The Guardian Culture

Add to playlist: the wild club-pop of Zara Larsson cowriter Helena Gao and the week’s best new tracks

The Chinese-Danish artist wrote nine 10ths of Larsson’s breakout album then got a Grammy nod. It’s a fine springboard for her own revelatory popFrom Aarhus, DenmarkRecommended if you like Caroline Polachek, Zara Larsson, GrimesUp next Debut project coming later this yearYou could hardly make a better professional songwriting debut than co-writing nine 10ths of a moment-defining album – namely Zara Larsson’s Midnight Sun – then getting a Grammy nod for it. It’s an enviable springboard for the rel

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

The Guardian Culture

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee; A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper; Murder on the Red River by Marcie R Rendon; The Devoted by Catherine Cho; The Repentants by Kate FosterThe Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill, £16.99)In the eponymous Mumbai apartment block, the immensely rich and those who serve them exist side by side but worlds apart. Fading American actor George Abercrombie, married to superstar Sweety Sahota, finds himself advertising Indian whiskey while his younger wife’s acting care

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Fabulous Frida, classic Constable and a Cornish welcome for Kasuba – the week in art

Tate Modern celebrates everything Kahlo, the British Museum marks John Constable’s 250th birthday, while Claydon prepares for an invasion – all in your weekly dispatchFrida: The Making of an IconThe great surrealist and self-explorer Frida Kahlo gets a show that emphasises her influence and posthumous fame. • Tate Modern, London, 25 June to 3 January Continue reading...

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

The Guardian Culture

10 museums to visit for America’s 250th anniversary

From Arkansas to Washington DC, museums across the US are grappling with what it means to celebrate the countryAs the United States of America reaches its semiquincentennial this 4 July, museums across the country are grappling with what being American and celebrating the US means. Cultural institutions are digging deeper, highlighting American artists, imagery and artifacts to explore the nation’s history.Artists from a multitude of backgrounds, spanning centuries and geographical locations, ar

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

Anthony Chen and Yeo Yann Yann on 14 Years of ‘Growing Up’ Trilogy and New Korean Project: ‘A Comic Take on a Tragic Story’

Singaporean director Anthony Chen, whose producing credits include the Singapore-Korea co-production “Ajoomma,” is returning to Korean-connected territory with a new project. Speaking at a Shanghai International Film Festival masterclass alongside frequent collaborator Yeo Yann Yann, Chen revealed he has been collaborating on a script with a Korean writer for about two years – as the […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

Luca Guadagnino’s Nearly Finished Sam Altman Movie ‘Artificial’ Dropped by Amazon After OpenAI Partnership

Luca Guadagnino’s nearly finished Sam Altman movie, “Artificial,” has been dropped by Amazon MGM Studios, Variety has confirmed. The film, starring Andrew Garfield as the controversial OpenAI CEO, will be shopped to other studios. The move notably comes after Amazon struck a massive partnership with the tech company in February to expand OpenAI’s use of […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s new film shines a light on the human cost of unregulated social media

California first lady’s Miss Representation: Rise Up studies the backlash against women in the era of algorithms and deepfakesLife moves pretty fast. It is Monday lunchtime when Jennifer Siebel Newsom drops into the Guardian’s office in Washington, just a couple of blocks from the White House, for an interview to promote her new film. Less than two hours later her husband, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, announces that the couple are under investigation by the justice department.One stran

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

‘Dear You’ Director Credits Overseas Chinese Letter-Writing Tradition for Sleeper Hit’s Emotional Power

Director Lan Hongchun took the stage at the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival to discuss how “Dear You,” now one of China’s most-talked-about films of the year, drew its emotional charge from qiaopi – the tradition of family letters and remittances exchanged between overseas Chinese communities and their relatives at home. The film has earned […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

Pearl River Film Launches Studio With Author Guo Ni, Sets Eight-Franchise Slate

Pearl River Film and Media has joined forces with Black Body Interactive and Meng Guo Ji Media to establish a dedicated studio with Chinese author Guo Ni, committing to adapt eight of her youth and sci-fi franchises for the screen, with Baidu AI Cloud on board as a production technology partner. The first title out […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

The Guardian Culture

How Refugee Week film festival brings migrants’ experience home

From one hostile environment to another, the documentaries and dramas ranging from Nigeria and Syria to British immigration give vivid life to an experience that can feel very remoteAs World Refugee Day approaches on Saturday, this year’s Refugee Week offers a multitude of events taking place across the UK, including a film festival that takes audiences from Ain el-Helweh – Lebanon’s largest refugee camp for Palestinians – in Mahdi Fleifel’s A World Not Ours and to an immigration removal centre

