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It’s easy to divorce the online purchases that arrive so swiftly and conveniently on your doorstep from the individual labor that got them there: The packaging is so uniform, the buying process so entirely impersonal, that it’s tempting to believe they were somehow selected and delivered by robotic magic. But in many cases, someone hand-picked the item from an intricately coded shelf in a vast, airless warehouse, just as someone else had the unrewarding zero-hours job of driving it to your home, or carrying out how many intermediate menial stages in between. Where Ken Loach’s recent “Sorry We Missed You” shed light on the loneliness of the long-suffering delivery driver, Laura Carreira’s remarkable “On Falling” turns warehouse-picking from an ignorable abstract process into a human routine of vivid, slowly erosive despair.

Any comparison to Loach is backed by the film’s DNA, as Jack Thomas-o’Brien, son...

Ever since audiences—at least according to myth—ran screaming from the premiere screening of Auguste and Louis Lumière’s 1895 short black-and-white silent documentary Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, the histories of filmgoing and horror have been inextricably intertwined. Through the decades—and subsequent crazes for color and sound, stereoscopy and anamorphosis—since that train threatened to barrel into the front row, there’s never been a time when audiences didn’t clamor for the palpating fingers of fear. Horror films remain perennially popular, despite periodic (and always exaggerated) rumors of their demise, even in the face of steadily declining ticket sales and desperately shifting models of distribution.

Into the new millennium, horror films have retained their power to shock and outrage by continuing to plumb our deepest primordial terrors, to incarnate our sickest, most socially unpalatable fantasies. They are, in what amounts to a particularly delicious irony,...

Laura Carreira’s impressive debut drama sees a quietly excellent Joana Santos endure dehumanising work conditions while looking for a way out

The human cost of the online convenience shopping revolution is, arguably, still to be properly addressed in cinema or any other art form. Chloé Zhao’s 2020 Oscar winner Nomadland was, rightly or wrongly, criticised in some quarters for going easy on working conditions in the Amazon warehouse where she was allowed to film. This outstanding debut feature from the Scotland-based Portuguese film-maker Laura Carreira returns us to the subject, reminding us that the business of choosing items in the gigantic and ironically named “fulfilment centre” is not done by robots, but stressed human beings with the Steinbeckian job description of “pickers”, rushing along vast warehouse shelves, their work rate ruthlessly assessed by digital handsets.

It does not look as if Carreira has shot in a real warehouse, but...

The modern workplace is the focus of Laura Carreira’s hypnotic debut On Falling, a sobering study of a woman’s attempt to stay afloat in contemporary Glasgow. Produced by Ken Loach’s Sixteen Films production company, it has plenty in common with the British social realist’s output and specifically his more recent films, notably his state-of-the-nation trilogy (2016-23) that comprised I, Daniel Blake, Sorry We Missed You and The Old Oak. Carreira, however, brings a subtle but assured lyricism to the subject that has already caught the attention of festival programmers worldwide: after debuting in the Discovery strand at the Toronto Film Festival, her film On Falling now competes in the official selection at San Sebastian and will soon enter the First Feature Competition at the London Film Festival.

Like Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, the subject is the gig economy, but this time from the point...

From the very first moments of the “The Salt Path,” frantically capturing the vestiges of one middle-aged couple’s life swept out to sea by a turbulent tide of saltwater and sorrow, director Marianne Elliott’s inspirational drama chooses a deliberately deceptive path and gets off on the wrong foot. It’s not until later that it’s discovered that this in-media-res attention grabber, which has shaded our view of these downtrodden souls’ transformative journey, is a distorted reality. It’s used to manipulate us into anticipating that their watershed moment will be dire, when it’s really their saving grace. Yet with understated performances from Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, as well as immersive land and soundscapes that enhance the thematic pull, this portrait of loss, humanity and rebirth makes it worth the emotional investment.

Fifty-somethings Ray Winn (Anderson) and her husband Moth (Isaacs) are having a rough go...

Kris Hitchen (Ken Loach’s “Sorry We Missed You”) and George Osborne (“The Pendragon Cycle”) are set to lead the cast of “Contact Hours,” a short film addressing the issue of student suicide.

The psychological drama follows a university caretaker whose life takes an unexpected turn when he discovers one of his students has been missing for days. As he investigates, he finds himself confronting a tragedy that prompts him to reevaluate his relationship with his own son.

