Let’s Talk about Class

On October 30th, the Rochester Institute of Technology hosted a screening of Ken Loach’s 2016 film “I, Daniel Blake” followed by a panel discussion on social class and inequality.

Inspired by Ken Loach’s decades long film work, which investigates issues such as homelessness, poverty, and workers’ rights in the UK, this community screening and panel discussion, at RIT’s MAGIC theater, aim to broach the subject of class in America.

At a time when the richest 5% of Americans own two-thirds of its wealth, when racial income inequality has reached untenable levels, and when the country is teetering on the verge of fascism, it is more important than ever to confront the structures that shore up this dysfunction.

‘Let’s Talk about Class’ will include a screening of ‘I, Daniel Blake,’ a pre-recorded interview with Ken Loach about the film as well as his overall oeuvre (conducted by Mara Ahmed and Johannes Bockwoldt), and a community discussion on class in America including academics and filmmakers, who will respond to Loach’s film, but also activists involved in struggles such as the fight for $15 who can address the intersection of class, race, gender, and other isms.

The panel will include Stevie Vargas, Ashley Gantt, Vincent Serravallo, and Elisabetta Sanino D’Amanda. It will be moderated by Mara Ahmed and Johannes Bockwoldt.

This event is free and open to the public. PARKING: Visitor E in front of MAGIC SPELL Studios.

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Reclaiming the Narrative reporter Jolie Mahan was there. They filed this report, along with WXIR contributor Daniella Veras.

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More about Ken Loach from Lorenzo Marsili: The British film director Ken Loach is one of the most celebrated cinematic voices of our time. A deeply engaged artist and one of a handful of directors to have been awarded the prestigious Palme d’Or twice, Loach’s work often takes up social and political themes. His oeuvre has spanned the Spanish civil war (Land and Freedom), the Los Angeles janitors’ strike (Bread and Roses), the occupation of Iraq (Route Irish), the Irish war of independence (The Wind That Shakes the Barley), and the coercive side of the welfare state (I, Daniel Blake). While the so-called “populist revolt” has triggered much debate on the role of economic inequalities and social exclusion, Ken Loach has been one of the greatest narrators of working-class consciousness and its transformations under neoliberalism.