Kaleem Aftab

Both the starting gun for awards season and the most glamorous film festival on the calendar – sorry, Cannes – the Venice International Film Festival takes over the city’s pencil-thin Lido this week for ten days of red carpets, premieres, and hopefully a few future classics. It wears its glitz with effortless elan, as A-listers like Angelina Jolie, George Clooney and Daniel Craig, glide in and out of the festival via vintage speed boats just as they’ve done since the days of Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.  Unless you’re lucky enough to be Venetian, scoring a ticket to the movies themselves is not an easy business. But there’s plenty of good reasons to keep an eye out for the films that are making their bow at the Biennale – with a Joker sequel, Craig’s Queer and (very separate) appearances from Jolie and Brad Pitt.  When does the Venice Film Festival start? It all gets underway on Wednesday, August 28, with Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as the festival opener, closing ten days later on Saturday, September 7.

What makes a filmmaker cool? In the heyday of the studio system it might have been about creative autonomy, an office on the lot and the studio barman knowing how to mix your Martini. In the heady, revolutionary days of the ’60s and ’70s, a devil-may-care attitude, radical new stories to tell, and ideally a beard of some description might have marked you out as the hipster’s auteur of choice. Times have changed, though. The moviemaking world has fewer boundaries, more entry points and finally, slowly but surely, more hunger to share stories by women and people of colour.  There’s a long way to go but we wanted to celebrate a time of gradual change by singling out the filmmakers who are genuinely moving the dial. The ones swinging for the fences in their choice of material and the way they’re bringing it to the screen. They’re not all new names – you’ll find some old stalwarts on here – but they all have in common a restless urge to do something different, exciting, bold. They come from across the planet and reflect all genres, and every kind of movie and moviemaking style. To take it a step further, we’ve asked a few of them – Rian Johnson, Barry Jenkins and Lynne Ramsay, among others – to share what makes them tick as movie lovers: the scenes that make them laugh hardest, the cinemas they stan for, the cities that inspire them, and the movies that have left them cowering in the back row. Even the posters that they had up on their bedroom walls growing up. Turns out that a lo

Yes, singer Robbie Williams is a CGI simian in this wildly ambitious musical biopic. But what sounds like it should be buffoonery is actually one of the most inspired bits of casting of the year. Even more than with The Greatest Showman, director Michael Gracey has created a fun, bombastic, brilliant choreographed and totally enthralling film.  This time he takes us from Williams’ childhood in Stoke, and the shadow cast upon him by his crooning father, to his unhappy boy band years, the painful break-ups with Take That and All Saint Nicole Appleton, and, finally, redemption in the form of a solo career and success that Gary Barlow could only dream about.   The pacing is electrifying and there are plenty of thrilling dance sequences; one medley on London’s Regent Street is jaw-dropping. Williams is number three on the list of musicians with the most UK number one albums, with only The Beatles and The Rolling Stones in front of him. But when it comes to musical biopics, William’s might be out front on his own. Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody are just two of the lauded films left in the dust by Better Man.  It’s one of the most inspired bits of casting of the year Fans of Williams will point to his song Me and My Monkey as the inspiration for the movie – and not just because Williams is played (and voiced in dialogue) by Jonno Davies, via a simian CGI makeover by the VFX team behind Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The tune is all about Williams’ much-publicised battl

Many famous international directors have ventured to America to shoot a movie and mislaid their magic in the process – Ken Loach’s Bread and Roses and Wong Kar Wai’s My Blueberry Nights springing to mind. Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language film has no such problems, blending European flair with a twist of Americana, and in a surprise shift, getting political in the process. Climate change, neo-liberal and far-right thinking are used to paint a picture of a world going to hell. Bet you never expected that from the Spanish great.  Almodóvar’s movies are hallmarked by their meticulous aesthetics, compelling melodramas, and strong female characters who navigate a world complicated by the psychological frailty of men. Where better to locate such a narrative, then, than in New York, home of Sex and the City? You can almost hear Carrie Bradshaw’s voice as the action starts in sitcom style. A famous author is about to abandon a signing of her new book, a novel about the fear of dying, when a friend informs her that a former colleague, Martha, is dying of cancer.  Fitting snugly into the high heels of regular muse Penélope Cruz is Julianne Moore as that novelist, Ingrid. From her sexual mores comedy The Kids Are All Right to her work with Todd Haynes, Moore has always been the most Almodóvian of American actresses and she’s on top form here as a well-intentioned, but easily manipulated people pleaser. This is Almodóvar’s America and it’s a delight If that’s not enough to get y

