You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the programme. I do hope you enjoy it. My guest today has been

making films for more than 50 years. As his latest project hits UK cinemas, it's clear that his

passion remains undimmed, specifically its anger,

maybe even outrage that defines the work of Ken Loach. From his earliest forays into television

in the 1960s making dramas like Kathy Come Home, a searing portrayal of a family's descent into homelessness, to his latest film,

Sorry We Missed You, about exploitation of workers in the gig economy. Ken Loach has specialised in spare,

unflinching studies of injustice. He learnt much from the Social realist school of European cinema and developed a style

all of his own. He rarely uses well-known actors. He films without artifice and many of his movies

are so bleak, they're hard to watch. But they do strike a chord. Twice he's won the biggest

prize at the Cannes Film Festival for the

wind that shakes the barley and I, Daniel Blake. But he has little time for a movie industry that

thrives on escapism and entertainment. If those two words don't motivate Ken Loach's creativity,

what does? Well, he joins me now. Ken Loach, welcome to Hard Talk.

Thanks very much. Pleasure to be here. Around five years ago, I seem to recall there was some talk about

you maybe not making movies for very much longer, if at all. And yet here you see it, having just made another movie,

sorry we missed you, and before that you made I, Daniel Blake, which won huge prize at Cannes.

So can we take it that your passion for filmmaking burns as bright as ever?

Well, it does because it's a huge privilege to do that.

And there's so many stories to tell. Did you come close to quitting? Well, it was a slightly misjudged remark. I mean, I was up to my knees in an Irish bog. My feet were wet, and I thought, I can't go on doing this much longer. But, you know, you come out, you get dry. the people around you are terrific, fun and creative and a joy to be with,

and you think, well, why not, you know, keep pressing on.

But since then, that one remark has rather dogged me.

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