Ken Loach discusses potential retirement: “One Day at a Time”
The iconic British filmmaker Ken Loach has been speaking about his retirement plans during the week that his new movie, The Old Oak, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
When asked by Deadline whether The Old Oak would be his final film, the director responded: “One day at a time. If you get up in the morning, and you’re not in the obituary column; one day at a time”.
His comments follow his previous thoughts in a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, in which the director behind I, Daniel Blake and Kes, stated: “realistically, it would be hard to do a feature film again” given that “your facilities do decline. Your short-term memory goes and my eyesight is pretty rubbish now, so it’s quite tricky”.
Continuing, he added: “It’s not up to the directors and writers if they can make films; now the doors are closing on young people who want to engage with the issues of their time with a political understanding other than simply a social understanding. That’s a big difference because political understanding means you challenge those in power. Why should those in power with the money when their system is failing support films that should challenge them?”.
The Old Oak screened at Cannes alongside the likes of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Take a look at a clip from Loach’s new movie below.
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