Ebla Mari stars as Yara, a Syrian refugee housed with her family in a former mining town in the North East
STUDIOCANAL
It’san overcast morning in June 2022 and a disused pub in the village of Murton in County Durham is a hive of activity, serving as a key location in veteran director Ken Loach’s latest – and possibly last – film, The Old Oak. Scripted by Paul Laverty (the 14th feature he has written for Loach), it concerns a group of Syrian refugees who are housed by the authorities in a former mining area in north-east England. While some of the locals are determined to welcome these newcomers, others complain that their long-neglected community can’t cope with an influx of immigrants fleeing from a war zone.