Ken Loach is an English film director known for his socially critical films about working class lives and social issues. Some of his most famous films include Kes (1969), Cathy Come Home (1966), and The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Loach's films are characterized by their focus on ordinary people and socially realistic portrayals of working class struggles, poverty, and labor issues. He often uses non-professional actors and regional dialects. Throughout his career, some of Loach's films have been controversial or censored due to their political messages.

1. Ken Loach
Kenneth Charles "Ken" Loach (born 17 June 1936) is
an English film and television director. He is known for
his socially critical directing style and for his socialist ide-
als, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues
such as poverty, homelessness (Cathy Come Home, 1966)
and labour rights (Riff-Raff, 1991, and The Navigators,
2001).
Loach’s film Kes (1969) was voted the seventh greatest
British film of the 20th century in a poll by the British
Film Institute. Two of his films, The Wind That Shakes
the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016) received the
Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making him the
ninth filmmaker to win the prestigious award twice.[1]
1 Life and career
Loach was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the son of
Vivien (née Hamlin) and John Loach.[2]
He attended
King Edward VI Grammar School and went on to study
law at St Peter’s College, Oxford.[3]
Loach’s ten contributions to the BBC’s Wednesday Play
anthology series include the docudramas Up the Junc-
tion (1965), Cathy Come Home (1966) and In Two Minds
(1967). They portray working-class people in conflict
with the authorities above them. Three of his early plays
are believed to be lost films.[4]
His 1965 play Three Clear
Sundays dealt with capital punishment, and was broadcast
at a time when the debate was at a height in the United
Kingdom.[5]
Up the Junction, adapted by Nell Dunn from
her book with the assistance of Loach, deals with an ille-
gal abortion while the leading characters in Cathy Come
Home, by Jeremy Sandford, are affected by homeless-
ness, unemployment, and the workings of Social Ser-
vices. In Two Minds, written by David Mercer, concerns
a young schizophrenic woman’s experiences of the men-
tal health system. Tony Garnett began to work as his
producer in this period, a professional connection which
would last until the end of the 1970s.[6]
During this period, he also directed the absurdist comedy
The End of Arthur’s Marriage, about which he later said
that he was “the wrong man for the job”.[7]
Coinciding with his work for The Wednesday Play, Loach
began to direct feature films for the cinema, with Poor
Cow (1967) and Kes (1969). The latter recounts the story
of a troubled boy and his kestrel, and is based on the novel
A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. The film was widely
acclaimed, although the use of Yorkshire dialect through-
out the film restricted its distribution, with some Amer-
ican executives at United Artists saying that they would
have found a film in Hungarian easier to understand.[8]
The British Film Institute named it No 7 in its list of
best British films of the twentieth century, published in
1999.[9][10]
During the 1970s and 1980s, Loach’s films were less
successful, often suffering from poor distribution, lack
of interest and political censorship. His documentary
The Save the Children Fund Film (1971) was commis-
sioned by the charity, who subsequently disliked it so
much they attempted to have the negative destroyed. It
was only screened publicly for the first time on 1 Septem-
ber 2011, at the BFI Southbank.[11]
Loach concentrated
on television documentaries rather than fiction during the
1980s, and many of these films are now difficult to ac-
cess as the television companies have not released them
on video or DVD. At the end of the 1980s, he directed
some television advertisements for Tennent’s Lager to
earn money.[12]
Loach’s 1981 documentary A Question of Leadership in-
terviewed members of the Iron and Steel Trades Confed-
eration (the main trade union for Britain’s steel indus-
try) with regards to their 14-week strike in 1980, and
recorded much criticism of the union’s leadership for con-
ceding over the issues in the strike. Subsequently, Loach
made a four-part series named Questions of Leadership
which subjected the leadership of other trade unions to
similar scrutiny from their members, but this has never
been broadcast. Frank Chapple, leader of the Electrical,
Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union,
walked out of the interview and made a complaint to the
Independent Broadcasting Authority. A separate com-
plaint was made by Terry Duffy of the Amalgamated En-
gineering and Electrical Union. The series was due to
be broadcast during the Trade Union Congress confer-
ence in 1983, but Channel 4 decided against broadcasting
the series following the complaints.[13]
Anthony Hayward
claimed in 2004 that the media tycoon Robert Maxwell
had put pressure on Central’s board, of which he had
become a director, to withdraw Questions of Leadership
at the time he was buying the Daily Mirror newspaper
and needed the co-operation of union leaders, especially
Chapple.[14]
Which Side Are You On? (1985), about the songs and
poems of the UK miners’ strike, was originally due to
be broadcast on The South Bank Show, but was rejected
on the grounds that it was too politically unbalanced for
an arts show. The film was eventually transmitted on
1

2. 2 2 FILM STYLE
Channel 4, but only after it won a prize at an Italian film
festival.[15]
Three weeks after the end of the strike, the
film End of the Battle ... Not the End of the War? was
broadcast by Channel 4 in its Diverse Strands series. This
film argued that the Conservative Party had planned the
destruction of the National Union of Mineworkers' polit-
ical power from the late 1970s.[16]
Working with writer Jim Allen, Loach was due to direct
a play named Perdition, which suggested that Zionists in
Hungary collaborated with the Nazis to help the opera-
tion of the Holocaust in return for allowing a few Jews
to emigrate to Palestine. The play was due to run at the
Royal Court Theatre in 1987, but its run was cancelled 36
hours before the first night following widespread protests
and allegations of anti-semitism.[12][17]
The late 1980s and the 1990s saw the production of a se-
ries of films such as Hidden Agenda, dealing with the po-
litical troubles in Northern Ireland, Carla’s Song, which
was set partially in Nicaragua, and Land and Freedom,
examining the Republican resistance in the Spanish Civil
War. He directed the Courtroom Drama reconstructions
in the docu-film McLibel, concerning the longest libel trial
in English history. Interspersed with political films were
smaller dramas such as Raining Stones a working-class
drama concerning an unemployed man’s efforts to buy
a communion dress for his young daughter.
