Director Ken Loach’s New Film Likely His Last

Director Ken Loach has begun shooting Jimmy’s Hall in counties Letrim and Sligo in Ireland, a film about the true story of Irish communist leader James Gralton who returned from a decade in New York to re-open a dance hall in 1921, and it will apparently be his last.

Loach’s producer Rebecca O’Brien, who has made more than a dozen films with Loach, says the director is getting too old to make narrative features but will still focus on documentary and TV work. O’Brien told ScreenDaily that making narrative features is “such a huge operation and Ken doesn’t sit in a director’s chair, telling people what to do; he runs around. It requires a lot of physical and mental stamina.” She goes on to say, “I’d be very surprised if we made another feature after this one.” Though it’s not from Loach’s mouth and isn’t set in stone, it does come from one of the famously political director’s loyal confidants. It isn’t all bad news as we can hope for some more documentary films from the director if anything.

Loach is one of the most decorated British filmmakers and is best known to Criterion fans for Kes, the 1970 film that was one of his first and most influential and was listed as number 7 on the British Film Institute’s list of the best British films of the 20^th century. Other cinephiles may know him as the director of the absolutely brilliant The Wind that Shakes the Barley starring Cillian Murphy that won the Palme d’Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.