29 h. ago ‘Where is the adult?’: how Leonardo Van Dijl filmed the story of a child tennis star’s abuse

Julie Keeps Quiet casts real-life tennis ace Tessa Van den Broeck as a teenage player facing peril ignored by adults. The director explains how telling the story well required a care the sport itself neglectsLeonardo Van Dijl smiles: “If you told me a year ago that I’d be speaking to the Guardian, I’d have asked: ‘What about?’” Last May, the 34-year-old from Belgium took his debut film Julie Keeps Quiet to Cannes. (Where, he says, everyone was much friendlier after a four-star review in the Guardian.) Ever since, he has been living out of a suitcase, grabbing five or six hours’ sleep. It’s not just media interviews and Q&As keeping him busy: “We are a small movie. I’m the in-house graphic designer. I do the social media ” He stops, looks down at my phone, recording. “But I don’t really want to talk about that. I’m grateful, and it’s not that interesting.”What Van Dijl really does want to talk about is the urgent issue his film raises about safe spaces for children. Julie Keeps Q...

Events

51 h. ago Final chapter of Heartstopper love story to end with Netflix film

Kit Connor, Joe Locke and Yasmin Finney have all become big stars since appearing on the show.

Politics

51 h. ago Heartstopper to conclude Nick and Charlie’s story with Netflix feature film in place of season four

Fans have been waiting to learn the fate of the much-loved series for months

Politics

3 d. ago Shocking moment darts star holds up a middle finger at crowd in Germany after fan abuse

Williams was subjected to abuse from the Munich crowd during his match, including what appeared to be an F-word insult shouted in his direction.

Events

3 d. ago The Accidental Spy review – remarkable story of CIA operative abandoned by his handlers

Anthony Wonke’s headlong documentary introduces Blerim Skoro, recruited in post-9/11 New York to become an inside man in the ‘war on terror’, then left in the fieldIn the movies, the classic hazard for the undercover operative is psychological meltdown after getting lost in their new identity. In real life, the dangers seem more prosaic: being treated as an expendable asset and dumped. That was the situation for Muslim Kosovan refugee Blerim Skoro who, despite years spent protecting US national security as a prison informant and al-Qaida mole, was threatened with deportation. His paymasters, the CIA and FBI, don’t emerge creditably from director Anthony Wonke’s headlong, if narrowly focused, account.Skoro seems to have a gift for being in the right or wrong place at the wrong or right time; it’s not obvious which. After deserting from the army during the 1990s Yugoslav war, he wound up as an asylum seeker in New York with a young family. But a new hustle, running drugs for the Alban...

Culture

4 d. ago Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story review – richly bittersweet portrait of an Irish literary great

The dizzy highs and painful lows of the late writer’s life are laid bare in Sinéad O’Shea’s moving documentaryHer raw, sexually and emotionally frank prose made her a sensation and got the Irish Catholic church hot under the cassock. She was an eloquent wit, a provocateur who could hold her own in literary circles and in the glittering party circuit of 1960s London. It’s now widely acknowledged that she was one of the greats of Irish literature. But the slightly bitter aftertaste left by this otherwise richly enjoyable documentary portrait of the writer Edna O’Brien comes from the decades of bullying and ridicule she had to endure before her talent was fully recognised.Much of it originated uncomfortably close to home: Blue Road, which features interviews with the 93-year-old O’Brien shortly before her death last year, tells of her tumultuous marriage to fellow writer Ernest Gébler, who was not a man able to graciously accept the fact that his wife’s success had eclipsed his own. Je...

Politics

4 d. ago ‘I want to talk about it honestly’: trauma of Weinstein’s unknown British victims is revealed

Actor Lisa Rose’s one-woman show highlights suffering of aspiring actors and office juniors who fell prey to mogul’s abuseHarvey Weinstein’s key accusers were famous – from Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow to Lupita Nyong’o and Ashley Judd. These Hollywood film stars spoke out against the ex-studio boss’s abusive behaviour in 2017, fuelling the international #MeToo movement.But Weinstein’s crimes and bullying practices had a direct and lasting impact on many more, including unknown names who worked with him in London. Continue reading...

