I, Daniel Blake

Year: 2016
Country: Great Britain, France, Belgium
Director: Ken Loach
Cast: Dave Johns, Hayley Squires, Sharon Percy
Genre: drama
Runtime: 100 min.
Age: 16+

Daniel Blake, 59, finds himself in no-man’s land caught on the barbed wire of welfare bureaucracy.

Daniel Blake, 59, has worked as a joiner most of his life in Newcastle. Now, after a heart attack and nearly falling from a scaffold, he needs help from the State for the first time in his life. He crosses paths with a single mother Katie and her two young children, Daisy and Dylan. Katie’s only chance to escape a one-roomed homeless hostel in London has been to accept a flat in a city she doesn’t know some 300 miles away. Daniel and Katie find themselves in no-man’s land caught on the barbed wire of welfare bureaucracy as played out against the rhetoric of ‘striver and skiver’ in modern day Britain.

Awards & Festivals:

Cannes Film Festival - Palme d'Or, Ecumenical Jury Prize, Palm Dog
Locarno Internatonal Film Festival - Audience Award