As I write this Epilogue in March 2022, Loach and Sixteen Films are preparing to shoot a new fictional feature film, provisionally titled The Old Oak. Covid difficulties mean that its production is uncertain, adding to the uncertainty over the director’s future output. Perhaps Loach will follow a similar path to that of Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira who continued making films even when he had surpassed the ripe age of 100. Even if he did not add to his extensive list of films, however, Loach’s contribution to cinema over almost six decades would still be remarkable in terms of scale and success.

What I hope to have laid out in the preceding chapters is an appraisal of this work, on-, behind- and off-screen. In charting and theorising his working methods in general and analysing how they are implemented in the production of one film, I have sought to contribute to a broader understanding of the films, building on existing film and television scholarship and studies by academics across various disciplines interested in his work and its influence. At the same time, I hope that the fieldwork I conducted has enabled a more evidenced-based contribution to current debates on the collaborative nature of filmmaking, and highlighted production studies’ opportunities for enriching the study of film more broadly. My contention is that the methodological approach I have adopted allows us to understand Loach’s cinema in new ways, and that ‘ethnografilmic analysis’ allows fresh insights into The Angels’ Share itself and Loach’s wider oeuvre.