Category: 5. Entertainment

Ameesha Patel isn’t one to mince words when it comes to speaking about the film industry. In a recent interaction with fans on X (formerly Twitter), the Gadar 2 actress took a dig at Bollywood stars who rely heavily on public relations to shape their image. Without naming names, she tweeted, “Bollywood actors need to stop labeling themselves as No 1 or No 2 through their public relations teams. We must recognize that only the FILM is the TRUE superstar… generate GADAR at the box office because that’s what truly counts.”

Ameesha on ‘Gadar’

When a fan asked why she only referenced Gadar, Ameesha was quick to point out her broader body of work. “Why limit it to Gadar 1 or 2 or ‘Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai’? There are so many hits like ‘Humraaz’, ‘Honeymoon Travels’, and songs like “Lazy Lamhe…”. Franchises like ‘Race’ and ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’ are still relevant. I’m not into fake PR, which is probably why I’m often labelled as a one-film wonder,” she wrote.https://x.com/ameesha_patel/status/1947661459775013225She also addressed her journey in the industry and the obstacles she’s overcome. “It’s best to keep surprising some of the naysayers by making a comeback repeatedly with significant numbers at the box office. I’ve mastered that, and believe me, this trend will persist. I enjoy it when I annoy some of the negative individuals out there,” she added, teasing more projects in the pipeline.

Ameesha praises ‘Saiyaara‘

While she’s known for speaking her mind about Bollywood, Ameesha is also a warm and encouraging presence for newcomers in the industry. Recently, she showered praise on ‘Saiyaara’, the romantic drama starring debutants Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda, which has been enjoying a strong run at the box office. The film crossed the ₹80 crore mark in its opening weekend and is already drawing comparisons to the 2000 blockbuster Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai, which marked the debut of Hrithik Roshan and Ameesha herself.Reacting to the comparisons, Ameesha shared her support in a heartfelt post on X. She wrote, “Wishing the Saiyaara couple Ahaan and Aneet all the best!! May you continue to create GADAR at the box office in your future films as well!! Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai shine bright always and welcome to the movies.”The actress was last seen reprising her iconic role as Sakeena in the 2023 blockbuster ‘Gadar 2’, which turned out to be a massive box office success. While she hasn’t officially announced any new film projects since then, she has remained active on social media, frequently interacting with fans and dropping hints about upcoming ventures. Apart from acting, Ameesha is also a producer and model, continuing to explore different facets of the entertainment industry.Saiyaara box office collection Day 5: Mohit Suri directorial headed for Rs 150 crore mark; Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda starrer among top 5 highest-earning films of 2025

At a time when the world is gripped by crisis, and conversations swirl with talk of conflict, political upheaval and nuclear attack, the work of the renowned Japanese photographer Kikuji Kawada feels more relevant than ever.

On display at this year’s Rencontres d’Arles, Kawada’s seminal series The Map – created from his visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the aftermath of the atomic bombings 80 years ago – forms the cornerstone of an exhibition shown in France for the first time by the Kyotographie festival team in collaboration with Sigma. These haunting images stand as a powerful artistic response to the trauma of nuclear devastation, layered with political metaphor and historical weight.

I went inside the Atomic Bomb Dome all alone … what I saw on the site was the trace of violence

Moving through the decades, Kawada’s work reveals an evolving artistic language – one that embraces new techniques and technologies to reflect a world in constant flux.

In the chapter The Last Cosmology, he focuses time and time again on the events of 9/11, making the sky begin to feel like a theatrical set for fatal disaster.

Now aged 92, Kawada is still photographing every day and is an enthusiastic and committed Instagrammer.

I can upload a picture to Instagram and now more people will see it than will read a weekly magazine

Among the festival’s standout exhibitions is a beautifully curated tribute by Simon Baker and Elsa Janssen to the life and work of Yves Saint Laurent. Rich with iconic prints by fashion photography greats such as Irving Penn, Guy Bourdin and Annie Leibovitz, the exhibition dazzles with visual history. Yet the true fascination lies in the intimate, elegant portraiture that traces Saint Laurent himself throughout his life – capturing not just a designer, but a cultural icon.

In sharp contrast, the crisp lines of Brazilian modernist architecture – captured by a collective of amateur photographers from the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante (FCCB)–trace the rise of modern São Paulo from 1939 to 1964 in all its geometric concrete splendour. While celebrating architectural innovation, the images also cast a critical eye on the impact of urbanisation across all sections of society.

Exploring the past while trying to establish relations in the present is Diana Markosian’s series Father. When Markosian was a little girl growing up in Moscow her mother woke her in the middle of the night, packed a suitcase and fled with her and her brother to follow an American dream. Her father was not forewarned and spent years trying to trace his absent family while her mother, settled in California, removed his image from family photographs, prompting a profound sense of confusion and mystery for the young Diana.

