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There have been relatively few biopics about choreographers, but it’s hard to think of a better one than “John Cranko,” about the late South African who made his name in England and Germany. Steering well clear of “Eureka!” moments and other clichés within the portrait-of-an-artist genre, Joachim A. Lang’s feature finds unusually vivid means of conveying how a driven creator’s mind works by having the dance ideas in his head constantly integrated into the everyday life depicted. With a terrific performance by Sam Riley in the title role, this handsome production — with no end of first-rate terpsichorean performance onscreen — should reignite interest in a figure whose rising international stature got curtailed by his abrupt demise in 1973, at age 45.

Lang limits himself to the years of Cranko’s finding a mature career berth with the Stuttgart Ballet. He wound up there through circumstances just briefly referred to: After...

When Sam Riley first got the script for John Cranko, he saw the title page, with its big black print, and thought: ‘An action movie! Finally, someone has seen my action potential!” Then he googled John Cranko. It wasn’t quite what he expected. Not an action here but “a chain-smoking gay choreographer” who transformed the world of ballet.

Riley — known for his breakout performance as Joy Division singer Ian Curtis in Anton Corbijn’s Control (2007) as well as turns alongside Helen Mirren and Andrea Riseborough in Rowan Joffe’s gothic take on Brighton Rock (2010) and across Lilly James in Ben Wheatley’s Rebecca (2020) — had never even been to the ballet. But he asked his wife, Downfall and Rush star Alexandra Maria Lara, to read the script. “She told me, ‘this one you’re gonna do. This is definitely a job to do’….this is the sort of role that comes along,...

Each Voldemort actor in the Harry Potter franchise portrayed different stages of the dark wizard's life and transformations. The evolution of Voldemort's character required different actors to show various versions from childhood to full power. With the Harry Potter universe getting a reboot, more performers will join the list of Voldemort actors in the future.

Every Lord Voldemort actor throughout the Harry Potter movies and beyond has had a certain purpose in bringing the evil wizard to life. Initially spoken of in hushed tones only, Harry Potter introduces the legend of Voldemort in its very first book, depicting a dark, fearsome wizard who terrorized the magic world, only to be defeated while attempting to kill a young Harry Potter. That led to various versions of Voldemort appearing throughout the franchise, meaning seven actors played He Who Must Not Be Named in various movies.

Over the years, every version of Voldemort...

Ileen Maisel, who served as a studio executive at Paramount, Lorimar and New Line Cinema and as a producer on films including Onegin, Ripley’s Game and The Golden Compass, has died. She was 68.

Maisel died Feb. 16 of cancer in London, her home for the past 34 years, her sister, Hollywood publicist Cheryl Maisel, announced.

Maisel received a BAFTA nomination for best British film for producing Samuel Goldwyn’s Onegin (1999), starring Ralph Fiennes, and was said to be most proud of her work on the Fine Line Features thriller Ripley’s Game (2002), starring John Malkovich.

In addition to the New Line fantasy The Golden Compass (2007), which starred Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and grossed $372.2 million at the global box office, her other producing credits included Twelfth Night (1996), Inkheart (2008), and Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism (2015).

Born in Los Angeles on April 6, 1955, Ileen Marla Maisel began working for entertainment journalist Rona Barrett...

Editor’s note: Downton Abbey and The Gilded Age writer Julian Fellowes has written a heartfelt salute to his friend and colleague, the producer Ileen Maisel, who died in London on February 16 aged 68.

Ileen Maisel was born in Los Angeles, California, where she was raised. In fact, her father had moved there from Alabama to work in retail sales, so she had no immediate help with a career in show business, but it was clearly enough that she breathed the same air as the great filmmakers of the past and present. It is no surprise to learn that by the age of 15 she was working for the entertainment journalist Rona Barrett.

From then on, she embraced, bathed in, and generally loved the film industry until the end of her life. There was never much doubt as to where she was headed and she was still young when she entered the industry.

Exclusive: Actress Liv Tyler has signed with CAA.

The move comes just a few months after the conclusion of principal photography on Captain America: Brave New World, the superhero flick marking her return to the MCU which will have her reprising her role as scientist Betty Ross.

