SWEET SIXTEEN European Showcase

Fearless British director Ken Loach (BREAD AND ROSES, MY NAME IS JOE, LADYBIRD LADYBIRD, RIFF RAFF, KES) returns in fine form with SWEET SlXTEEN, starkly beautiful and naturalistic work which breathes real life into its gritty characters

SWEET SIXTEEN is set in the Greenock and Inverclyde areas of Glasgow, where unemployment, drugs, poverty and domestic abuse face the 75 percent of children who will leave school early. A product of that environment is Liam (Martin Compston), who is awaiting his mother Jean’s (Michelle Coulter) release from prison, just in time for his 16th birthday. Liam’s abusive grandfather and Jean’s drug-dealing boyfriend, however, regularly smuggle heroin into the prison for her.

After being thrown out of the house, Liam moves in with his caring sister and her infant son. He begins dreaming of a lakeside trailer home where he and his mother can move after her release. With the help of his best friend, Pinhall (William Ruane), Liam sets about raising funds in the only way he knows how.

Once again, Loach succeeds magnificently in exposing the humor and resilience of his central characters by using, with maximum effectiveness, mostly non-professional actors with no film experience. What emerges is a stunning study in contrasts – great warmth and hopeful resilience tempered by the sobering reality of Liam’s limited options, an elusive happiness that lies tantalizingly beyond his reach.