PARIS — Veteran British director Ken Loach won his second Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival Sunday for “I, Daniel Blake.”
The 79-year-old was presented the festival’s top prize by actor Mel Gibson at a ceremony on the French Riviera. Accepting the award, the silver-haired Loach punched his fists in the air in victory and said that he hoped his gritty, social realist movie would hold a mirror up to the impact of Europe’s policies of austerity on the poorest in society.
“We must give a message of hope, we must say another world is possible,” he said.
“I, Daniel Blake” chronicles a middle-aged widower from Newcastle who, after a heart attack, can neither work nor get government aid. It follows the sometimes comic, frequently painful frustrations as he winds his way through an archaic system that seems designed to bring him down.
Associated Press
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