It’s easy to see why Anora, the film currently creating a lot of awards buzz, is being described as a modern day Pretty Woman.

It tells the story of a young woman, a sex worker, who ends up falling in love with a very rich man; this time round, he’s the son of a Russian oligarch.

But the similarities end there. More than 30 years on from Richard Gere and Julia Roberts’ famous Hollywood ending, Anora takes the sugar-coating away from the realities of sex work.

It is one of those rare films that has already impressed critics – taking the biggest prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and now leading the nominations at the Gotham Awards – but will also appeal to a wider audience looking for something fun and smart, too.

It is the latest story from writer-director Sean Baker, a filmmaker who often focuses on marginalised people and has covered sex work in several of his previous works, from a retired porn star in Red Rocket to a transgender sex worker in Tangerine, and a character who solicits sex work online in The Florida Project.

The theme was never intentional, he tells Sky News, but after discovering more about the industry he realised he wanted to tell these stories.

“I never imagined me making five films in a row focused on sex work,” he says. “It just happened to be that when I started doing research on the first one, I met sex workers, became friends with sex workers, and discovered that there were a million stories to be told in that world. And each one can be individual and very different, being that there’s so many aspects of sex work, so one led to the next.

“I don’t know if it will continue, I’m not sure, it has to happen organically though – I’d never want it to be a shtick of mine, you know, I want it to be something I’m inspired to do and there has to be a reason behind it.”

‘The sex work community is amazing’

Mikey Madison, who plays the lead character Anora – or Ani for short – is now tipped for best actress nominations come awards season next year.

She says she immersed herself in the world of her character when preparing for the role.

“I think that I went into the research not with much knowledge about sex work, and so I was able to learn a lot and educate myself in a way that I don’t know I would have if it weren’t for this film,” she says. “I’m so grateful to have that experience because the sex work community is amazing and I’ve made so many incredible friends.”

But that wasn’t the only prep Madison had to do. She’s listed in the credits as helping to choreograph her character’s dances, and she also had to learn Russian – though admits she’s out of practise again now.

“My Duolingo app has been bothering me trying to get me back into it. I think I just haven’t had a chance to practise any of it, but on the last handful of days of shooting, I was able to listen to pretty full conversations and understand what they were talking about. And at this point, I think it’s gone, but maybe I’ll be able to redevelop it.”

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When Anora competed at Cannes in May it won the Palme d’Or, the top prize for the best feature film.

Baker says the win was far more than just a tick off his bucket list.

“I think it was the bucket list! I mean, that was it,” he says. “It’s been incredible, it really has been, and I really didn’t expect it – we were just so happy to be in competition at Cannes, and next thing you know we’re at the awards ceremony, and next thing you know I’m up on stage and George Lucas is handing me the Palme d’Or.”

“So, yeah, it’s life changing.”

Anora is out in cinemas in the UK today

Tiger King star Joe Exotic has announced he is engaged to a fellow prison inmate. 

The 61-year-old, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado, revealed on X that he plans to marry 33-year-old Jorge Marquez.

“He is so amazing and is from Mexico,” he wrote. “Now, the quest of getting married in prison and getting him asylum or we [will] be leaving America when we both get out.

“Either way, I wish I would have met him long ago.”

Exotic rose to fame on the hit Netflix documentary series Tiger King, which followed the rivalry between his zoo and a big cat sanctuary run by Carole Baskin.

He is serving a 21-year prison sentence after trying to hire two different men to kill Baskin, who had accused him of treating his animals poorly.

Prosecutors said Exotic had offered $10,000 to an undercover FBI agent to kill his rival, telling them: “Just like follow her into a mall parking lot and just cap her and drive off.”

Exotic has always denied the accusations, and his lawyers said he was not being serious.

The 61-year-old was also convicted of killing five tigers, selling tiger cubs and falsifying wildlife records.

His zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, has since closed down.

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Exotic is reported to have said he has submitted a marriage application to the federal prison to wed Mr Marquez.

Exotic famously had an unofficial three-way marriage with long-time partner John Finlay and then 19-year-old Travis Maldonado. Mr Maldonado and Exotic later officially married in 2015, but Finlay became estranged.

In October 2017, Mr Maldonado died from a self-inflicted, accidental gunshot wound.

Two months later, Exotic married Dillon Passage, but Passage later announced he was filing for divorce.

