Ken Loach, 9/18.

First Venice, then Toronto, then a theatrical preview in the UK before it's broadcast on Channel 4 next Monday. It's a fast life for It's a Free World... - the DVD's out in the UK on October 1.

For the Guardian, Simon Hattenstone talks with director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty about their award-garnering collaboration; James Mottram interviews Loach for the London Times; and in the Telegraph, Naomi West meets Free World's Kierston Wareing.

Updated through 9/25.

Ryan Stewart spoke with Loach in Toronto for Cinematical, where he writes, "Despite limiting us to only a few main characters, Loach is able to convincingly paint a whole world that exists comfortably outside the boundaries of the law - the legal system has no dispute with them.... What begins in an almost quasi-documentary format, showing us the ins and outs of this down and dirty way of life, eventually escalates into a tense, effective thriller."

Meanwhile, in the US, viewers are still catching up with Palme d'Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley. "It's safe to say that The Wind is the greatest, most observant and most authentic-feeling film ever made about the civil war (not that very many filmmakers have dared to begin with), and that Loach is a virtual godsend as a cultural voice, in these days of pernicious spin, political mercenariness and neo-imperial slaughter," writes Michael Atkinson at IFC News.

Update, 9/21: Amy Raphael meets him for the New Statesman: "Loach says that his primary motivation was not to effect change, but to examine 'why [exploitation] happens. Angie's logic is inexorable... The clothes are in the supermarkets. We're buying them. People are living in tin container sheds with no windows. That's central to our economy now. Families fall apart because of flexible labour - which is something Gordon Brown advocates.'"

Update, 9/22: Paul Laverty writes in the Guardian about the research he did for Free World and wonders, among other things, "Will the worker dumped at Victoria station with his broken leg in plaster and ordered to catch a bus back to Poland, or the Portuguese worker who broke his back after being told to climb and trim a tree with wellies on, feel we have been too soft?... I'd like to imagine Gordon Brown meeting these men and women and explaining that in the interests of 'efficiency, modernity, and flexibility in a globalised environment,' it will be impossible to repeal Thatcher's anti-union legislation or give temporary workers the same rights as others have - so they better cheer up and appreciate that they are part of the Anglo-Saxon miracle."

Update, 9/25: Andy McSmith talks with Loach for the Independent.

Posted by dwhudson at September 18, 2007 10:03 PM