At the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema will be presented to two individuals who together have influenced the history of British cinema. Director Ken Loach and his long-time screenwriter Paul Laverty have worked together on twelve feature films and two shorts, in the process becoming pioneers of British social realist film with a humanitarian message.
The films of Ken Loach and Paul Laverty are regular winners of awards at renowned international festivals (Cannes, Venice), and Loach in particular has close ties to the festival in Karlovy Vary as well.
At the 16th Karlovy Vary IFF in 1968 Carol White has received Best Female Actress Award for her performance in Loach’s film Poor Cow. The film has also received a Special Jury Prize. In 1970, Loach personally accepted an award at the 17th annual KVIFF for his ground-breaking film Kes, a drama that the British Film Institute has included among the ten best British films of the 20th century. He was also a guest of our festival during one of its first post-revolutionary years, in 1992, and the festival regularly includes the films of Loach and Laverty on its programme.
Ken Loach
Born in Nuneaton, Loach studied law at St. Peter’s College, Oxford. After a brief period working in theatre, in the early 1960s he began working as a television director for the BBC. His long directing career began with the TV movie Cathy Come Home and the drama Kes, which won him an award in Karlovy Vary. After his breakthrough film Riff-Raff, which won the 1991 European Film Award for Best Film, he created numerous outstanding titles – Land and Freedom (1995), Sweet Sixteen (2002), The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006, which earned him a Palm d’Or at Cannes), Looking for Eric (2009), The Angels’ Share (2012) and most recently I, Daniel Blake (2016), another winner of the Palm d’Or for best film at the Cannes Film Festival.
Paul Laverty
Paul Laverty was born to an Irish mother and a Scottish father in Calcutta, India. After earning a degree in philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, he went on to graduate from Strathclyde Law School and subsequently worked as an attorney in Glasgow. In the mid-1980s, Paul spent three years living in Central America, where he worked for a human rights organization in Nicaragua.
Paul Laverty has written the script for twelve feature and two short films directed by Ken Loach. My Name is Joe earned Peter Mullan a Best Actor award at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. Other awards at Cannes include: Best Screenplay for Paul Laverty (Sweet Sixteen, 2002), a Palm d’Or for The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), and another Palm d’Or for I, Daniel Blake (2016). Paul Laverty also wrote the screenplays for director Iciar Bollaín’s Even the Rain (Tambien la lluvia) and The Olive Tree (El Olivo).
