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New Delhi, May 21 (Ians) A day after ‘The Zone of Interest’, the Jonathan Glazer film based on the novel of the same by Martin Amis received a rapturous ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, the celebrated British writer passed on at the age of 73.

Famous for his caricatures of what he perceived as the absurdities of “late capitalist” Western society, Martin Amis succumbed to oesophagal cancer at his Florida home, reports BBC, quoting ‘The New York Times’.

Coming from literary nobility — his father was the famous novelist, Sir Kingsley ‘Lucky Jim’ Amis, and Elizabeth Jane Howard was his stepmother — Amis was hailed by ‘TheTimes’ as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945 and he’s best known for his novels Money (1984) and London Fields (1989), and for his memoir, ‘Experience’ (2000).

‘The Guardian’ has called Amis “an influential author of era-defining novels” and noted that he was “among the celebrated group of novelists,...

With the clocks set to leap forward this weekend and the Easter holidays around the corner, it’s undeniable: spring is finally here.

And what more fitting way to spend a seasonal March weekend than by imbibing some of the best culture on offer. Whether it’s TV series, films, music, art shows or theatre, there is a plethora of options over the next few days, and The Independent’s team of critics and culture editors have hand-selected some of the best.

Chief art critic Mark Hudson reviews a flawed but possibly essential modern art exhibit at the National Gallery. TV editor Ellie Harrison celebrates the return of the best show on television, Succession, and features editor Adam White looks at three very different film releases, including the fourth John Wick, out in cinemas today. Meanwhile, music editor Roisin O’Connor sings the praises of Lana Del Rey’s new album...

The third weekend of February brings some fascinating exhibitions, some left-field film releases... and yet another awards ceremony.

But that’s not all that features in this week’s Arts Agenda, The Independent’s guide to the best cultural activities each and every weekend. Our team of critics and editors have selected a range of options from across the different spheres of culture: art, books, film, music, stage and TV.

Among the highlights this week are a new exhibition at the Barbican showcasing the work of Alice Neel. TV editor Ellie Harrison talks about the Baftas, and the unlikely Netflix film poised to be a major contender. Speaking of awards, Adam White sings the praises of the off-kilter Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, an animated film that might just take home an Oscar in a few weeks. Arts editor Jessie Thompson, meanwhile, enthuses about Richard Hawley’s new musical,...

Exclusive: Scarlett Johansson’s new movie, My Mother’s Wedding, that’s also Kristin Scott Thomas’ feature directorial debut has added BAFTA and Golden Globe nominee Sienna Miller, SAG ensemble winner Freida Pinto and Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Emily Beecham. Cameras are currently rolling, Deadline hears.

Details with regard to the pic’s plot are under wraps, but Thomas wrote it with John Micklethwait. Producers are Finola Dwyer and Steven Rales.

Back in 2017, it was reported that Thomas was making her feature directorial debut with The Sea Change, based on Elizabeth Jane Howard’s novel of the same name. This is not that project, nor did it come to fruition.

Miller received a 2013 Golden Globe nomination in the Best Actress TV Miniseries/Movie category and BAFTA Best Leading Actress nom for HBO’s The Girl in which she played Tippi Hedren to Toby Jones’ Alfred Hitchcock. She also received...

Exclusive, Updated With Additional Details, 10:15 a.m.: Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) has signed on to star in My Mother’s Wedding — the first feature directed by Oscar-nominated actress Kristin Scott Thomas (Slow Horses), which is currently in production.

Details with regard to the film’s plot have thus far been kept under wraps, though we know Thomas wrote it with John Micklethwait. Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham and Freida Pinto will also star in the pic produced by Finola Dwyer and Steven Rales.

Johansson notched both of her two Oscar nominations in 2020 for her turns in Noah Baumbach’s custody-battle drama Marriage Story and Taika Waititi’s satire Jojo Rabbit. She most recently reprised her role as Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow) for Disney’s Marvel pic of the same name, and will next be seen in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City. Other upcoming projects include the Apple tentpole...

In a major casting coup, The Assistant star Julia Garner has beat out Florence Pugh, Alexa Demie, Odessa Young, and more to be offered the role of Madonna in the forthcoming biopic directed by the artist herself, Variety reports. Backed by Universal Pictures, the film will follow the early days of the iconic star.

Isabelle Huppert, Fabrice Luchini, Dany Boon, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, and André Dussollier are leading the cast of François Ozon’s new feature Madeleine, Cineuropa reports. While the plot hasn’t been officially confirmed, production began last April and it’s reported to be a 1935-set adaptation of Georges Berr and Louis Verneuil’s play Mon crime, following the aftermath of the murder of a Parisian banker and an innocent woman who takes responsibility and life is transformed after being acquitted.

