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‘Nnena Kalu was ready for this – nobody else was’: how her Turner prize victory shook the art world

As the first learning-disabled artist to win the UK’s most prestigious art award, Kalu has smashed a ‘very stubborn glass ceiling’. Her facilitator reveals why her victory is so seismic – and the secrets of her party playlist

The morning after the Turner prize ceremony, the winner of the UK’s most prestigious art award, Nnena Kalu, is eating toast and drinking a strong cup of tea. Everyone around her is beaming – only a little the worse for wear after dancing their feet off at the previous night’s party in Bradford, and sinking “a couple of brandies” back at the hotel bar. I say hello to Kalu, offer my congratulations, and admire the 59-year-old’s beautifully manicured creamy pink nails. But the interview is with her facilitator, Charlotte Hollinshead, who has worked with the artist since 1999. Kalu has limited verbal communication skills; she has learning disabilities and is autistic.

As for Hollinshead, she is struggling to encapsulate the enormity of the win: for Kalu herself; for ActionSpace, the organisation that has supported her for 25 years; and for the visibility and acceptance of artists with learning disabilities within the wider art world. “It’s unbelievably huge,” she says. “I have to think back to where we started, when there was absolutely no interest whatsoever. I’d sit at dinner parties with friends in the art world. Nobody was interested in what I did, or who we worked with. We couldn’t get any exhibitions anywhere. No galleries were interested. Other artists weren’t interested. Art students weren’t interested. We have had to claw our way up from the very depths of the bottom.”

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© Photograph: James Speakman/PA Media Assignments

© Photograph: James Speakman/PA Media Assignments

© Photograph: James Speakman/PA Media Assignments

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Ella McCay review – James L Brooks returns with a sorry mess of a movie

Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Albert Brooks, Rebecca Hall and Woody Harrelson are among the stars lost in the writer-director’s baffling misfire

Ella McCay, a new comedy drama written and directed by James L Brooks, feels like a relic, and not just because it’s set, seemingly arbitrarily, in 2008. Broadly appealing, well cast, neither strictly comic nor melodramatic, concerning ordinary people in non-IP circumstances, it’s the type of mid-budget adult film that used to appear regularly in cinemas in the 90s and aughts, before the streaming wars devoured the market. Even its lead promotional image, turned into a life-size cardboard cut-out at the theater – Emma Mackey’s titular Ella in a sensible trench coat, balancing on one foot as she fixes a broken block heel – recalls a bygone era of films like Confessions of a Shopaholic, Miss Congeniality or Little Miss Sunshine, that would now go straight to streaming.

To be clear, I miss these types of movies, and want to see more of them. I want to see a lighthearted but realistic portrait of a 34-year-old woman serving as lieutenant governor of an unnamed state that is, judging by the college football paraphernalia and the vibe, probably Michigan. I want to still believe in the possibility of smart and sentimental popcorn fare whose low-stakes drama insists on the inherent inconsistencies and decency of people. I especially would like to say that Ella McCay is an admirable final salvo (or so) for Brooks, the 85-year-old writer/director/producer whose prolific career includes both iconic sitcoms (The Mary Tyler Moore show, Taxi and the Simpsons), and now-classic films (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good As It Gets).

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© Photograph: Claire Folger/20th Century Studios

© Photograph: Claire Folger/20th Century Studios

© Photograph: Claire Folger/20th Century Studios

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Charli xcx, Natalie Portman and Salman Rushdie lead 2026 Sundance lineup

The festival says goodbye to both founder Robert Redford and its longtime home of Park City, Utah, with a selection of provocative documentaries and starry new films

New films starring Charli xcx, Natalie Portman and Salman Rushdie will all receive their world premieres at next month’s Sundance film festival.

The festival will be held for the last time in Park City, Utah, before it moves to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027. Over the years, it has been home to the first screenings of films including Get Out, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Blair Witch Project, Past Lives, Napoleon Dynamite, Precious and Little Miss Sunshine.

