Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
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Sense of realism rewarded at Cannes film festival
Shoplifters
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
New releases from The Mountains Goats, Ed O’Brien, and YHWH Nailgun
ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
JAPANESE film-maker Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters, the story of a shoplifting father and son who adopt a homeless girl, has won the the Palme d'Or at Cannes. A profound and subtle observation of human compassion, it's a world away from Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman which carried off the Grand Prix.
In an explosive satire on racism, Lee uses the remarkable true story of a black cop who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 70s as the vehicle to skewer the racist recidivism of the Trump era.
The Jury prize went to Lebanese director Nadine Labaki for Capernaum, a neorealist drama about a Palestinian boy who sues his parents for bringing him into the pain of this world. It's a gripping and urgent protest against lives devastated by poverty.
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MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
RITA DI SANTO takes us through the prize winners, and takes the temperature of a festival that prioritised narratives of exile, state violence and class division
LEO BOIX, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Dreamers, It Was Just An Accident, Folktales, and Eternity
The daughter of a legendary blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter has spoken out against the reactionary move, says MIKE SCHNEIDER