The Chronology of Water review – Kristen Stewart makes a traumatic splash with directorial debut

Imogen Poots takes the lead in Stewart’s choppy but compelling adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir of abuse and sexual uncertainty

Kristen Stewart says Donald Trump’s effect on the film industry is ‘terrifying’

The actor who is making her directorial debut with The Chronology of Water at the Cannes film festival says ‘we should expect the worst and fight for the best’

Two Prosecutors review – a petrifying portrait of Stalinist insurrection

Drawn from a suppressed story by gulag survivor Georgy Demidov, Sergei Loznitsa’s haunting film unravels a terrifying parable of bureaucratic evil

‘Music is never fixed in me’ … cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason on surviving a ‘volcano of racism’

A remark about Rule, Britannia! led to uproar but the star musician is concentrating on the joy and power of classical music. As his first book is published, he talks to Charlotte Higgins• Read an exclusive extract from Kanneh-Mason’s new book

Ted Kotcheff, director of First Blood, Weekend at Bernie’s and Wake in Fright, dies aged 94

Prolific Canadian director also made one of the country’s first internationally successful films, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, starring Richard Dreyfuss

On my radar: Nell Zink’s cultural highlights

The Germany-based American novelist on being cheered up by a gulag memoir, the best Wagner around and how to encourage a nightingale into your garden

UK publishing less accessible to Black authors now than before 2020, industry names say

Ahead of the Black British book festival, literary figures say the number of books being published by Black writers has ‘plummeted’

Sydney writers’ festival 2025: tallying authors’ views on Israel-Gaza ‘tokenistic and unfortunate’, organisers say

After the shock resignation of the festival’s chair, the Sydney writers’ festival unveils its starry 2025 program in ‘an incredibly polarised environment’

Michael Sheen, Jameela Jamil and Hanif Kureishi join packed Hay festival lineup

Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader, is also due to appear, in a festival dedicated to activism and an exploration of the impact of AI

Kit de Waal to headline new festival celebrating women writers over 50

Forthwrite, which takes place over two days this month, aims to dispel stereotypes around older women

Hot Milk review – Fiona Shaw a fierce fly in simmering erotic soup

A cantankerous Shaw undercuts her daughter’s summer sexual awakening in this interestingly elusive adaptation of Deborah Levy’s novel

After Baillie Gifford: are literary festivals on their last legs?

Over the past 75 years, the idea of the book festival has become embedded in the British cultural landscape. But as costs rise sharply and reading habits change, many are finding it a struggle to survive

‘Engrossing and mysterious’: the Powell-Pressburger masterpiece that might have been

Lyon’s Lumière festival screened a fascinating footnote to the great duo’s career: Behold a Pale Horse, an adaptation of Emeric Pressburger’s novel by Fred Zinnemann

Black British Book festival founder criticises lack of diversity in publishing

Increasing number of authors forced to self-publish or promote work on social media, says Selina Brown

Nickel Boys review – Colson Whitehead novel becomes intensely moving story of a racist reform school

Adaptation of Whitehead’s novel about two young friends trapped by institutional abuse is told with piercing beauty by RaMell Ross