Ken Loach, the British director of such politically committed films as Carla's Song and Land and Freedom, now tackles interracial romance with a clear eye and a loving heart. When handsome Pakistani Scottish accountant-turned-deejay Casim breaks up a school brawl involving his belligerent younger sister Tahara, he encounters Roisin, her beautiful-and white-music teacher. What follows is a complex, erotic drama that, while celebrating their love affair, never stoops to demonize the cultural and religious forces that threaten to tear it apart from both sides. Woven through the film, poet Robert Burns's verse “Ae Fond Kiss” remains an ardent reminder of what the lovers stand to lose, and that such struggles have always been, and always will be. “When Catholics first came to Scotland 150 years ago they were seen as aliens with a loyalty to something foreign,” writes Loach. “And now we're demonizing asylum seekers.”