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“Mainstream American industrial cinema is about making profit. They have the same relationship to real cinema as McDonald’s has to food”

Ken Loach is a man whose cinematic voice has helped to change the way British society has developed.

The director’s latest award-winning offering, It’s A Free World, being screened at the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) this week, is yet another example of how Loach continues to address the issues of the day, tackling them head on.

It deals with the sensitive story of the influx of immigrant workers struggling to find work in London and being met with exploitation.

The 71-year-old director talked about what prompted the film and why events like the Dubai International Film Festival are so important in today’s industry.

Excerpts from the interview:

What made you choose the subject of immigrants in search of work for your latest film, It’s A Free World?

Paul Laverty [the writer] and I have been interested for a long time in how the nature of work is changing. I grew up in a time when you would get a job and it would last a lifetime. There was a sense of stability about working people’s lives. That all changed as technology developed. People were changing their jobs frequently and permanent workers became casual workers. That’s been a massive change which nobody ever said they wanted but has been forced upon them.

The other interesting thing is how in Stalinist countries, where economies collapsed when the governments collapsed, the money they gave to support state industries stopped. They were sold off to private individuals who dismembered the industries. There is mass unemployment so there are lots of people looking for work who can’t support their families in their home country, which has meant this influx of people from Eastern Europe to Western Europe.

What inspires you to make films?

A number of things motivate you. The first is just enjoying cinema and working in the medium because film is just a great medium to work in. When we think, “What film should we make?”, Paul Laverty, Rebecca [O'Brien, the producer] and I try to choose subjects that tap into the sense of what is happening and we try to understand it. Every film is an exploration.

You are known for pushing the boundaries with your films. How difficult is this in today’s film industry?

Quite a lot of European films do this in different ways. I think it’s what filmmakers want to do. Mainstream American industrial cinema is about making profit. They have the same relationship to real cinema as McDonald’s has to food: it’s there to make a profit, it’s not to help you to enjoy and be nourished by what you eat.

How do you get the best out of your cast?

There are various assumptions that underpin how we work with actors. They are what the audience see. The audience doesn’t see the accountants or the production schedule. The audience sees them performing so when you are directing a film, you have to make that your first priority - to make sure they can give the best performance they can. One thing that makes a big difference is to shoot it in sequence so the story can develop as the characters develop.

You have been in the film industry for more than four decades. How has it changed over the years?

From where we are sitting in London, nothing changes really. It’s a constant battle in Britain to make little bridgeheads instead of being swamped by American industrial cinema. And sometimes these Americans make what appear to be British films with British actors and directors but in fact they come from an American sensibility. Occasionally, British films break through but it’s a very hard struggle. By and large, British directors don’t get access to the screens in our own country, which is a problem.

How important then are festivals like the Dubai International Film Festival?

Film festivals are hugely important. First of all, they just remind people how broad cinema can be and what a wide range of films are made. And they are a challenge to people who are supposed to take care of national film industries [reminding them] what a big failure they are because the range of films you see at a film festival is not available to most people. The challenge is to make sure these films are available to people. They also encourage filmmakers with a way their films can be seen.

If cinemas were programmed by people who cared about films then people’s perception of what cinema is would be very, very different.

How did you discover your vocation?

It was just mixing with writers in the ’60s - it was a very political decade. [I had] the opportunity to work in theatre and television, the opportunity to work with good writers who were really connected to what was happening in the world and seeing things through their eyes. It was having access to good writers, the possibility of making films and television plays and real extraordinary opportunity. And once being able to do that, it becomes what you do. You get a taste for it.

Now that you are 71, do you have any plans to slow down?

I haven’t thought about that.

Can you tell us about your next project?

I am working on the script with Paul Laverty. We are halfway through into the new script and we hope to shoot next year.

5 Facts about Ken Loach and his films

Ken Loach’s groundbreaking television docu-drama Up The Junction was watched by nearly 10 million viewers when it was first aired on the BBC in 1965. Its subject matter, abortion, sparked a national debate leading to the legalisation of the procedure in Britain two years later.

His 1966 TV drama Cathy Come Home, which told a heartbreaking tale of a family’s spiral into poverty, gave a timely boost to the British homeless charity Shelter which launched, by coincidence, just a fortnight after it was screened.

In 1969, Loach released Kes, one of the finest British films ever made. It told the story of a boy who trains a kestrel as an escape from being bullied both at home and school. Loach is known for trying to extract genuine surprise, shock and emotion from his actors by springing the unexpected on them on camera. When faced with a dead bird in the final scenes of Kes, the boy actor falsely believed it was the actual kestrel he had become so close to during filming, prompting a very real reaction.

Loach brought The Wind That Shakes The Barley to DIFF last year. The controversial insight into the Irish uprising against British rule in the 1920s was awarded the Palm d’Or at Cannes in May 2006.

His new film, It’s A Free World, has already garnered acclaim, winning Best Screenplay, at the Venice Film Festival, and Best Film, at the Seville Film Festival.

At a glance

Name: Ken Loach.
Born: June 17, 1936, in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England.
Career: A BAFTA-award winning director, writer and producer of films, television dramas and documentaries.
Highlights: Cathy Come Home (1966), Kes (1969), Days Of Hope (1975), Riff-Raff (1990), Land And Freedom (1995), Carla’s Song (1996), Bread And Roses (2000), Sweet Sixteen (2002), The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006), It’s A Free World (2007).