43 h. ago Stormzy takes on Hollywood with Merky films and teams with Oscar winner

South London rapper launches #Merky films to champion new talent and lands his lead role debut in a short film by an Oscar winning director. The film is shot entirely on an Apple Iphone.

Events

56 h. ago Netflix period drama has viewers 'mesmerised' with 'great twist'

The Pale Blue Eye, a 2022 mystery film, stars Christian Bale as detective Augustus Landor who partners with a young Edgar Allan Poe, played by Harry Melling, to solve a murder

Events

9 d. ago How a drag queen thriller became too controversial for Britain: ‘It was queers policing queers’

‘Femme’, a violent erotic drama starring Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay, hit a handful of cinemas in 2023. And its tortured journey to release – as well as its rejection by elite institutions in the British film industry – speaks to the incredibly narrow and polarised landscape for queer stories today, writes Ryan Gilbey

Politics

1 week ago Immersive tech reshapes music and film landscape with Bono, Metallica and 'Matrix' taking the leap

The future of how viewers experience music, film and live performances is happening now through immersive platforms like the Apple Vision Pro and cutting-edge venues such as the Sphere and Cosm

Culture

1 week ago Al Djanat: The Original Paradise review – striking account of Burkina Faso homecoming

Chloé Aïcha Boro’s watchful documentary charts the disharmony and legal wrangling caused by a dispute in her family over sacred burial landEconomic and financial woes cast a dark shadow over family bonds in Chloé Aïcha Boro’s contemplative, searching documentary. Returning to her Burkina Faso village after decades of living in France, Boro experiences an emotional paradox intimately known by all immigrants. Once-familiar places turn foreign, since the migrator has undergone huge internal changes of their own. And with the recent passing of her uncle Ousmane Coulibaly, the head of her extended Muslim family, Boro’s homecoming is marred by disharmony. Between Coulibaly’s brothers and his 19 children, warring interests over inherited land rage on.The film returns time and again to a sacred courtyard where, for centuries, the umbilical cords of Coulibaly newborns have been buried to ensure their ascendence to heaven in the afterlife. More than a ritual, the tradition concretises the lin...

Events

2 w. ago Sinners to land on streaming services just 2 months after 'cinematic triumph'

You can soon watch one of the best films of the year in the comfort of your own home as the horror thriller Sinners is set to land on streaming platforms from June

Politics

2 w. ago Autumn review – amazing landscape plays central role in Portuguese wine

Set in the Douro valley, Antonio Sequeira’s softly drawn portrait of a family in flux never quite ferments to anything more than a light tipple about the passing of timeThis wistful Portuguese film is a pointillist portrait of a nuclear family over the course of an eventful year; it has plenty of earthy flavour, perhaps like the wine the paterfamilias of the story, Otávio (Miguel Frazão), produces on his small plot in hills above the Douro river. In oenological terms, you can really taste the terroir – the land on which it’s made – with notes of nostalgia and melancholy and a tangy, slightly humorous spice. But there’s also maybe a touch too much sweetness in the blend, given writer and director Antonio Sequeira’s script occasionally slips into a tannic, sentimental theatricality. If it weren’t for the fact that the stunning landscape plays such an integral part in the film’s atmosphere you’d assume that this must have started as a stage play given the tidy scene breaks, dividing th...

Politics

2 w. ago Bogancloch review – the further adventures of a Scottish hermit in Ben River’s beguiling essay

Rivers returns to document a past subject, Jake Williams, whose reclusive Scottish forest existence is fascinating but defies explanationFilm-maker Ben Rivers, one of the doyens of Britain’s small but stubborn-as-bindweed experimental film scene, catches up with Scottish recluse Jake Williams, the subject of his 2011 film Two Years at Sea and, before that, his 2006 short This Is My Land. All three films never deign to tell viewers much at all about Williams, who spends great chunks of the film doing almost nothing, like sleeping by a tree, taking a bath, or just pottering about at his home, Bogancloch in Aberdeenshire.However, there are oblique hints in plain sight if you look closely. In the bric-a-brac of Williams’ digs and the closeup shots Rivers inserts of some of Williams’ scratched and smudged photographs of places around the world he’s once visited, one of which shows the subject as a young man with a resplendent head of red hair. These days, his scalpline has much receded a...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘One of the best films of the year’ lands digital streaming date

Ryan Coogler’s vampire drama was released in theaters last month and has dominated at the box office ever since

Politics

3 w. ago On the road to somewhere Cannes film festival reminds us world cinema and ‘globalism’ are not the same

It might look like a platform for the films ‘produced in foreign lands’ that Donald Trump despises. But a surprising number of pictures at this year’s festival side with the locally rooted over cosmopolitan elitesIf Donald Trump really wants to save Hollywood, maybe he needs to venture outside his comfort zone and watch more European art house cinema.The Cannes film festival, which closes on Saturday, is in many ways the very definition of the “globalism” that the American president’s Maga movement despises. Walk past the queues snaking alongside the Palais des Festivals and you hear languages and accents from every corner of the globe. The Marché du Film, where industry professionals strike their deals, is brimming with smart people from all over the world beckoning US producers with irresistible tax incentives – resulting in the kind of movies “produced in foreign lands” that the US president earlier this month proposed punishing with 100% tariffs. At the opening gala, Cannes gave...

Culture

3 w. ago ‘Cinema doesn’t ship that way’: Wes Anderson mocks Donald Trump’s film tariff plans in Cannes

While acknowledging he is ‘not an expert in that area of economics’, the director criticised Trump’s announcement of a 100% tariff on films ‘from foreign lands’American director Wes Anderson has mocked Donald Trump’s plan to impose severe tariffs on foreign-made films, suggesting it would mostly financially hit film-makers like him and be unworkable in practice.“Can you hold up the movie in customs?” the world’s chief auteur of cinematic whimsy asked at a press conference at the Cannes film festival. “I feel it doesn’t ship that way. I’m not sure I want to know the details so I’ll hold off on my official answer.” Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood lands huge new movie role opposite Hollywood icon

The White Lotus and Sex Education star Aimee Lou Wood has landed a major new film role following her success as yoga teacher Chelsea.

Events

last month Historian who exposed Holocaust denier David Irving makes startling admission about landmark libel case dramatised in 2016 Rachel Weisz film Denial

Twenty-five years on from her victory in the landmark libel trial brought by Holocaust denier David Irving, Deborah Lipstadt has admitted that she almost threw in the towel.

Events