Markosian is a masterful storyteller. In the work on show at the festival she creates a moving and atmospheric description, made through documentary photographs, film and artefacts, of her journey back to a relationship with her father.

Every festival has its headline act, and this year Rencontres d’Arles welcomes the celebrated artist Nan Goldin. Her photography flows like a stream of consciousness – raw, intimate, unfiltered – capturing both the beauty and chaos of a life lived on the edge, marked by love, loss and addiction.

In Stendhal Syndrome, on show at Arles, Goldin draws from her archive of friends and lovers, juxtaposing personal portraits with classical masterpieces. The result is a poignant act of elevation – granting members of her community dignity, stature and reverence.

Goldin is an activist driven by a fierce commitment to amplifying the voices of marginalised people and holding the powerful to account – she famously took on the Sackler family, exposing their role in the opioid crisis across the US. And true to form, during her acceptance of the Rencontres d’Arles 2025 Women in Motion award, she took the opportunity to raise her concern over the devastating violence and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, screening a powerfully edited film. Her purpose is uncompromising, confronting the most disturbing aspects of life head on with a clear and resounding call to action.

• The festival runs until September. Fiona Shields visited at the invitation of Kyotographie and Sigma

Set in Senegal’s capital Dakar, this action thriller is so strikingly shot, so propulsively edited and so confident in its tonal shifts that by the end viewers are likely to feel enervated and stunned, but in a good way. It has one of those literal ticking-time-bomb narratives; a corny device to be sure, but one that Congolese writer-director Jean Luc Herbulot, with assistance from main actor and co-writer Hus Miller, manipulates in fresh and interesting ways. Certainly it will inspire some viewers to take a plunge into Herbulot’s back catalogue, which includes festival-anointed gangster-horror flick Saloum, another adept genre mash-up set in Senegal.

The conceit here is that Miller’s white, American-accented unnamed protagonist, called simply #1 in freeze-framed titles, wakes up on a Dakar bus with a sophisticated bomb strapped to his chest that is set to go off in 10 hours’ time. The bomb is connected to a countdown-displaying mobile phone, and a young woman sitting nearby explains to him that he needs to put a Bluetooth earpiece in his ear and answer when he hears the phone ring. When it does, a croaky American-accented voice (Willem Dafoe, no less!) explains that #1 has a number of chores to perform that day before the bomb goes off.

Soon he’s hooked up with another bomb-bedecked American called #2 (Cam McHarg) and the two of them are sent on missions around the city. These tasks include finding assorted folks and giving them objects that in at least one case result in the recipient being blown up by another mini-bomb. The explosions are understandably interpreted as terrorist acts, breathlessly reported on the local news that acts as a sort of chorus throughout (another corny device), so #1 and #2 have to evade capture by both legitimate authorities and angry crowds.

There are lighter moments along the way, like a bit where the two bomb-bearing protagonists are compelled to sniff metres of cocaine to appease a drug lord; they get so high that the film erupts into montage, backed by some spicy African hip-hop, resulting in an interlude that doesn’t further the plot much and seems to exist primarily to appeal to a young male demographic. But the tone shifts towards something more serious and considered later on when we meet the duo’s final assignation, Daniel (Gary Dourdan), who pulls the strands together with a polemical monologue set against another montage, this time showing filmed portraits of Dakar residents looking straight at the camera with blank expressions that might be accusatory or at least questioning, representing perhaps all the regular folk who suffer when nations and parties jostle in the streets over politics and control.

Elsewhere, Herbulot and the camera department deploy drones to create all kinds of skewwhiff long-distance views of the action, while creative use of camera lenses create a sense of disorientation. It’s all in service of depicting a modern African city full of relentless colour, texture and movement, an unceasing river of human traffic that weaves through dense residential areas, huge piles of debris, and areas of commerce – before reaching the Atlantic Ocean on the city’s edge. This last setting is where the dark climax takes place, a finale that doesn’t entirely pull off the tragic ending it’s aiming for, but one that stays true to the film’s intense energy.

I was halfway through a yoga session when it happened. I was sitting opposite a stranger and we were about to do a clapping exercise together, like a child’s game of pat-a-cake. I didn’t feel awkward, or silly; I went for it and gave it everything. It was as if the clouds parted and the sunlight shone through. I felt a huge sense of relief, as if I had just found something I had been looking for.

I was in my late 20s, and I’d had chronic depression since my teens. It would come in waves, and I could see another wave heading towards me. After a photography degree, and a couple of years working at a picture library, I had been desperate to break into the media and, in 2003, I was really excited about getting a job on a magazine picture desk. It felt like an achievement and a lucky break in a competitive industry, but I soon discovered its office was not a great place to be.

