Jason Solomons

Jan 6, 2025 | theneweuropean.co.uk | Jason Solomons

The clock ticks, the world spins and another year on the calendar flicks into view. We’re in 2025 now and suddenly, 2073 doesn’t feel all that far off. I’m talking to Oscar-winning documentary-maker Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy, Diego Maradona) about his latest film and why he set it (and named it) 48 years from now. “It’s not really very far away from where we are – I think it will look like now but feel very different,” he says.

Dec 10, 2024 | theneweuropean.co.uk | Jason Solomons

Just as great football managers create teams in their own likeness, film directors make movies that somehow reflect themselves. I’d seen the fascinating, dense, complex, brilliant, astounding, wholly eccentric “jazz ’n’ cold war politics” documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat before having coffee with its maker, Belgian multimedia artist and “radical gardener” Johan Grimonprez. But after only a few minutes in his company, I could see exactly why the film is unique and as provocative as it is.

Nov 26, 2024 | theneweuropean.co.uk | Jason Solomons

Any film based on a Robert Harris book has a bit of head start. The novelist has such a gripping and clear-eyed prose style that film adaptations tend to get right to the heart of the matter in double-quick time. Enigma, The Ghost Writer, An Officer and a Spy, The Edge of War – they have all enjoyed success on the big screen, and I’m still waiting excitedly, though I suspect vainly, for the fabled production of Pompeii.

Oct 22, 2024 | theneweuropean.co.uk | Jason Solomons

Almost exactly 30 years ago, as the north European winter drew in and the nights got really long, two Danes sat down and changed the face of modern cinema. They were Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, and the revolution they started was eventually called Dogma 95, although they began discussing the manifesto’s 10 rules – the so-called “Vows of Chastity” – in the autumn of 1994.

Oct 8, 2024 | theneweuropean.co.uk | Jason Solomons

“All my women have big balls,” laughs François Ozon. It’s an uncharacteristically brash statement from this most elegant and stylish of French film-makers. But it is true. Over the years, he has become known as a consummate director of women in female-dominated comedies and dramas. “I should clarify that,” he adds quickly. “I like to show clever women who make their own way to get where and what they want.