On 28 May 2006, Loach won the Palme d'Or at the
2006 Cannes Film Festival for his film The Wind That
Shakes the Barley,[18]
a film about the Irish War of Inde-
pendence and the subsequent Irish Civil War during the
1920s. In characteristic fashion this sweeping political-
historical drama was followed by It’s a Free World, a story
of one woman’s attempt to establish an illegal placement
service for migrant workers in London. Throughout the
2000s Loach continued to intersperse wider political dra-
mas such as Bread and Roses (which focused on the Los
Angeles janitors strike) and Route Irish (set in the Iraq oc-
cupation) with smaller examinations of personal relation-
ships. Ae Fond Kiss explored an inter-racial love affair,
Sweet Sixteen a teenager’s relationship with his mother,
and My Name is Joe an alcoholic’s struggle to stay sober.
His most commercially successful recent film is 2009’s
Looking for Eric, featuring a depressed postman’s conver-
sations with the ex-Manchester United football star, Eric
Cantona (played by Cantona himself). The film won the
Magritte Award for Best Co-Production. Although suc-
cessful in Manchester, the film was a flop in many other
cities, especially cities with rival football teams to Manch-
ester United.[4]
In 2011 Loach released Route Irish, an examination of
private contractors working in the Iraqi occupation. A
thematic consistency throughout his films, whether they
examine broad political situations, or smaller intimate
dramas, is his focus on personal relationships. The
sweeping political dramas (Land and Freedom, Bread
and Roses, The Wind that Shakes the Barley) examine
wider political forces in the context of relationships be-
tween family members (Bread and Roses, The Wind that
Shakes the Barley, Carla’s Song), comrades in struggle
(Land and Freedom) or close friends (Route Irish). In a
2011 interview for the Financial Times, Loach explains
how “The politics are embedded into the characters and
the narrative, which is a more sophisticated way of doing
it”.[19]
Loach’s 2013 film The Angels’ Share is centred on a young
Scottish troublemaker who is given one final opportu-
nity to stay out of jail. Newcomer Paul Brannigan, 24,
from Glasgow, played the lead role.[20]
The film com-
peted for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festi-
val[21]
where Loach won the Jury Prize.[22]
Loach’s 2014 film Jimmy’s Hall was selected to compete
for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the
2014 Cannes Film Festival.[23]
In 2016, Loach won his second Palme d'Or for I, Daniel
Blake.[24]
2 Film style
Ken Loach at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
In May 2010, Loach referred in an interview to the
three films that have influenced him most: Vittorio De
Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948), Miloš Forman's Loves of a
Blonde (1965) and Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Al-
giers (1966). De Sica’s film had a particularly profound
effect. He noted: “It made me realise that cinema could
be about ordinary people and their dilemmas. It wasn't a

3. 3
film about stars, or riches or absurd adventures”.[25]
Many of Loach’s films include a large amount of tradi-
tional dialect, such as the Yorkshire dialect in Kes and in
The Price of Coal, Cockney in Up the Junction, Scouse
in The Big Flame, Potteries dialect in The Rank and
File, Glaswegian in My Name is Joe and the dialect of
Greenock in Sweet Sixteen. Many of these films have
been subtitled when shown in other English-speaking
countries.[26]
When asked about this in an interview with
Cineaste, Loach replied:
If you ask people to speak differently, you
lose more than the voice. Everything about
them changes. If I asked you not to speak with
an American accent, your whole personality
would change. That’s how you are. My hunch
is that it’s better to use subtitles than not, even
if that limits the films to an art-house circuit.[26]
Loach was amongst the first British directors to use
swearing in his films. Mary Whitehouse complained
about swearing in Cathy Come Home and Up The Junc-
tion,[27]
the 1969 film The Big Flame was an early (pos-
sibly first) instance of the word shit on the BBC, and
the certificate to Kes caused some debate owing to the
profanity,[28]
but these films have relatively few swear
words compared to his later work. In particular, the film
Sweet Sixteen was awarded an 18 certificate on the basis
of the very large amount of swearing, despite the lack of
serious violence or sexual content, which led Loach to
encourage under-18s to break the law to see the film.[29]
3 Personal life
Loach lives with his wife, Lesley, in Bath. His son Jim
Loach has also become a television and film director.
