Algerian-born French director of more than 20 films that celebrated Roma culture

The French film director Tony Gatlif, who has died aged 77, was regularly described as “cinema’s Gypsy auteur”, so often did his films focus on Roma communities and their music. Between 1975 and 2025, Gatlif directed more than 20 films, beginning with La Tête en Ruine (The Ruined Head). That film was never released, and he struggled throughout the 1970s and 80s to get funding for his films, and then to find a distributor, before finally breaking through with Latcho Drom (1993, the title being Romany for “good journey”). An international arthouse hit, Latcho Drom is a meditative travelogue that blends footage of staged musical performances in contemporary Roma communities in Istanbul, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, France and Spain, with historic recreations of such communities in Rajasthan and an Egyptian oasis.

Latcho Drom conveys the centuries-long migration from Asia to western Europe of a nomadic people we now call Gypsies or Roma, as a fable told entirely in images and music. There is no voiceover, talking heads or text; instead Gatlif lets the striking settings and musical performances enchant viewers. It is an idealised portrait of the Roma, not a documentary (as some labelled it), and while Gatlif portrays the discrimination and persecution Roma communities experience, his emphasis was on celebrating Roma beauty and artistry.

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The hyper-flamboyant and hilariously filthy show is an inclusive, celebratory platform for queer culture. The broadcaster’s choice to nix it is giving stupidity

The BBC is canning RuPaul’s Drag Race UK – a decision that, in my household, will bring the number of regularly watched programmes on the Beeb down from one to zero. It’s a decision that will no doubt please enemies of LGBTQ+ culture, but otherwise seems inexplicable. For a start, Drag Race UK regularly pulls in 1 million viewers a week, which hardly seems like a show in its death throes (even if this is down from a previous high of 1.5 million).

RuPaul’s Drag Race is also a bona fide cultural phenomenon. Since the US version started in 2009, it has brought tons of performers to national, or even global, attention who would otherwise still be plying their trade in provincial gay bars. Jinkx Monsoon from the US is now starring in Oh Mary! in London’s West End; the UK’s La Voix made it on to Strictly; and Bimini Bon-Boulash, who “stepped their pussy up” to astonishing effect in season two, has made records, modelled and written a book.

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Venice film festival: Under the cover of night, anonymous personnel discuss AI, error rates and problematic intelligence units in a documentary produced by the Guardian

Here is a disquieting documentary about what Israel’s military chiefs in Gaza reputedly call “Naza”, meaning civilian collateral damage – itself a queasy euphemism. The calculated “Naza” number is the amount of projected civilian deaths from each military strike, and perhaps it will come to have the same connotations as the US military term “body count” during Vietnam. The directors are Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two of the film-makers behind No Other Land, which was about attacks by the Israel Defense Forces on Palestinian West Bank villages. NAZA is executive produced by Jonathan Glazer and James Wilson and appears under the production auspices of the Guardian, in which some of the stories have already appeared.

There are flaws: interviews were conducted on the condition of anonymity, but if no-one can be persuaded to put their name and face to their words (and of course it is terribly dangerous) then the impact of this as testimony is lessened. But even so, the film is casting a chilling light on what is happening now in Gaza.

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Part of Dmitry Donskoy’s right hand sent to ‘spiritually strengthen’ soldiers

The Russian Orthodox church has sent a fragment of a medieval warrior prince’s remains to troops fighting in Ukraine, saying the relic would “spiritually strengthen” soldiers and help them achieve victory.

A reliquary containing part of the right hand of Dmitry Donskoy, the 14th-century prince revered in Russia for his victory over the Mongolian Golden Horde in 1380, has been taken to Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine and is now being transported along the frontline.

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Trafalgar Square, London
The swaggering statue’s luscious collision of brown and blue could stop traffic – and serves as a reminder of the big, beautiful, multicultural world we enjoy

It hit me like a thunder clap. One moment I was bored and irritated by the official speeches before the unveiling of Tschabalala Self’s sculpture on the fourth plinth, which so insisted on its sociopolitical worth it sounded like Soviet propaganda. Then the covering slid off and I was in love with the Lady in Blue.

Self has created one of the most beautiful sculptures put on Trafalgar Square’s empty plinth – and I don’t mean that in a cool, formalist way. There is a serious danger of traffic accidents as drivers passing the square stare a little too long at the Lady’s generous proportions, her long stride in platform shoes, her intensely physical, confident being.

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De linkse partijen stonden lang ruimschoots voor in de peilingen voor de parlementsverkiezingen van zondag, maar hun campagne ging vooral over het gevaar van rechts in plaats van hun eigen ideeën. De kans bestaat dat er opnieuw een rechts kabinet komt, deze keer met de radicaal-rechtse Zweden Democraten op ministersposten. „Iedereen blijft hangen in dat migratieverhaal.”

The Rolling Stones

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