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© Photograph: MRC II Distribution Company LP

© Photograph: MRC II Distribution Company LP

© Photograph: MRC II Distribution Company LP

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Quels sont les meilleurs jeux sur PS5 ? Notre top des classiques

La PS5 a cinq ans. Au fil des années, la console a su accumuler ses propres classiques dans un océan de sorties partagé entre survival horror, FPS nerveux, RPG, MMO… Si l'on devait ne retenir que 20 jeux , voici les titres que l'on considère comme les meilleurs jeux sortis sur la PS5.

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Bonne nouvelle pour les fans d’Avatar : Toph débarque enfin dans la saison 2 de la série Netflix

Le personnage, adoré par les fans de la série animée originale, fait enfin sa grande entrée dans l'univers d'Avatar, le dernier maître de l'air, sur Netflix. La première bande-annonce de cette adaptation live-action dévoile ainsi les immenses pouvoirs de Toph, qui auront une importance capitale dans la saison 2.

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Bonne nouvelle pour les fans d’Avatar : Toph débarque enfin dans la saison 2 de la série Netflix

Le personnage, adoré par les fans de la série animée originale, fait enfin sa grande entrée dans l'univers d'Avatar, le dernier maître de l'air, sur Netflix. La première bande-annonce de cette adaptation live-action dévoile ainsi les immenses pouvoirs de Toph, qui auront une importance capitale dans la saison 2.

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As AI floods our culture, here’s why we must protect human storytelling in games

Buying the Zombies, Run! studio wasn’t part of ​my plan, but a post-apocalypse ​game with stories that make people feel seen pulled me in

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A few days ago, I clicked a button on my phone to send funds to a company in Singapore and so took ownership of the video game I co-created and am lead writer for: Zombies, Run! I am a novelist, I wrote the bestselling, award-winning The Power, which was turned into an Amazon Prime TV series starring Toni Collette. What on earth am I doing buying a games company?

Well. First of all. Zombies, Run! is special. It’s special to me – the game started as a Kickstarter and the community that grew up around it has always been incredibly supportive of what we’re doing. And it’s special in what it does. It’s a game to exercise with. You play it on your smartphone – iPhone or Android – and we tell stories from the zombie apocalypse in your headphones to encourage you to go further, faster, or just make exercise less boring. Games are so often portrayed as the bad entertainment form, but I made a game that fundamentally helps people to be healthier.

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© Illustration: Simon Garbutt/Zombies Run! Ltd

© Illustration: Simon Garbutt/Zombies Run! Ltd

© Illustration: Simon Garbutt/Zombies Run! Ltd

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‘The bullying can’t go on’: the film-maker following Filipino fishers under siege by China

Baby Ruth Villarama’s documentary Food Delivery depicts those struggling with the superpower to retain their trade. The director describes capturing their boats getting rammed by the Chinese coast guard

During a televised debate in 2016, populist presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte made a typically belligerent statement that he himself would jetski to Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea and plant a Philippine flag there. Duterte claimed that he was ready to die a hero to keep the Chinese out of the bitterly contested maritime territory.

“That made millions of Filipino workers and fishers vote for him because of that one promise,” says film-maker Baby Ruth Villarama. As her new Oscar and Bafta-contending documentary Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea reveals, it wasn’t a promise Duterte kept. “He would make excuses that the jetski has broken down. Eventually there was an official pronouncement that it had just been a campaign joke. From then on, the fisherfolk were really enraged.”

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© Photograph: Voyage Studios

© Photograph: Voyage Studios

© Photograph: Voyage Studios

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A tribute to resilience: what we can learn from the splendour of Accra Cultural Week

Ghana’s capital is a party and entertainment hub but members of the diaspora would do well to experience its spectacular art scene

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After more than 50 editions surfing across the waves of the global Black diaspora with Nesrine, this will be my final dispatch for the Long Wave, as I move on to a new role on the Opinion desk at the Guardian. I am heartbroken to be leaving, but I am so thankful to all of our readers for being so encouraging and engaged throughout the past year.

Any who, time to cut the sad music (this is my farewell tune of choice), as I have one more edition for you. In late autumn, I took my first trip to Ghana for Accra Cultural Week. While there, I visited the historic area of Jamestown, which was reflected in an exhibition by artist Serge Attukwei Clottey.

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© Photograph: Nii Odzenma/Gallery 1957

© Photograph: Nii Odzenma/Gallery 1957

© Photograph: Nii Odzenma/Gallery 1957

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