42 h. ago Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight review – heartfelt child’s

Embeth Davidtz stars and directs, with outstanding performances from Zikhona Bali and seven-year-old Lexi Venter as Bobo as white minority rule endsThe screen actor Embeth Davidtz makes a great feature directing debut with this utterly heartfelt, beautifully shot and meticulously realised movie in which she also stars – clearly a passion project – showing a troubled world through the unjudging eyes of a child. It is an adaptation of Alexandra Fuller’s award-winning memoir of the same name, about her childhood in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in the late 1970s, just before the election that brought Robert Mugabe to power, ended white minority rule and sent a thrill of fear through the world of the white farmers, including her parents, who saw which way the wind of change was blowing.There’s a lovely performance from seven-year-old newcomer Lexi Venter as Bobo, a smudgey-faced little kid left to run ferally and blissfully wild on her family’s disintegrating farm. This is a place where her ...

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67 h. ago Embeth Davidtz on Matilda, trauma and her haunting new film: ‘I was a child, so I absorbed the bigotry and violence around me’

The ‘Schindler’s List’ actor has stepped behind the camera for a sensational new film that carries echoes of her own childhood growing up in South Africa amid apartheid. She speaks to Adam White about confronting racism head-on, her ‘semi-retirement’ from acting, and the Nineties kids who still adore Miss Honey

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3 d. ago ‘I am quite tough’: Schindler’s List star Embeth Davidtz on her explosive film about Rhodesia’s final days

After starring in Mad Men, Californication, Spider-Man and Junebug, Davidtz soured on acting. Now she’s directed – and starred in – a powerful debut filmBorn in the US, raised in apartheid-era South Africa, a reluctant star in her 20s following her big break in Schindler’s List, and now a first-time director at the age of 60, Embeth Davidtz knows what it means to be an outsider. “I’ve always had the feeling,” she says, “that I don’t quite belong.”Normally found in Los Angeles – where she lives in a house once owned by Julie Andrews, with her husband, the entertainment lawyer Jason Sloane – Davidtz is today in Cape Town for work and family commitments. Speaking by video call from a cream-and-beige bedroom, wearing a white top and glasses with peach-coloured frames, her brunette hair tied back, she looks the picture of serenity. The effect is completed by her voice, which soothed millions of children when she starred as the perfect teacher, Miss Honey, in the 1996 film of Roald Dahl’s...

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2 w. ago Netflix 'haunting' war film is a 'cinematic masterpiece' and 'stays in your mind'

The Bombardment, also known as The Shadow in My Eye, was released in 2021 and is now available to stream on Netflix, with the war film being dubbed a "cinematic masterpiece"

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2 w. ago ‘Beautiful and haunting’ period drama film praised for ‘hypnotic’ visuals now streaming

The film has been labelled a "masterpiece" and a "true classic" by viewers

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2 w. ago The Guardian view on the UK’s dangerous moment: as Labour falters, the far right mobilises | Editorial

Political leadership is missing just as Britain needs it most. The government must step up as others stir division and disillusionment growsPeter Mandelson’s exit from public office in disgrace over his links to the millionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein should have been a low point for the government. Instead, it exposed a leadership in trouble, with further to fall. Sir Keir Starmer defended his ambassador after No 10 had seen the emails that sank him. Whether or not the prime minister read them, the damage is becoming institutionalised. Labour looks adrift – consumed by infighting as darker forces gather beyond Westminster.At the weekend, more than 110,000 marched through London in Britain’s largest far-right rally in decades. Organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, and billed as a “festival of free speech”, it quickly descended into conspiracy theories, Islamophobia and anti-migrant bigotry. There was violence: 26 police officers were injured. St...

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2 w. ago 'Haunting' drama fans warn you'll need a box of tissues for now on iPlayer

It was nominated for multiple Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay

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2 w. ago 'Haunting' musical drama with British Oscar winner now streaming for free

It has been described as 'phenomenally heart-breaking'

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3 w. ago When I left India, Ireland welcomed me in. I won’t let bigotry destroy the country we love | Cauvery Madhavan

People from the Indian community, and others, are facing violence that was once unthinkable. We must not give in to the racistsI grew up twice. The first time in India, where I was born, and the second time in Ireland. One nation birthed me, the other swaddled my very soul. I was 24 years old when I arrived in Ireland in 1986, one of a handful of “aliens” in Sligo town. The only Irish people I had known until then were nuns, formidable women all, who ran many convent schools in India. I obviously didn’t impress them as I was deemed unmarriageable because of my consistently untidy needlework – at the age of 10. But I held no grudges, leaving India a little over a decade later, fortified by a wonderful education.Ireland in the 1980s shocked me in more ways than one. Yes, the 40 shades of green, the 21 types of rain, the 32 words for field and the 100,000 welcomes – they were all quite real. But also palpable was a society still stifled by religion. Married people had no right to divor...

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