In Made in Dagenham, Rita O'Grady, the leader of the women strikers, is asked, "What does it feel like to make history?" Rightly, she looks perplexed, as those "ordinary people" who make history are seldom aware at the time of the historical significance of their actions. That usually only ever becomes apparent with hindsight.
But make history the Ford women machinists did. Their action was the inspiration for the Equal Pay Act 1970 – even if only coming into force on 29 December 1975 and still not making equal pay a reality were its outcomes.
Yet women strikers before and afterwards also deserve their place in the pantheon of the struggle for women's equality in the workplace. Starting with the London matchgirls strike over working conditions in 1888 and the London bus-girls' strike...
- 10/4/2010
- by Gregor Gall
- The Guardian - Film News
This week's podcast goes from kids to kidnapping with two great British character actors: Ian Hart on playing a wayward father in A Boy Called Dad, and Eddie Marsan on playing a menacing criminal in The Disappearance of Alice Creed. Plus, Iron Man 2 is reviewed.
Ian Hart, who first came to wide attention as John Lennon in Backbeat in 1994, has consistently brought an edgy blend of humour, anger and tenderness to his subsequent roles in everything from Ken Loach's Land and Freedom to Prof Quirrell in Harry Potter, and now Joe, an absentee father whose 14-year-old son himself becomes a father, in new film A Boy Called Dad. The actor tells Jason Solomons about improvising with young co-star Kyle Ward, how That Sinking Feeling first inspired him to act and about holding out for parts.
Peter Bradshaw then joins Jason to review the week's key films: Robert Downey Jr in unbeatable,...
Ian Hart, who first came to wide attention as John Lennon in Backbeat in 1994, has consistently brought an edgy blend of humour, anger and tenderness to his subsequent roles in everything from Ken Loach's Land and Freedom to Prof Quirrell in Harry Potter, and now Joe, an absentee father whose 14-year-old son himself becomes a father, in new film A Boy Called Dad. The actor tells Jason Solomons about improvising with young co-star Kyle Ward, how That Sinking Feeling first inspired him to act and about holding out for parts.
Peter Bradshaw then joins Jason to review the week's key films: Robert Downey Jr in unbeatable,...
- 4/29/2010
- by Jason Solomons, Peter Bradshaw, Jason Phipps, Observer
- The Guardian - Film News
New York-based independent film company Paladin, formed last fall by distribution veteran Mark Urman, announced today that it will release Angela Ismailos’ Great Directors, a celebration of films and filmmaking starring ten of the world’s most acclaimed, provocative, and individualistic living directors. The documentary had its world premiere at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, and was produced through Ismailos’ Anisma Films. Paladin will open the film in NY, Los Angeles, and other top markets in late Spring.
A deeply personal and intimate look at the art of cinema and the artists who create it, Great Directors features original, in-depth conversations with world-class filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci (The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor, The Dreamers), David Lynch (The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive), Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, The Queen, High Fidelity), Agnes Varda (Vagabond/Without Roof or Rule), Ken Loach (Hidden Agenda, Land and Freedom, Land and Freedom...
A deeply personal and intimate look at the art of cinema and the artists who create it, Great Directors features original, in-depth conversations with world-class filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci (The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor, The Dreamers), David Lynch (The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive), Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, The Queen, High Fidelity), Agnes Varda (Vagabond/Without Roof or Rule), Ken Loach (Hidden Agenda, Land and Freedom, Land and Freedom...
- 2/18/2010
- by Allan Ford
- Filmofilia
Leading light of social-realist British cinema receives accolade from Eric Cantona who hails 'genius' director
Grit, not glamour, proved the order of the day at the 22nd annual European film awards, which took place inside a former power station in Germany's industrial heartland, and handed a lifetime achievement award to the director Ken Loach.
The leading light of social-realist British cinema seemed to relish his trip to the Ruhr region, a landscape dominated by smokestacks and coal-mines. "It reminds me that we used to have an industrial heartland in my country too," he enthused. "Until Margaret Thatcher stuck a dagger through it."
Loach, 73, was honoured for a body of work that includes Kes, Riff-Raff, Land and Freedom and The Wind That Shakes the Barley. He received the award from Eric Cantona, the star of his latest film, Looking For Eric. The former footballer hailed Loach as "a genius" and added:...
Grit, not glamour, proved the order of the day at the 22nd annual European film awards, which took place inside a former power station in Germany's industrial heartland, and handed a lifetime achievement award to the director Ken Loach.
The leading light of social-realist British cinema seemed to relish his trip to the Ruhr region, a landscape dominated by smokestacks and coal-mines. "It reminds me that we used to have an industrial heartland in my country too," he enthused. "Until Margaret Thatcher stuck a dagger through it."
Loach, 73, was honoured for a body of work that includes Kes, Riff-Raff, Land and Freedom and The Wind That Shakes the Barley. He received the award from Eric Cantona, the star of his latest film, Looking For Eric. The former footballer hailed Loach as "a genius" and added:...
- 12/13/2009
- by Xan Brooks
- The Guardian - Film News
TV and film director Ken Loach will be honored at the 22nd European Film Awards with a lifetime achievement award for his outstanding and dedicated body of work.
Loach's first film was in 1967 when he made "Poor Cow." His breakthrough came in 1970 with "Kes" and "Family Life" in 1971. He has then established himself as a politically and socially committed filmmaker with "Riff Raff," "Land and Freedom," and "Sweet Sixteen."
In 1966, he made the influential documentary drama "Cathy Come Home," about working class people affected by homelessness and unemployment.
He won the Palme d"Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 for "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," a film about the Irish War of Independence and the following Irish Civil War in the '20s.
Loach's first film was in 1967 when he made "Poor Cow." His breakthrough came in 1970 with "Kes" and "Family Life" in 1971. He has then established himself as a politically and socially committed filmmaker with "Riff Raff," "Land and Freedom," and "Sweet Sixteen."
In 1966, he made the influential documentary drama "Cathy Come Home," about working class people affected by homelessness and unemployment.
He won the Palme d"Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 for "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," a film about the Irish War of Independence and the following Irish Civil War in the '20s.
- 9/15/2009
- icelebz.com
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