Emilio Gamal Boutros’ latest for resurgent sports brand Champion features the outrageously agile acrobatic troupe Wonsembe leaping and twisting their stuff around Paris, directed in Emilio’s usual elegant, understated style.
C’est super cool, n’est-ce pas?

Jon Hollis’ latest film, for Network Rail working with Leith, highlights the devastating effect that trespassing on rail tracks – a problem that is on the increase and incredibly dangerous – can have on the families of the trespasser.

Hopefully Jon’s darkly brooding film will make anyone thinking of saving ten minutes by taking a short cut across the tracks think again.

A huge congratulations to our very own Louis Hollis for his Young Director Award nomination in the Passion Project category for his excellent film Shrovetide.

“Our sporting identities are most commonly determined by proximity to local clubs and teams, allegiances which last a lifetime. However for the people of Ashbourne their commitment is not just to a team but to a game itself, Shrovetide football. This is sport in one of its oldest and purest forms.”

In the run-up to the postponed European Championships, Jesper Ericstam’s latest, for mobile phone giant Vivo, encourages people to put down their phones and concentrate on something more important. Shot in sunny Budapest just as Hungary was emerging from a long lock-down, the film is full of the sense of the joy of watching the beautiful game with those you care about.

Netflix has released the first trailer from the upcoming series Katla, its first-ever original series from Iceland. Created by the award-winning Baltasar Kormákur (Trapped, Everest), the eight-part drama takes place in Vík, South Iceland, following a violent eruption of the volcano Katla, and is directed by Kormakur, Börkur Sigthorsson and Thora Hilmarsdottir.

“One year after the outbreak of a violent eruption of the subglacial volcano Katla, the peace and tranquility in the small town of Vík has been dramatically disturbed with the eruption still active,” a Netflix plot summary of the series reads. “The ice near the volcano has been melting, the area has been evacuated and only a few remaining people manage to provide the necessary community service in the village, which is now only accessible by crossing the Markarfljót river. The grand area has turned out to be somewhat apocalyptic and Vík is declared a danger zone. Mysterious elements, that have been deeply frozen into the glacier from prehistoric times, start to emerge from the melting ice with consequences no one could ever have foreseen.”

Katla stars Guðrún Ýr Eyfjörð, better known as the musician GDRN, Íris Tanja Flygenring, Ingvar Sigurðsson, Þorsteinn Bachmann, Sólveig Arnarsdóttir, and Swedish actors Aliette Opheim and Valter Skarsgård. Filming began early last year but had to be suspended due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It resumed later in the year with a reduced crew and social distancing precautions.

Though the premise of Katla is fictional, it’s not at all far-fetched that an eruption from the volcano could have catastrophic consequences. A Katla eruption in the year 822 AD was likely responsible for widespread famine, plague, and freezing temperatures across Europe. An eruption at nearby Laki in 1783 affected the climate across the northern hemisphere for a year, and is now believed to have been a catalyst for the French revolution.

KATLA is coming to NETFLIX on 17th June.

Working with kids and animals can be a bit of pain, as Harvey Eaton demonstrates in this quick fire look at some of the niggles of modern life.

Jesper Ericstam’s latest, for Sweden’s biggest union, dramatises some of the challenges and annoyances of working life, reminding us what joys await us if/when we ever go back to the office.