It might seem strange to say about an actress who emerged like a supernova, won an Oscar for Girl, Interrupted (1999), was nominated for Changeling (2008), and brought Lara Croft to life, that Angelina Jolie’s on-screen career has never quite hit the expected heights. With this musical biopic, though, she’s finally landed a role that will have audiences talking about her acting again. Directed by Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín, Maria casts her as American-Greek opera legend Maria Callas, a woman trying to rekindle former glories whose personal life, including a failed relationship with world famous socialite Aristotle Onassis, is cannon fodder for the world's tabloids. It wouldn't be wildly off-beam to call it a role Jolie has spent her life preparing for. The script, by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, looks back over Callas’s life in the week before her death in September 1977. It opens on the day she died in her house in Paris, which, with its marble busts, antique furniture and wall-to-wall paintings, looks like a room at the V&A. Shifting back a week, Jolie depicts Callas as a reclusive figure who is addicted to prescription drugs and whose loss of that formidable vocal range forced her into an unhappy retirement four years previously. Her chef (La Chimera’s Alba Rohrwacher) and butler (Pierfrancesco Favino) try their best to indulge her, but everyone realises she’s losing her grip. It’s a role Angelina Jolie has spent her life preparing for She hears voices. One

How do we know that we are in love? That’s the question at the heart of the melancholic romantic comedy Fingernails, in which a superb Jessie Buckley plays ex-teacher Anna, who has to decide whether loving someone is the same as being in love.  Some may argue that Anna is in a win-win situation because she has to choose between staying with her dependable long-term beau, Ryan, played by The Bear hunk Jeremy Allen White, or acting on a crush she has on new colleague Amir, essayed by the equally dashing Riz Ahmed. The decision is made all the more complex because Ryan and Amir have similar vibes, and she lives in a world where a microwave oven can reliably tell if you're in love with your partner by analysing your ripped-off fingernail. Ouch! It's not just because of Anna’s dyed reddish hair that summon to mind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry’s classic, which revolves around a machine that purports to make you forget about your ex. Fingernails is directed by Greek director Christos Nikou, whose brilliant debut, Apples, featured a character who probably wished he had Gondry’s machine as he tries to forget about a former love during a memory pandemic. In his beguiling follow-up Nikou takes his musings on love even further. It’s a rebuke to anyone who thinks algorithms are the answer to human problems The timeless quality of the compatibility question – one that has fired up philosophers, poets and dinner chatter since Adam and Eve – is demonstrated by Finger

British-Nigerian playwright Adura Onashile (‘Expensive Shit’) transitions to the big screen with a first film that’s based on her own experiences growing up with her single mum in a Glaswegian block of flats in the 1980s. She’s updated the story with relevant contemporary references, including the Grenfell fire. It feels zeitgeisty, although never journalistic or campaigning. Almost uniquely, this tale of African immigrants in social housing isn’t an exercise in miserablism; instead, Onashile crafts a sympathetic, poetic and empathetic portrait of a relationship between mother and daughter, with the emphasis on love and protection. But as we discover through snippets of flashbacks, there is also trauma. It arises as African immigrant Grace (Dèborah Lukumuena, the César-winning find from 2016’s excellent Divines) walks the city streets. Every loud noise, lit cigarette, or raucous group of locals creates anxiety. Grace is a cleaner who works night shifts, forced to navigate the city despite only feeling safe behind closed doors. Everyone is untrustworthy, even those showing genuine warmth and sympathy. The psychological scars are deep. Almost uniquely, this tale of African immigrants isn’t an exercise in miserablism Eleven-year-old Ama (newcomer Le’Shantey Bonsu) is the eponymous ‘girl’. She's been skipping school, which has sparked social services into action, with the mother and daughter hiding whenever they hear a dreaded knock on the door. When Ama is forced back into the

