Report suggests that most complaints about diversity are made when it is deemed ‘inauthentic’

Canadian PM swaps tough talk at Davos aimed at Donald Trump for some fun at a film gala with Hudson Williams

Last week, Mark Carney was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, giving global leaders a lesson in realism. His powerful speech about the end of the old order and the need for middle powers to unite in the face of fractured international norms received a standing ovation.

The economist and central banker struck a slightly different tone at a gala in Ottawa to promote the Canadian film industry on Thursday evening. Appearing on the red carpet with the Canadian actor Hudson Williams, star of the hit HBO ice hockey drama Heated Rivalry, Carney was in a playful mood.

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Lately I’ve been going back to read some classic works that I had, in my zany life-arc, missed, in the (selfish) hope of opening up new frequencies in my work. So: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (the zaniness seems to lack agenda and yet still says something big and political); then on to Speak, Memory by Nabokov, newly reminded that language alone (dense, beautiful) can power the reader along; and, coming soon, The Power Broker by Robert A Caro – a real ambition-inspirer, I’m imagining, in its scale and daring.

From Kaouther Ben Hania’s reconstruction of the killing of a five-year-old Gazan girl in The Voice of Hind Rajab to Ira Sachs use of a taped interview in Peter Hujar’s Day, real-life dialogue is being turned into drama

Alfred Hitchcock, the director behind some of the best films ever, supposedly said that just three essential ingredients are needed to make a great film: “The script, the script and the script.” For a film-maker, it might seem a godsend when a fully formed one lands in your lap. But behind a rising number of films is a simple hack: pinch all your dialogue from real people. An increasing number of film-makers are turning to transcripts and recordings to re-enact episodes on film, with the promise that they are as an exact a facsimile as possible. From Reality (2023), Tina Satter’s true-to-life portrayal of whistleblower Reality Winner, which progresses in real time from harmless small talk to a full-blown FBI grilling, to Radu Jude’s Uppercase Print (2020), in which a rebel teen is given the third degree in Ceaușescu-era Romania, the title-card proclamation “inspired by true events” is being taken to a wholly literal new level.

Within the space of a month, two more “verbatim” movies are in UK cinemas. Peter Hujar’s Day, Ira Sachs’ time capsule of 1974 New York and its colourful culturati, is based on candid conversation between Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) and her photographer pal Peter (Ben Whishaw), who would die from an Aids-related illness less than a decade later. Meanwhile, Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab is set in January 2024 amid the evacuation of Gaza City, revisiting beat for beat an emergency call centre’s attempts to rescue the six-year-old girl of the title to harrowing effect.

Installation remembers the names of over 18,000 children killed by Israel in Gaza between October 2023 and July 2025

First is وسام اياد محمد ابو فسيفس, or Wesam Iyad Mohammed Abu Fsaife, a 14-year-old boy. Last is صباح عمر سعد المصري, or Sabah Omar Saad al-Masri, an eight-year-old girl.

These names of two children mark the beginning and end of the Wall of Tears, a massive art installation paying homage to the 18,457 children killed in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 19 July 2025. Created by artist Phil Buehler, it opened next to Pine Box Rock Shop bar at 12 Grattan Street in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday.

Even Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has received one, after Wagner Moura wore it in The Secret Agent

It is glimpsed in just a few scenes in The Secret Agent, the Brazilian film nominated for four Oscars and two Baftas, but that has been enough exposure for a vintage yellow T-shirt to become the latest object of desire among Brazilian progressives.

The garment, worn on screen by Wagner Moura, was first produced in 1978 by Pitombeira dos Quatro Cantos, a carnival group in the coastal city of Olinda, which until recently would sell just a few dozen a month.

At a family gathering over Christmas, I took on my 76-year-old mother once again at virtual bowling. Could I finally best her?

My mother bore me. My mother nurtured me. My mother educated me. She has a resilience unmatched, a love all-forgiving. She is the glue that holds our family together. But right now, I am kicking her ass at video game bowling, and it feels good!

In the 00s, my mum was the best Wii Bowling player in the world. She was unbeatable. Strike after strike after strike. The Dudette in our family’s Big Lebowski. So when she said she was coming to visit us in Canada, I thought the time was right to buy the updated Nintendo Switch Sports version of her favourite game. She’s 76 now, and I might finally have a chance of beating her, I thought, especially if I allowed myself a cheeky tune-up on the game before she arrived.

The Booker-shortlisted novelist on the seismic effect of Sigrid Nunez, and wanting to write like Virginia Woolf

My earliest reading memory
Asking my mom if she could stop reading my bedtime book to me and just let me read it on my own, since I felt she was going too slowly. The book was either Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or its sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, both by Roald Dahl.

My favourite book growing up
I loved Stuart Little, and all his small, clever things – his tiny canoe, his tiny sailboat. He had such a relaxed demeanor and was so dapper! I also loved Mary Norton’s The Borrowers series – tiny people living under the floorboards and improvising household goods out of “borrowed” safety pins and match boxes and so on. Clearly I had a thing for miniatures.

[Deal du jour] Alors que le troisième et dernier volet de la trilogie consacrée au remake de Final Fantasy VII se fait désirer, le premier épisode et son DLC sont déjà moins chers sur Switch 2, quelques jours après sa sortie.

[Deal du jour] Alors que le troisième et dernier volet de la trilogie consacrée au remake de Final Fantasy VII se fait désirer, le premier épisode et son DLC sont déjà moins chers sur Switch 2, quelques jours après sa sortie.

Nintendo en a dévoilé un peu plus sur Tomodachi Life : Une vie de rêve, son jeu de simulation de vie mettant en scène des Mii. Parmi l’avalanche d’informations, le constructeur a confirmé davantage d’inclusivité, mais aussi des restrictions sur le partage d’images, une décision qui divise déjà les fans.