Ken Loach’s Route Irish Added To Cannes 2010 Lineup

Cannes again! Two days before the event, Ken Loach‘s film titled Route Irish was announced as a last-minute addition to the Cannes Film Festival 2010 Lineup and In Competition category!

Acclaimed British director who originally had intended to sit out the festival, recently changed his mind and screened the film for Cannes head Thierry Fremaux, among others.

The movie “tells the story of two ex-soldiers in love with the same woman who head to Iraq to work as private contractors”, but we think there’s even more than (simply) that. One of the most powerful questions that this movie is about to ask is: You can take the contractor out of war, but can you take the war out of the man?

We managed to get full Route Irish synopsis: “At 4pm on the 12th of September 2001, (the day following the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York) the National Security Council was reconvened. Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of State for Defence, raised a question: “Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al Qaeda?” 2006. Baghdad is the most dangerous city in the world, and the most dangerous road in this city, between Baghdad airport and the Green Zone, is nicknamed Route Irish by occupying forces.Liverpool, August 1976. Five-year-old Fergus’ eyes lit up when he met Frankie on his first day at school.

They’ve been in each other’s shadow ever since. In the spring of 1986 as teenagers they skipped school and drank cider on the ferry over the river Mersey, dreaming about future adventures and traveling the world. In September 2004, Fergus (ex-SAS) persuaded Frankie (ex-Para) to join his team in Iraq and earn £12,000 a month tax free as a private security contractor. Their last chance to “load up” in this increasingly privatized war. Together they risked their lives in a city steeped in violence, terror, impunity, greed, and awash with cash – US dollars, by the billion.

In March 2006, Frankie, “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, died on Route Irish. Fergus, torn by grief, rejects the official explanation. Now he investigates his soul mate’s death in his own special way, as lessons from Iraq unravel in Liverpool. Only Rachel, Frankie’s partner, and Fergus’ friend, grasps the depth of his sorrow, and the lethal possibilities of his fury. Can Fergus find out what happened to Frankie on Route Irish? But there’s a much more critical task ahead of him. Can he find his old self again, and that sense of joie de vivre he once shared with Frankie 20 years ago on the River Mersey?”

This story was written by regular Loach scriber Paul Laverty. Collaborating for the first time in 20 years with Chris Menges, who lensed Loach’s 1970 classic, Kes, the film was shot both in the U.K. and in Jordan, and includes a number of action sequences employing stunts and pyrotechnics.

Film includes pretty interesting cast: Najwa Nimri, Stephen Lord, Mark Womac, John Bishop and Andrea Lowe.

Ken Loach is definitely best known for social realism, and he’s no stranger when it comes to this Festival, since he won the Palme d’Or in 2006 with The Wind That Shakes the Barley, about the Irish war of independence, and competed last year with Looking for Eric.

Let’s see how things will work out for Loach this time at Cannes. Stay tuned!