Joyland has been a breakthrough movie from the moment it became the first Pakistani film to play at Cannes. Its Queer Palm win, for the fest’s best LGTBQ+ movie, owed plenty to its perception-busting power – not just of gender normative behaviour, but also of the types of story told in this part of the world. Those expecting music, dance numbers, and the OTT acting associated with an increasingly out-of-date western idea of Bollywood are in for a big surprise. This is a movie full of nuance, where it pays to look out for the small gestures.  The movie’s successes to date – it’s also on the long list for an Oscar nomination – are down to the skilful storytelling of director Saim Sadiq. Born in Lahore, he studied screenwriting at New York's Columbia Film School and his short film, Darling, set in the world of trans dancers, was an eye-catching intro to his talents. There’s a trans dancer at the heart of Joyland too, but before we meet Biba (Alina Khan), Sadiq introduces us to what on the surface seems like a traditional Pakistani family, but it’s one where patriarchy is already in crisis.  That frequently wrathful patriarch (Salmaan Peerzada) is in a wheelchair but still feared by his children and grandchildren. However, the world he presides over is already shifted away from traditional roles. He's aghast that his daughter-in-law Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq), a make-up artist, is the chief breadwinner, while his son, her husband Haider (Ali Junejo), is responsible for looking after t

You won’t see many more visceral and incredible opening sequences than the one that kicks off Romain Gavras’s Athena. It’s an 11-minute one-take tracking shot that takes us through a Parisian estate under siege. The hand-to-hand combat feels like The Raid, the camera trickery is is Children of Men-esque, and the lighting is at least partly provided by exploding Molotov cocktails. It starts with a teenager’s death at the hands of cops on an edgy banlieue – the 13-year-old brother of Abdel (No Time to Die’s Bali Benssalah) – and from there rides shotgun with characters in the middle of the carnage. The admittedly thin plot is straight out of La Haine and Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables (perhaps unsurprising in Ly’s case as he serves as co-writer on this). Modelled on a Greek tragedy (Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare), the lack of dialogue for exposition is maddeningly confusing. But Gavras wants the audience to feel like the protagonists, unable to find a safe footing, exposed to the war zone atmosphere, and unsure about what will happen next. Athena is a highbrow action film where the plot about three brothers responding to the unfolding events with different selfish motivations reveals itself flittingly.  Anyone who loves their cinema to be a rollercoaster ride will soak it up And those bursts of action double down impressively on the type of bravura filmmaking that is Gavras’s stock-in-trade. His list of riotous (in both senses) music videos includes MIA’s ‘Born Fr

The courtroom is one of the most fascinating spaces in cinema. On the one hand, it's an environment where protagonists can relay their thoughts and actions without their words feeling like forced exposition; on the other, the questioning and answering can feel stagey and dialogue-heavy, where the audience is hearing rather than seeing the action. They are challenging to get right. The best ones, like Alice Diop’s Saint Omer, will give some insight into the human condition, with the director using the courtroom high jinks to ask whether it should be society on trial. Saint Omer was the richly deserved winner of the Silver Lion, Venice Film Festival’s runner-up prize. It builds on Diop’s sharply-drawn work as a documentarian – her most recent, Nous (2021), took an empathetic look at Paris’s underclass.  And she uses that same documentary nous to full effect in Saint Omer. The story's based on the real-life trial of Fabienne Kabou in 2015, a Senegalese immigrant accused of murdering her 15-month-old baby. Diop attended the trial and took copious notes, with dialogue from the trial making its way into the text of the screenplay. Her fictionalisation of the events contextualise the prosecution within the borders of immigration, motherhood and colonialism. It does this by witnessing the events through her on-screen surrogate Rama (Kayije Kagame), a successful novelist and academic we first see teaching a uni class about the impact of the shaven-headed women in the Marguerite Duras-

Back to the Future first introduced the idea to mainstream cinema audiences that if you go back in time and interact at an event, a new future will be created – and not necessarily for the better. In a nutshell, that's the conceit of Irish director Andrew Legge’s debut feature film LOLA, even if it arrives at this ‘science’ in a somewhat convoluted manner. An intertitle explains that in a house in Sussex, some movie reels were found dating from 1941. How very Blair Witch Project. But, with its counterfactual twists, this is more like Robert Harris's ‘Fatherland’. In 1938, two female inventors, Martha (Stefanie Martini) and Thomasina (Emma Appleton), switch on LOLA, a machine that sees future British TV transmissions. Rather delightfully, the duo care more about pop stars David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Nina Simone than they do about the heinous societal structures that informed their music. They steal music from the future to pass off as their own and bet on the horses to make a living. Twenty-three wins on the spin mean they don’t have to work again. Gee-whizz. Aesthetically, it’s as stylised as Darren Aronofsky’s monochrome Pi. Cinematographer Oona Menges's black-and-white images are overlaid with designer scratches and the archive TV footage grainy. As we learn about the machine, it promises to be joyous and entertaining, but it’s a false dawn. Before you can say ‘blitzkrieg’, soldiers arrive and it turns into a standard ‘save England from the Nazis’ caper. The premise’s limita

