Differing interpretations of public access rights are at heart of Brockwell case pitting campaign group against festival fans
Public parks have been a cherished part of British life since the 19th century; for the Victorians they represented a “commitment to cultivate public good within the public realm”.
But differing interpretations of this vision for municipal green space are at the heart of a debate over a very 21st-century issue: music festivals.
Continue reading...Director says his fifth movie with the actor will probably be their last project together as Washington ‘has been talking about retirement’
The collaboration between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington has spanned four decades and tackled many aspects of African American life. But Lee feels their latest venture, the kidnap drama Highest 2 Lowest, will probably be the duo’s swansong.
“This is the fifth one we’ve done together,” Lee said after the picture’s premiere at the Cannes film festival. “It has been a blessing, this body of work between us, doing films that people love. And I think this is it. He’s been talking about retirement. But five films together: that’s good, they stand up.”
Continue reading...Festival attendee was hospitalised by a falling tree on the celebrated Croisette boulevard
The producers of a Japanese film which screened at the Cannes film festival have called for an investigation and safety review after one of their team was struck and badly injured by a falling palm tree on the famous Croisette boulevard.
The incident occurred on Saturday as the team behind Brand New Landscape, which was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, were walking along Cannes’ celebrated seafront road when a three-metre tree fell on to the pavement. Local authorities said a man in his 30s was injured.
Continue reading...Comments at Cannes come after US president’s social media posts against Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift
Pedro Pascal has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s attacks against artists, as the director of a conspiracy theory satire starring the actor said he feared the political messages of films could be weaponised by US border guards.
“Fuck the people that try to make you scared,” the Game of Thrones and The Last of Us actor said at a press conference at the Cannes film festival, promoting Ari Aster’s new film Eddington. “And fight back. And don’t let them win.”
Continue reading...Rebekah Shaman, of Protect Brockwell Park, took action against Lambeth council over number of large-scale events
A campaigner who argued that music festivals held in a south London park unfairly cut off large sections of the space and made it a “mud bath” has won a court case that could result in events being banned there this summer.
The Protect Brockwell Park (PBP) group, which includes the actor Mark Rylance, complained about walls being erected in the park, and noise and environmental damage, leading to a tense debate about the use of public space, nimbyism and the importance of summer cultural events.
Continue reading...Theo Navarro-Mussy has a secondary role as a police officer in the film Dossier 137 by Dominik Moll which is to premiere on Thursday
The Cannes film festival said it had banned an actor in a prominent French film from the red carpet on Thursday because of sexual assault allegations against him.
Theo Navarro-Mussy has a secondary role as a police officer in the film Dossier 137 by Dominik Moll which is to premiere on Thursday in the festival’s main competition. According to French magazine Télérama, which broke the news, Navarro-Mussy was accused of rape by three former partners in 2018, 2019, and 2020, but the case was dropped last month for lack of evidence.
Continue reading...In Cannes to promote his Stalinist drama Two Prosecutors, the film-maker said he feared the US and Russia would soon ‘become equal’
One of Ukraine’s leading film-makers has spoken of the “nightmare” of an emergent alliance between authoritarian leaders in Russia and the US, as his new film on contemporary echoes with the Stalinist era opens at the Cannes film festival.
“The events that unfolded in the past 100 days really surprised many people all over the world,” said director Sergei Loznitsa, whose new film Two Prosecutors received its world premiere on Wednesday. “One couldn’t even imagine in a nightmare such a union, such an understanding between two authoritarian leaders.”
Continue reading...The star, who at 62 performed his own stunts for the forthcoming Final Reckoning, tells Cannes press conference ‘I don’t mind encountering the unknown’
Tom Cruise got stuck on the wing of a biplane shortly before it ran out fuel during the filming of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the director of the eighth instalment of the action franchise has revealed.
Speaking to an audience at the Cannes film festival hours before the film’s premiere, director Christopher McQuarrie recounted the filming of a stunt sequence in which Cruise, in his long-running role as the field agent Ethan Hunt, walked between between the two wings of a biplane as the aircraft was mid-air over South Africa.
Continue reading...Prolific Canadian director also made one of the country’s first internationally successful films, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, starring Richard Dreyfuss
Ted Kotcheff, the prolific Canadian director of films including First Blood, Weekend at Bernie’s, Wake in Fright and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, has died aged 94. His daughter Kate Kotcheff told the Canadian Press that he had died of heart failure on Thursday in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, where he lived. His son Thomas said: “He died of old age, peacefully, and surrounded by loved ones.”
In an amazingly varied career, Kotcheff’s work ranged from hardhitting TV plays and low-budget features in the UK, to hit Hollywood comedies and prestige-laden award-winners and cult films. Kate Kotcheff said: “He was an amazing storyteller. He was an incredible, larger than life character [and] he was a director who could turn his hand to anything.”
Continue reading...After a year off, the often controversial art festival returns, having signed a new three-year funding deal with the state government
A two-hour performance work involving an artist and a stunt driver culminating in a head-on car crash, a man being crushed by sand in a giant hourglass, and an open invitation to scream, are among some of the artworks heading to Tasmania’s Dark Mofo festival, which is back this winter after taking a fallow year.