My boss was difficult to work with, and it wasn’t a warm, welcoming environment. She would put me down and make me feel worthless. My self-esteem, which was not great to start with, was soon in tatters. Outside work, I was partying hard and taking too many drugs. My boss and I had several confrontations and, after one particularly bad interaction, I couldn’t face going in the next day.

My friend, who knew I had been depressed, told me his girlfriend was teaching a yoga class that evening, and suggested I go. I hadn’t done yoga since university, and she taught kundalini yoga – a style that focuses more on energy than physicality. I didn’t know then that yoga could be such a cathartic process.

I threw myself into it. Across from a partner, looking into their eyes, the childlike practice of our hands clapping together, and the concentration required to keep the rhythm, suddenly cleared the mental fogginess that had dogged me for years, and I experienced a crystal-like clarity. It was as if somebody had turned on the lights. I felt as if I’d been in the dark, in anguish and negativity. Now, I could see myself more clearly, and I got a sense of the jolly person inside. Depression felt as if it didn’t belong to me, as if it was a great big, stinky old overcoat that I could take off.

Not long after that first kundalini yoga class, my job contract ended and I got out of that office. I had just enough experience to go freelance, and I ended up making twice as much money, so I could pay for regular yoga classes. I had felt broken but every time I did yoga, it felt as though I was piecing myself back together a little bit.

Practising yoga taught me to trust in life – to believe that I could release my grip and situations would work out without me having to try to control them. Without so much fear running the show, I had a greater sense of ease. Of course life was, and is, stressful, but I had a much more positive outlook.

I began to make better decisions and it became a positive feedback loop – as I looked after myself better, I got more energy. I joined a gym and when I started getting physically stronger, I became far more mentally resilient. It didn’t happen overnight but I had put the brakes on my downward spiral and started to reverse out of it. It had such a huge impact on my life that I decided to train to be a kundalini yoga teacher.

For the next few years, I was still working as a picture editor, but it wasn’t what I wanted. Working on newspaper picture desks, I would sit in front of banks of images that were considered too distressing to print, and feel helpless and full of rage at the injustice in the world.

I wanted to contribute something to make the world a better place, and in a small way, I hoped that by teaching other people kundalini yoga, it would help them. I hoped that this would ripple out – that the more that people were able to find their own inner peace, the more they would in turn be able to help their friends, family and community.

Kundalini yoga changed my life, and I have seen it give people more purpose and enjoyment in their lives, too. It taught me that happiness really does come from within, and now I help people switch on their own inner light.

As told to Emine Saner

BBC

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The Secrets of TikTok Shop: Untold

12.05am, Channel 4
Anyone else find themself sheepishly asking for Dubai chocolate at the local corner shop earlier this year? Thank TikTok for that. Beyond making products go viral, TikTok Shop is a thriving platform where millions use videos to buy and sell items, often via livestreams. Content creator Mariam Musa takes an insightful, if depressing, look at this world and how easy it is to get sucked in. Hollie Richardson

Can’t Sell, Must Sell

8pm, Channel 4
“It’s my haven and my prison,” says Gail of her four-bed in Margate, drowning in faux-Victoriana and co-habited by 22 lifelike dolls. (Property expert Stuart: “Every time I look at a doll, they’re telling me to get out of the house.”) Elsewhere, Nikki’s Herne Bay property, with its gothic decor and dated bedrooms, needs a facelift. Ali Catterall

Side Hustlers

8pm, U&W
As season one of the girlboss answer to Dragons’ Den comes to a close, it’s time to invest. From pop-up dog crates to emergency undies, there are plenty of novel ideas – but which of the fledgling entrepreneurs will convince supermodel Ashley Graham and Kardashian business partner Emma Grede to part with their dosh? Hannah J Davies

Bookish

8pm, U&Alibi
Joely Richardson guest-stars as a film star in this fun period crime drama about a bookshop owner – Mr Book (Mark Gatiss) – who likes to solve cases on the side. When an actor drops dead on set after eating poisoned chocolates, suspicion points to the movie’s leads. HR

Pearl Harbor, World on Fire

9.50pm, PBS America

This two-part documentary undertakes a retrospective of the second world war Pearl Harbor attack by Japan. Expect plenty of archive footage and talking heads as it analyses the incident that led to the US entering the conflict. Alexi Duggins

Patrick Marber Remembers… After Miss Julie

10pm, BBC Four
Writer Patrick Marber was once best known for comedy such as Alan Partridge, so it was an unexpected turn when he reimagined Strindberg’s 1888 play After Miss Julie in 1995. Before it airs (at 10.15), he talks about making it, and working with Kathy Burke and Phil Daniels. HR

