Banned Ken Loach film to be shown after 42 years

Veteran film director Ken Loach is used to having his works banned, but none has previously had to wait 42 years for a public showing.

His television documentaries on trade unions in the 1980s were pulled from broadcasting and his film Hidden Agenda found few cinemas willing to show it. But in September, an hour-long documentary he made in 1969 for the charity Save the Children  is finally to get an airing as part of a major retrospective at the British Film Institute.

The reasons for the ban remain obscure. It seems to have had something to do with the director's pugnacious take on race, class and charity in a capitalist society, or perhaps the quotation from Engels that prefaced what was supposed to be a celebration of the charity's 50th anniversary, The Guardian reports.

Now Save the Children has finally lifted its embargo. There are still legal problems to sort out, but the BFI is confident it will be screened before an audience, as opposed to a handful of archivists, on  September 1.

Loach said: "It is a good story, but I have been told to button my lip for a while longer."