Honest

Director: David A Stewart

Year: 2000

When it world-premiered out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival this year, Honest was the centre of a frenzy of tabloid gossip and media spin. The reason? Its stars Nicole and Natalie Appleton and Melanie Blatt, are perhaps better known as three of the winsome quartet that make up the award-winning girl band All Saints. That the film also marked the directing debut of Eurythmics frontman Dave Stewart, here preferring to go under the moniker David A Stewart, further fuelled the hype. Written by the duo responsible for a string of hits including Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, Porridge and The Commitments, Honest is an edgy black comedy set in late 1960s swinging London. The All Saints girls play streetwise sisters from the East End who have a lucrative sideline in armed robbery which they carry out dressed as men. Moving between the grime and gloom of their home turf, the neon lights of swinging Carnaby Street and the drug-fuelled sleaze of the decadent aristocracy, the sisters soon find themselves on the run when their latest heist brings them up against a local underworld boss (Corin Redgrave). The cynical film world, hardnosed critics in particular, were ready to dismiss the film as a vanity project for all concerned, but its breezy energy and charismatic performances from its three lead newcomers laid such prejudices to rest. If there was one thing working against the film when it was released in the UK in May, it was its 18 certificate, which prevented the bulk of the singers' pre-teen fans from seeing it.

Director: Sandeep Kumar Paul

Year: 2026

Science teacher Swarna and her partner Driti move to a suburban town for a fresh start. When a student leaks intimate photos of Swarna online, school authorities turn her private life into a disciplinary issue. Official Selection Busan International Film Festival 2026 - World premiere

Director: Yv Shells

Year: 2026

When Arlo arrives to find Marcus has cooked someone else’s favourite meal, a single question begins to unravel an evening that refuses to stay in the present. Through a fractured timeline set entirely within one dining room, we move between Marcus and Arlo and the relationship that came before, with Una, the woman he met at a late-night bus stop and once talked about marrying. The same table, the same chairs, the same arguments about trust, honesty and what it means to truly see someone. As the timelines bleed together, it becomes clear that Marcus has never fully left the past, and that Una’s ghost sits at every table he sets. When Arlo asks what her own favourite meal is and he cannot answer, the film’s quiet devastation lands completely. CLOCKS is a portrait of a man who loves generously but sees poorly, and the women who carry the cost. It asks what we owe the person in front of us while we are still in love with someone we lost, and whether a feeling ever truly ends.