Best Screenplay, Venice Film Festival 2007
Best Film, Seville Film Festival 2007

Angie may not have much formal education, but she's got energy, wit and ambition, and she's in her prime. She's been messed about in the past and she's fed up. She has a point to prove. This is her moment.

Angie sets up a recruitment agency with her flat-mate Rose, working in a twilight zone between gangmasters, employment agencies and the migrant workers they place. This is a tale set against the reality of the Anglo Saxon miracle of flexible labour, globalisation, double shifts and lots of happy, happy, happy consumers: Us.

View the Production Notes for this film

Production Credits

Cast

A Letter We Received...

Dear Mr. Loach:

Just a quick note to congratulate you on your latest film "A Free World".

I have worked for 3 years in the building industry, running my own London-based construction company. My employees started out as English & Irish, soon to be replaced by Polish workers. Whilst I always provided my workers with contracts and proper PAYE pay slips, I was constantly contacted by agencies to replace my full-time workers with casual day-workers.

My experiences embraced many of the scenes in the film, from the client not paying to rebellions amongst the ranks of another crew of workers working on the same building site as my crews. In the 3 years, I tried to find housing for some workers as best as I could and heard horror stories from Ukrainians, Kurds, Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians etc. The worst thing I came across was a Polish worker working for a Pakistani boss, housed in his basement, and paid £20 a day. I "headhunted" him and with time, he became one of the team leaders in my company.

After 3 years struggling in the building game, trying to do things right, paying tax, registering workers and sorting out their accomodation to an acceptable level of living, I had to close down my company because of the unfair competition. "There are a lot of hungry builders out there", told me one of West London's largest Property developers, when he chose to hire a company using a crew of illegals instead of my firm. My profit margin became so low that I preferred shutting it all down before making a loss. My firm could not compete without having to resort to those unethical and illegal practices, and I was not prepared to do that.

Thank you for bringing this disgusting practice of people exploitation to the surface. The building trade in London has become an absolute mafia stronghold run by people with no ethics whatsoever, for clients having no ethics whatsoever. Sometimes, the networks are made-up of workers that have been through the low ranks at the start, have learnt English and are now exploiting their own people. How sad.

Warmest regards,

A. N. Other
(For privacy reasons Sixteen Films have removed the author's name)