The Toy Story franchise is the spine of the Pixar universe. When Andy was first given Woody and Buzz Lightyear back in 1995, Pixar announced itself as a studio that could make CGI animated films beloved by kids and adults in equal measure. From Andy's house on 234 Elm Street, Pixar became synonymous with mixing great drama with killer jokes and sly visual wit. And who hasn’t casually dropped the phrase ‘to infinity and beyond’ into conversation? So what’s gone so wrong with Lightyear? Pixar has done a raft of successful sequels, so it’s not that. In recent years, when fans started to fret that the studio had finally run out of great original ideas, they pulled out Soul and Turning Red. But a spin-off? It’s the hellish land after infinity and beyond.  The basic idea is solid, which only makes the execution even more disappointing. We learn that when Andy got his Lightyear toy, it was a figurine from his favourite movie – and this is that movie. But perhaps true to form, the favourite film of a seven-year-old kid is… not that great. Pixar is meta, but surely not so meta as to purposely make a dodgy sci-fi blockbuster to fit the early ’90s kids’ movie vibe?  Lightyear, the film within a film, starts with Buzz on a mission and narrating his life story to mission control. To distinguish Toy Story Buzz from the (younger) movie Buzz, Chris Evans replaces Tim Allen as the voice. And he brings some subtle points of difference, most notably in dialing down the glee in that old ‘Infinit

The American Dream is more like the American Scream in the cinematic world of Sean Baker, whose movies Tangerine and The Florida Project mark him out as one of the most exciting auteurs working today. His latest once again immerses us in an America full of juxtapositions, sex work and donuts. Red Rocket is an engrossing state-of-the-nation comedy designed to make us feel so dirty that no amount of washing will remove the sweat from our nether parts. Did we really just feel affection for manchild Saber (Simon Rex) grooming 17-year-old Strawberry (Suzanna Son) to be a porn star, his ticket out of terrible Texas and back to Hollywood? Does it make a difference that she's savvy and wants to take advantage of the fact that sex sells, as it’s better than working in a donut shop? Is sell-ebrity the only way to get ahead in an Insta world?  It’s 2016, and on the television set Trump is battling Hillary on the campaign trail. Man versus woman. Good versus evil. Or a contest where no matter the victor, not much will change for the poor. And poor is one thing down-on-his-luck former award-winning porn star Saber doesn't want to be. Yet here he is, begging his estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) and mother-in-law (Brenda Deiss) for a spot on the couch, promising to get a job and pay some rent. Red Rocket immerses us in an America full of juxtapositions, sex work and donuts It’s soon apparent that promises are not something that narcissist Saber keeps. A fantasist, everything in his life re

British writer ​Alex Wheatle has published 15 ​novels since his debut, Brixton Rock, in 1999 and he was awarded an MBE for services to literature in 2008. His books aimed at young adults are remarkable in chronicling British life from a Black perspective. The writing is rhythmic and sharp. Despite the acclaim and awards, ​the ​chances are you haven’t heard of him​: B​eing a Black British author is a niche living, no matter your level of success. Hopefully, the name recognition should change now that he has become the title character of ​a Steve McQueen film.  For Alex Wheatle, McQueen and ​his ​co-writer Alastair Siddons have taken a leaf out of Brixton Rock and told the story of the 1981 Brixton uprising, through the real-life experience of the author​. Wheatle was amongst the 82 people arrested following days of demonstrations and resistance by Afro-Caribbean residents against police failings, violence and discrimination. However, it's first and foremost a teenage coming-of-age tale​, 65 electric minutes​ ​packed with financial hardship, racial demonisation and reggae.  The film focuses on ​the writer’s formative years, judiciously avoiding​ ​​explaining how and​ why he became a great novelist. ​In fact, until the​ ​credit​s roll​, the uninitiated ​would have no idea that ​he's a ​fledgeling author​ at all​. ​In the early days of Thatcher’s Britain, it was the emerging reggae scene that was Wheatle’s passion​. H​e went by the DJ ​name Yardman Ire​ and was ​a founding member

