Loach defends inter-racial love film

Film-maker Ken Loach today defended his new film about a love affair between a Catholic and a Muslim after an Islamic leader voiced fears it could spark bigotry.

The director’s latest work, Ae Fond Kiss, is tipped for top prizes at next week’s Berlin Film Festival.

But a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain in Scotland said he was concerned a negative take on inter-faith relationships could foster prejudice.

Bashir Maan, a Glasgow community leader, said: “I haven’t seen the film but if it presents a negative image it could increase bigotry.

“Nowadays, plenty of Muslims, Christians and Jews all marry on both sides, there’s no problem for 95% of marriages across the divide.

“I hope the film portrays a positive picture because it’s not such a big deal now, everyone realises we must all live together.”

Set in Glasgow, Ae Fond Kiss explores the tension that results from an affair between Roisin, a Catholic, and Kasim, a second generation Pakistani.

In the film sparks fly when Kasim (played by Atta Yaqub), whose family want him to marry a cousin, meets and falls for teacher Rosin (Eva Birthistle).

Loach, who is famed for the grim realism of his gloomy tableaux on the struggling proletariat, said critics should wait to see the film.

He said: “I think this is a kind of wilful mischief-making by people who haven’t seen the film.

“Perhaps they should wait to see it and then make their minds up before they open their mouths.

“There is the possibility of prejudice in Scotland just as there is anywhere else but I hope people will watch it before voicing any opinion.”

Ae Fond Kiss is the latest instalment in Loach’s Scottish trilogy of films and follows Sweet Sixteen, his exploration of Greenock’s drugs-blighted council estates.

The first in the series was My name Is Joe, starring Peter Mullan, a study of alcoholism. Both films scooped awards at Cannes.

Paul Laverty, the Scottish writer who co-wrote both the previous films, collaborated on the third movie, which is up for a Golden Bear Award.

A spokesman for the Muslim Parliament of Britain in Scotland said he hoped the film would highlight Scotland’s problem of bigotry.

Dr Yaqub Zaki, of Greenock, said: “There is ferocious bigotry in the west of Scotland between Catholics and Protestants, never mind Christian and Muslim.

“Scottish universities for years were a filter system to bar Catholics from middle-class status. I had to go to Spain to study because the prejudice I encountered as a Muslim in Scotland was so terrible.

“I found greater tolerance in the land of Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition. Ken Loach is simply being realistic if he makes a film about bigotry in Scotland.”