Edition 2026
Official Selection
Rebecca O’Brien has been working as an independent producer for thirty-five years. Prior to that, she gained experience in the industry in a variety of roles: she was location manager on My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985) and production manager on several early Channel 4 films.
As a producer, she has worked alongside Ken Loach to build one of the most consistent bodies of work in European cinema: Land and Freedom, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, I, Daniel Blake and The Old Oak. Two of these — The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016) — won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. In an interview, she discusses what it takes to get socially engaged stories made and seen, and why those stories matter in dark times.