Ben Croll takes us through four films from the Cannes Film Festival which are being released in cinemas this week. One of France's biggest film events of the year is Antonin Baudry's "De Gaulle: Resistance", the first of a two-part WWII epic centred on French general Charles de Gaulle, from the fall of France in 1940 to the liberation in 1945. Ben tells us why this film is part of a new trend of French blockbusters focused on uniquely French stories.
US citizen Nick Hinman moved to London six years ago, where he nurtured his music project Fast Money MusicΒ β a name partly inspired by New York band Suicide's track of the same name. He popped by the arts24 studio to tell Marjorie Hache about his influences and working with band members from Klaxons and The 1975. They also take a look at new releases by Olivia Rodrigo, Fatoumata Diawara and Vince Staples.Β
One hundred years after his death, Antoni GaudΓΒ remainsΒ one of the world's most influential architects and the creator of Barcelona's most iconic landmarks. In this special edition of arts24, Eve Jackson travels to the Catalan capital to explore the extraordinary legacy of the visionary behind the Sagrada FamΓlia, ParkΒ GΓΌellΒ and Casa BatllΓ³. Through exclusive access, interviews with the architects continuing his unfinished masterpiece and a journey through the buildings that shaped modern Barcelona, discover why GaudΓ's imagination still captivates millions a century later.Β
Superstar director Steven Spielberg has returned to his first love β aliens β for the blockbuster of the summer. Film critic Emma Jones tells us why "Disclosure Day" is a timely, entertaining and funny movie, starring Emily Blunt, Josh OβConnor and Colman Domingo.
Nearly 20 years after his first Palme dβOr, Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu once again takes the festival's top prize for βFjordβΒ β a film exploring the tensions between religious conservatism and social liberalism. It stars βMarvelβ actor Sebastian Stan and Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve as parents accused of domestic abuse. Before the big win, Eve Jackson sat down with Mungiu and Reinsve in Cannes.
His career spanned London's swinging '60s, the counter-culture of 1970s Los Angeles and the bucolic calm of springtime in Normandy. David Hockney was a master painter of portraits and landscapes, injecting riotous colour into canvases that hang in collections from New York to Tokyo. We take a look back at the career of the British artist following his death at 88 years old.Β
A film about Iran's protest movement is making cinema history. "Dreams of Violets" is the first fully AI-generated feature film ever selected by a major international film festival. The 75-minute drama will premiere at New York's Tribeca Festival next week. Created by Iranian-British director Ash Koosha from his home in London, the film took just three months to produce and cost less than 2,000 euros. There were no actors, no cameras, no sets and no film crew. Koosha says the film simply could not have been made through conventional means. Living in exile and unable to safely film inside Iran, he turned to AI to recreate events linked to the country's deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters. The film is based on journalistic reports, photographs and eyewitness accounts, and explores themes of memory, censorship and resistance. But as Tribeca becomes the first major festival to embrace a fully AI-generated feature, the film is also reigniting a fierce debate. Can artificial intelligence tell deeply human stories? Does AI democratise filmmaking or threaten the future of the industry? Eve Jackson speaks to Ash Koosha about Iran, ethics and the future of cinema.
Critic Dheepthika Laurent unpacks this month's TV releases, including the gripping Soviet space race drama told from the Russian side, "Star City", the return of the outrageously scandalous 1980s hit "Rivals" and Nicolas Cage stepping into his very first TV role in "Spider Noir".
He's been described as a prodigy of African-American art. Khalif Tahir Thompson combines vibrant colours and family photos in portraits painted for his new exhibition, "Beautiful Land" at Paris' Zidoun-Bossuyt gallery. He talks to us about the two movements which inspired his work, Fauvism and the Harlem Renaissance and why Beauford Delaney inspired him artistically. He also talks about his upbringing and self-identity through his work.
One hundred years after the late Miles Davis was born, the revolutionary trumpet player remains one of the 20thΒ century's most influential artists. We look back at the life and legacy of a complex, visionary figure with one of his collaborators, musician Jason Miles, who recorded the albums "Tutu", "Music for Siesta" and "Amandla" with Davis during his later years. Jason's latest record "100 Miles for Miles Davis" is a reflection on those recording sessions.
Premiering in the Directors' Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival, "I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning" is Clio Barnard's adaptation of Keiran Goddard's acclaimed novel about five childhood friends from working-class Birmingham whose lives have drifted far from the futures they once imagined. "Peaky Blinders" actor Joe Cole stars as Rian βΒ the one who escaped, made money and seemingly "made it", only to discover that success cannot free him from the place he came from.