A younger son died in a car accident, aged five, and he
also has another son and two daughters. He announced
his retirement from film-making in 2014 but soon after
restarted his career following the election of a Conserva-
tive government in the UK general election of 2015.[30]
4 Political activities
Throughout his career, some of Loach’s films have been
shelved for political reasons. In a 2011 interview with The
Guardian newspaper he said:
It makes you angry, not on your own be-
half, but on behalf of the people whose voices
weren't allowed to be heard. When you had
trade unions, ordinary people, rank and file,
never been on television, never been inter-
viewed, and they're not allowed to be heard,
that’s scandalous. And you see it over and over
again. I mean, we heard very little from the
kids in the riots. You hear some people being
inarticulate in a hood, but very few people were
actually allowed to speak.[31]
In the same interview his focus on working people’s lives
is explained thus:
I think the underlying factors regarding the
riots are plain for anyone with eyes to see ... It
seems to me any economic structure that could
give young people a future has been destroyed.
Traditionally young people would be drawn
into the world of work, and into groups of
adults who would send the boys for a lefthanded
screwdriver, or a pot of elbow grease, and so
they'd be sent up in that way, but they would
also learn about responsibilities, and learn a
trade, and be defined by their skills. Well, they
destroyed that. Thatcher destroyed that. She
consciously destroyed the workforces in places
like the railways, for example, and the mines,
and the steelworks ... so that transition from
adolescence to adulthood was destroyed, con-
sciously, and knowingly.
Loach argues that working people’s struggles are inher-
ently dramatic:
They live life very vividly, and the stakes
are very high if you don't have a lot of money
to cushion your life. Also, because they're the
front line of what we came to call the class war.
Either through being workers without work, or
through being exploited where they were work-
ing. And I guess for a political reason, be-
cause we felt, and I still think, that if there is
to be change, it will come from below. It won't
come from people who have a lot to lose, it will
come from people who will have everything to
gain.[31]
A member of the Labour Party from the early 1960s,
Loach left in the mid-1990s.[32]
In November 2004, he
was elected to the national council of the Respect Coali-
tion.[32]
He stood for election to the European Parliament
on a Respect mandate. Since then he has broken with
Respect.[33]
In 2007, Loach was one of more than 100 artists and writ-
ers who signed an open letter calling on the San Francisco
International LGBT Film Festival “to honour calls for an
international boycott of Israeli political and cultural insti-
tutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of
the LGBT film festival and not co-sponsoring events with
the Israeli consulate”.[34][35]
Loach also joined “54 inter-
national figures in the literary and cultural fields” in sign-
ing a letter that stated, in part, “celebrating 'Israel at 60' is

4. 4 4 POLITICAL ACTIVITIES
tantamount to dancing on Palestinian graves to the haunt-
ing tune of lingering dispossession and multi-faceted in-
justice”. The letter was published in the International
Herald Tribune on 8 May 2008.[36]
Responding to a report, which Loach described as “a red
herring”, on the growth of antisemitism since the be-
ginning of the Gaza War of 2008–2009, he said: “If
there has been a rise I am not surprised. In fact, it
is perfectly understandable because Israel feeds feelings
of anti-Semitism”. He added that “no-one can condone
violence”.[37]
In May 2009, organisers of the Edinburgh International
Film Festival (EIFF) returned a £300 grant from the
Israeli Embassy after speaking with Loach. He was
supporting a boycott of the festival called for by the
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural
Boycott of Israel (PACBI) campaign. In response, for-
mer Channel 4 chief executive Sir Jeremy Isaacs de-
scribed Loach’s intervention as an act of censorship, say-
ing: “They must not allow someone who has no real po-
sition, no rock to stand on, to interfere with their pro-
gramming”. Later, a spokesman for the EIFF said that
although it had returned £300 to the Israeli Embassy, the
festival itself would fund Israeli filmmaker Tali Shalom-
Ezer's travel to Edinburgh from its own budget.[38][39][40]
In an open letter to Shalom-Ezer, Loach wrote: “From
the beginning, Israel and its supporters have attacked their
critics as anti-semites or racists. It is a tactic to undermine
rational debate. To be crystal clear: as a film maker you
will receive a warm welcome in Edinburgh. You are not
censored or rejected. The opposition was to the Festi-
val’s taking money from the Israeli state”.[41]
To his crit-
ics, he added later: “The boycott, as anyone who takes the
trouble to investigate knows, is aimed at the Israeli state”.
