Michael Winterbottom says UK cannot ignore colonial history in Palestine as he talks about new film Shoshana
Acclaimed filmmaker Michael Winterbottom says our “complicated” British colonial history over Palestine needs to be better understood when it comes to realising “our responsibility” for current events in Israel.
Speaking exclusively to Sky News about his new political thriller Shoshana – set in Tel Aviv in the 1930s during Britain’s unwanted occupation of Palestine – Winterbottom says unless we “understand what we’ve done in the past” then “maybe we can’t understand what’s happening now”.
“The British role in Palestine is complicated, obviously the whole issue of Palestine is complicated, but I don’t think it helps anyone to ignore history….especially when that history is something that is still very active and alive today, it has huge direct consequences.”
While it has taken 15 years for Winterbottom to bring his new film to the big screen, in the last week its subject matter has become all the more timely.
Its premiere at the London Film Festival came as details of the brutal attacks against Israel first emerged.
For some of the film’s Israeli cast members who’d flown over for the red carpet event, Winterbottom says it was “a strange moment” to be showing the film.
“They spent the whole day on their phones,” Winterbottom said.
“It’s terrible what’s happening… unfortunately, I don’t think anyone would pretend to have an idea of how to improve the situation right now.”
The film is both a love story based on real events and a story of political radicalisation.
The British mandate to govern Palestine began during First World War One after British troops drove out soldiers from the Ottoman Empire.
By 1938, when the film is set, tensions in Tel Aviv were running high as the British struggled to maintain order among the population.
Douglas Booth and Michael Winterbottom at the ‘Shoshana’ screening at the London Film Festival
“We should particularly look at the bits of history that are contested, the bits of history that are difficult,” Winterbottom said.
“It’s important for us to understand our role in creating the situation in the Middle East in a specific way, but also more generally because we went into Palestine during the First World War and we just decided we had the right to carve up the Middle East between the French, the British – we made all the countries that now exist.
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“We created all of the boundaries, decided we could control Palestine, we could control Jordan, the French could control Syria and what right did we have here? If we don’t understand what we’ve done in the past then maybe we can’t understand what’s happening now.
There are, for Winterbottom, echoes back then of the more recent American and British experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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“I hope it raises the question of why do we think we have the right to go with our army into other countries and tell people how they should live?
“Almost always, I think, that’s a bad idea.”
While he says there is “unfortunately” no obvious lesson to be taken from the time covered in the film, given the unfolding war, Winterbottom maintains that grasping the history is vital.
“It’s obviously an incredibly difficult situation, I don’t think anyone knows what to do,” Winterbottom said.
“If you understand what’s happened in the past, you have a better chance of understanding what’s happening now.”
Shoshana premiered at the London Film Festival and is due out next year.
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
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Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
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