Thursday 28 November 2013
Ken Loach | UK, 1966 | Cert. PG
This month we celebrate the first Haringey International Film Festival, and HIC will, of course, be fully participating in the cultural feast. Our contribution to the festival, whose theme for this year is “Visions of Home”, will be a screening of Ken Loach’s classic Cathy Come Home on Thursday 28 November and, as ever, doors will open at 7pm and we will start the evening at 7.15pm. See the Festival website here http://www.haringeyfilmgroupfestival.org.uk/cathy-come-home/ for the full programme of events across the borough.
First broadcast on BBC1 in November 1966, Ken Loach’s television play Cathy Come Home instantly became a bona fide social, historical and political event, transforming people’s ideas about homelessness, unemployment and deprivation through its hyper-realistic and sympathetic portrayal of a family ripped apart by poverty in contemporary England. The film made an immediate impact: one critic called it “an ice-pick in the brain of all those who saw it”; viewers jammed the BBC’s phone lines; Parliament debated the film and the issues it depicted; and the charities Crisis and Shelter were formed shortly afterwards. Homelessness in the United Kingdom, as we know, of course, did not end. The film tells the story of Cathy (Carol White) and Reg (Ray Brooks), who marry, have a child and, for a time, are happy — until Reg loses his job, the family loses its home, and an uncertain future of squats, streets and shelters starts to unfold. We are showing this film in collaboration with the Haringey Housing Action Group and the Haringey Solidarity Group.