Lastly, Kristin Scott Thomas is in production on her directorial debut The Sea Change and has found a star in Scarlett Johansson.

The veteran pair duel hypnotically in a mystery thriller whose occasional silliness is masked by storytelling gusto

This mystery thriller is outrageous and irresistible, an old-fashioned drama with dashes of Patricia Highsmith, Patrick Hamilton, John le Carré and maybe Elizabeth Jane Howard’s memoir Slipstream. It features delicious performances by Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen – I don’t think McKellen has had such a juicy role since his turn in the 1998 drama Apt Pupil – and the film has such storytelling gusto that you’ll overlook bits of implausible silliness involving smartphone-type “handsets” with which large financial sums can supposedly be transferred from one bank account to another.

The director is Bill Condon, and it’s adapted by screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher from the bestselling 2016 novel by first-time author Nicholas Searle who caused a flurry of his own by announcing that he was “not allowed to say more about his career than...

U.K.-based production company Sid Gentle Films has brought in Gina Mingacci. She joins from BBC America where, as Svp for scripted, she oversaw development and a slate that included “Killing Eve” and “Orphan Black.”

Mingacci will be an executive producer at Sid Gentle, which is majority-owned by the BBC’s production and distribution arm, BBC Studios. She started at Sid Gentle, which produced “Killing Eve,” “SS-gb,” and “The Durrells,” this week and will relocate to London from L.A. later next month.

The new recruit will exec-produce the second season of “Killing Eve,” the Phoebe Waller-Bridge-penned female-led spy drama that has been a hit for BBC America and launches on the BBC in Britain later this year. Season 2 is already being written and goes into production later this year.

“Gina’s taste and heritage is really sharp,” Sally Woodward Gentle, founder of Sid Gentle, told Variety. “She brings fantastic talent relationships,...

She welcomed viewers to one of the most unsettling dinner parties put to film with The Invitation, and now Karyn Kusama is getting ready to introduce viewers to a new kind of cult in Destroyer, her upcoming thriller that has now added Nicole Kidman in a lead role:

Press Release: Los Angeles (October 4, 2017) – Academy Award® and Emmy® Award Winner Nicole Kidman (“Big Little Lies,” The Hours) will star in Destroyer, a modern Los Angeles crime thriller to be directed by Karyn Kusama (The Invitation, Girlfight) from an original screenplay by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (The Invitation,Ride Along). 30West will fully finance the film. Academy Award® Nominee Fred Berger (La La Land) of Automatik is producing alongside Hay and Manfredi, who also wrote and produced Kusama’s critically acclaimed film The Invitation. Rocket Science is handling international sales and helped arrange the financing, while ICM Partners and CAA are...

Fresh off her Emmy wins for HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” Nicole Kidman is staying true to her commitment to making movies with women directors: She will star in director Karyn Kusama’s upcoming Los Angeles crime thriller “Destroyer.”

Headed by partners Dan Friedkin (chairman and CEO of automotive, hospitality and entertainment consortium The Friedkin Group) and ex-caa agent Micah Green with offices in New York and Los Angeles, new company 30West is financing “Destroyer,” with Rocket Science handling foreign sales. Automatik’s “La La Land” producer Fred Berger is producing alongside co-writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (Kusama’s “The Invitation”). ICM Partners and CAA are selling North American rights.

Read More:Nicole Kidman Wins Her First Emmy Award and Continues to Dominate 2017

Kusama directs from Hay and Manfredi’s original screenplay about an Lapd detective (Kidman) who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a cultish gang in the California desert.

Fresh off her Emmy wins for HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” Nicole Kidman is staying true to her commitment to making movies with women directors: She will star in director Karyn Kusama’s upcoming Los Angeles crime thriller “Destroyer.”

Headed by partners Dan Friedkin (chairman and CEO of automotive, hospitality and entertainment consortium The Friedkin Group) and ex-caa agent Micah Green with offices in New York and Los Angeles, new company 30West is financing “Destroyer,” with Rocket Science handling foreign sales. Automatik’s “La La Land” producer Fred Berger is producing alongside co-writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (Kusama’s “The Invitation”). ICM Partners and CAA are selling North American rights.

Kusama directs from Hay and Manfredi’s original screenplay about an Lapd detective (Kidman) who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a cultish gang in the California desert. Years later, when she encounters the gang’s leader,...

2017 is going to be the year of Anya Taylor-Joy, mark our words. After a huge 2016 with attention-grabbing roles in The Witch, Morgan and more, which quickly put her on the map and made her one of Hollywood’s most exciting rising stars, she kicked off this year with the really rather fantastic Split. With several other projects lining up her slate, things look to keep shining bright for the actress and today brings word of yet another exciting career move.

