Everybody Knows review – Cruz and Bardem pull no punches in heavyweight kidnap drama

Iranian director Farhadi opens Cannes with a film that explores the unhealed wound at the heart of a Spanish family with pitiless efficiency and sheer muscular flair

Meet the new double act of French cinema

Léonor Serraille and Laetitia Dosch are the director and star of Jeune Femme, a Cannes prize-winning comedy about a young woman trying to stay afloat in Paris. Here, the pair discuss eccentrics, Greta Gerwig and being able to bounce back

‘A full English every morning’: how UK food and weather inspires Japanese anime directors

Mary and the Witch’s Flower director Hiromasa Yonebayashi on why Japanese directors go wild for Britain’s cuisine, climate, chintz – and unionised miners

Putting Cannes to shame: the female-led Georgian film festival

Georgia 100: A Film Feast arrives in London this week – with half of the films showing directed by women, challenging gender roles in the country’s patriarchal society

Why Polish gangster films ‘on steroids’ are making it big at the British box office

With titles such as Pitbull and Mafia Women, violent Polish-language thrillers are proving a cult success – some even denting the UK top 10. But can they win over mainstream audiences?

Berlusconi biopic Loro is ‘a tender look at the weaknesses of an old man’

Director Paolo Sorrentino defends sexually explosive portrait of former prime minister, which has been called ‘a porn film without a moral issue’

The Wound review – raw pain and challenge of male circumcision drama

John Trengove’s boldly transgressive film tells the story of a city kid’s traditional initiation ritual and the secret gay sexuality of his mentors in a mountain retreat

Beyond the Clouds review – edgy tale of Mumbai’s underclass

Iranian film-maker Majid Majidi adds thrills to his Indian-set slum drama

Beyond the Clouds review – brash Bollywood in the Mumbai underworld

A motorbike drug-runner and his sister face a storm of trouble in this uneven drama by the feted Iranian director Majid Majidi

Gone too Tsar: the erotic period drama that has enraged Russia

A state-funded film about tsar Nicholas II’s affair with a ballerina, Matilda was expected to be a celebration of Russian culture – but it has outraged the Orthodox church

Director Sergei Loznitsa on Russia: ‘It’s hard to change the mentality of a nation’

The acclaimed Ukrainian director discusses his latest drama A Gentle Creature, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and the ‘hell’ of Russian history

October review – low-key hotel drama earns its emotion honestly

Director Shoojit Sircar follows 2015’s Piku with a one-sided romance pitched between The Big Sick and full-on weepie

Even When I Fall review – ex-circus slaves turn the tables on traffickers

Nepalese children abused in India return to their parents and set up a circus of their own in this valuable documentary

Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts review – Leone meets Tarantino in Indonesia

Machetes, poisonous berries and headless ghosts litter the sunbaked plains of Sumba in Mouly Surya’s revenge drama

Peter Bradshaw on the Cannes 2018 lineup: Netflix out, plenty of newcomers in

The streaming giant has been barred, the female director quotient is low, but the lineup, from Asghar Farhadi’s opener onwards, is undeniably smart-looking