Ken Loach Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

EXCLUSIVE: British director Ken Loach has been suspended from holding a decision-making role at Bectu amid simmering internal tensions at the UK’s biggest film and TV union.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Locarno Film Festival will honor Jane Campion with its Pardo d’onore Manor award. The prominent Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema will celebrate the revered auteur from New Zealand on Aug.

Alex Ritman Donations from the likes of Spike Lee, Paul Mescal and Olivia Colman have been added to a growing list of items being sold off as part the Cinema for Gaza auction, which has so far raised over £90,000 ($113,000). A framed “Malcolm X” poster signed by Lee, an “Aftersun” poster signed by Mescal and a personalized video message from Colman are among the auction lots launching on Monday, alongside additional items including a “beer on Zoom” with Tessa Thompson with memorabilia from “The Marvels,” a “Worst Person in the World” poster signed by Joachim Trier and the cast and the chance to talk to Susan Sarandon over Zoom about your favorite of her films (plus a signed “Rocky Horror Picture Show” t-shirt).

Welcome back, Insider crew. Jesse Whittock taking you through another eventful week in film and TV. Let’s begin.

Movistar Plus+ original film and the awaited next feature from Spain’s Iciar Bollaín (“Take My Eyes,” “Maixabel”), has closed its earliest pre-sales, struck by Film Factory Entertainment, including a bellwether deal in France. The deals come as “I’m Nevenka” has wrapped production, shooting in the Basque city of Bilbao before transferring to rural Zamora, western Spain.

A growing list of high-profile names from the film and TV world, including Jonathan Glazer, Tilda Swinton, and Succession star Brian Cox, have donated unique gifts to Cinema For Gaza, a fundraising auction supporting aid for people in Gaza, which launched yesterday April 2nd.

Alex Ritman Ken Loach says he has “great respect” for Jonathan Glazer in raising the subject of Gaza in his Oscars acceptance speech for “The Zone of Interest,” asserting that the director was “very brave” to say what he did. “And I’m sure he understood the possible consequences, which makes him braver still, so I’ve got great respect for him and his work,” he tells Variety. The veteran filmmaker and campaigner is speaking ahead of the U.S.

Alex Ritman A number of major names from the U.K. film and TV world and beyond have donated items — and their own time — to an auction raising money for Gaza.

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here taking you through what has been a whirlwind of a week in international TV and film. Do not stop here — please do read on. And sign up here.

“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. 

Footballing legend Eric Cantona has announced new UK and European tour dates including a gig in Manchester. It follows his debut sold-out tour last October, which included a date at Manchester's Stoller Hall.

Nominations for the 2024 BAFTAs have been revealed!

Ken Loach’s “The Old Oak” – won big Saturday night at Spain’s Valladolid Festival, walking off with its main competition Golden Spike and the Spanish event’s best actor (Dave Turner) and Audience Award plaudits respectively. The prize ceremony also saw Charlotte Rampling, star of closing film “Juniper” from Matthew J.

Filming has been underway around Glasgow for the latest movie shot by award winning director Ken Loach’s production company.

David Yates Set For Raindance Icon Award

Naman Ramachandran Disney sci-fi epic “The Creator” and Lionsgate U.K.’s horror franchise entry “Saw X” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office — and the race was almost too close to call. “Saw X” won the three-day total with £1.92 million ($2.31 million), while “The Creator” was just behind with £1.89 million ($2.27 million).

Naman Ramachandran British filmmaker David Yates, known for his extensive work across the “Harry Potter” universe, will be the 2023 recipient of the Raindance Icon Award. Previous recipients of the Raindance Film Festival award include Vanessa Redgrave, Jonathan Pryce, Gemma Arterton, Michael Caine, Sally Hawkins, Jude Law, Olivia Colman, Terry Gilliam, Guy Richie and Ken Loach.

Over 50 years since the debut of his first feature film, 1967’s “Poor Cow,” acclaimed filmmaker Ken Loach continues to add to his incredible filmography. And his next film is “The Old Oak,” which continues what Loach does best—telling humanist stories about the struggles that complicate the lives of people.  READ MORE: Summer 2023 Movie Preview: 52 Must-See Films To Watch As seen in the trailer for “The Old Oak,” the film tells the story of a once-thriving mining community that is struggling to stay afloat.