That’s because Taylor-Joy has now joined The Sea Change, Kristin Scott Thomas’ directorial debut which she’ll also star in. The project is currently being shopped to buyers at the European Film Market and already has Mark Strong attached. Rocket Science is handling the sale and should all go according to plan, principal photography will get underway later this year.

Based on Elizabeth Jane Howard’s novel of the same name,...

The rising star is circling the romantic drama that Rocket Science has introduced to world buyers in Berlin.

Taylor-Joy, the breakout star of The Witch, will play an outspoken young woman whose arrival on a Greek island puts the troubled marriage of a playwright and his complex wife into perspective.

Kristin Scott Thomas will make her feature directorial debut and will play one of the leads, with Mark Strong also in talks to join.

Rebecca Lenkiewicz adapted The Sea Change from Elizabeth Jane Howard’s novel of the same name. Barnaby Thompson will produce for Fragile Films.

Taylor-Joy currently stars in M Night Shyamalan’s hit Split and played one of the leads in the much-fancied Sundance selection Thoroughbred, which Focus Features has acquired. She is in post-production on the thriller Marrowbone for Lionsgate.

Rocket Science’s Efm slate include Bubbles, the stop-motion animation project that Taika Waititi and Mark Gustafson will direct; Harmony Korine’s [link...

Anya Taylor-Joy (Split, The Witch) is in talks to join The Sea Change, a romantic drama that will mark the directorial debut of Kristin Scott Thomas.

Thomas will also star in the film, which is adapted from Elizabeth Jane Howard’s critically acclaimed novel. Mark Strong is also in talks to star. Rebecca Lenkiewicz adapted the novel for the screen, and Barnaby Thompson will produce for Fragile Films. Principal photography is scheduled to begin later this year in the U.K. and Europe.

Rocket Science is handling world sales on the picture and introduced the film to buyers in Berlin this week.

...

Exclusive: Anya Taylor-Joy is in talks to join Kristin Scott Thomas' directorial debut The Sea Change, which Rocket Science is shopping to buyers at the European Film Market. The actress, who's a BAFTA Rising Star nominee this year, will join Scott Thomas in the film based on Elizabeth Jane Howard's acclaimed novel of the same name. Mark Strong is also in talks to star alongside Scott Thomas. Rocket Science is handling worldwide sales for the pic, which it launched to…...

Hunt For The Wilderpeople director boards stop-motion feature; Rocket Science is handling sales.

In perhaps the most startlingly original high-level package of this week’s European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin, Rocket Science has announced that Taika Waititi will direct the stop-motion feature Bubbles, a coming-of-age story about Michael Jackson’s celebrity pet chimpanzee.

Waititi, the hotshot New Zealand director behind Hunt For The Wilderpeople, TV’s The Inbetweeners and upcoming Marvel Studios tentpole Thor: Ragnarok, will work alongside co-director Mark Gustafon, who served as animation director on Fantastic Mr Fox.

Andrew Kortschak and Walter Kortschak of End Cue are producing with Dan Harmon’s Starburns Industries, the animators behind 2016 best animation feature Oscar nominee Anomalisa.

Rocket Science has soft-launched Bubbles to international buyers in Berlin ahead of a major push in Cannes. CAA represents Us rights.

The project is based on Isaac Adamson’s screenplay that topped the 2015 Black List and recounts the life of the...

Oscar-nominated star Kristin Scott Thomas is to make her directorial debut with romantic drama The Sea Change.

The Sea Change is about a group of people who re-evaluate loss, love, and human connection when they find themselves together on a remote Greek island. Emmanuel is a successful London playwright, married to the complex and witty Lillian for many years, but their marriage is in crisis, a crisis which is overcome by the arrival of a curious and outspoken young girl, Alice. Their relationship is thrown into perspective when her life is thrown upside down.

Scott Thomas will also star as Lillian, while Our Friends In The North star Mark Strong is in talks to play her husband Emmanuel.

The film will be adapted by Ida scriptwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz from Elizabeth Jane Howard's novel and produced by Fragile Films. Rocket Science will handle international and Us domestic sales commencing at Berlin Efm.

Rocket Science chief Thorsten Schumacher adds prestige title to Berlin sales slate.

Scott Thomas will make her feature directorial debut and star in the romance based on Elizabeth Jane Howard’s novel of the same name.

Rocket Science CEO Thorsten Schumacher announced the title on Saturday heading into what is shaping up to be a busy market.

Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who wrote best foreign langage Oscar winner Ida and Disobedience, which is shooting now with Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams, adapted the novel.

The Sea Change centres on a reflective group of people on a Greek island including a couple whose marriage is in crisis, only for the arrival of an outspoken young girl to throw everything into perspective.

Scott Thomas will play the woman in the troubled marriage and Mark Strong is in talks to play her husband. Barnaby Thompson will produce for Fragile Films.

