Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach

Why are we still able, today, to view images that were captured over 125 years ago? As we enter the digital age, audiovisual heritage seems to be a sure and obvious fact. However, much of cinema and our filmed history has been lost forever. Archivists, technicians and filmmakers from different parts of the world explain what audiovisual preservation is and why it is necessary. The documentary is a tribute to all these professionals and their important work.

Comedian, actor and ex-English teacher Greg Davies is a lifelong fan of Barry Hines's classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave, the story of Billy Casper training a kestrel as an escape from his troubled home and school life. In this documentary, Greg goes in search of the book's enduring appeal, travelling to Barnsley, where the book was set and where Ken Loach's famous adaptation, Kes, was filmed.

Mild-mannered Clark Kent works as a reporter at the Daily Planet alongside his crush, Lois Lane. Clark must summon his superhero alter-ego when the nefarious Lex Luthor launches a plan to take over the world.

In this musical comedy, Valerie is dealing with her philandering fiancé, Ted, when she finds that a trio of aliens have crashed their spaceship into her swimming pool. Once the furry beings are shaved at her girlfriend's salon, the women discover three handsome men underneath. After absorbing the native culture via television, the spacemen are ready to hit the dating scene in 1980s Los Angeles.

A group of Cockneys arm themselves to rescue their elderly relative and his retirement home friends who are trapped and fighting off a zombie attack during a zombie apocalypse in the East End of London.

Homeless and on the run from a military court martial, a damaged ex-special forces soldier navigating London's criminal underworld seizes an opportunity to assume another man's identity, transforming into an avenging angel in the process.

In Depression-era Ireland, Jimmy Gralton returns home after a decade's exile in America. Witnessing the levels of poverty and oppression, his inner activist reawakens and he seeks to reopen the dance hall that led to his deportation.

Year 1936. As villages across Palestine rise against British colonial rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. But history is relentless. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe and some arriving with nefarious Zionist-colonial ambitions, and the Palestinian population uniting in the largest and longest uprising against Britain’s 30-year dominion, all sides spiral towards inevitable collision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region.

A pub landlord in a previously thriving mining community struggles to hold onto his pub. Meanwhile, tensions rise in the town when Syrian refugees are placed in the empty houses in the community.

Big Bird is sent to live far from Sesame Street by a pesky social worker, who thinks it would be better for him to live with other birds. Unhappy, Big Bird runs away from his foster home, prompting the rest of the Sesame Street gang to go on a cross-country journey to find him.

The Limey follows Wilson, a tough English ex-con who travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter's death. Upon arrival, Wilson goes to task battling Valentine and an army of L.A.'s toughest criminals, hoping to find clues and piece together what happened. After surviving a near-death beating, getting thrown from a building and being chased down a dangerous mountain road, the Englishman decides to dole out some bodily harm of his own.

In 1879, the British suffer a great loss at the Battle of Isandlwana due to incompetent leadership.

A 59-year-old carpenter recovering from a heart attack befriends a single mother and her two kids as they navigate the impersonal, Kafkaesque benefits system. With equal amounts of humour, warmth and despair, the journey is heartfelt and emotional until the end.

Hoping that self-employment through gig economy can solve their financial woes, a hard-up delivery driver and his wife struggling to raise a family end up trapped in the vicious circle of modern-day labour exploitation.

At the start of World War I, Paul Baumer is a young German patriot, eager to fight. Indoctrinated with propaganda at school, he and his friends eagerly sign up for the army soon after graduation. But when the horrors of war soon become too much to bear, and as his friends die or become gravely wounded, Paul questions the sanity of fighting over a few hundreds yards of war-torn countryside.

In 1920s Ireland young doctor Damien O'Donovan prepares to depart for a new job in a London hospital. As he says his goodbyes at a friend's farm, British Black and Tans arrive, and a young man is killed. Damien joins his brother Teddy in the Irish Republican Army, but political events are soon set in motion that tear the brothers apart.

Assigned to oversee the development of the atomic bomb, Gen. Leslie Groves is a stern military man determined to have the project go according to plan. He selects J. Robert Oppenheimer as the key scientist on the top-secret operation, but the two men clash fiercely on a number of issues. Despite their frequent conflicts, Groves and Oppenheimer ultimately push ahead with two bomb designs — the bigger "Fat Man" and the more streamlined "Little Boy."

