Mark Kermode on… Kathryn Bigelow, a stylish ruffler of feathers

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From vampire noir to Bin Laden, Point Break to Detroit, the first woman to win an Oscar for best director has never pulled her punches Watching new Jeff Nichols release The Bikeriders , starring Austin Butler and Tom Hardy as 60s Chicago greasers, I was reminded of two other movies: László Benedek’s 1953 Marlon Brando vehicle The Wild One , explicitly cited as an inspiration, and The Loveless , the 1981 feature debut of Kathryn Bigelow , the American film-maker (b.1951) who would go on to become the first woman to win a best director Oscar with her 2008 war drama The Hurt Locker . A symphony of leather-clad posing (with just a touch of Kenneth Anger ), The Loveless was a staple of the late-night circuit in the 80s, often on a double bill with David Lynch’s Eraserhead . Sharing directing credits with Monty Montgomery, Bigelow playfully deconstructed masculinity and machismo in a manner that was one part wry to two parts relish. I remember seeing The Loveless at the Phoenix in East
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Iranian director Saeed Roustayi jailed for ‘unauthorised’ Cannes film screening

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Sentence of the Leila’s Brothers maker, along with producer Javad Noruzbegi, was for ‘propaganda of the opposition against the Islamic system’

A court in Iran has sentenced prominent film director Saeed Roustayi to six months’ prison for the screening of his film Leila’s Brothers at the Cannes film festival in 2022, local media reported.

Leila’s Brothers, a rich and complex tale of a family struggling with economic hardship in Tehran, has been banned in Iran since its release last year. The film was in competition for the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes festival, winning the International Federation of Film Critics award.

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