Loach said he had a “respectful and reasoned” conversa-
tion with event organisers, saying they should not be ac-
cepting funds from Israel.[42]
In June 2009, Loach, Paul Laverty (writer) and Re-
becca O'Brien (producer) withdrew their film Looking
For Eric from the Melbourne International Film Festival,
where the Israeli Embassy is a sponsor, after the festi-
val declined the withdraw that sponsorship.[43]
The festi-
val’s chief executive, Richard Moore, compared Loach’s
tactics to blackmail, stating that “we will not partici-
pate in a boycott against the State of Israel, just as we
would not contemplate boycotting films from China or
other nations involved in difficult long-standing histori-
cal disputes”. Australian lawmaker Michael Danby also
criticised Loach’s tactics stating that “Israelis and Aus-
tralians have always had a lot in common, including con-
tempt for the irritating British penchant for claiming cul-
tural superiority. Melbourne is a very different place to
Londonistan”.[44]
Loach, Laverty and O'Brien subsequently wrote that:
We feel duty bound to take advice from
those living at the sharp end inside the oc-
cupied territories. We would also encourage
other filmmakers and actors invited to festi-
vals to check for Israeli state backing before
attending, and if so, to respect the boycott. Is-
raeli filmmakers are not the target. State in-
volvement is. In the grand scale of things it
is a tiny contribution to a growing movement,
but the example of South Africa should give us
heart.[45]
Together with John Pilger and Jemima Khan, Loach was
among the six people in court willing to offer surety for
Julian Assange when he was arrested in London on 7 De-
cember 2010.[46]
In a recent interview with ShortList[47]
magazine he said: “It’s clear that he’s being set up. Clearly
the Yanks want to get him back and either imprison him
for a long time, or worse. We need a bit of solidarity with
someone who has just told us things that we were entitled
to know”. The bail money was lost in June 2012 when a
judge ordered it to be forfeited, as Assange had sought to
escape the jurisdiction of the English courts by entering
the London embassy of Ecuador.[48]
Loach supported the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coali-
tion in the London Assembly election, 2012.[49]
He wrote
a letter to The Observer in 2012 condemning the Globe
Theatre for allowing an Israeli theatre company to per-
form there.[50]
In November 2012, Loach turned down the Turin Film
Festival award, after learning that the National Museum
of Cinema in Turin had outsourced cleaning and security
services. As a consequence, workers had been dismissed,
while there had been allegations of intimidation and ha-
rassment. Some workers lost their jobs after opposing a
wage cut.[51]
With the support of the activist Kate Hudson and aca-
demic Gilbert Achcar, Loach launched a campaign in
March 2013 for a new left-wing party[52]
which was
founded as "Left Unity" on 30 November.
In February 2013, Loach was among those who gave their
support to the People’s Assembly in a letter published by
The Guardian newspaper.[53]
He also gave a speech at the
People’s Assembly Conference held at Westminster Cen-
tral Hall on 22 June 2013.
In July 2014, Loach indicated support for Scottish Inde-
pendence. He stated
For a few hours, Scottish people have con-
trol over their future. They can choose to keep
that power or give it back to a state domi-
nated by the British ruling class. Independence
would not solve the problems but it would give
Scottish people the power to start to create a
more just, more fair, more sustainable soci-
ety. When the Sandinistas in Nicaragua kicked
out a dictator and began to build hospitals and
schools and take industries into public own-

5. 5
ership, they were opposed by the U.S. They
were the ‘threat of a good example’. If Scot-
land leaves the UK, we in England will face
a Tory majority. But if an independent Scot-
land is a success it can be, for us, the threat
of a good example and show that a progressive
government can improve lives now and make
the future sustainable. A Scottish government
that reproduces a pale version of Westminster
politics will be a wasted opportunity. A Scot-
tish government that puts the long term inter-
ests of the people first could move the centre
of the political debate to the left and do us all
a favour.[54]
Loach supports PACBI.[55]
He has also expressed strong
support for Chechen independence from Russia.[56]
In 2016, Loach made a one-hour documentary during the
run-up to that year’s Labour Leadership election called In
Conversation with Jeremy Corbyn.[57][58]
5 Criticism
During the 1960s, Grace Wyndham Goldie, the BBC's
head of Talks (i.e. non-fiction), complained that Loach
appeared to be side-stepping the Corporation’s normally
stringent rules about political partisanship by using some
documentary material in his fiction.[4]
The first episode of Days of Hope caused considerable
controversy in the British media owing to its critical de-
piction of the military in World War I,[59]
and particu-
larly over a scene where conscientious objectors were tied
up to stakes outside trenches in view of enemy fire after
refusing to obey orders.[4][60]
An ex-serviceman subse-
quently contacted The Times newspaper with an illustra-
tion from the time of a similar scene.[60]
His films Hidden Agenda and The Wind That Shakes The
Barley have been criticised as being too sympathetic to
the Irish Republican Army and Provisional Irish Repub-
lican Army.[4]
Conservative MP Ivor Stanbrook referred
to Hidden Agenda as “the IRA entry at Cannes”.[61]
In
the case of the latter film, Loach was criticised for tak-
ing public money from the UK Film Council to make a
film that sided with the IRA against the UK.[4]
The Daily
Mail published an article entitled, “Why does Ken Loach
loathe his country so much?".[61]
Loach was criticised for his call for a boycott of the
2009 Edinburgh Film Festival if it showed a film by Tali
Shalom-Ezer, who had accepted £300 from the Israeli
embassy for travel expenses.[62]
An editorial in The Scots-
man noted that Loach had not called for the same boycott
of the Cannes Film Festival, where his film was in com-
petition with some Israeli films. [62]
Radical feminist Julie Bindel has criticised Loach’s recent
films for a lack of female characters who are not sim-
ply love interests for the male characters, although she
praised his early film, Cathy Come Home.[63]
Bindel also
wrote, “Loach appears not to know gay people exist”.[63]
However, his early work Poor Cow was praised for “un-
usual sensitivity to a woman’s point of view”.[64]
6 Honours
Loach turned down an OBE in 1977. In a Radio Times
interview, published in March 2001, he said:
It’s all the things I think are despicable:
patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the
name of the British Empire, which is a mon-
ument of exploitation and conquest. I turned
down the OBE because it’s not a club you want
to join when you look at the villains who've got
it.[65]
Loach has been awarded honorary doctorates by
the University of Bath, the University of Birming-
ham, Staffordshire University, and Keele University.[66]
Oxford University awarded him an Honorary Doctor of
Civil Law degree in June 2005. He is also an honorary
fellow of his alma mater, St Peter’s College, Oxford.[67]
In May 2006, he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship at
the BAFTA TV Awards.
