The evening screening on Thursday October 16 will be followed by a Q&A with David Bradley, Kes lead actor.
The matinee screening on Friday October 30 will be introduced by film academic and writer Rhys Handley.
Named one of the ten best British films of the century by the BFI, Ken Loach’s Kes, is cinema’s quintessential portrait of working-class Northern England. Billy (an astonishingly naturalistic David Bradley) is a fifteen-year-old miner’s son whose close bond with a wild kestrel provides him with a spiritual escape from his dead-end life.
Kes brought to the big screen the sociopolitical engagement Loach had established in his work for the BBC, and pushed the British “angry young man” film of the sixties into a new realm of authenticity, using real locations and nonprofessional actors. Loach’s poignant coming-of-age drama remains the now legendary director’s most beloved and influential film.
- The Criterion Collection
Rhys Handley is a film academic and writer, born in Doncaster. He holds a Master’s in Film Studies from King’s College London. His ongoing work uses philosophy to look at the effects of the climate crisis on marginalised and working-class communities and individuals as depicted in British social realist cinema.
