Anger, empathy and diverse British representation have always been central to Mike Leigh’s films, which explore social issues through the lens of deeply authentic human relationships. Anger often emerges as a force for characters to confront systemic inequalities or personal struggles, yet Leigh balances this with deep empathy, allowing the audience to understand the motivations behind each character’s actions.

His latest film, Hard Truths, combines all of these elements with its focus on Black British women who are still severely underrepresented onscreen.

“I wanted to make a film about Black people without degenerating into all the tropes, clichés about Black characters and Black issues and all that,” says Leigh, talking from his home in London. “That’s as important as anything else. But you know, here’s the thing – I’ve made films and plays about all sorts of different sections of society.

“They range from a play in Australia about Greek-Australians, to a film in Northern Ireland, Four Days In July, about Catholics and Protestants, republicans and loyalists. I’ve made films about posh people, working class people and people in the 19th century. I’ve done a play in the National Theatre about Jews, and so on and so forth.

“And I’ve had Black characters in my films as supporting characters previously. So I said, ‘Okay, well, let’s explore this again.’ What’s important is that you get the kind of actors who are not only very good at the acting, but who are articulate about cultural detail and language, and all the rest of it.”

Leigh’s last film was 2018’s historical epic Peterloo, which was supported by Amazon Studios. The director says the current cinematic landscape meant getting funding and support for Hard Truths was incredibly difficult.

“I am extremely concerned not for myself, or indeed other directors of my age or generation, but for young filmmakers,” he remarks. “It is well nigh impossible to get backing for films without massive, cynical, grotesque interference from the backers. Interference in the concept, script and casting, and production and post-production. There is generally a disease of screwing up the whole thing by committees.”

When I first spoke to Mike Leigh in 2010 for the sublime Another Year, he had just withdrawn from a scheduled teaching trip to the Sam Spiegel Film and Television school in Jerusalem, due to what was happening in Israel at the time.

Leigh is Jewish, and his paternal grandparents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who settled in Manchester, and the director has always been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian people. I ask him how he feels now about the British and global response to the atrocities being committed against Palestinians.

“Of course, the Hamas attack on October 7 last year was shocking, but what’s happened since in Gaza is massively shocking and continues to be so,” he declares. “For all of us, it’s desperate, upsetting and disappointing, but for Jewish people, it’s very shocking. For those of us who are Jews, which includes me, who spent our teenage years in a socialist Zionist youth movement, which was all about the new Israeli state and socialism, all of us – and I still have contemporaries who share that background – we are all disgusted.

“That’s the only word to use with what is happening. And you know, the sooner they get rid of Netanyahu and his cronies, the better, as millions of Israelis agree. But in fact, the tragedy is that what’s happened in the last year, and it gets worse by the day, has created what I’m sure everyone agrees, could only be irreparable damage.

• Hard Truths is in cinemas now.