The Old Oak

The owner of a pub in Northern England confronts the locals’ hostile attitude towards Syrian refugees in this politically charged and deeply human drama from master director Ken Loach.

The Old Oak is the story of a quickly changing village in the Northeast of England. The once thriving community of the village is gradually deserted by the young who have left for bigger cities, the mine closed and the inhabitants feel deserted by the system. The ones who stayed, struggle to accept reality and try to keep old values alive. Meanwhile, the village houses are cheap and available, making it the perfect location for the Syrian refugees that arrived in Britain in the last few years.

Ken Loach has announced that The Old Oak would be his final film. The movie competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

«If this is the end of the road for a British filmmaking great, it’s a thoughtful, heart-filled finale. British cinema’s old oak still stands tall.»
– Phil de Semlyen, Time Out –

Oriane Jolly

Director

Ken Loach (b. 1936) is a British filmmaker known for his deeply human and equally political films. He made his feature debut with Poor Cow in 1967, and has since made some of the most important films in British film history. He has made several awards throughout his career, among others the Palme d’Or for I, Daniel Blake in 2016. The Old Oak is his most recent film and premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

This film is part of