Jonathan Morris
Ricky and his family have been fighting an uphill struggle against debt since the 2008 financial crash. An opportunity to wrestle back some independence appears with a shiny new van and the chance to run a franchise as a self-employed delivery driver. It's hard work, and his wife's job as a carer is no easier. The family unit is strong but when both are pulled in different directions everything comes to breaking point.
A middle aged carpenter, who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar scenario.
This unique interactive film puts you on set with Ken Loach in production on his latest film, I, Daniel Blake. Throwing us into life on location and during pre-production, it enables you to change the course of your viewing experience by selecting inserts in which Loach and some of his key collaborators – past and present – give fascinating insights into his creative practices. (The version released on the Criterion Collection edition is only 38 minutes and doesn't include the interactive parts with interviews and illustrative scenes from previous Loach films.)
Jimmy Gralton returns from New York and reopens his beloved community hall, only to meet opposition from the local parish.
Narrowly avoiding jail, new dad Robbie vows to turn over a new leaf. A visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives.
A private security contractor in Iraq rejects the official explanation of his friend's death and decides to investigate.
Angie is a working class woman. After being fired, she decides to set up a recruitment agency of her own, running it from her kitchen with her friend, Rose. Taking advantage of the desperation of immigrants, Angie builds a successful business extremely quickly.
In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.
A documentary on the films of Ken Loach. Interviews with cast and crew who worked with Loach over the years. It describe his approach to allowing actors a wide range of freedom.
A young man upsets his Punjabi family when he falls in love with an Irish schoolteacher.
11 directors show their view on the terrorist attacks on the world trade center in New York.
Determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison, a Scottish teenager from a tough background sets out to raise the money for a home.
Two thirtysomethings, unemployed former alcoholic Joe and community health worker Sarah, start a romantic relationship in the one of the toughest Glasgow neighbourhoods.
A Glasgow man visits war-torn Nicaragua with a refugee tormented by her memories.
David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.
Maggie has had four children, by four different fathers, removed by social services because of a previous violent relationship. When she meets Jorge, a gentle Latin American refugee, she gradually sees her chance for happiness, but her history still haunts her.
This Ken Loach film tells the story of a man devoted to his family and his religion. Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to more and more questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.
In Ireland, American lawyer Ingrid Jessner and her activist partner, Paul Sullivan, struggle to uncover atrocities committed by the British government against the Northern Irish during the "Troubles." But when Sullivan is assassinated in the streets, Jessner teams up with Peter Kerrigan, a British investigator acting against the will of his own government, and struggles to uncover a conspiracy that may even implicate one of Kerrigan's colleagues.
Following Loach's earlier film A Question of Leadership, this film is a wide-ranging study of the trade union movement, with strong criticism of leading trade unionists.
Documentary film of a British yachtsman John Ridgway's 57-foot ketch, English Rose VI, in the 1977-78 Whitbread Round the World Race. It captures the lives and growing tensions between several of the sailing boat's crewmen.
