Join us for an evening of screenings and a live Zoom conversation with Ken Loach as he discusses some of his most controversial and suppressed films - works that TV networks and other institutions have tried to keep from the public. We will discuss The Gamekeeper, The Navigators, The Save The Children Fund Film, Which Side Are You On?, and A Question of Leadership. Discover the untold stories behind these banned and buried films, as well as first-hand accounts of the battles Loach fought to bring them to the general public.
Estimated timings:
18:00 - 19:15 Ken Loach in Conversation
19:15 - 19:45 Break
19:45 - 20:35 The Save The Children Fund Film
20:35 - 20:45 Comfort break
20:45 - 21:35 A Question of Leadership
21:35 - 21:45 Comfort break
21:45 - 22:40 Which Side Are You On?
Tickets for the event, which includes the conversation and all three screenings, are £20 for members, and £22.50 for non-members.
This event is preceded by a screening of The Gamekeeper at 15:30. If you choose to book this film in addition to Ken Loach in Conversation, tickets for The Gamekeeper will be discounted to £10 (members) or £12 (non-members). The discount will appear automatically after putting both tickets in the basket. You can buy tickets here.
The Navigators will screen as part of our regular Ken Loach: A Retrospective programme on 20 October and 11 November. You can buy tickets for these screenings here.
About the films:
The Save the Children Fund Film, was commissioned in 1969 by the eponymous charity, although London Weekend Television put up two-thirds of the budget in return for screening rights. However, when the charity discovered that Loach's film represented their efforts in England as characterised largely by class prejudice and one of their schools in Kenya as a hotbed of neo-colonialist attitudes, they threatened to sue Loach and destroy the film, faced with which LWT meekly wrote off their investment and agreed not to screen it. Fortunately, however, the charity agreed to the print being lodged with the BFI, and the film received its first public screening in 2011.
A Question of Leadership: Ken Loach's examination of Thatcherism's impact on the trade unions was made for ATV, and scheduled to appear on ITV network on 5 August 1980. But after the Independent Broadcasting Authority found it in breach of impartiality rules, ATV was forced to withdraw it. Eventually, cut by 12 minutes to accommodate a 'balancing' programme, it was broadcast a year later, late-night and only in the midlands region.
Which Side Are You On? was commissioned for transmission as part of the South Bank Show, but was not shown because of its 'highly partial view on a controversial subject'. London Weekend Television, the commissioning company, felt that it was more of a political film than an arts film. Loach's brief was to make a programme that showed what the striking miners were writing and singing. He felt that this was what he delivered and was angered that the programme was banned on the basis that it overstepped official guidelines on political impartiality. Loach has always felt that no documentary can ever be neutral or 'balanced' (and nor can the news) and he acknowledges that he made the film entirely from the miners' point of view. Following the decision to pull the programme he said 'It is clear that only approved people can make comments about a struggle as decisive as the miners.'
- BFI, screenonline