Loach also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-
Watt University in 2003 [68]
He received the 2003 Praemium Imperiale (lit. “World
Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince
Takamatsu") in the category Film/Theatre.
In 2014 he was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear
at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.[69][70]
The Raindance Film Festival announced in September
2016 that it would be honouring Loach with its inaugural
Auteur Award, to recognise his “achievements in film-
making and contribution to the film industry.” [71]
7 Filmography
7.1 Television
• Catherine (“Teletale”, 1964)
• Z-Cars (series episodes, 1964)
• Diary of a Young Man (series, 1964)
• Tap on the Shoulder (The Wednesday Play, 1965)
• Wear a Very Big Hat (The Wednesday Play, 1965)
• Three Clear Sundays (The Wednesday Play, 1965)

6. 6 8 SEE ALSO
• Up the Junction (The Wednesday Play', 1965)
• The End of Arthur’s Marriage (The Wednesday
Play', 1965)
• The Coming Out Party (The Wednesday Play', 1965)
• Cathy Come Home (The Wednesday Play', 1966)
• In Two Minds (The Wednesday Play', 1967)
• The Golden Vision (The Wednesday Play', 1968)
• The Big Flame (The Wednesday Play', 1969)
• The Rank and File (Play for Today, 1971)
• After a Lifetime (“Sunday Night Theatre”, 1971)
• A Misfortune (“Full House”, 1973)
• Days of Hope (serial, 1975)
• The Price of Coal (1977)
• The Gamekeeper (1980)
• Auditions (1980)
• A Question of Leadership (1981)
• The Red and the Blue: Impressions of Two Political
Conferences – Autumn 1982 (1983)
• Questions of Leadership (1983/4, untransmitted)
• Which Side Are You On? (1985)
• End of the Battle... Not the End of the War (“Diverse
Reports”, 1985)
• Time to Go (“Split Screen”, 1989)
• The View From the Woodpile (1989)
• The Arthur Legend (“Dispatches”, 1991)
• The Flickering Flame (1996)
• Another City: A Week in the Life of Bath’s Football
Club (1998)
7.2 Cinema
• Poor Cow (1967)
• Kes (1969) (as Kenneth Loach)
• The Save the Children Fund Film (1971)
• Family Life (1971)
• Black Jack (1979)
• Looks and Smiles (1981) (as Kenneth Loach)
• Fatherland (1986)
• Hidden Agenda (1990). Cannes Special Jury Prize.
• Riff-Raff (1991). European Film Award Best Pic-
ture
• Raining Stones (1993). Cannes Special Jury Prize.
• Ladybird, Ladybird (1994)
• Land and Freedom (1995). FIPRESCI International
Critics Prize; Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the
Cannes Film Festival; European Film Award Best
Picture
• A Contemporary Case for Common Ownership
(1995)
• Carla’s Song (1996)
• The Flickering Flame (1997)
• My Name Is Joe (1998)
• Bread and Roses (2000)
• The Navigators (2001)
• Sweet Sixteen (2002)
• 11'09"01 September 11 (segment “United Kingdom”)
(2002)
• Ae Fond Kiss... (2004)
• McLibel (2005)
• Tickets (2005), along with Ermanno Olmi and
Abbas Kiarostami
• The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) Palme
d'Or, Cannes
• It’s a Free World... (2007) Screenplay Osella at 64th
Venice Film Festival
• Looking for Eric (2009)
• Route Irish (2010)
• The Angels’ Share (2012)
• The Spirit of '45 (2013)
• Jimmy’s Hall (2014)
• I, Daniel Blake (2016) Palme d'Or, Cannes
8 See also
• Kitchen sink realism

7. 7
9 References
[1] “Ken Loach wins the 2016 Palme d'Or cementing his
place in the festival’s pantheon of great directors”. The
Telegraph. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
[2] “Ken Loach Biography (1936–)". Filmreference.com.