By now you have seen Barbie (and if you haven’t stop, reading and go to the cinema now) and delighted in the fact that director Greta Gerwig has created a film that not only has a brilliant plot but is full of amazing pop cultural references. Fans will be searching for Easter Eggs for years. Here are ten of our favourite cultural moments we spotted from the movie, from amazing costumes to movie references, and then the more political subtexts including digs at incel culture, the fragility of men and world politics.  Photograph: Warner Bros. Barbie toy history The film is full of costumes and characters that have been released in the Barbie range since the doll first appeared in 1959. The first costume we see is the original Barbie swimsuit. Discontinued toys such as Midge, a discontinued pregnant Barbie played by Emerald Fennell, Tanner the Golden Retriever, Growing up Skipper (Barbie’s sister), who went through puberty and grew breasts in 1975 is rectified, as is Barbie’s short lived little sister Tutti, and Video Girl Barbie with a hidden camera. Barbie aficionados will have a field day.  That controversial map of China  Barbie was banned in Vietnam and caused much controversy with some Republican politicians because of a hand drawn map depicting the world supporting disputed Chinese territorial claims to the South China Sea. The fact that this map was in Barbie Land is in fact an incredibly sly reference to many of the dolls being ‘Made in China’. Photograph: Warner Br

The red carpet has been rolled up, the movie stars have jetted away, and the party victims have been swept off the Croisette. Yes, the Cannes Film Festival is done and dusted for another year, after 12 days providing festivalgoers with its usual mix of lovely surprises (Close, Aftersun), aching disappointments (Three Thousand Years of Longing), diverting oddities (Crimes of the Future) and Hollywood behemoths (Elvis). The festival, of course, has its own awards ceremony, but we’ve dug a bit deeper to celebrate the actors, scenes, dialogue, parties, and even the dogs who, for better or worse, helped make Cannes what it was. Without this lot, it would have been 150 percent duller. Weirdest sex scene: Crimes of the Future Last year’s Cannes was famous for boasting some outré sex scenes – including one film, Titane, that had its protagonist getting jiggy with a car. This Cannes was a milder effort, but David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future did keep the flame alive with a scene in which Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux go at each other with surgical equipment. Who said romance is dead? Most epic barf-athon: Triangle of Sadness Crimes of the Future wasn’t the only film unleashing the inside stuff on the outside world. Delivering a scene to rival cinema’s great puke – Stand by Me, The Meaning of Life, etc – was the outbreak of projectile vomiting in Triangle of Sadness. Director Ruben Östlund spoiled us (and our lunches) with the ribald sight of a handful of seasick capitalists red

The Long Goodbye, a short film produced and co-written by British superstar Riz Ahmed, just won the Best Live Action Short Film Oscar. You may have missed the win on the news, not just because of ‘the slap’ but because it was one of the awards controversially handed out in the pre-recorded section of the American Academy Awards.  When Ahmed picked up the Oscar, the 39-year-old voiced the importance of togetherness in divided times. ‘We believe that the role of the story is to remind us there is no us and them,’ he said. ‘There’s just us.’ Behind Ahmed on stage was co-writer and director Aneil Karia, best known for directing Surge. Karim’s debut film saw Ben Whishaw put in a Sundance award-winning performance as an airport security guard who has a mental breakdown. Here’s everything you need to know about the pair’s award-winning collaboration. Photograph: Michael Baker / A.M.P.A.S.Riz Ahmed with ‘The Long Goodbye’ director Aneil Karia at the Oscars What is The Long Goodbye about? Twelve minutes long, The Long Goodbye is divided into three acts. The first part sees an Asian family at home, in a house not unlike the one Ahmed grew up in Wembley, London.  Ahmed’s character is at the heart of a busy household. We meet him having a dance-off with a younger brother, criticising another sibling for not doing the washing up, and arguing with his dad over whether it’s worth watching the news. Upstairs, a gaggle of girls are preparing for a wedding, with the bride admitting she fanci