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

‘Stand Up’ Review: A Dutch Disability Drama With Complexity and Integrity

Most able-bodied people don’t know what to say to 23-year-old Vera (Lucia Zemene) in the months following a traffic collision that left her without a leg, but one empty platitude really stands out: A friend suggests that maybe it happened for a reason. Haunted by this thought, she eventually asks a fellow young wheelchair user […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

Chinese Filmmakers Face Red Tape, Cultural Barriers in International Co-Productions, Shanghai Panel Finds

Chinese filmmakers are struggling with bureaucratic hurdles and different audience expectations in international co-productions, according to panelists at a “Belt and Road” discussion at SIFForum, the Shanghai International Film Festival’s industry dialogue sessions. Yan Peng, deputy general manager of state-owned Huaxia Film Distribution suggested major regulatory and copyright issues impact Chinese producers seeking co-productions abroad. […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group Chiefs Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca to Speak at Toronto Market Summit

Toronto Intl. Film Festival’s first-ever market, known as TIFF: The Market, has revealed that Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chairs and CEOs Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca will headline the Speakers’ Summit. The executives will take part in an in-depth conversation on Sept. 11 with TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey at the Summit, which is […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

Hayley Kiyoko’s Feature Film ‘Girls Like Girls’ Took a Decade to Make. Now That It’s Here, She Hopes It’s Just the Beginning for Sapphic Media

“Girls Like Girls” has been a long time in the making. Originally released as a music video in 2015 by musician Hayley Kiyoko, the tune with the lyrics “Girls like girls, just like boys do” quickly became a sapphic anthem, amassing 163 million views on YouTube to date. “After we released the music video, I […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

APOS 2026 Takeaways: IP, Sport, AI Define Asia’s New Content Era

Asia’s entertainment industry is entering a new stage of maturity. Growth remains important, but executives at this week’s APOS conference in Bali were focused on building sustainable ecosystems, scalable IP and deeper audience engagement. Here are eight themes that defined the conversation. IP Has Become the New Currency Whether it was Netflix flagging a dormant […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

The Guardian Culture

Joe Lovano: Paramount Quartet review | John Fordham's jazz album of the month

(ECM)Lovano and his spirited quartet make his instrument glow in all its pliable eloquence, with rattling originals amid the Charlie Haden and Wayne Shorter coversThe saxophone’s 19th-century inventor, the Belgian Adolphe Sax, imagined hybrid horns that could combine the speed and fluency of woodwinds with the volume and punch of brass. Sax’s career was almost derailed by a childhood of hair-raisingly frequent accident-proneness that led his mother to fear for his survival, but at 20 he patented

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

The Guardian Culture

You can handle the truth! Why cinema suddenly loves conspiracy theories

From Disclosure Day to Backrooms, a new wave of films promote stories of paranoia, alienation and mistrust. What are they trying to tell us?Thank heavens for cinema, that light in the darkness and the source of all shocking scoops. It tells us to wake up and take action before it’s too late. That we live in the Matrix. That the CIA killed JFK. That our spouse is a robot and our boss an Andromedan. Also that there is an Escher-style staircase beneath the Tokyo subway and a disembodied zombie leg

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Hollywood Reporter

‘A Whole Person Almost’ Is a Cinematic Odyssey. And Hey, Does This Cloud Look Like Trump?! (Exclusive Clips)

Director Efthimis Kosemund-Sanidis’ debut feature, about a man arriving on a remote Greek island to claim his late father’s inheritance, world premieres in the Karlovy Vary film festival’s Proxima competition.

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

Variety

Anne Curtis Leads Mikhail Red’s Manila Paranoia Thriller ‘Remote’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Philippine filmmaker Mikhail Red has set his next feature: “Remote,” a paranoia thriller set in contemporary Manila, with Anne Curtis attached to star. The project is produced by Evolve Studios and Viva Films, with production scheduled to begin later this year. Curtis plays Violet Olvido, a journalist who begins investigating a string of killings linked […]

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026

The Guardian Culture

The changing face of Mongolia as, beneath the grass, permafrost thaws

The warming caused by climate breakdown in the landlocked east Asian country is transforming its fragile ecosystemAs the climate crisis accelerates, Mongolia is warming rapidly, transforming the country’s cryosphere, including some of the most southerly permafrost landscapes in the northern hemisphere.Although rarely associated with the Arctic, Mongolia has a remarkably cold climate. Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital city in the world, and a substantial portion of the country lies within the Ar

entertainment  Jun 19, 2026