Harry Richards, known for his short “Santi,” which screened at the BFI Future Film Festival 2022, will direct and produce. Liam Wallace-Cook (“Big Deal”) joins as co-producer.

The screenplay, penned by Offie-nominated playwright Rufus Love, was inspired by a real-life encounter with a university caretaker who resigned after discovering a student who had died by suicide. Love and Richards, who collectively knew six students at their university who died by suicide, were moved...

In a career that spans over half a century, the indefatigable Ken Loach has cemented his reputation as the foremost filmmaker of the British working class. At 87, he’s out of neither steam nor ideas even as he signals that his latest, The Old Oak, might be his final film.

The Old Oak makes for quite the cherry on top of a splendid body of work, most of which will be featured in a career-spanning retrospective in spring 2024 at New York City’s Film Forum. This sympathetic and socially attuned portrayal of the proletariat set in a dying village in northeast England is part three in an informal trilogy with 2016’s I, Daniel Blake and 2020’s Sorry We Missed You. While those films focused on post-austerity holes in the social safety net and the precariousness of the gig economy, respectively, the contemporary issue under Loach’s microscope in The Old Oak...

Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker – which was pulled from TIFF in 2022 over “rights issues” — starts a theatrical debut today at the IFC Center, moving to LA’s Landmark’s Nuart next weekend and expanding thereafter with about 85 booking so far — a nice outcome for the mixed-media coming-of-age dark superhero parody that “had gone into into hibernation mode” until Outfest LA Film Festival, said Frank Jaffe, whose distribution company Altered Innocence acquired it then. It’s U.S premiere garnered a Special Mention in the North American Narrative Feature Competition.

Co-written by Drew and Bri LeRose, the film is a reimagining the origin story of iconic Batman villain The Joker, starring Drew as painfully unfunny aspiring clown and closeted trans girl grappling with her gender identity while unsuccessfully attempting to join the ranks of Gotham City’s sole comedy program, in a world where comedy has been outlawed. She...

If you’re lucky enough to live in New York, Film Forum is mounting a 20-film Ken Loach retrospective on April 19 after his latest — and quite possibly last — film, Cannes 2023 entry “The Old Oak” starts rolling out on April 5. The British director carries the distinction of being one of nine filmmakers (among them Francis Ford Coppola and Ruben Östlund) to win the Palme d’Or twice: for the Irish history “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” (2006), starring Cillian Murphy, and healthcare drama “I, Daniel Blake” (2016).

Both times, the Competition juries were powerless to resist the films’ emotional pull.

And resistance is futile. That’s because Loach knows how to move us. His movies hit a nerve because they dig into believable characters inspired by real people and informed by current events.

Loach and his long-time screenwriter Paul Laverty do not rip stories out of the headlines so much as they...

Some of the biggest names in the world of British film have showered praise on the “game-changing” new 40% British indie film relief.

Announced earlier today by UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt following lobbying from the BFI and Pact for months, the relief will apply to movies made for less than £15M ($19M). Today’s move was coupled with a 5% increase in tax relief for UK VFX costs in film and high-end TV, and business rates relief of 40% for major studios.

Sixteen Films producer and Ken Loach collaborator Rebecca O’Brien joked that the “genuine game changer” has prompted her to rethink whether to stop making movies.

“It’s extraordinary,” she told Deadline shortly after the credit was announced. “It just gives me confidence and means if I can raise the money more easily, I can spend more time helping the production and making a good film rather than spending all my time...

“There’s market failure because the streamers came in, high-end TV got higher end, and Hollywood arrived. And they took a lot of our investors away,” Sixteen Films producer Rebecca O’Brien concluded when quizzed on the state of the UK indie film sector during an appearance at the UK’s British Film & High-End TV Inquiry.

She added: “Some additional fiscal support for the sector is essential. I think we could really die without it.”

O’Brien appeared in front of the bipartisan committee this morning, where she discussed her decades-long experience producing features with Ken Loach, navigating the independent market of international co-productions and financing, and what must change for the UK indie industry to push forward.

The session began with O’Brien being asked how she and her team at Sixteen Films have managed to successfully produce and land distribution for the films of the company’s founder, Ken Loach.

If there was one puzzle from the 2023 Venice Film Festival, it concerned Caleb Landry Jones and the actor’s curious decision to conduct all his press arrangements for the Luc Besson thriller “Dogman” with a Scottish accent. As was later revealed, the Australian had taken a quick break from shooting U.K. drama “Harvest” on location in Scotland and was staying in character for the duration of his brief Italian detour.