Principal photography is scheduled to begin later this year in the UK...

Kristin Scott Thomas, who earned a best actress nomination in 1997 for The English Patient, will make her directorial debut with the romantic drama The Sea Change, based on the novel by Elizabeth Jane Howard. She also will star in the pic, while Mark Strong is currently in talks to play her husband. 

Filming is slated to begin later this year in Europe with a script by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida).

Rocket Science will handle worldwide sales at next week's European Film Market in Berlin.

The Sea Change focuses on a group of people who re-evaluate loss, love and human connection when they...

Rocket Science announced today that Academy Award Nominee Kristin Scott Thomas (I've Loved You So Long, The English Patient, The Darkest Hour) is set to make her directorial debut with romantic drama, The Sea Change, based on Elizabeth Jane Howard's critically acclaimed novel of the same name. Rebecca Lenkiewicz, writer of the Academy Award winning film Ida and Disobedience (currently shooting with Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams) has adapted the novel for screen, and Barnaby Thompson (Easy Virtue, The Importance of Being Earnest, St Trinian's) will produce for Fragile Films.

Scott Thomas will also star as Lillian, and Mark Strong (Zero Dark Thirty, Kingsman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) is in talks to play her husband, Emmanuel. Principal photography is scheduled to begin later this year in the UK and Europe. Rocket Science will handle international and Us domestic sales commencing at Berlin Efm.

The Sea Change is about a...

From new voices like NoViolet Bulawayo to rediscovered old voices like James Salter, from Dave Eggers's satire to David Thomson's history of film, writers, Observer critics and others pick their favourite reads of 2013. And they tell us what they hope to find under the tree …

Curtis Sittenfeld

Novelist

My favourite books of 2013 are Drama High (Riverhead) by Michael Sokolove, Sea Creatures (Turnaround) by Susanna Daniel, and & Sons (Harper Collins) by David Gilbert. Drama High is incredibly smart, moving non-fiction about an American drama teacher who for four decades coaxed sophisticated and nuanced theatrical performances out of teenage students who weren't privileged or otherwise remarkable and in so doing, changed their conceptions of what they could do with their lives. Sea Creatures is a gripping, beautifully written novel about the mother of a selectively mute three-year-old boy; when she takes a job ferrying supplies to a hermit off the coast of Florida,...

DVD Playhouse—February 2012

By Allen Gardner

To Kill A Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Robert Mulligan’s film of Harper Lee’s landmark novel pits a liberal-minded lawyer (Gregory Peck) against a small Southern town’s racism when defending a black man (Brock Peters) on trumped-up rape charges. One of the 1960s’ first landmark films, a truly stirring human drama that hits all the right notes and isn’t dated a bit. Robert Duvall makes his screen debut (sans dialogue) as the enigmatic Boo Radley. DVD and Blu-ray double edition. Bonuses: Two feature-length documentaries: Fearful Symmetry and A Conversation with Gregory Peck; Featurettes; Excerpts and film clips from Gregory Peck’s Oscar acceptance speech and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award; Commentary by Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 2.0 mono.

Outrage: Way Of The Yakuza (Magnolia) After a brief hiatus from his signature oeuvre of Japanese gangster flicks,...

Even by the colourful standards of her own family's public profile and professional achievements, Lynn Redgrave, who has died of breast cancer aged 67, was an exceptional personality. Her death seems particularly cruel after the loss of both her niece, Natasha Richardson, after a skiing accident last year, and her brother, Corin Redgrave, last month. The third child of the actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, Lynn was a gifted comedian who received her first Oscar nomination for a delightful, clownish performance in the title role of Georgy Girl (1966), one of the defining movies of the so-called swinging 60s. She went on to spend many years living and working in America. Less politically engaged than her older siblings, Vanessa and Corin, she was no less a remarkable talent.

Her 1991 television remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? with...

Poets, actors, authors all under one roof

On 9 May 1972, a headline appeared in the London Evening Standard: "Poet laureate recuperates at the Amis' home." The poet laureate in question was the great Cecil Day-Lewis, laureate since 1968. The Amises' home was a house called Lemmons, on Hadley Common in Hertfordshire, off at the end of the Northern line near High Barnet.

Already living at Lemmons were Kingsley Amis; his wife, the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard; Howard's mother, Kit, a former ballerina; Howard's brother; and the painter Sargy Mann. Day-Lewis had arrived to stay at the house in April 1972 with his wife, the actor Jill Balcon, and their two teenage children, Tamasin and Daniel. Amis's children from his first marriage – Philip, Martin and Sally – were also frequent visitors. It seems likely that for a brief period in 1972, Lemmons was the most brilliantly creative household in Britain. It was also one of the most unlikely.