Film Fest Gent opens with Ken Loach's 'I, Daniel Blake'

The tale of Daniel Blake, a 59-year-old widower carpenter from Newcastle, who is fighting to hold on to his welfare benefits, when he spots a woman in a similar predicament at the welfare office, he tries to help her & the two kids get set up... leading into a surrogate family.

Artistic director Film Fest Gent, Patrick Duynslaegher about the film: "We are very pleased to open with the new film by Ken Loach. For half a century his films about injustice and social inequality prove the courage and solidarity of the needy and oppressed. Again with “I, Daniel Blake”, we follow two people caught in a merciless Kafkaesque bureaucracy, shown in Loach's famous social realist style. This film is a cry for help, but also a heartbreaking human drama about courage, self-respect and solidarity. A particularly relevant, warm and generous movie in these neoliberal times of austerity and government policy failures."

The public pre-sale for the opening film in Vooruit will start on 23 August, tickets on sale through www.filmfestival.be and www.vooruit.be.