Alongside honing Landry Jones’ vocal abilities, “Harvest,” being directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari (the Greek director’s first English-language film) and based on the book by Jim Crace, also marks the beginning of a new chapter for one of the U.K.’s best-known indie production companies.

Sixteen Films, co-founded by Ken Loach and producer Rebecca O’Brien in 2002, has been behind every film by the beloved and iconoclastic director over the last two decades, including “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,...

Studiocanal UK, Sixteen Films and Why Not Productions are pleased to announce that Ken Loach & Paul Laverty’s The Old Oak will be available on digital download, Blu-ray and DVD from 15th December. To celebrate we are giving away DVDs to two lucky winners!

The film sees BAFTA-winning director Loach return to the North East following his previous two films I, Daniel Blake, winner of the Palme d’Or and BAFTA Outstanding British Film awards, and Sorry We Missed You which both also shot in the region. Shooting took place across County Durham last year in locations including Murton, Easington Colliery and Horden.

The Old Oak is a special place. Not only is it the last pub standing, but it’s also the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving mining community that has now fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline. Tj Ballantyne...

Highest-grossing event cinema release ever in the territory.

Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (Oct 13-15) Total gross to date Week 1. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Trafalgar) £5.7m £5.7m 1 2. Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie (Paramount) £1.3m £3.3m 1 3. The Exorcist: Believer (Universal) £1m £3.5m 2 4. Sumotherhood (Paramount) £734,000 £746,000 1 5. The Creator (Disney) £642,345 £5.4m 3

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.22

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour has become the highest-grossing event cinema release ever in the UK and Ireland after just three days in cinemas.

The concert film, released by Trafalgar Releasing, has taken £5.7m with final figures still coming in.

It overtakes the £5.5m total gross of last year’s Prima Facie,...

Awards contender “Poor Things” will open EnergaCamerimage, the cinematography-focused film festival that will take place in Torun, Poland, on Nov. 11-18.

The film, starring Emma Stone and directed by Greek helmer Yorgos Lanthimos, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan, who lensed the film, will introduce “Poor Things” at Camerimage.

Lanthimos and Ryan previously collaborated on “The Favourite,” which in 2018 competed for Camerimage’s Golden Frog Award in the fest’s main competition, and came away with the Audience Award. “The Favourite” received 10 Oscar noms, including for best picture, directing and cinematography.

As well as “The Favourite,” Lanthimos has had two other films in contention in the Oscar race, “Dogtooth” (2008) and “The Lobster” (2015).

“Poor Things,” in keeping with the eccentricities of Lanthimos’ other movies, traces the evolution of Bella Baxter, a young Victorian woman brought back from her death by suicide by a brilliant scientist,...

Speciality distributor Cosmic Cat has set U.K. release dates for documentary “Cassius X: Becoming Ali.”

The film follows the early years of Cassius Clay, from a bright-eyed rookie boxer from Louisville, Kentucky, to world heavyweight champion and from working class intellectual to one of America’s most influential civil rights campaigners. The film reveals how the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, reinforced by a friendship with revolutionary preacher, Malcolm X, set Clay on the journey to become Cassius X, before his induction to the Nation of Islam and ascension to the name of Muhammad Ali.

“Cassius X: Becoming Ali” is directed by Muta’Ali Muhammad (“Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn”) and is based on the book “Cassius X: A Legend In The Making” by journalist Stuart Cosgrove. It is produced by Two Rivers Media (“The Small Hand (Ghost Story),” “Killing Escobar”) in association with Paramount Media Networks and MTV Entertainment Studios...

‘Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie’ previews make enough for top five place.

Rank Film (distributor) Three-day gross (Sep 29-Oct 1) Total gross to date Week 1. Saw X (Lionsgate) £1.92m £1.92m 1 2. The Creator (Disney) £1.89m £2.2m 1 3. A Haunting In Venice (Disney) £1m £6.8m 3 4. Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie (Paramount) £988,525 £1.1m - 5. The Nun II (Warner Bros) £418,694 £5.9m 4

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.21

Lionsgate’s torture horror Saw X cut into top spot at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, with a sharp £1.93m opening.

From 552 locations, Saw X took a £3,464 average – a strong start for an 18-rated film. It is the sixth-highest-grossing...

‘The Creator’ is opening in 655 cinemas through Disney.

