Kes

Kes

Fifteen-year-old Billy lives with his mother and older half-brother, Judd. A loner, Billy likes to wander through the valleys and woodlands near his home. During one of his walks, he steals a young kestrel from its nest. He hides it in his house and feeds and trains it, having learned how to do so from a book he has stolen from a bookshop. One day, his brother entrusts him with the money he plans to bet at the horses, but Billy spends it on himself. Wild with anger, Judd tries to catch him, but Billy gets away. When he comes home later on, the kestrel is missing. Billy looks for it everywhere. He realizes that Judd has harmed it. After a violent confrontation with Judd and his mother, Billy finds his kestrel dead in the rubbish bin. He strokes it lovingly and then buries it.

Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.


Direction: Ken Loach
Script: Barry Hines, Ken Loach, Tony Garnett, / based on the novel Kestrel for a Knave
Cinematography: Chris Menges
Editing: Roy Watts
Sound: Gerry Humphreys, Tony Jackson
Music: John Cameron
Actors: David Bradley, Lynne Perrie, Freddie Fletcher, Colin Welland
Production: Woodfall Films; Kestrel Films
Costumes: Daphne Dare
Sets: William McCrow
Format: DCP
Color: Colour
Duration: 113'

Ken Loach

Kenneth Charles Loach is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialist ideals are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (Poor Cow, 1967), homelessness (Cathy Come Home, 1966), and labor rights (Riff-Raff, 1991, and The Navigators, 2001). Loach’s film Kes (1969) was voted the seventh greatest British film of the 20th century in a poll by the British Film Institute. Two of his films, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016), received the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making him one of only nine filmmakers to win the award twice. Loach also holds the record for most films in the main competition at Cannes, with fifteen films.

Filmography

1967 Poor Cow
1971 Family Life
1979 Black Jack
1981 Looks and Smiles
1984 Which Side Are You On? (doc)
1990 Hidden Agenda
1994 Ladybird Ladybird
1995 Land and Freedom
1996 Carla's Song
1998 My Name Is Joe
2000 Bread and Roses
2002 Sweet Sixteen
2004 A Fond Kiss
2006 The Wind that Shakes the Barley
2007 It’s a Free World...
2010 Route Irish
2014 Jimmy's Hall
2016 I, Daniel Blake
2019 Sorry We Missed You
2023 The Old Oak