Tyler first played the part in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and stars here opposite Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Carl Lumbly, Tim Blake Nelson, Shira Haas, and Harrison Ford. A continuation of Disney+’s miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which saw Mackie’s Sam Wilson assume the mantle of Captain America, the film directed by Julius Onah is currently scheduled for release July 26, 2024.

Most recently seen starring opposite Brad Pitt in James Gray’s sci-fi drama Ad Astra, Tyler began acting at the age of 16 and made her film debut with Warner Bros’ 1994 psychological thriller Silent Fall.

She then went on to...

Exclusive: A crime farce, prison drama, Highland thriller and fantastical love story among titles.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) has confirmed the feature film projects and filmmaking teams who will be participating in the fourth year of development and mentoring programme Eiff Network.

The Network participants are:

writer/director John Addis and producer Sukey Richardson with their crime farce Deadbeat;

screenwriter Brian Martin and his prison based drama Inside;

screenwriter Nat Luurtsema, director Isabelle Sieb and producer Diarmuid Hughes with their black comedy drama Poppy;

writer/director Iain Mitchell with his highland thriller Keeper;

screenwriter Melissa Iqbal with her science fiction thriller The Ark;

screenwriter Line Langebek and director Samantha Harrie with the fantastical love story When I Could Fly.

The initiative is run in partnership with story editor Kate Leys and supported by the Creative Skillset Film Skills Fund and Creative Scotland.  Network aims to connect filmmaking teams with industry as they develop feature projects...

Exclusive: A crime farce, prison drama, Highland thriller and fantastical love story among titles.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) has confirmed the feature film projects and filmmaking teams who will be participating in the fourth year of development and mentoring programme Eiff Network.

The Network participants are:

writer/director John Addis and producer Sukey Richardson with their crime farce Deadbeat;

screenwriter Brian Martin and his prison based drama Inside;

screenwriter Nat Luurtsema, director Isabelle Sieb and producer Diarmuid Hughes with their black comedy drama Poppy;

writer/director Iain Mitchell with his highland thriller Keeper;

screenwriter Melissa Iqbal with her science fiction thriller The Ark;

screenwriter Line Langebek and director Samantha Harrie with the fantastical love story When I Could Fly.

The initiative is run in partnership with story editor Kate Leys and supported by the Creative Skillset Film Skills Fund and Creative Scotland.  Network aims to connect filmmaking teams with industry as they develop feature projects...

Films by Todd Solondz, Ralph Fiennes and Andrei Konchalovsky as well as an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s White Nights, starring Daniel Brühl, are among 12 projects to be supported by Russia’s Ministry of Culture this year.

Solondz, Fiennes and Bekmambetov are set to join director colleagues Avdotya Smirnova, Bakur Bakuradze, Cedric Klapisch, Igor Voloshin, Ilmar Raag and Sam Rockwell in shooting episodes of the omnibus film Petersburg: A Category Of Feelings.

The project, which is to be produced by Lenfilm Studio in cooperation with Sergey Selyanov’s St Petersburg-based production powerhouse Ctb Company, will invite the filmmakers to present their views of the “Venice of the North” through emotions or qualities whose first letters make up the city’s name: Pleasure, Effort, Trust, Envy, Repose, Shrewdness, Bravery, Uncertainty, Refuge and Glee.

The idea for the project originates from Selyanov, and one of the episodes will be directed by actor-director-producer Fedor Bondarchuk who is also serving as the...

Our critics' picks of this week's openings, plus your last chance to see and what to book now

• Which cultural events are in your diary this week? Tell us in the comments below

Opening this weekTheatre

In a Garden

The Ustinov's ambitious season of modern American plays continues with the British premiere of Howard Korder's play about an American architect summoned to a Middle Eastern country to fulfil an impossible commission. Richard Beecham directs a tale of dangerous misunderstandings. Ustinov, Bath (01225 448844), Wednesday until 5 May.

Film

Into the Abyss (dir. Werner Herzog)

Werner Herzog probes the dark heart of humanity with his death-row interviews. Why do people kill?

