Cannes 2023: New Ken Loach movie ‘The Old Oak’ announced to compete
The Cannes Film Festival titles have been announced. Among the movies to make the cut for the 2023 event is the new Ken Loach film, The Old Oak. The master filmmaker, most famed for Kes and Poor Cow, announced the project during last year’s Cannes Film Festival and was provisionally slated for a 2023 premiere.
The Old Oak is set in an old coal-mining village whose economic frameworks have been completely destabilised after all the mines shut down. A striking portrait of the contrast between the tired elders who are clinging on to their fading values and the disillusioned youth, the movie promises to be an immersive cinematic experience, characteristic of Loach’s revered canon.
The British filmmaker is celebrated for his knack for creative storytelling and often holds a political agenda central to the narrative. In a past interview with Nick Thorpe, Loach explained how difficult it is to voice coherent outrage in the modern political landscape. “I think the most we can do, in the general noise that is the public debate, is to try and be one still, small voice (to use a biblical phrase) in the constant flow of media trash. You don’t have any grand illusions about what you can do,” he said.
“Our cinema has always been colonised by the Americans,” Loach continued. “They think we speak their language and so we’re seen as like an outpost of their cinema, so it’s much more difficult for an independent indigenous cinema to thrive. Somebody may do two or three good films, and then people come along and wave fat cheques, and they see that ‘progress’ is going to America.”
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