Retrieved 13 April 2013.
[3] Ken Loach at Sixteen Films. Retrieved 31 July 2016
[4] “BFI Screenonline: Ken Loach: The Controversies”.
[5] Insert booklet for DVD boxset Ken Loach at the BBC
[6] Jason Deans and Maggie Brown (April 28, 2013). “Up the
Junction’s Tony Garnett reveals mother’s backstreet abor-
tion death”. The Guardian. London.
[7] "End Of Arthur’s Marriage, The (1965)". BFI screenon-
line. 2003–14. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
[8] Interview – Ken Loach (KES, 1970), La Semaine de la
critique.
[9] A selection of the favourite British films of the 20th cen-
tury Archived 14 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
[10] “Best 100 British films – full list”. BBC.
[11] Stephen Bates “Ken Loach documentary to get first
screening after 40 years”, The Guardian, 20 July 2011
[12] “Ken Loach interview”. Time Out London.
[13] Fuller, Graham (1998). Loach on Loach (Directors on Di-
rectors). London: Faber and Faber. p. 68. ISBN 978-
0571179183.
[14] Hayward, Anthony (2004). Which Side Are You On? Ken
Loach and His Films. Bloomsbury.
[15] “BFI Screenonline: Which Side Are You On? (1984)".
[16] “BFI Screenonline: End of the Battle... (1985)".
[17] “BFI Screenonline: Allen, Jim (1926–99) Biography”.
[18] “Festival de Cannes: The Wind That Shakes the Barley”.
festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 13 December 2009.
[19] “Ken Loach”. Slate Magazine. 27 August 2011.
[20] Hudson, David. “Ken Loach at 75”. MUBI.
[21] “2012 Official Selection”. Cannes. Retrieved 19 April
2012.
[22] “Awards 2012”. Cannes. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
[23] “2014 Official Selection”. Cannes. Retrieved 17 April
2014.
[24] Benjamin Lee. “Cannes 2016: Ken Loach’s I, Daniel
Blake wins the Palme d'Or – live!". the Guardian.
[25] Lamont, Tom. “Films that changed my life: Ken Loach”.
The Observer. London. Retrieved May 2010. Check date
values in: |access-date= (help)
[26] Dialect in Films: Examples of South Yorkshire. Gram-
matical and Lexical Features from Ken Loach Films, Di-
alectologica 3, page 6
[27] Fletcher, Martin (10 November 2012). “BAN THIS
FILTH! Letters from the Mary Whitehouse Archive,
Edited by Ben Thompson”. The Independent. London.
Retrieved 1 January 2016.
[28] “BBFC Case Studies – Kes”. BBFC. Retrieved 23 August
2014.
[29] Davies, Hugh (4 October 2002). “Break law to see my
film, Ken Loach tells teenagers”. The Daily Telegraph.
London. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
[30] Interview with Loach in Versus: The Life and Films of Ken
Loach, BBC Films/BFI, broadcast 30 July 2016.
[31] Cochrane, Kira (28 August 2011). “Ken Loach: 'the rul-
ing class are cracking the whip'". The Guardian. London.
[32] Amy Raphael “The great crusader”, New Statesman, 20
September 2007
[33] Salman Shaheen “Ken Loach Discusses His Hopes for
Left Unity”, The Huffington Post, 20 November 2013
[34] Matthew S. Bajko “Political Notebook: Queer activists
reel over Israel, Frameline ties”, Bay Area Reporter, 17
May 2007.
[35] “San Francisco Queers Say No Pride in Apartheid”, The
Electronic Intifada, 29 May 2007.
[36] “60 Years of Palestinian Dispossession ... No Reason to
Celebrate 'Israel at 60'!", Mr Zine (Monthly Review Press)
website, 17 May 2008.
[37] “EU-wide rise in anti-Semitism described as 'understand-
able'", EU Politics News, 4 March 2009
[38] Edinburgh film festival bows to pressure from Ken Loach
over Israeli boycott, The Times], 20 May 2009
[39] Loach pressure sways Edinburgh festival Digital Spy, 20
May 2009.
[40] Edinburgh film festival refuses Israeli grant due to pressure
by Ken Loach Haaretz, 20 May 2009.
[41] Ahmad, Muhammad. Ken Loach responds to critics,
pulsemedia.org, 26 May 2009.
[42] Ahmad, Muhammad. 'Enough is Enough', say Ken Loach
and Ilan Pappe, pulsemedia.org, 18 June 2009.
[43] Israeli funding angers filmmaker by Philippa Hawker, The
Age. 18 July 2009.
[44] British director withdraws festival film, Jewish Tele-
graphic Agency (JTA), 19 July 2009.
[45] Why we back the boycott call by Ken Loach, Rebecca
O'Brien and Paul Laverty, The Electronic Intifada, 7
September 2009.
[46] Paul Owen, et al “Julian Assange refused bail over rape
allegations”,The Guardian, 7 December 2010

8. 8 10 EXTERNAL LINKS
[47] “Ken Loach Interview – Entertainment – ShortList Mag-
azine”. Shortlist.com. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
[48] “Julian Assange’s high profile backers set to lose £340,000
bail money as he remains holed up in Ecuador Embassy –
Daily Mail Online”. Mail Online. 4 September 2012.
