Cannes: Ken Loach’s film on Irish fight against UK colonialism wins first prize

This video is the trailer of the film The Wind That Shakes The Barley.

The BBC reports:

Loach film wins top Cannes prize

British director Ken Loach‘s The Wind That Shakes The Barley has won the Palme d’Or – the top prize at the Cannes film festival.

The film, about Ireland’s struggle for independence, beat 19 others to the prestigious prize.

Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, who led the jury, said his panel had looked for films which reflected “compassion, hope, bonding and solidarity”.

Other jurors included actors Tim Roth, Samuel L Jackson and Monica Belluci.

Wong said the jury’s desicion had been a unanimous one.

British actress Helena Bonham Carter, who was also on the jury, said Loach’s film “hit us all profoundly”.

“It was one of five films about war and it was a fantastic education about the Irish problem,” she added.

“There was a tremendous humanity. I can’t explain our mass reaction but we were all profoundly moved.”

‘Wonderful festival’

Loach, 69, has said the film, which describes the early days of the IRA in the 1920s from an Irish perspective, is also a critique of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

“Maybe if we tell the truth about the past, maybe we tell the truth about the present,” he said as he accepted the award.

“Our film is a little, a very little step in the British confronting their imperialist history,” he said.

28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy leads the cast, which also includes Padraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham and Orla Fitzgerald.

Loach has been nominated for the Palme d’Or on seven previous occasions, but this is the first time he has won the main prize.

See also here.

And here.

Loach interview: here.

Loach‘s film Cathy Come Home and homelessness in Britain: here.

The Tragedy of Michael Collins: here.

The uprising of Irish Catholics in October 1641 followed decades of tension with English Protestant settlers and many thousands of men, women and children lost their lives: here.