As Ken Loach announces his retirement from directing after six decades of intense productivity, we dedicate a retrospective to his work, which is widely celebrated for its daring, uncompromising portraits of poverty and marginalisation in the United Kingdom. After starting his career at the BBC in the 1960s, with docudramas that caused scandals and put issues back on the political agenda, he rapidly cemented his position as a “filmmaker of the left”, bringing to light the daily lives of communities struggling under political, social and economic inequality. The films he would go on to direct for the cinema fall under the banner of social realism, at times acting as biting critiques of capitalism, at others reflecting on the question of identity in his home country.
His films have been awarded at the Berlin, Locarno, Rotterdam and Venice film festivals and twice won him the top prize at Cannes, the Palme d’Or. Batalha’s retrospective, which runs from May to December, features a selection of the director's filmography, much of it made in collaboration with his long-time screenwriter, Paul Laverty.