Ken Loach brings 'Jimmy's Hall' to Cannes

  • 10 years ago
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STORY: Cannes regular Ken Loach said on Thursday (May 22) that his new period drama 'Jimmy's Hall' offers a platform for the 'alternative voice' that's as much a question for today's society as it was in 1930's Ireland where his film is set.

'Jimmy's Hall' stars Barry Ward as political activist James Gralton, a man who challenged the Catholic Church's view on free speech by setting up a hall for evening dance nights and daytime music, dance, boxing and literature lessons.

The film opens with Jimmy returning to his home village in County Leitrim after a ten year break in New York, to find the social club he built a decade earlier abandoned and derelict.

With the help of his neighbors and love interest Oonagh (Simone Kirby) he gets the hall re-opened, but despite it's popularity with the local community the catholic church were unhappy.

Following an arson attack on the social club in 1933 Gralton was arrested and deported wi