Cannes Festival - English Director Ken Loach Urges Against Brexit

USPA NEWS - Two years after he came to Cannes with what was thought to be his final feature film, English Director Ken Loach is back to discuss his latest offering, 'I, Daniel Blake'. The welfare polemic about a disabled man struggling with the bureaucracy of the U.K. benefits system....

Two years after he came to Cannes with what was thought to be his final feature film, English Director Ken Loach is back to discuss his latest offering, 'I, Daniel Blake'. The welfare polemic about a disabled man struggling with the bureaucracy of the U.K. benefits system. Director Ken Loach is using the film's topics to attack the 'conscious cruelty' with which welfare systems organize lives, not just in the U.K., but across Europe.

But despite the attacks against the current system in the U.K., Ken Loach is asserting that the situation would be significantly worse were Britain to vote to leave the European Union in the 'Brexit' referendum on June 23. He said during a Press Conference in Cannes Festival : 'The EU is a neo-liberal project, it's not doing us any favors...But if we leave, we know individual governments would move us to the right as far as possible, putting big business to the front. We'd be faced with a far-right government if we leave.' The filmmaker suggested that the most powerful method to influence the EU would be as member.

Based on research and interviews by the screenwriter Paul Laverty, this movie tells the fictional story of Daniel Blake, a middle-aged widower in the North East who can´t work or get benefits after a near-fatal heart attack. From the very first, Daniel Blake is in a perfect storm of bureaucratic misery. He has survived a cardiac arrest, and is told to rest up by his NHS consultant, and not to attempt any more piece-work as a carpenter. But he presents as being quite well and a box-ticking assessment from a functionary at the Department for Work and Pensions decides that he is not entitled to sickness benefit.

'I, Daniel Blake' is a 2016 film by British filmmaker Ken Loach :
Written by : Paul Laverty
Produced by : Rebecca O'Brien
Starring : Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Micky McGregor, Stephen Campbell
Release date : 13 May 2016 (Cannes Festival)
Country : United Kingdom, France, Belgium

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