Original sci-fi blockbuster The Creator leads the new titles at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, opening in 655 cinemas through Disney.

Directed by UK filmmaker Gareth Edwards, who wrote the screenplay with Chris Weitz, The Creator is set in a future where humans are at war with artificial intelligence, and a former soldier finds a secret robot weapon in the form of a young child.

The Creator is Edwards’ fourth feature film. His debut Monsters, also a sci-fi in which humans are battling for survival, opened to £348,577 in 2010, finishing on £952,963. He has...

Lionsgate sets widest franchise opening with ‘Saw X’.

Original sci-fi blockbuster The Creator leads the new titles at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, opening in 655 cinemas through Disney.

Directed by UK filmmaker Gareth Edwards, who wrote the screenplay with Chris Weitz, The Creator is set in a future where humans are at war with artificial intelligence, and a former soldier finds a secret robot weapon in the form of a young child.

The Creator is Edwards’ fourth feature film. His debut Monsters, also a sci-fi in which humans are battling for survival, opened to £348,577 in 2010, finishing on £952,963. He has...

eOne is shutting down its U.K. theatrical distribution business, owner Hasbro confirmed to TheWrap.

Hasbro acquired eOne for $3.8 billion in late December 2019. The studio’s theatrical exhibition in the U.K. produced hits like “The Aeronauts” and “Sorry We Missed You,” and early 2020 saw the towering $57 million U.K. gross (out of $359 million worldwide) of Sam Mendes’ acclaimed World War I thriller “1917.”

However, cost-cutting began in 2021, with 10% of eOne’s film and television staff being laid off. They sold their music division to The Blackstone Group for $385 million.

Hasbro was selling off its media assets by August of 2022 and by November had put eOne on the auction block. As recently as this week, Lionsgate has emerged as a prime contender to buy the studio. Meanwhile, Hasbro laid off an additional 20% of eOne’s employees just under a month ago.

eOne has released three theatricals in the U.K.

eOne is shutting down its U.K. theatrical distribution business, owner Hasbro has confirmed to Variety.

Hasbro acquired eOne in 2019 for $3.8 billion. The theatrical business in the U.K. was robust at that point with titles like “The Aeronauts,” “Sorry We Missed You” and “Official Secrets” displaying decent legs at the box office.

In early 2020, eOne scored a mighty box office success with Sam Mendes’ awards season darling “1917,” which grossed more than $57 million in the U.K. There was a steady flow of releases in the months following.

From 2021, a series of cost-cutting measures began, with eOne announcing that it would be laying off 10% of its film and television staff. This was followed by eOne selling its music division to The Blackstone Group for $385 million.

By August 2022, Hasbro was looking to sell off its media assets. In November 2022, Hasbro put eOne on the block less than three years after acquiring it.

Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber announced on Tuesday that they have acquired the U.S. distribution rights to Ken Loach’s final film “The Old Oak” with a planned release in early 2024.

Zeitgeist and Kino Lorber previously released Loach’s 2020 film “Sorry We Missed You” and will first release “The Old Oak” at the Film Forum in New York before expanding it to arthouses nationwide.

“We’re delighted that Zeitgeist has taken ‘The Old Oak’ for distribution in the U.S. It’s great that they’ve chosen to partner with us again after working together on ‘Sorry We Missed You,'” said Loach and his producing partner Rebecca O’Brien in a statement. “We feel that Zeitgeist Films is ideally placed to help our film reach the widest possible audience in the territory and know they will release the film with gusto.”

“The Old Oak” follows Tj, the owner of...

Exclusive: Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber have acquired all U.S. rights to Ken Loach’s Cannes Competition entry The Old Oak, which has been mooted to be the veteran filmmaker’s last movie.

The Old Oak, which has a screenplay from Loach’s frequent collaborator Paul Laverty, will open theatrically in early 2024 at Film Forum in New York with a national release set to follow.

The movie revolves around The Old Oak, the last standing pub in a once thriving mining village in northern England, and a gathering space for a community that has fallen on hard times. There is growing anger, resentment, and a lack of hope among the residents, but the pub and its proprietor Tj are a fond presence to their customers. When a group of Syrian refugees move into the floundering village, a decisive rift fueled by prejudices develops between the community and its newest inhabitants.

StudioCanal has debuted the trailer for Ken Loach and Paul Laverty’s ”The Old Oak.’

