He is conducting interviews in a hall at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre in Donostia-San Sebastián, and has been interviewed simultaneously by three or four journalists. She's in it all day long. Most principals do so when they come to the festival, but not all. Reception and distant attitude are frequent, in some cases cold and fluffy. What is not common is that at age 83 they have so much freshness when answering questions, what is not usual is that journalists are fired one by one with kind gestures, not to be fixated on time – “let them ask another question, because each one will be able to ask three”, and show a humorous gesture of respect for the worker who has accompanied him: “I say nonsense and the translator manages me. He's done the biggest job this morning."

Loach is, along with Mike Leigh, the primary heir of the British Social Realism school. They tell him that he makes social cinema, political cinema. He does not deny it, but there is a nuance below: “If I’ve been politically engaged since I was young, if I’ve made social film, it’s for people. I'm interested in the people, the neighborhood." In his long film career, Miran Ken Loach has always had people, workers, simple people. He began working for television in the first half of the 1960s, and directed several dozen strings that became famous, among which Cathy Come Home stands out, shot in 1966. It was a film about the difficulties of access to housing in the British welfare system after the Second World War. It was produced by the BBC and involved the amendment of the homeless law.

Since then, he has made over 30 films in over half a century. But the gesture of determination continued to say: “Films are not mine. On the one hand, because I've almost always done it in teams and in collaboration. Lately, I've had Paul Laverty as a companion in making scripts. And, on the other hand, because once the films are made, they are not ours, but of the people.” He started his collaboration with Paul Laverty in 1996 with Carla’s Song. It was followed by My Name is Joe (1998), Bread and Roses (2000), Ae Jog Kiss (Just a Kiss) (2004), The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006), It’s a Free World (2007), Route Irish (2010) and I, Daniel Blake, among others. And with him, Sorry We Missed You has also become one of the most recent. And the people, the people of the village, precarious, protagonist once again. “Capitalism has reached its wildest stage. It is the worker himself who exploits himself, the system obliges him to do so. I wouldn’t say it’s slavery, because that word has very dramatic connotations, but I would call it exploitation.” The film is starred by the family of a humble Newcastle neighborhood, living in New York. Since the crisis of 2008, they have been making every effort to make economic progress. His wife works in the care of the sick and the elderly. Her husband finds a new job as a dealer, as a freelancer. It can be any family in the Basque Country. Precariousness: hours and hours working, without time for the family, for relationships... Capitalism and drunkenness.

You have portrayed a humble English family, but there may be a modest family in Europe.

The practices of the free market have a direct influence on the most humble families; the main instrument of the free market is exploitation, and if members of a family work between 10 and 12 hours a day, that affects relationships. You can smile at work and in front of your older adults, but when you go home, the bills explode and you don’t build healthy relationships with your partner, with your children, with your friends… The fault is the market and exploitation, not the people. A tired, energy-free worker who suffers. Stress is terrible, economic stress is one of the main evils of the moment, nurtured and driven by capitalism.

Are humble families the main forgotten in movies, in movies?

In the hands of who is the film industry, who makes films above all? What is shown in film is not conditioned by so many writers and managers, but by investors, and those big owners of capital, investors, forget the humble family. There are a lot of people who would make movies about ordinary people, I know them, and there are not a few of them, but only some of them get it; normally, those people with ideas don't have resources. Neroni and Aki Kaurismaki are an exception.

What is your primary goal with social film, showing what happens or also provoking a reaction, a movement, a protest?

Bertold Brecht said And I always thought about the poem: “I’ve always thought that the simplest words have to be enough. When I say how things are, people's hearts will break. You're going to fall if you don't defend yourself." And that's where I'm trying to tell you what's going on in the easiest and most straightforward way possible. That is enough to make the receiver sad or angry... Then it will be in everyone's hands what it does, what it does, if it brings that indignation, that resignation, to a political or social movement. To the film, the cinema must be required at least to be awake, awake and attentive to what happens.

Does the filmmaker need empathy for the characters?

It is essential for me to feel the story I am telling, otherwise it would not be worthy of belief and would not reach the viewer. At Sorry We Missed You we've tried to put ourselves in the fight of a precarious family, give voice and make a nod to what is exploited. The issue of false self-employed people and precariousness has become the bread of every day, and I didn't think I'd ever seen it. In the film you see how the new bosses want the workers to take on responsibilities that they do not have. People are not happy in this way and they end up losing hope.

You mentioned hope. Costa Gavras has also participated in the San Sebastian Film Festival. He said that he is disillusioned by the attitude of the left both in Europe and in the world. You, too?

I think people realize that in order to be able to govern the left, it needs first unity. There may be different approaches, tactics and strategies to win votes, but when drawing up a programme, a minimum of unity is needed to determine what is really a priority. Political responsibility is essential, to seek unity and to find it on the left; at the same time we have capitalism in its different forms, but it advances together, with trade, with the free market, with globalization, and if necessary with fascism… Looking at England, we have the Corbyn. And that makes me hope. He's a completely different character from Tony Blair. It has strengthened trade unionism, it has united the left in the United Kingdom, it has confronted the powerful. That's a lot. I believe that it is possible to achieve such a union. That is my hope.

Even outside England?

I never thought I said this, but let's follow the example of England. As far as the left is concerned, I think it is quite good. And I hope for two reasons. On the one hand, the plain people always move forward, there is always someone willing to fight. And on the other hand, the wild capitalist system is exploding, it doesn’t give any more... That’s where good things can come if you pick up and work well. Yes, but also the workers and the people in general vote on the right and even on the far right in the United States.

The workers also have reactionary elements, we will not deny it. We all have it. The idea of capitalism is very powerful, it seeks your success, individuality -- and when things go wrong, people are afraid, it turns right. But we are destroying the world and we must hold the kind of authority to account, not the worker. Christine Lagarde said that “we have to grow, we have to grow,” but that’s absurd. And yes, the worker can watch on TV leaders like Trump, when there is no other alternative… There is a very simple idea behind, when you are poor you will blame your partner, because it is the easiest, because it has a different skin color, or because it has a job… but we have to fight that. We must make ourselves self-critical, put aside dreams of wealth and mobilize to demand vital dignity. I also believe that ordinary people still have values of solidarity and honesty; those at the top do not have it, have ceased to show solidarity and at most offer charity.

If I ever changed the social reality, would I make another kind of movie?

(Laughter) If I stop making films about precarious, fake self-employed jobs, there's no question that it's going to be a good sign. It means that the change has taken place. But being realistic, in these years that I've been making films about social injustices, I'm still making films. And I've been around for a few years now!

Anyway, you haven't lost your mood.

No, they're times, and sometimes I put more humor in movies. In Sorry We Missed You there is also humor. And for example, football puts me in a mood. Whenever I can see football in my neighborhood. Bath City plays in the fourth division of England. It creates a community around it, and the environment is beautiful. I do not care at all about the success of Premier League football [in 2015 the team was devoured by debts, and Ken Loach himself launched an initiative to make the football team a community club and everyone involved had the right to vote. Since then, Bath City is a community-owned team.

He's been in the movie world for a few years, yeah, over 50. And it has not lost interest, responsibility, artistic and human, for humble people. After the interviews we have approached the workers of the residences who are on strike and we have known that they have talked with them, “to show solidarity and, in passing, to give visibility to this struggle”. Gesture.