KEN Loach holds the record (13) for directing films screened in Cannes Film Festival. His filmography doesn’t pander to fashionable, thematic, stylistic or other trends. He’s a humanist unafraid to confront uncomfortable social issues.

Five people plus me watched the first Canberra screening of “I, Daniel Blake”. Afterward we found ourselves in the foyer looking askance at each other. The common factor was tears.

One of us (not me nor aware of why I was there) opined that if you never saw another film, it should be this one, a story about a good man tangled in the bureaucratic maze guarding the paper he needs before he can apply for a job.

Daniel (Dave Johns) has recovered from the medical condition that put him off work. He’s 59, a carpenter who needs work not only to bring in money to feed himself and the young single mum with two kids whom he has found confronting a similar problem, but also to restore his self-respect.

So what’s the problem? The social security system is there to help. Well, isn’t it? Just fill in this form, attend that interview, fill in those other forms yada yada yada. The screenplay by Paul Laverty deftly weaves a web of obfuscation at the centre of which sits a much-mentioned invisible bureaucrat called the decision-maker behind whose anonymous authority the lower levels find safety in the forest of rules and procedures knowing they are only following procedures set down in manuals written by distant law-givers.

Daniel Blake’s story resonates with a heartbreaking verity.