[49] “Film director Ken Loach is backing the Trade Unionist
and Socialist Coalition in this May’s London Assembly
elections”. Tusc.org.uk. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
[50] Ken Loach (15 April 2012). “Boycott this Israeli farce”.
The Observer. London. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
[51] Nick Clark (23 November 2012). “Director Ken Loach
refuses Italian award after row over wage and staff cuts”.
The Independent. London. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
[52] Ken Loach, Kate Hudson and Gilbert Achcar “The Labour
party has failed us. We need a new party of the left”, The
Guardian (London), 25 March 2013
[53] “People’s Assembly Against Austerity”. The Guardian.
London. 5 February 2013. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
[54] “Ken Loach statement on Scottish independence/". Left
Unity. July 2014.
[55] Ken Loach; Rebecca O'Brien; Paul Laverty (1 September
2009). “Boycotts don't equal censorship”. The Guardian.
London.
[56] Ken Loach and others “Letter: Chechnya needs a fair po-
litical settlement”, The Guardian (London), 23 February
2009
[57] Ken Loach makes promotional video for Jeremy Corbyn.
Guardian. 19 September 2016. Retrieved 8 October
2016.
[58] In Conversation with Jeremy Corbyn. Official Jeremy
Corbyn YouTube Channel. 21 September 2016. Re-
trieved 8 October 2016.
[59] “BFI Screenonline: Days of Hope (1975)".
[60] Days of Hope, Tony Williams, Cinémathèque Annota-
tions on Film, Issue 31, April 2004
[61] Edwards, Ruth Dudley (30 May 2006). “Why does Ken
Loach loathe his country so much?". Daily Mail. London.
Retrieved 22 May 2015.
[62] Massie, Alex (19 May 2009). “Ken Loach’s Bullying
Ghastliness”. The Spectator. London. Retrieved 26 Oc-
tober 2014.
[63] Bindel, Julie (2 June 2014). “Dick-swinging filmmakers
like Ken Loach constantly write real women and our strug-
gles out of history”. The Spectator. London. Retrieved 26
October 2014.
[64] “Poor Cow”. TVGuide.com.
[65] Director Loach slams TV news, BBC News, 13 March
2001, Retrieved 1 May 2012.
[66] “Film director gets top Keele Uni honour (VIDEO)". The
Sentinel. 21 February 2009. Retrieved 6 July 2011.
[67] Biography on Ken Loach’s website.
[68] “Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh & Scottish Borders:
Annual Review 2003”. www1.hw.ac.uk. Retrieved 2016-
03-30.
[69] “Homage and Honorary Golden Bear for Ken Loach”.
berlinale.de. Retrieved 12 December 2013.
[70] “Ken Loach gets lifetime award in Berlin”. BBC News. 14
February 2014. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
[71] “Raindance to honour Ken Loach with new award”.
What’s Worth Seeing. 8 September 2016. Retrieved 8
September 2016.
• Golding, Simon W. – '(New & Updated – on KIN-
DLE) Life After Kes: The Making of the British
Film Classic, the People, the Story and Its Legacy.'
Apex Publishing, Essex, 2014. ISBN 0-9548793-3-
3
• Golding, Simon W. Life After Kes: The Making of
the British Film Classic, the People, the Story and
Its Legacy. Shropshire, UK: GET Publishing, 2006.
ISBN 0-9548793-3-3
10 External links
• Ken Loach – Production Company and DVD box
set
• Ken Loach at the Internet Movie Database
• Ken Loach at the British Film Institute's
Screenonline
• Ken Loach at MUBI
• Ken Loach Filmography
• Extensive Ken Loach Biography and Filmography
• Interview with Loach about My Name is Joe
• Interview with Loach from 1998
• Posters and Stills Gallery from the BFI
• Interview: Ken Loach about Media, Culture and the
Prospects for a New Liberatory Project, Democracy
& Nature, Vol. 5, No.1 (March 1999). [Ken Loach
was interviewed by Theodoros Papadopoulos in De-
cember 1998].