The annual art festival, created by David Walsh’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) and well known for its often controversial, confronting and humorous spirit, was called off last year so organisers could take stock of “changing conditions and rising costs” to ensure its future. Many festivals around Australia have been cancelled in the last two years, including Dark Mofo’s summer equivalent, Mona Foma, which finished in 2024 after 16 years.
Continue reading...The festival, started by Robert Redford in 1978, will move from its previous home in Park City, Utah, for 2027
Boulder, Colorado, has been named as the new home for the Sundance film festival starting in 2027.
The festival, which was started in 1978 by Robert Redford, will move from its home in Park City, Utah. Sundance brings more than 20,000 people a year to the ski town, which many had seen as too small to house something of this size.
Continue reading...Band members were joined on stage by former Gallows frontman Frank Carter as stars and fans welcomed their return
There was anticipation on Oxford Street in London as the Sex Pistols rocked the 100 Club for the first time in more than half a century, playing classic tunes for a crowd of creaking punks.
In a hot and sweaty venue, which harkened back to the band’s glory days, they darted on stage like squaddies on a march, to roars from the audience. They were celebrated by stars and superfans such as Noel Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie and the Jam frontman, Paul Weller.
Continue reading...After the shock resignation of the festival’s chair, the Sydney writers’ festival unveils its starry 2025 program in ‘an incredibly polarised environment’
Over the past two years, programming a writers’ festival has become one of the most politically fraught undertakings in the Australian cultural sphere. Both Sydney and Melbourne writers’ festivals have seen board members resign over programming decisions, while Adelaide and Perth have fended off calls for the de-platforming of speakers on both sides of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Literary events are traditionally lauded for their “restraint, reason and tolerance in the face of opposing views” – but writers’ festivals are now issuing safety tips and employing security as they navigate “the frontier between social media’s echo chambers of outrage and the traditional public square’s conventions”, the University of Melbourne journalism academic Denis Muller observed in the Conversation last year, after the resignation of the Melbourne writers’ festival’s deputy chair, Leslie Reti.
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Continue reading...Tourism and local officials in Mexico deny any knowledge of proposed follow-up to disastrous 2017 event
When tickets to the second Fyre festival went on sale this week, there was just one concrete detail: it would take place on Isla Mujeres, a tropical island off Cancún, Mexico.
But the festival seems to be repeating its own history as an improvised disaster after the local government in Isla Mujeres denied knowing anything about it.
Continue reading...Other acts include Charli xcx, Megan Thee Stallion, Missy Elliott, Shaboozey and Blackpink members Jennie and Lisa
Lady Gaga, Green Day, Post Malone and Travis Scott will headline Coachella 2025.
Scott, whose prominent billing comes with the description “designs the desert”, will reportedly design an immersive experience called CatcusCon, Rolling Stone reported, and will perform after Green Day’s set on the Saturday nights.
Continue reading...Mubi cancels four-day event in protest as local government blocks screening of Luca Guadagnino-directed movie Queer
Organisers of an Istanbul film festival announced its cancellation on Thursday to protest against a local authority ban on the screening of Queer, a drama starring Daniel Craig.
The arthouse film streaming platform Mubi said it was cancelling the entire four-day festival just hours before it was set to open in Kadikoy, on the Asian side of Istanbul.
Continue reading...Film festival organisers make ‘heartbreaking’ decision not to show Undercover: Exposing the Far Right amid concerns over staff welfare
A documentary that lifts the lid on a “race science” network of far-right activists in Britain and its links to a rich American funder of eugenics research has been pulled from the London Film Festival (LFF) at the last minute due to safety concerns.
The organisers have taken the “heartbreaking decision” to cancel the planned screening of the “exceptional” Undercover: Exposing the Far Right this weekend due to fears about the welfare of audiences, staff and security working in the festival venues.
Continue reading...Singer speaks at Toronto film festival after announcing eye infection had left him with limited vision in one eye
Sir Elton John has made his first public appearance at Toronto international film festival, days after announcing a severe eye infection had left him with limited vision in one eye.
The British singer, 77, was pictured in good spirits as he arrived on the back of a buggy at the Canadian festival, alongside his husband, David Furnish.
Continue reading...Film among host of sexually explicit features on this year’s lineup as erotica returns to screens after years of chastity
It’s been 25 years since Nicole Kidman starred in Stanley Kubrick’s erotic classic Eyes Wide Shut opposite her then husband, Tom Cruise.
Although the Oscar-winner has evaded sexually explicit roles in recent years, she is making a comeback to the genre by playing the lead in one of the most risque feature films to premiere at the Venice film festival this year.
Continue reading...Anger grows over proposed cuts of up to £10m for Creative Scotland affecting freelance artists and performers
Actors and directors have protested on stage during the Edinburgh festival after anger about proposed cuts to Scottish arts funding escalated into open revolt.
Protest messages were read out after performances, including at the Traverse, Lyceum, George Square, Summerhall and Church Hill theatres, to loud applause from audiences, as thousands of artists and performers signed an open letter calling for the cuts to be reversed.
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