4 h. ago ‘As a film lover, I want more’: the Black female directors taking centre stage

The curator of the BFI’s Black Debutantes season on piracy, truncated careers and the frustrations of dealing with big studiosHello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week I spoke to Rógan Graham, a curator of the British Film Institute’s latest season, Black Debutantes: A Collection of Early Works by Black Women Directors. The programme runs throughout May at the BFI Southbank in London, and is a celebration of the feature-length work of Black female film-makers, both the familiar and the seldom screened. Continue reading...

Politics

60 h. ago ‘I stopped talking to my parents – and life opened up’: Heather Graham on family, ageing and ‘creepy’ film

The actor has seen the best and worst of Hollywood, from directors like Paul Thomas Anderson to the notorious Harvey Weinstein. She talks about her #MeToo moment, her difficult childhood and her new movie, Chosen FamilyFor almost all her life, Heather Graham says, she was a “people pleaser”. It was encouraged in childhood, she says, this obligation to put others’ needs above her own, and it endured even after the 1997 film Boogie Nights had made her a star and she had severed all contact with her “judgmental, authoritarian” parents.Now 55, Graham was in her 40s before she recognised her self-sabotaging tendencies, and tried to correct course. “I realised, no, actually I can just ask myself, ‘What do I want?’ and make myself happy,” she says over Zoom from her home in Los Angeles. “I wish I could have had this when I was 20 or 15. If I wasn’t trying to please other people, what would I have done?” It affected her romantic life and sometimes her work. “There were moments where I feel ...

Society

2 w. ago Ally McCoist stunned by Ronnie O’Sullivan after asking if he got in Stephen Hendry’s head

Ronnie O'Sullivan is yet to confirm if he will compete at this year's World Snooker Championship, but he has spoken to Ally McCoist about his past meetings with long-term rival Stephen Hendry

Politics

2 w. ago Melinda Gates stuns host as she reveals why she 'had to leave' ex

The 60-year-old philanthropist stunned Late Show host Stephen Colbert Monday night with her candid answer about the end of her 27 year marriage with the Microsoft founder.

Politics

2 w. ago Chosen Family review – fluid directing by Heather Graham ballasts enjoyable romcom

Graham denounces her toxic family and begins a new relationship, before discovering her beau’s preteen daughter to be a tiny psychopath in a tutuFor younger readers not well versed in last-century cinema, Heather Graham was one of the hottest ingenues in Hollywood throughout the 1990s; her greatest performance was arguably as Rollergirl in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights. Recently, she’s taken up writer-director duties (she made her debut in 2018 with a comedy called Half Magic) while continuing to star as well, and this sophomore effort impresses with its mildly acidic observations of contemporary mores. There aren’t exactly belly laughs in this tale of single yoga instructor Ann (Graham), but quite a few of zingers and bits that stick the landing nicely thanks to fluent direction and good comic timing from Graham and her excellent supporting cast, which is filled out by cracking actors who might not often be given as much spotlight as they get here.That’s entirely fitting giv...

Society

3 w. ago A stunning Stephen Graham film from Adolescence director is on TV tonight

The creative team are behind theNetflix sensation

Culture

last month Adolescence: drama schools hit out at ‘stars from nowhere’ narrative

The drama teachers behind the young actors in the Netflix smash say their lack of recognition ‘has caused wide upset’Adolescence’s stratospheric success has catapulted its young cast of unknown actors into the limelight. Reams of headlines have suggested that they have come from nowhere – yet the grassroots regional drama schools that trained them say this overlooks their hard work.To find undiscovered talent for the show, Adolescence’s casting director, Shaheen Baig, visited two northern drama schools that work with children from underrepresented and deprived communities. Continue reading...

Events