Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1999, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a filmmaker, the son of an electrician, he read law at Oxford,

but it wasn't the drama of the courts which claimed him.

In the 60s, he made films which changed the way we looked at ourselves.

Up the junction, Kathy come home and Kess.

His work after that slipped from fashion, but never deviated from its determination

to reflect life as it is, and to sympathise with those who find it hard and unremitting.

Now in the 90s he's back at the forefront again.

Films such as Land and Freedom, Carla's song and My is Joe, have won awards and high praise.

But for their author, it's only their nearness to the truth that matters.

I want to make films which are real, he says, to be authentic about the world.

He is Ken Loach.

Your films are usually, in fact, I think always, Ken, about life's bleak aside, you know,

from homelessness to alcoholism. Is there pleasure in making them or are you just

dedicated to the mission of making them?

I hope they're not bleak. I mean, I would hope they'd be full of life and vitality and laughs and and warmth.

The enjoyment in making them is to find out warmth, to communicate it.

But you're not just making entertainment are you you are you

are trying to say something every time I know you don't like the word message but

you know there's always something to be read from your films isn't there?

there's a there's a point of view but that's

...