• Interview with Ken Loach, interview about Route
Irish with Alex Barker and Alex Niven in the
Oxonian Review

9. 9
11 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses
11.1 Text
• Ken Loach Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Loach?oldid=745370049 Contributors: Jeronimo, Wathiik, William Avery, Quer-
cusrobur, Shaydon, Rbrwr, Edward, Patrick, Gabbe, ArnoLagrange, G-Man, Andrewa, Sir Paul, Grin, Jihg, Jerph, Rbellin, Lumos3, Oppo-
nent, Pigsonthewing, Smallweed, Ianb, Timrollpickering, Asparagus, Nadavspi, Angmering, Alison, Angry candy, Chips Critic, Explendido
Rocha, Paulmoloney, Andycjp, MacGyverMagic, Bodnotbod, Necrothesp, Sam, Chmod007, Canterbury Tail, Esperant, D6, Duja, Guan-
abot, David Schaich, Quiensabe, Bender235, Cedders, DaveGorman, Redf0x, Ben davison, Philip Cross, Rd232, Arvedui, Fwb44, Rwend-
land, JK the unwise, Zantastik, Lerdsuwa, Alai, Hijiri88, The JPS, PatGallacher, Lapsed Pacifist, Jdorney, Mandarax, Graham87, BD2412,
Rjwilmsi, Koavf, FlaBot, Greg321, MacRusgail, Jay-W, Pinkville, Nicapicella, Chobot, Naar, Adoniscik, YurikBot, Borgx, Jamesmorrison,
RobotE, Ecemaml, Phantomsteve, RussBot, Gaius Cornelius, NawlinWiki, Wiki alf, Grafen, R.carroll, Ziel, Anetode, Jpbowen, GHcool,
Epa101, Scope creep, DieWeisseRose, Vardamana, Ben King, Pankkake, A bit iffy, SmackBot, Reedy, Eskimbot, Bjmullan, MalafayaBot,
Apeloverage, Hibernian, TheLeopard, Colonies Chris, Citterio, Maniacgeorge, Dreadstar, Zdravko mk, Ozgurgerilla, Pinktulip, Giol-
laUidir, John, CPMcE, Beetstra, Red Alien, Ben stephenson, Sharnak, The Wrong Man, OnBeyondZebrax, Jetman, Túrelio, FairuseBot,
FrenchieAlexandre, The Font, Rob89, Coolville, WeggeBot, Ken Gallager, C5mjohn, Doctormatt, Cydebot, Lugnuts, Dancter, Dumb-
BOT, Disillusioned-, Kowtoo, Videocult, Nick Number, Dermo69, RobotG, DKong, Shirt58, Julia Rossi, DuncanHill, Rpoj, Epeefleche,
Wildhartlivie, Sangak, RBBrittain, Gboleyn, Buzzlightyear, Tsaiight, Spellmaster, Exiledone, Jahangard, Stoneygg, Aricshow, Keith D,
R'n'B, Soksopbai, Belovedfreak, Srpnor, DadaNeem, Jim Craigie, HenryLarsen, Kevinasp, Quaggy, VolkovBot, Setchcr, Derekbd, Indu-
bitably, Oshwah, Abtinb, TouristPhilosopher, Lambdoid, Nikosgreencookie, Softlavender, Rcb1, Sealman, Ptah, the El Daoud, Kkuchenb,
Alex Middleton, Mahudhy, Peter cohen, Monegasque, Thomos, Goustien, Oculi, Stanflimfan, Msrasnw, Sean.hoyland, Hyperionsteel, Si-
tush, Escape Orbit, ImageRemovalBot, Martarius, All Hallow’s Wraith, ExpressingYourself, Boing! said Zebedee, Mezigue, Niceguyedc,
Parkwells, TheSmuel, McMarcoP, JedrenBlack, HoboBen, Doprendek, Gersfan2412, XLinkBot, WDH59510, Charliewbrown, Myst-
Bot, Bradley0110, Bridgetfox, Gggh, Irae4dfc, Addbot, Manuel Trujillo Berges, Smetanahue, Cst17, Lightbot, ‫,ירון‬ Contributor777,
Luckas-bot, Yobot, EchetusXe, JJARichardson, Senator Palpatine, BlueSalo, Kookyunii, AnomieBOT, 1exec1, Panlis, Monstermike99,
Materialscientist, Dynablaster, GrouchoBot, Maria Sieglinda von Nudeldorf, Jean-Jacques Georges, Nietzsche 2, FrescoBot, Anna Roy,
Tatkins73, NoMoralRelativity, Philfromleeds, Bruce Tucker, Arbero, Klp363, Lotje, Vrenator, 777sms, SixteenFilms, RjwilmsiBot, Space-
jam2, EmausBot, Jimmy3d0, Dewritech, Jim Michael, Soren84, Earthh, Barse~enwiki, Profiles1, Unreal7, Terryjohno, ChuispastonBot,
G-13114, Shigeo sato, ClueBot NG, Tanbircdq, Dlw1066, Roberto Frana, Iloveandrea, Mbasko, John Beresford, Lowercase sigmabot,
Sdbrookfield, Hill9868, Lrtaylor, Davidiad, Blackberry Sorbet, Alison Wycislik, BattyBot, StarryGrandma, Cyberbot II, Khazar2, VI-
AFbot, Jo-Jo Eumerus, Rainbow Shifter, HurluGumene, Michipedian, Rowington, ArmbrustBot, Kind Tennis Fan, Commissioner Gregor,
Charge2charge, Godwin1996, Bearsofengland, Huge456, Fuebaey, Vincenzo1612, KasparBot, Gordon plockton, James Matthew Murdock
Walton, MarxistAtheist991 and Anonymous: 178
11.2 Images
• File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contribu-
tors: ? Original artist: ?
• File:Ken_Loach_Cannes.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Ken_Loach_Cannes.jpg License: CC BY-
SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Georges Biard
11.3 Content license
• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0