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.
Aury Alby
Rony Herman
“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.
Billie Eilish has announced a new tour and will be coming to the UK next summer.
The 22-year year old‘s show is named after her latest album – Hit Me Hard And Soft – and will kick off in North America in September.
It will then head to Australia in February 2025, before travelling across Europe and arriving in the UK on 7 July when she will perform for two nights in Glasgow, at OVO Hydro.
Eilish will then play six nights at the O2 in London, and four nights at the new Co-Op Live arena in Manchester – a venue that has been beset with problems as it prepares to open to the public.
The singer will then play two gigs in Dublin, Ireland, at the 3Arena.
A vocal environmentalist, fans are being encouraged to take “sustainable transport” during the tour, which will also feature “eco-villages” and encourage plant-based food options.
The tour will partner with the plant-based food organisation Support + Feed – an initiative founded by Eilish’s mother Maggie Baird – and environmental non-profit organisation REVERB.
The concerts will also aim to reduce “greenhouse gas pollution, decreasing single-use plastic waste, supporting climate action”, the promoters Live Nation said.
Eilish’s third studio album comes out on 17 May, a month after Taylor Swift‘s much lauded album The Tortured Poets Department.
Like Swift, Eilish is encouraging fans to listen to the collection as a whole, saying on her website that the new body of work should be listened to chronologically as it “hits you hard and soft both lyrically and sonically, while bending genres and defying trends along the way”.
She’s not released any singles in advance, encouraging fans to listen “in one go”.
The album cover features Eilish on her back under dark water with a white door open above her.
Eilish and Finneas accept their second Oscar. Pic: AP /Chris Pizzello
Eilish’s last album was 2021’s Happier Than Ever, and her debut record When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was released in 2019.
The youngest person ever to have won two Oscars, she took home the award for best original song Oscar gong for Barbie’s What Was I Made For? in March, and won the same prize for James Bond’s No Time To Die in 2022.
Tickets for Hit Me Hard And Soft go on general sale on Friday.
Billie Eilish’s UK tour dates:
Mon 7 July, 2025 – Glasgow, UK – OVO Hydro
Tue 8 July, 2025 – Glasgow, UK – OVO Hydro
Thu 10 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2
Fri 11 July, 2025 -London, UK – The O2
Sun 13 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2
Mon 14 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2
Wed 16 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2
Thu 17 July, 2025 – London, UK – The O2
Sat 19 July, 2025 – Manchester, UK – Co-op Live
Sun 20 July, 2025 – Manchester, UK – Co-op Live
Tue 22 July, 2025 – Manchester, UK – Co-op Live
Wed 23 July, 2025 – Manchester, UK – Co-op Live
Entertainment
Googlebox star George Gilbey’s mum reveals his last words to her before he fell to his death
The mother of Gogglebox star George Gilbey has revealed his last words to her were “I love you”.
Gilbey died after falling through a plastic skylight while fixing a warehouse roof in Essex in March.
The 40-year-old appeared alongside his mum, Linda McGarry, and stepdad on the hit Channel 4 show.
The family first appeared on the second series of Gogglebox in 2013 but were dropped the following year when Gilbey signed up for the 14th series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2014, reaching the final.
Mrs McGarry said she spoke to him on the phone hours before his death.
Gilbey appeared alongside his mum Linda and stepdad Pete on Gogglebox. Pic: PA
She told The Sun: “He phoned me at 9.30 in the morning and said he was working – and asked me for his ‘breakfast money’.
“I put £30 in his account so he could get food, and he seemed fine.
“He had a drink the night before, and liked a bottle of white wine or two, but was happy that he was working. He ended the phone call by saying, ‘I love you’ like he usually did. I treasure those words.”
She added: “It was an honour for him to have been my son. We had a blast for 40 years.”
Mrs McGarry said her son had struggled with the death of his dad, stepfather and her own Parkinson’s diagnosis.
At the time of his death, he was working to save money to move closer to his seven-year-old daughter, Amelie, in southwest London.
“He wanted to be with Amelie, who he adored,” she told The Sun.
“They were on the third day of a job that was going to last a month, and he was going to get money together from that.
“When they were together, George and Amelie were always laughing. She is going to miss him terribly, like we all will.”
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Gilbey suffered traumatic injuries to his head and torso and died at the scene in Shoeburyness.
An inquest was opened last week but suspended after a request from police pending a criminal investigation.
A man in his 40s from the Witham area of Essex was previously arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter
He was later released under investigation.
Entertainment
Bestselling author CJ Sansom dies days before Disney adaption of his Shardlake series airs
Author CJ Sansom, who created the character of Matthew Shardlake, has died at the age of 71, his publisher has announced.
Sansom first introduced readers to Shardlake – a lawyer who solves crimes while navigating the religious reforms and political intrigue of Tudor England – in the 2003 book Dissolution.
The Scottish writer released six further novels featuring Shardlake, as well as two standalone historical novels, Winter In Madrid and Dominion.
His works have just been adapted into the series Shardlake, which features The Innocents star Arthur Hughes as the main character and Game Of Thrones actor Sean Bean as Thomas Cromwell.
The first season of the Tudor murder mystery series is set to be released by Disney+ on Wednesday.
Sansom was described as one of Britain’s best historical novelists. Pic: Pan Macmillian/PA
Announcing his death on Monday, publishers Pan Macmillan wrote in a statement: “It is with immense sadness that Pan Macmillan announces the death of CJ Sansom.”
“‘It is an extraordinarily strange coincidence that Chris has died only a handful of days before a new generation of fans will meet Matthew Shardlake, Barak and Guy and co for the first time through,” his agent, Antony Topping, said.
“This is also a moment for which Chris’s established fans have been waiting a long time.
“Chris was so proud of all the work and determination that went into bringing the novels to our television screens, which I hope will bring an entirely new audience to the books and which will maybe also inspire some old fans to return to their favourite CJ Sansom novels.”
Sansom’s long-time editor and publisher, Maria Rejt, added that he was working on a new Shardlake book but his “worsening health made progress painfully slow”.
Arthur Hughes as protagonist Matthew Shardlake. Pic: Disney+ UK
She described the author as an “intensely private person” who took immense pleasure in the public’s enthusiastic response to his novels.
“I shall miss him hugely, not only as a wonderfully talented writer who gave joy to millions, but as a dear friend of enormous compassion and integrity,” Ms Rejt said.
Shardlake featured as the protagonist in a total of seven of Sansom’s novels. Dissolution was dramatised once before by BBC Radio 4 in 2012.
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Sean Bean stars in the new series based off Sansom’s debut novel. Pic: Disney+ UK
With more than three million copies of his novels in print, Sansom was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger Award in 2022 for his outstanding contribution to the genre.
Born in Edinburgh in 1952, Sansom attended Birmingham University where he studied an undergraduate degree and PhD in history.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
He worked as a solicitor before becoming a full-time writer where he was able to combine his passion for history and law securing him as one of Britain’s bestselling historical novelists.
Sansom was also a signatory to an 2014 open letter advocating that Scotland should remain in the UK.
The author also donated £161,000 to the Better Together campaign, according to published accounts.
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