The Old Oak is a special place. Not only is it the last pub standing, but it’s also the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once-thriving mining community that has now fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline. Tj Ballantyne (Dave Turner) the landlord hangs on to The Old Oak by his fingertips, and his predicament is endangered even more when the pub becomes contested territory after the arrival of Syrian refugees who are placed in the village without any notice.

In an unlikely friendship, Tj meets a curious young Syrian Yara (Ebla Mari) with her camera. Can they find a way for the two communities to understand each other? So unfolds a deeply moving drama about their fragilities and hopes.

The film sees BAFTA-winning director Loach returns to...

Alice Rohrwacher’s ’La Chimera’ and Ken Loach’s ’The Old Oak’ were the final two titles to land on the grid.

Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves has topped Screen’s 2023 Cannes jury grid with an average score of 3.2, after the final two titles, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera and Ken Loach’s The Old Oak, landed with 2.9 and 2.1, respectively.

See the final jury grid below.

Rohrwacher’s La Chimera saw four critics give the Italian drama a four (excellent) while Die Zeit’s Katja Nicomedus and Postif’s Michel Ciment gave it one (poor). The rest of the...

Editor’s Note: This review originally published during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. “The Old Oak” will be released in U.S. theaters on April 5, 2024.

Three-dimensional characterization is a casualty of Ken Loach’s ongoing social justice project. Yet the 86-year-old idealogue’s tireless stocktaking of the human toll exacted by a Conservative British government – in power since 2010 – has been of political consequence. His 2016 Palme d’Or winner “I, Daniel Blake”, about the crushing UK benefits system, had its title projected onto the Houses of Parliament and became a rallying shorthand amongst campaigners for reform.

According to Loach, “The Old Oak” will be his last film. And given that his brand of morality plays have filled a void in terms of a genuinely revolutionary cinema, it feels precious to take umbrage at something as cosmetic as a lack of artistry. Indeed, my disenchanted reaction to “The Old Oak” and its sincere...

A northern pub landlord confronts locals’ hostility towards Syrian immigrants in Loach’s latest – and possibly last – piece of politically trenchant cinema

A decade or so ago, the rumour was that Ken Loach was getting ready to quit. Then began a new parade of Conservative prime ministers in this country, each shiftier and more mediocre than the last; Loach decided he had more to say and do after all. What followed was a blaze of energy, anger and productivity culminating in a remarkable late surge – in fact, a trilogy, of which this might come to be seen as the final episode. Working with his regular collaborator, the screenwriter Paul Laverty, Loach has been taking on issues and stories that you don’t see on the TV news or on glitzy streaming services, and showed that film-makers could actually intervene in the real world. Loach got questions about poverty and austerity...

British director Ken Loach has always had his finger on the pulse of his country’s simmering socioeconomic situation, especially when it concerns the plight of the working class. It’s no surprise, then, that for his latest feature — the 27th for the 86-year-old filmmaker, who made his first movie, Poor Cow, all the way back in 1967 — he’s decided to tackle two issues not only at the forefront of U.K. politics, but most of Europe and the U.S. as well.

Compassionate if a bit schematic at times, The Old Oak is a ripped-from-the-headlines story about Syrian refugees arriving in a failing blue-collar town in northern England, and the anger it provokes among certain residents looking for a scapegoat to pin their problems on. You could make virtually the same movie about Central Americans arriving in Texas, or Sub-Saharan Africans arriving in France, so much are immigration and...

What could well be Ken Loach’s final film has as much fire and fury as his debut Poor Cow did in 1967, if we discount his pioneering TV work in the run-up. The visual style hasn’t changed a great deal in the years since, but that’s because the British movie veteran, soon to turn 87, isn’t much fussed about surfaces, it’s the inner lives of his characters that he wants to capture. In that respect, The Old Oak would make a fitting swansong, capping the recent North-East trilogy with a vital film that is clearly the work of the team behind previous Cannes Competition hits I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You.

The setting is Easington, County Durham, and the year is 2016. Curiously, the Brexit Referendum is never mentioned, but the sentiments that fueled the pro-Leave movement certainly are. It opens with a coach party of...

Only nine directors have ever won the Palme d’Or twice. Francis Ford Coppola did it in the ’70s with The Conversation and Apocalypse Now. Ruben Östlund joined the club last year after following The Square with Triangle of Sadness. But this year, there is a very real possibility that, at 86, Ken Loach may go above and beyond that by winning a third Palme for his new film, The Old Oak. Loach first won in 2006 with the historical Irish drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley, then doubled up in 2016 with I, Daniel Blake, a caustic study of Britain’s healthcare crisis. After that came Sorry, We Missed You, a no-less withering look at the punitive gig economy. Like the latter two films, The Old Oak is set in the North East of England and completes an unofficial trilogy, this time with a slightly more optimistic bent. Like all of...