Events

6 d. ago BRIAN VINER reviews Warfare: Brutal but brilliant, Alex Garland's film tells a terrifying battle story in real time

Alex Garland's Warfare, unfolding in real time, tells the story of what happened after a team of US Navy SEALs on a reconnaissance mission occupied a house in the Iraqi city of Ramadi.

Events

7 d. ago Channel 4 star who horrifically abused girlfriend in front of her children in five

Jack Woodman, who appeared on the series Bodyshockers, brutally assaulted his partner, Crystal Taff, three separate times during their five-year relationship .

Events

7 d. ago MAFS first trans star warns UK Supreme Court ruling could amplify abuse

Married at First Sight’s first trans star has warned the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on a definition of a woman could amplify abuse.

Events

8 d. ago The Correspondent review – Richard Roxburgh is excellent as jailed journalist Peter Greste

Based on Greste’s account of his time in an Egyptian prison, this is an important story powerfully toldGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailLatvian-Australian journalist Peter Greste became the story when he was arrested in Cairo in 2013 on trumped-up terrorism charges with two of his Al Jazeera colleagues. In a sham trial the following year he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison, ultimately spending 400 days there. It’s no spoiler to say that director Kriv Stenders’ grittily immersive film about Greste’s story has a happy ending – Greste was returned to Australia in 2015 and freed – capping off a tense and twitchy viewing experience, where the pressure valve is released only at the very last minute.Richard Roxburgh is in fine form as Greste, eschewing the slippery charisma he does so well (in TV shows such as Rake and Prosper) to depict the protagonist as a pragmatic but deep-thinking individual, navigating a crisis in which he’s close to powerless. At one...

Events

8 d. ago Netflix fans have just a few days to watch forgotten film that turned Brad Pitt into a heartthrob

Brad Pitt plays the role of Tristan Ludlow in the 1994 film Legends of the Fall, which follows the story of three brothers and their father living in the remote wilderness

Politics

9 d. ago Controversial TCU star Sedona Prince goes undrafted in WNBA amid abuse allegations

Prince, who plays center at TCU, was not selected – despite previously having been projected as a first-round pick

Politics

9 d. ago Netflix now streaming 'unbelievable' war film based on true story

Operation Mincemeat was first released in 2021 but it is only now that fans are coming to know the film is based on the real-life events of the successful British operation

Events

9 d. ago Woman ‘sexually abused by Jesse Lingard’s grandad’ accused star of hiding 'dark secret'

Kenneth Lingard, the grandfather of ex-Manchester United star Jesse, is on trial for a string of child sex offences relating to one woman who claims she was repeatedly abused for more than 10 years

Events

1 week ago Has Mickey Rourke just saved himself from eviction? Controversial CBB star bookies' favourite to stay after opening up about childhood abuse

Earlier this week, the 72-year-old actor had faced calls to be axed after becoming embroiled in a homophobia war with lesbian housemate JoJo Siwa , 21.

Events

2 w. ago Hollywood director accused of preying on young starlets ordered to pay $1.6 BILLION in shocking sex abuse suit

James Toback, the disgraced filmmaker accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women, was ordered to pay more than a billion dollars after a sexual assault trial in New York.

Economics

2 w. ago Keir Starmer rocked as Labour MP is held in rape and child abuse probe

Dan Norris, who ousted Jacob Rees-Mogg as the MP for North East Somerset and Hanham, was taken into custody after police raided his constituency home

Events

2 w. ago Beverly Hills 90210 actor William Schaub accused of sexually abusing teenage student

Beverly Hills 90210 and Will and Grace star William Schaub has been charged with grooming and sexually abusing a teenage student

Politics

2 w. ago Everton star James Tarkowski's wife rages at 'vile' death threats from Liverpool fans over husband's 'leg

James Tarkowski's wife has condemned 'vile' abuse wishing death on her husband following his horror tackle on Alexis Mac Allister in the Merseyside derby.

Events