'Shakespeare is mistakenly considered something for the elite': director Claire McCarthy on 'Ophelia'

Upcoming adaptation shines a new light on Shakespeare's famous tragic maiden

Ophelia is one of Shakespeare's most enduring characters in both literature and art, and yet her part in Hamlet is limited to few lines and fewer motivations. Based on Lisa Klein's novel, the new film Ophelia challenges this interpretation. Daisy Ridley stars as the iconic maiden raising above the petty squabbles of flawed men.

Chantal Ackerman: My Mother Laughs review - too umbilically linked?

A moving record of the complex relations between mother and daughter

My Mother Laughs was first published in Chantal Ackerman’s native French in 2013. This year it has been translated into English for the first time, twice. Silver Press’ elegant version is framed by a foreword by the poet, Eileen Myles (who also has a poem on the back flyleaf) and an afterword by the academic, Frances Morgan. These women’s voices are sympathetic, and naturally turn the book as a whole into a kind of conversation.

DVD/Blu-ray: Ash Is Purest White

★★★★ ASH IS PUREST WHITE Love in a gangster milieu, set against the changes of the Chinese century

Love in a gangster milieu, set against the changes of the Chinese century

Chinese director Jia Zhangke has made a masterful career from following the changes that his native land has undergone in the 21st century, catching the speed of its transition from old ideological order to the relentless dynamism of subsequent economic development – and, most importantly, the human consequences of the process.

Yesterday review - Beatlemania in a parallel universe

★★★★★ YESTERDAY Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis deliver an irresistible magical mystery tour

Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis deliver an irresistible magical mystery tour

The price of fame and the value of artistic truth are among the topics probed in Danny Boyle’s irresistible comedy, a beguiling magical mystery tour of an upside-down world where The Beatles suddenly never existed.

DVD/Blu-ray: Sauvage

★★★★ DVD: SAUVAGE Raw authenticity & visceral performance give French debut indelible power

Raw authenticity and a visceral performance from Félix Maritaud give this French debut indelible power

Anyone who saw Félix Maritaud playing the angry activist Max in Robin Campillo’s Paris ACT UP drama 120 BPM will certainly remember him (main picture).