A newlywed couple visits the husband's hometown of Geneva, where they are subjected to threats stemming from the death of his former fiancée.

Working-class Angie, sacked from a recruitment agency for bad public behaviour, teams up with her flatmate to run a similar business from their kitchen. With immigrants desperate for work, the opportunities are considerable, particularly for two girls so in tune with these times.

Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.

During a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, three teenagers edge towards adulthood.

Norman Pitkin is the assistant helping to run a small, old fashioned dairy which is threatened by a larger, modern organisation. Pitkin does his best to save the dairy (and his horse) and the usual chaos ensues

Drama/Comedy set in a refugee camp in occupied Austria after World War II. A shrewd multi-lingual interpreter who mediates between Russian and British military brass enters into a friendly rivalry with British Major Giles Burnside, who is in charge of assigning the displaced persons into either the American or Russian zones.

The Wedded Bliss computer dating agency aims to bring together the lonely hearts of Much-Snoggin-in-the-Green. Its owner, Sidney Bliss, has enough complications in his own love life, but still produces a pamphlet called 'The Wit to Woo'. The strange collection of hopefuls lead to some outlandish matches—and jealousies are bound to lead to trouble.

A young man leads a promiscuous lifestyle until several life reversals make him rethink his purposes and goals in life.

A chance discovery leads American mining engineer Ben Harris and acquaintance Harold to discover a lost city under the sea while searching for their kidnapped friend Jill. Held captive in the underwater city by the tyrannical Captain (Vincent Price), and his crew of former smugglers, the three plot to escape...

England, 1645. The cruel civil war between Royalists and Parliamentarians that is ravaging the country causes an era of chaos and legal arbitrariness that allows unscrupulous men to profit by exploiting the absurd superstitions of the peasants; like Matthew Hopkins, a monster disguised as a man who wanders from town to town offering his services as a witch hunter.

Based on true events, an American submarine collides into a Soviet sub of the coast of America and an ensuing standoff occurs that could lead to total annihilation.

Detective Scobie Malone accepts a mission to fly to London to arrest Sir James Quentin, a high-level commissioner wanted down under for murder. But when Malone arrives, he finds that the amiable Quentin is not only the key in groundbreaking peace negotiations, but also the target of an assassin himself.

In a late night chemist a shot bank robber has been taken for treatment, and to rendezvous with the gang leader.

Joy lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age, she marries and has a child–with an abusive thief who quickly ends up incarcerated. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up locked up. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure–if that.

The lives and loves of three young working class women, set in the pubs, terraced houses and factories of Battersea, South London.

A young woman trades her upper-class existence for a new life in an economically depressed suburb of London.

Girls growing up in 1960-61 London develop a passion for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the first British team in the 20th century to win the English league and FA Cup "double". Twenty years later, one of the girls tracks down players of the '60-'61 Spurs for a documentary.

At a Catholic boys' school, domineering disciplinarian Father Goddard rules over his pupils with an iron hand. When one of his teenage charges confesses to murder, the dogmatic but deeply repressed Goddard finds his faith challenged and his life spiralling dangerously out of control.

Entirely shot on green screen, Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been reinvented by director Kit Monkman (The Knife That Killed Me) in an exciting new film adaptation. Starring Mark Rowley, (The Last Kingdom, Luther). Monkman’s unique adaptation successfully bridges the gap between theatre and film to create a wholly new type of imaginative space. This radical new adaptation puts the audience’s engagement with the story centre-stage, amplifying the theatrical context of the original and creating truly innovative and thrilling cinematic vistas, whilst maintaining the language and themes of Shakespeare’s original play. Using background matte painting and computer modelling to generate the world in which the action plays out, the green screen allows Monkman to create his vision of a multi-tiered globe in which the characters play out their various fates.

A tough young girl lives with her aging grandfather near a cove on the coast of Cornwall. She supports herself and him by gathering seaweed to sell as fertilizer. A cocky young neighboring boy decides to help her with the work.

Englishwomen band together when they learn that the public bathhouse they frequent for relaxation will be closed down.