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...

The film is now shooting in the north east of England.

Studiocanal UK has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Ken Loach’s next film The Old Oak from Wild Bunch International.

The film is now shooting in the north-east of England.

The feature is written by Paul Laverty and stars Dave Turner and newcomer Ebla Mari, and marks Loach’s return to the north east, where he shot I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You.

The film portrays the struggle of a landlord to hold onto a pub called The Old Oak as the only remaining public space...

Production is taking place in the north east of England.

Principal photography on Ken Loach’s The Old Oak has commenced today, with the shoot taking place in the North East of England.

The feature is written by Paul Laverty and stars Dave Turner and newcomer Ebla Mari, and marks Loach’s return to the North East, where he shot I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You. Shooting will take place in locations including Murton, Easington Colliery and Horden in County Durham.

Studiocanal UK will release in the UK and Ireland in 2023, with Sixteen Films and Why Not Productions producing,...

Cameras are rolling on Ken Loach’s latest film, The Old Oak.

Principal photography on the Studiocanal UK, Sixteen Films and Why Not Productions drama, which stars Dave Turner (Sorry We Missed You) and newcomer Ebla Mari and is written by Paul Laverty, began today in the North East of England.

Loach’s previous two films — I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You — were also shot in the same part of the UK.

The Old Oaks is based around a pub that is not only the last local standing, but also the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving mining community that has now fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline.

Landlord Tj Ballantyne (Turner) hangs on by his fingertips, and his predicament is made harder when the pub becomes contested territory after the unexpected arrival of Syrian refugees. He makes an unlikely...

International sales companies will be unveiling some of their new projects for the next couple of weeks and the Wild Bunch folks are back in the Ken Loach business once again serving up working class/social realism cinema with another times are changing portrait – we often think of his cinema as the English counterpart to the Dardenne Bros (who happen to be co-producers on the project with their Films Du Fleuve label).

Screen Daily reports that production on Loach’s The Old Oak will begin next month – making this a sure bet for a showing in Cannes 2023. Dave Turner (Sorry We Missed You) stars along with newcomer Ebla Mari.…...

Around the release of Jimmy’s Hall in 2014, Ken Loach announced his retirement, but thankfully it was short-lived as he returned with I, Daniel Blake, which went on to win the Palme d’Or, and Sorry We Missed You. Now, the British director, who turns 86 next month, has unveiled his next project which begins shooting soon.

Screen Daily reports the film is titled The Old Oak, scripted by Loach’s longtime collaborator Paul Laverty and led by Dave Turner (Sorry We Missed You) alongside newcomer Ebla Mari, with cinematographer Robbie Ryan on board. Check out the synopsis below via Wild Bunch International, who will be handling sales at Cannes:

The Old Oak is the story of a village in the Northeast of England, where the mine closed, and people feel deserted by the system. Many young ones have left and what was once a thriving, proud community struggles to keep old values alive.

Paris-based sales is also handing 14 titles due to premiere in Official Selection or one of the parallel sections.

Wild Bunch International (Wbi) will launch sales on Ken Loach’s new feature The Old Oak during Cannes and has released fresh details about the project.

The production sees Loach return to northeast England, where he shot 2016 Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake, and Sorry We Missed You, which also world premiered in Competition in Cannes in 2019.

It is set in a former coal-mining village that has never fully recovered from the closure of the mines. Its once-thriving, proud community struggles...

Bong Joon-ho is a true cinephile’s cinephile. After years as a darling of America’s indie film scene, the South Korean writer-director enjoyed massive mainstream success with 2019’s “Parasite,” which swept the Oscars and made him one of the most talked about filmmakers in the world. His projects are famous for combining aspects of multiple genres and the director’s favorite films are similarly eclectic. His all time favorites run the gamut from Bergman and Truffaut to Tarantino and Spike Jonze, and now movie lovers can hear his thoughts on 2021’s crop of movies.

