them. Many lost souls.The place had fallen to wrack and ruin. All the shops had gone. The state had retracted swimming pools, post offices, banks, the whole shebang. The housing property had dropped. People were buying houses online on a Monday, selling them on a Thursday, trying to make a few bucks. “Other landlords would try and get anyone they could in. And so the people who live there, their one asset was undermined. Their houses going for five or six thousand pounds. You could see they were angry and furious. They felt dumped upon. Many of the people that were brought in were sent up from local authorities down south. Their lives were ruined by some of these crazy neighbours, people released from prison. And then when the asylum refugees arrived many of them felt like:‘Why us? We’ve got nothing.’ Not consulted again. Didn’t feel respected.
Syrian refugees living in England.
“It’s always important to talk about subjects like this, especially underprivileged communities that escaped war,” Mari says. “And to make films about it so people can understand it more and hopefully have less judgment towards the communities… so people can ask questions and maybe change perspectives.
“I like to think that cinema and art can change things.”
She was excited when Loach approached her.“I really believe in this kind of political and social art,” she says.“But also the subject is so close to my heart and so emotional for me, and so I felt an extra motivation to do it.” “You can have all the ideas in the world, all the issues, but you’ve got to find the story, the characters,” says Laverty. “To find two people like this, who’ve given such flesh and blood, has been an enormous privilege.” The plight of the mining communities is one Turner, who plays TJ, knows well. He was a firefighter for 30 years, before working in a pub in an old mining town in County Durham. Loach approached him, leading to a part in I, Daniel Blake. Both Mari and Turner fully embodied their characters. Partly in coming to them from places of understanding and affinity, partly due to Loach’s directing technique: scripts are handed out the day before filming, plots revealed to actors in real- time. “TJ was somebody that I could identify with,”Turner, 59, says. “TJ was a guy who had been beaten down by life in general. I know a lot of people like TJ and there were parts of TJ that were me.The way Ken works, you do it chronologically and in order, and you get the scripts the day before, so I didn’t know where my character was going to end up.”
“We felt it was a remarkable combination of world events, historical history, all playing out in these little villages.”
The story is told through the evolving friendship between Yara and TJ, played by Ebla Mari and Dave Turner.As in other films, Loach brought real people to the screen, some with little acting experience, others with none. In casting, Loach says his principle is always the same:“Listen, observe and allow people to be true to themselves. Casting is critical. It was clear that Syrians in the film should be those who have settled in the area. Paul’s script allowed them the freedom to contribute so that the story was a true reflection of their experiences.” Mari grew up in Golan Heights, in the village of Majdal Shams, an area to Syria’s south-west and Israel’s north-east that has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. With a background in theatre, the 26-year-old makes her film debut in The Old Oak. Her on-screen family are not actors but
Photo: PA from Ken Loach’s final film The Old Oak
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