Glastonbury Festival has removed documentary Oh, Jeremy Corbyn, The Big Lie from its film program after Jewish groups accused it of putting forward an antisemitic conspiracy theory around why the politician never rose to the position of UK prime minister.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor In “The Old Oak,” which played in Competition in Cannes, Ken Loach portrays a village in the North-East of England where the indigenous white community comes into conflict with Syrian refugees – a conflict fuelled by the despair, deprivation and decline of the rust-belt region. Such conditions can be a seed-bed for far right groups, the director tells Variety. Such issues have not been explored sufficiently in film and television, Loach says, and he draws a parallel with the portrayal of the rise of Nazism in Germany in the mass media. “We have endless programs about the Second World War, about the horrors of Nazism and fascism, about the racism, about the Holocaust. Quite properly, we have endless programs about that, but what they refuse to point out is that that arose from alienation, anger, feeling cheated, and finding scapegoats. And that’s how we ended up with Hitler, and that’s the ground in which the far right flourishes. One of the points of the film is to say: This is the cause of fascism. This is where it comes from. This is its seed-bed, and it comes as an inevitable consequence of our economic system. Because if the neoliberal agenda was an essential development for capitalism, to use the old-fashioned word, then that’s where fascism comes from. Implicit in that is that the far right will rise because that’s how people will be heading. And they know that and yet the mass media, the press, just turn their backs on that. They’ll tell us all about the horrors of Hitler. Sure. But they won’t tell us how he came to power. And that’s the huge lesson. And we see it in essence now all the time.”

By Hanna RantalaCANNES (Reuters) - Ken Loach said on Friday he does not know if "The Old Oak," the 86-year-old British director's attempt to win the Cannes Film Festival's top prize for a third time, would be his last. "Oh, I don't know, I live day by day," said Loach, who turns 87 in June. "If you read the obituary columns and you're not in them, it's a good day.

Christopher Vourlias On a recent morning in Cannes, Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan sat over coffee at the Hotel Martinez and recalled a phone call he received nearly 60 years ago, not long after he’d made a splash on the British folk scene. On the other end of the line was a rising screenwriter and director called Ken Loach. “He said he was making his first feature…and would I help him with the music?” Donovan told Variety. The film, a kitchen sink drama called “Poor Cow,” based on a novel by British playwright and author Neil Dunn, tells the story of a working-class single mother leading a hard-luck life in the slums of London. It’s a movie that set the tone for the type of social drama that propelled Loach throughout a remarkable, prolific career.

“Elemental” and Martin Scorsese’s Apple-produced “Killers of the Flower Moon” an additional veneer of vindication. As to the box-office futures of the 20-odd films competing for this year’s Palme d’Or, certainly none will reach the international highs of James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” but then, none were ever expected to.Instead — and at its best — Cannes works as a sophisticated shell game, channeling the glamour of the red carpet and the frenzy of 40,000 accredited guests to make glitzy international events out of existential Turkish dramas like Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses,” existential Finnish dramedies like Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves”or intimate two-headers about 19th-century French gastronomy like Tran Anh Hung’s “The Pot au Feu.”Other Palme d’Or contenders will come with built-in SEO, as Wes Anderson’s more-star-packed-than-usual “Asteroid City”threatens to saddle red-carpet rubberneckers with a permanent case of whiplash once the Texan auteur’s full repertory company mounts the Palais steps alongside new additions Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson.That all the aforementioned filmmakers could walk those Palais steps in blindfolds is another notable element of an official competition marked by staggering high fidelity.

Callum McLennan Belgium’s Panique! (“Adoration,”), and Chile’s Pájaro have joined Oscar-nominated Vivemant Lundi! (“Flee,” “Mémorable,”) and Spanish collective Terremoto AIE to round out the co-production force behind the animated feature, “Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake.”  Filmax will handle distribution in Spain. KMBO will handle its domestic release in France. The Gallic distributor is on a roll with strong animation box office performances in France for “Amazing Maurice” and current Ukrainian hit “Mavka: The Forest Song,” Spearheading the production is Terremoto AIE, which includes Citoplasmas Stop Motion studio, Cornelius Films, and Bígaro Films, all contributing to the feature. 

U.S. director Harmony Korine will be heading to Switzerland this summer to receive an honorary award at the 76th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, running from August 2 to 12.

Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux unveiled the bulk of the Official Selection for the 76th edition of the festival at a packed press conference in Paris on Thursday morning.

Roger Waters from performing in Frankfurt, Germany.The former Pink Floyd member was set to perform in the city on May 28 as part of his This Is Not A Drill tour – however the show was pulled by the officials at Frankfurt City Council following accusations of anti-Semitism.Now, famous faces including Eric Clapton, Rage Against The Machine‘s Tom Morello and Pink Floyd’s own Nick Mason have rallied behind Waters, and backed a Change.org petition aiming to have the decision overturned.Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel and Soft Machine founder Robert Wyatt have also shown their solidarity, as well as actors Susan Sarandon and Julie Christie, and film director Ken Loach. Currently, the petition has more than 10,000 signatures.“Waters’ criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is part of his long-term advocacy on behalf of human rights across the globe,” reads the description alongside the petition.

Brian Tufano, the veteran British cinematographer who lensed films such as Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, and Billy Elliot, has died. He was 83.

EXCLUSIVE: Original Wild Bunch co-founders Vincent Maraval and Brahim Chioua bid farewell to the legendary company name they created in 2002 at a party in Paris on Thursday evening.

Wild Bunch co-founders Vincent Maraval and Brahim Chioua bid farewell to the legendary company name they created in 2002 at a characteristically rebel-rousing party in Paris bannered “Forever Wild Whatever The Name!” on Thursday night, but have yet to confirm their new name.