In the latest print issue of South Korean film magazine Filo (via World of Reel), the auteur said his favorite films of 2021 were (in no order): “Don’t Look Up,” “Drive My Car,” “Flee,” “Sundown,” “The Mitchells vs. The Machines,” “Happening (L’événement),” and “Sewing Sisters.” He also said he enjoyed watching 2019’s “Sorry We Missed You...

The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (Wggb) has unveiled the shortlist for its annual awards, with nominees including “Promising Young Woman” scribe Emerald Fennell and “Succession” writer Lucy Prebble, who’s been nominated for her Billie Piper series “I Hate Suzie.”

The awards, which will be handed out on Feb. 14 in central London, will cover two years of British writing, after last year’s awards were cancelled due to the pandemic.

Wggb President and former “The Great British Bake-Off” host Sandi Toksvig said: “What a fitting day to celebrate the cream of British writers – who have kept us entertained on page, stage, screen and across the airwaves, through such dark times.

“Our creative industries play such an important role, as do all those who work within them and we hope our awards ceremony on Valentine’s Day will send this message – you matter, we care, and thank you for your words,...

Stars: Sam Hazeldine, Tom Goodman-Hill, Kris Hitchen, Elliot James Langridge, Sam Clemmett | Written by J.P. Watts, Thomas Woods | Directed by J.P. Watts

I find it somewhat incredible that after all these years we are still finding new and exciting stories to tell about the First and Second World War. There seemingly is no end to the acts of heroism exhibited in those trying times. In terms of movies it just seems like we are obsessed with the genre, proven by the fact that wether it be a Sam Mendes epic or a slightly lower budget J.P. Watts flick we are going to be given more than 1 or 2 war movies a year.

Its with this in mind that when it comes to a new war movie, I find myself less and less interested in the spectacle of your 1917‘s and I am more invested in the low key personal...

The War Below, based on the story of the First World War tunnellers who dug underneath no-man’s land, will be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on 10th September. To celebrate, we are giving away a limited edition poster.

The Dig meets Saving Private Ryan in writer/director J.P. Watts’ debut feature, about a maverick plan to defeat the German army during the Battle of Messines in 1917. The film stars Sam Hazeldine (Peaky Blinders) as William Hackett, the miner desperate to join the army who, after being turned down at the recruitment office, gets the chance to serve his country in an unexpected way.

The supporting cast includes Tom Goodman-Hill (The Imitation Game) as “Hellfire Jack,” the colonel who proposes the dramatic plan to turn the tables on the enemy, and Kris Hitchen (Sorry We Missed You), Elliot James Langridge (Northern Soul) and Sam Clemmett (Endeavour...

Juliette Binoche gets her hands dirty in the French drama Between Two Worlds (Ouistreham), the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight opener from Emmanuel Carrère. Adapted from Florence Aubenas’ bestseller Le Quai De Ouistreham, it centers on Marianne Winckler, an author who goes undercover as a cleaner in order to write a book about her experiences.

Posing as a cash-strapped divorcée who needs work in the city of Caen, she’s sent from the job center to cleaning school, where she learns just enough to be hired at the port of Outistreham. And so this well-heeled journalist rolls up her sleeves and scrubs toilets on ferries, forming a tight bond with her co-workers while secretly taking notes on them. The stage is set for a tense reveal, but the main focus of Between Two Worlds is on friendship, character and sociopolitical comment.

Striking an inquisitive and relatable note, Binoche is ideal in the lead role.

Noah Hutton’s techno fable lays bare the indignities of modern gig work – but dadaist touches blunt its edge

This sensitive but flawed sci-fi comic dystopia walks the strange new frontier of the modern gig economy that has also been explored by Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You and Nomadland. It takes place, like Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, in an innocuous present tinged with an Instagram-filter of light futurism. And it is driven by a similar sly ideological fury as Sorry to Bother You – only it is even more absurdist and, crucially, not as funny.

A rare case of an actor whose real name fits the role even better, Dean Imperial plays Ray, an old-school denizen of New York – complete with wifebeater and tinted shades – forced to seek out lucrative new work in order to put his brother Jamie (Babe Howard) into a clinic to...

Sorry We Missed You Kino Lorber Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Ken Loach Writer: Paul Laverty Cast: Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Stone, Katie Proctor, Ross Brewster Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 11/23/20 Opens: March 6, 2020. Streaming June 12, 2020 The rich get money while the […]

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Vital Pictures, an upstart independent production company from Chris Lemos and Luis Guerrero, will produce and distribute the World War I drama “The War Below” from director J.P. Watts, TheWrap can share exclusively.

