arts24

Colson Whitehead is one of the rare authors to win the Pulitzer Prize twice. The first time was for his novel "The Underground Railroad" in 2017, loved by Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey and made into a TV series by Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins. It led to him being on the cover of Time Magazine, the first author in nearly a decade to grace the front page since Jonathan Franzen. Colson Whitehead was honoured again for "The Nickel Boys" in 2020 – adapted into a film due out in the autumn. He is in Paris at the Festival America and for the French release of his novel "Crook Manifesto". The multi-award-winning American author speaks to Eve Jackson about his crime trilogy set in Harlem.

She's one of the greatest contralto singers in the world; a French-speaking Canadian opera star who has performed on stage across the planet. Marie-Nicole Lemieux talks to Eve Jackson about wanting to speak to the audience’s emotions through music, being a body positive role model for women of different shapes and sizes and why Maria Callas's tragic life nearly put her off becoming an opera singer. You can see her perform at the Bastille Opera house as Mrs Quickly in Verdi's "Falstaff" until September 30. After that she’ll be back in January for Wagner's "Das Rheingold".

It was a low-budget, erotic film that became the most successful French movie of the time. "Emmanuelle" went on to be the symbol of the sexual liberation and free love of the 1970s. Fifty years after Just Jaeckin's softcore movie first became a global phenomenon, a remake is being released with some big changes. Directed by a woman, award-winning director Audrey Divan has moved the action from Thailand to Hong Kong and the sensual character exploring her sexual desires is played by Noémie Merlant. Film critic Perrine Quennesson and erotic literature specialist and author of "Emmanuelle Arsan", Camille Moreau join Eve Jackson to talk about whether having a female behind the camera frees this iconic sex symbol from the male gaze. They also discuss how the 1974 film plays in a post #MeToo era.

One of the greatest filmmakers of all time speaks to Eve Jackson on arts24 about his new movie. Francis Ford Coppola has five Oscars and two Palmes d'Or from the Cannes Film Festival. The man who gave us the "Godfather" trilogy, "Apocalypse Now", "Dracula", "The Rainmaker" and "The Conversation" now brings us an ambitious original sci-fi apocalypse drama, "Megalopolis", starring Adam Driver. It's wildly original – and has left the critics baffled.

Garage Punk queens The Darts formed in 2016 and have since attracted fans around the world. They are currently on a 100-date tour of Europe which has taken them from Spain to Finland. They popped by FRANCE 24 to tell us about their latest album “Boomerang” and how they keep going from venue to venue. We also look at new releases from Manu Chao, Katy Perry and Sophie. 

From cartoon baddies to Hollywood pin-ups, Bill Plympton’s animations embrace an eccentric collection of characters, all of them set in motion in his unique, shimmering style. As the animator and cartoonist’s work goes on show at the Formula Bula Festival in Paris, he joins us to discuss the tens of thousands of hand-drawn plates that go into his feature animations, some of which have won him the industry's most prestigious awards. He tells us about the one-minute movie about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that prompted death threats and why his latest exploration of the Western genre, “Slide”, features the largest cast of bad guys that he’s ever drawn. 

In this arts24 episode, we talk to fugitive director Mohammad Rasoulof about his powerful Iranian film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”, a brazen and startling picture about the misogyny and theocracy in his country. The director had to flee Iran where he was sentenced to prison for his filmmaking. The movie won a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May where it premiered. French culture editor Louise Dupont sat down with him in Paris.

Director Mohammad Rasoulof had escaped a prison sentence in Iran just days before his latest film screened at the Cannes Film Festival this year. "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" went on to stun critics and win the Jury Prize. Critic Emma Jones tells us why it was her favourite film of the festival and how Rasoulof managed to incorporate the "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests to great effect. We also discuss Francis Ford Coppola's epic project "Megalopolis" and see James McAvoy in a chilling new role in "Speak No Evil". Plus, French actress and director Julie Delpy injects her unique humour into "Meet the Barbarians", a comedy about a community's response to refugees in France.

Australian author Anna Funder talks to Dheepthika Laurent about her latest book "Wifedom", a part-fiction, part non-fiction and part-hybrid novel about Eileen O'Shaughnessy. She was the highly educated wife of George Orwell, who played a pivotal but largely uncredited role in his career. Anna Funder also responds to criticism by the Orwell Society that the book portrayed Orwell as "maleficent" and talks about what propelled her to leave her career as a government lawyer to pursue writing full-time.

Olivia Salazar-Winspear and Dheepthika Laurent take a look at all the winners, losers and surprises from the 2024 Emmy Awards ceremony, including historic wins for American-Japanese epic "Shogun" in the drama category. Also: they look at season four of irreverent British spy drama "Slow Horses" and a new season of Ryan Murphy's true crime series based on the story of the Menendez brothers, who killed their parents in 1989. Plus: don't miss "La Maison", a new "Succession"-style family drama à la française!