The film is about the family, and our common humanity 
Ae Fond Kiss... is the final film in Ken Loach's unofficial trilogy set in the west of Scotland (following My Name Is Joe and Sweet Sixteen). The romantic tale - about a young Glasgow couple who face prejudice from their Muslim and Catholic communities - shows a lighter touch than is normally associated with the veteran director, and is written by his longterm collaborator Paul Laverty.
Following on from My Name Is Joe and Sweet Sixteen, was it always your intention to make another film in Scotland?
Ken Loach: I think it was, really. Because we had really good experiences with the other two we'd done. I think we felt there were aspects to [Glasgow] that we really hadn't touched. It was definitely on our agenda to make a third one.
Where did the idea for this film come from?
Paul Laverty: I suppose really it was coloured by September 11th. I was actually in the States when that incident took place. It was amazing just seeing the propaganda and how it was covered. Right in the middle of it I got an email from a friend who's Asian Scottish. She told me of the experience of her nieces, how they were scared, frightened and touched by it. I just thought it was really fascinating to see how young adolescents in Glasgow, simply because they were Muslim, are somehow targeted for something happening in the States. It's quite a phenomenon really. And my friend said something to me that really struck home. She said, "No matter how long I live here, I'll always feel a stranger." I thought it would be a really good idea to examine the experience of fellow Scots from a different background, in a city I was very familiar with. So I suppose that was the original urge.
You work with both professional and non-professional actors again here. How did you go about casting?
KL: It's very simple really. The film is about identity in part, so it was very important that [Casim's] family came from Glasgow and had a similar background, so everybody had things in common. And we just looked and sure enough, as always happens, there were some very talented people who fitted the parts that Paul had written. [When] we looked for the part that Eva plays [Roisin], finding someone who was also an immigrant, but not regarded as such, seemed to add a special layer of irony to the story. You just find people who fit. The film is a story of a family and relationships, and the dynamics within the family, and Casim's relationship with Roisin. But as Paul said, one of the promptings to make it was the aftermath of 9/11. The aftermath and the war in Iraq seems to have opened up a whole seam of racist abuse... The film is about the family and about our common humanity, really, and that all families are the same once the surface differences are changed.
PL: I'd like to place on record our thanks to the Muslim community and the Pakistani community in Glasgow, who were absolutely incredible. That's the wonderful thing about spending time doing research properly - it breaks all these stereotypes. Obviously in many ways it was a new culture, I had so many new things to understand. The only way of trying to write about that is spending time listening, and trying to see the world from their point of view. I was amazed just at the fun we had doing that - breaking every stereotype. There was incredible trust and generosity.
Some people have said this film is visually very different to your previous work. Is that down to a change in your approach?
KL: No, it's shot like the other films, really. It's simply that the characters aren't in the midst of grinding poverty. That changes the way people behave and changes the rooms they are in and the bars they go to. That's all.
Some of the reviews have noted that, although the subject matter is serious, there is a lighter tone to this film. There's romance and sex scenes, which people don't necessarily expect from a Ken Loach film...
KL: I suppose we felt that the situation is inherently not tragic, it is inherently OK, in that for families like Casim's family, that this generation will become integrated, [and] won't have the problems that their parents had as first generation immigrants. That is inherently not tragic, so it would be wrong to make a tragic story about a situation which is [ultimately] going to be alright. Whereas in something like Sweet Sixteen, the plight of that boy was tragic, so in a sense that had to have a tragic end... And although the ending is complex because what is a good ending for one character is a difficult ending for someone else, it would not have that sense of inevitable tragedy which I think Sweet Sixteen had.
PL: It wasn't that we decided, "Let's have some hanky panky." The whole sexual attraction was really integral to the characters. And also it was played out against the background of one working in a Catholic school and one is Muslim, and sex is the great taboo for all the monotheistic religions. But part of being young and being in love is sexual attraction and passion, and we just felt that was part of the relationship and we wanted to show that. Not in any voyeuristic way. They were up against so many other things, but what they did have was this attraction. I think that's a really strong basic human emotion, and we felt that was part of the story.