“The War Below” stars “Peaky Blinders” and “The Innocents” actor Sam Hazeldine alongside Tom Goodman-Hill, Kris Hitchen, Douglas Reith and Sam Clemmett.

The film will be produced and distributed by Vital Pictures in the U.S., a source told TheWrap, making it the company’s third project after the horror-thrillers “Beneath Us” and “You’re Not Alone.”

“The War Below” is based on true events and centers on a group of British miners recruited during WWI to tunnel underneath no man’s land and set bombs from below the German front, all in the hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.

Watts, known for the short film “The Lost Emperor,” is making his feature-length directorial debut on the film.

Whatever the future holds both for theatrical distribution and for at-home streaming, 2020 will no doubt mark the pivot point in which the destinies of both would forever change. But where and how one sees films will inevitably be less important than the films themselves, and even in this year of turmoil, there was always something to recommend, wherever it was available to be seen.

Notable Runners-Up: “The 40-Year-Old Version,” “Ammonite,” “Another Round,” “And Then We Danced,” “The August Virgin,” “Birds of Prey,” “Da 5 Bloods,” “Emma.,” “The Half of It,” “Happiest Season,” “House of Hummingbird,” “I’m No Longer Here,” “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” “The Invisible Man,” “Kajillionaire,” “Let Them All Talk,” “Lingua Franca,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Madre,” “Miss Juneteenth,” “The Nest,” “Nomadland,” “One Night in Miami,” “The Photograph,” “The Secret Garden,” “She Dies Tomorrow,” “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon,” “Shirley,” “Sorry We Missed You,” “Tigertail,” “The Truth,...

“We’ve built up a track record by meeting challenges.”

Kino Lorber has picked up US rights to Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Venice Silver Lion winner Wife Of A Spy, the latest in a long line of festival gems and prestige titles that has helped the New York distributor further distinguish itself this year.

Richard Lorber and his team plan a spring 2021 release on the pre-Second World War Hitchcockian thriller about a Japanese actress and her wealthy merchant husband who try to smuggle evidence to the US of a human experimentation programme in Japan-controlled Manchuria.

Kurosawa reunites with Japanese actress Yu...

Between my first and second viewings of County Lines, the debut film from youth worker Henry Blake, a fatal turn of events went global. In a halcyon, pre-Covid February, I watched the film in the relative comfort of the BFI Southbank in London. People were spread apart because of low attendance rather than social distancing, likely due to the film’s tiny budget and horrifying subject-matter. I wrote at the time, in an early draft of this review, that it’s an underrated pleasure to watch a small and difficult film projected on a tall and luxurious screen.

Originally slated for April, County Lines is one of the first films to be released in cinemas after Lockdown 2.0, but only in Tier 1 and Tier 2 areas. I’m restricted to a Tier 3 zone, so perhaps the chance to see the film again in a cinema has dissolved. But for those living in the lower tiers,...

Closing out a year in which we’ve needed The Criterion Channel more than ever, they’ve now announced their impressive December lineup. Topping the highlights is a trio of Terrence Malick films––Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The New World––along with interviews featuring actors Richard Gere, Sissy Spacek, and Martin Sheen; production designer Jack Fisk; costume designer Jacqueline West; cinematographers Haskell Wexler and John Bailey; and more.

Also in the lineup is an Afrofuturism series, featuring an introduction by programmer Ashley Clark, with work by Lizzie Borden, Shirley Clarke, Souleymane Cissé, John Akomfrah, Terence Nance, and more. There’s also Mariano Llinás’s 14-hour epic La flor, Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, plus retrospectives dedicated to Mae West, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, and more.

Check out the lineup below and return every Friday for our weekly streaming picks.

A new drama about Tudor queen Anne Boleyn, starring Jodie Turner-Smith, has found its Henry VIII.

British actor Mark Stanley has been cast as the iconic monarch. Best known for playing Grenn in the HBO series “Game of Thrones,” Stanley has also had starring roles in “Kajaki,” “Our Kind of Traitor” and “Dickensian.”

Boleyn was the Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII. Their tempestuous marriage, and her execution for treason, made her one of the most colorful figures in English history. The Fable Pictures drama for U.K. broadcaster Channel 5 will explore the final months of Boleyn’s life from her perspective, and will follow her as she struggles to survive, to secure a future for her daughter, and to challenge the powerful patriarchy closing in around her.

The hotly anticipated series — which is shaping up to be one of the most...