Dance

The Royal Ballet: Mixed Bill

The Royal at their adventurous best, with new works by Liam Scarlett and Wayne McGregor, plus a revival of Wheeldon's classy, intelligent Polophonia. Royal Opera House, London WC2 (020-7304 4000), Thursday until 23 April.

The Eifman Ballet: Anna Karenina (Tue-Weds) Onegin (Fri)

Big,...

Film-maker Martha Fiennes's new work, Nativity, has a soundtrack composed by her brother Magnus. They talk about their bohemian upbringing as two of six siblings and the unusual creative bond they share

'I actually think Magnus is a genius," says Martha Fiennes, of her younger brother. "I really do, I've said it to other people and they've said 'Yeah, I think he is'. I'm chucking stuff out barely finished, but Magnus is picking up on it; I think he tunes into a frequency. What Magnus has done is so completely brilliant. Handel wrote The Messiah in 12 days, I understand, and Magnus has done exactly the same."

She is talking about the soundtrack that Magnus has created for her first digital installation, Nativity, on display for the Christmas season in a specially constructed chalet in Covent Garden piazza, in London. In fact, Handel is thought to have spent 24 days on his oratorio,...

Oscar-winning editor Jim Clark's hilarious memoir offers valuable insights into an often overlooked aspect of cinema

Numerous directors and a fair number of cinematographers have written autobiographies, but although there are useful books on the art and craft and editing, the only memoir I've come across by a film editor is the eye-opening When the Shooting Stops... the Cutting Begins by Ralph Rosenblum, the New York editor who saved Mel Brooks's The Producers and Woody Allen's Annie Hall from catastrophe. It appeared in 1979, and towards the end of it Rosenblum says of his trade: "The profession selects in favour of caution, timidity, self-abnegation, tact, 'a diplomacy', says British editor James Clark, 'which would normally put us straight into parliament'." Now in retirement, Jim Clark has put aside his diplomacy to write a revealing, funny, devastatingly frank account of a lifetime spent editing film.

Unlike many people in films,...

Ralph Fiennes is in talks to star in an adaptation of Russian author Ivan Turgenev’s 1872 play "A Month In The Country" for Horosho Production reports Screen Daily.

Despite the play's age, this would mark its first adaptation for the cinema. Fiennes has met with producer Natalia Ivanova and discussed the possibility of him playing Rakitin, the devoted, but resentful admirer of a rich landowner’s wife.

Fiennes has apparently said that he would even be prepared to learn Russian for the part. Fiennes previously starred in another cinematic adaptation of a Russian classic - Martha Fiennes’ 1999 film "Onegin" which was based on Alexander Pushkin’s epic verse novel.

Filmmaker Martha Fiennes has split from her longterm partner, cinematographer George Tiffin, after over 20 years together. The Onegin director, who is the sister of actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, has three children with Tiffin - including son, Hero, who starred in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", and daughter, Mercy, who starred alongside Keira Knightley in "The Duchess".

Last year, Fiennes admitted she "would love to get married", but Tiffin was strongly against the idea. Now the pair has split - and Fiennes is already dating again.

She tells Britain's Daily Mail, "Very simply, we have mutually parted ways. Yes, I am with someone else - a Swiss-Arab businessman."...

Filmmaker Martha Fiennes has split from her longterm partner, cinematographer George Tiffin, after over 20 years together.

The Onegin director, who is the sister of actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, has three children with Tiffin - including son, Hero, who starred in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and daughter, Mercy, who starred alongside Keira Knightley in The Duchess.

Last year, Fiennes admitted she "would love to get married", but Tiffin was strongly against the idea.

Now the pair has split - and Fiennes is already dating again.

She tells Britain's Daily Mail, "Very simply, we have mutually parted ways. Yes, I am with someone else - a Swiss-Arab businessman."...

Martha Fiennes has refused to make a movie with her brothers - because it would be "too incestutous". While she was happy to work with brother RALPH on her last movie Onegin (1999), the thought of working with the rest of the acting family makes her feel ill. And although she has been offered a number of interesting film projects, any which involve her famous siblings have immediately been ruled out. She says, "Maybe I will work with the family together on something one day but not yet. It's too incestuous and I want to avoid that."...