Film choices

Tin Soldier (Brad Furman, 2025), Prime Video

Well, this is a weird one. Tin Soldier is a film where Scott Eastwood attempts to infiltrate a cult and overthrow its leader. What makes it odd, however, is how heavily this is overshadowed by its supporting cast. Robert De Niro features in a typically underpowered late-stage role as a kind of military adviser. But even he recedes into the shadows next to Jamie Foxx, playing the aforementioned cult leader. He has huge hair. He has silly glasses. He has questionable facial hair. His name is The Bokushi. None of it makes any sense. It’s sort of incredible. Stuart Heritage

Emma (Autumn de Wilde, 2020), 11pm, BBC Two
This 2020 Jane Austen adaptation was the directorial debut of photographer Autumn de Wilde, who brought all the experience of her old career to the table. The story of a wealthy woman who attempts to act as a matchmaker, with far-reaching consequences, has been told over and over again. What sets this version apart are the lively performances – from Anya Taylor-Joy, Josh O’Connor and Bill Nighy – and visuals that are modern enough to cut through all the period stuffiness. SH

Live sport

Test cricket, England v India 10am, Sky Sports Main Event. Day one of the Fourth Test.

A 14-year-old girl’s rap about climate change has won a global competition for children’s creative expression.

Berkshire charity Trust for Sustainable Living (TSL) invited entries on the theme of eco-anxiety for its annual Grand Prize.

Michelle Amadiegwu’s rap, There’s No Planet B, urges people to do their bit to reduce global warming rather than succumb to defeatism.

The Kent schoolgirl topped the list of 2,173 entries from children in 81 countries.

The track samples Greta Thunberg’s speech to the Youth4Climate conference in Milan, Italy, in 2021, in which the activist criticised progress at climate change summits.

She told delegates: “There is no planet B, there is no planet blah. Blah, blah, blah.”

Amadiegwu’s rap urges: “Do your own bit even if you can’t fight/ Like buy less clothes and turn off the light.”

The teenager, from Dartford Grammar School for Girls, said her whole geography class had to enter the competition for their homework.

She said: “I didn’t want to do an essay. So when I saw that we could enter a rap or anything creative, I chose to do that.

“I usually do musical projects for my homework so I decided to do it here as well, but I never thought I was going to be a finalist.”

The competition has been run for 15 years by TSL, which operates The Living Rainforest, an ecological tourist attraction at Hampstead Norreys.

“Freakier Friday” has been unveiled to members of the film press, and first reactions are calling it a “great feel-good film” that is “hilarious” as it is “touching.”

TV host Jeff Conway took to X to share his praise. He gushed that the film was “double the fun” with “twice the heart” as the original “Freaky Friday.”

“These 22 years later, Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis haven’t missed a beat! Their on-screen chemistry is truly something special,” he wrote. “A true delight that the entire family will enjoy.”

Variety’s senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay wrote on X that the film was “an absolute riot,” adding that she “laughed” out loud and “cried” during the tender family moments.

“It’s such a great feel-good film,” she wrote. “Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis deliver hilarity and emotion in this funtastic sequel. I never knew I needed this film! Oh and Manny Jacinto, I love him.”

Entertainment journalist Brandon Davis echoed the praise, writing on X that he was “howling” with laughter during Tuesday night’s premiere screening.

“Jamie Lee Curtis is having the time of her life and it’s a blast to watch,” Davis wrote. “It’s silly and sometimes confusing but hilarious throughout, even touching at times. Absolutely some of the most fun I’ve had watching a movie this year.”

“Freakier Friday” takes place years after the original. Anna now has a daughter of her own and a soon-to-be stepdaughter. As she attempts to navigate the struggles of merging her two families, Anna finds herself, her mom Tess, her daughter and her stepdaughter in a four-way body swap. What starts as pure chaos soon helps them find some understanding amid the complicated family transition.

Original stars Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis return as the leading mother-daughter duo. Other cast members include Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan.

While speaking to Variety at the Las Culturistas Culture Awards, Curtis said she has learned a lot from Lohan since returning for the Disney sequel.

“She has taught me so much,” Curtis said. “She has her team, where her two people would be standing on either side of a camera holding a big light. It’s Lindsay lighting — that would have been good branding — they hold lights so that we look better. So, I’ve learned a lot from her already. We had a good time. We love each other.”

The original 2003 “Freaky Friday,” based on Mary Rodgers’ 1972 novel, follows widowed mother Tess and her teenage daughter Anna. During an impasse in their relationship, they find a magic fortune cookie that causes them to swap bodies, resulting in a deeper familiarity between them.

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