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.
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.
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
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".