As mother-of-three Danielle pushes two prams down the street in south London, her only thought is where will they all sleep tonight?

The 21-year-old, whose children are all under the age of five, had a council house in Southwark but had to move out because she faced threats of violence.

“I didn’t know that going to the police would end up with me being homeless,” she says.

Heartbroken and panicking, with nowhere else to go, Danielle is in a park with her three children – two daughters, aged one and four, and her two-year-old son.

“I’m so sorry, I wish this could all be better,” she tells them. Her eldest clutches a plastic toy and asks when they are going home.

“We don’t have a home anymore,” Danielle replies. She can’t hide the truth from her any longer.

Danielle, who has long dark hair and is wearing a puffer jacket, is pacing, her mobile phone pressed to her ear, making a series of desperate phone calls, pleading for help.

“Where am I going to go with the kids,” she asks a housing officer. “I have nowhere to go.”

At this point it’s around 3pm and council offices will soon be closing. As her phone dies, Danielle, now sitting on a bench, her eldest daughter comforting her siblings in their buggies, breaks down in tears.

Her story exemplifies a national housing crisis where currently more than 150,000 children in England are living in temporary accommodation.

It is hard to imagine someone more vulnerable; a 21-year-old, at risk of violence, a care leaver herself, mother-of-three. If she’s fallen through the net, then who is it catching?

Initially, Southwark council paid for her to have temporary accommodation elsewhere.

But things changed when police informed them it was too dangerous for her to come back to the borough.

“To sit there and tell a four-year-old little girl we can’t go home because we don’t have a home, that’s very upsetting as a mum because I brought her into this world to love her, protect her, to give her a home, and me being a mum telling her I can’t do that right now, it breaks my heart, but I know it’s not my fault,” she tells Sky News.

“Last Tuesday, I got a call to say they could no longer fund my accommodation because the police said it’s no longer safe to return back to Southwark, so they don’t owe me a duty of care.”

The council emailed her a letter which implied she was being made homeless for her own protection. The letter instructed her to present herself to another “local authority homeless person unit to seek rehousing outside of Southwark,” it said. “This is on the grounds of personal protection for you and your children.”

The letter, dated 30 September, explained her current accommodation would terminate on 9 October.

But, when Danielle approached another council, they wanted more details from Southwark. In the meantime, her landlord said Southwark had stopped paying, so he evicted her and changed the locks.

“We are just going around in a loop and in the meantime me and my children are homeless, and nobody seems to care,” she told us when we found her on 10 October.

“They are not protecting me or my children, they’ve put us at an even more high risk, but they don’t seem to acknowledge that.”

As we sit on the park bench together, a Southwark housing officer calls confirming that, despite her being on the streets, they would not extend the temporary accommodation. The person on the phone says it was a management decision.

At this point, we call Southwark’s press office and get a very different tone and a sense that the situation isn’t acceptable.

After an anxious wait, by late afternoon Danielle is told she can return to her temporary accommodation.

But while Danielle was on the streets, she took her child for a routine vaccination and was flagged with children’s social services, which adds to her worries.

“I know I am a good mum,” she says. “A doctor might have thought my nails were dirty or I didn’t look like a normal person, but she has to understand, I had nowhere to go that day.

“I had no keys, nowhere to live. I was living out of a black bag in my grandad’s shed. So, what do you expect?”

In a statement, councillor Sarah King from Southwark told us: “This has been a very distressing situation for Danielle and her children, and I hope that she is at least relieved to be in safe accommodation now. We will be working to resolve her housing situation permanently and continue to support her until that happens.”

The council she was applying to told us they believed the issue was now being dealt with by Southwark.

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Housing lawyer Simeon Wilmore told Sky he’s come across this kind of thing “many times” and believes both councils have behaved badly.

“Southwark should have been in contact with the receiving party or receiving local authority and it should be more managed and structured, and she should be at the centre of the decision making,” he said.

“If they have reason to believe she may be eligible for priority needs then the duty of care kicks in. They must accommodate.”

The problem is councils have run out of homes. In Southwark alone 17,700 people are on the borough’s waiting list, nearly treble the figure over five years ago.

On average councils spend 1% of their budget on temporary accommodation, but research by Sky News has found 30 councils spend 10% or more, with several spending over 20% of their overall budgets on homelessness. This is council money going to private landlords.

Adam Hugg, head of housing at the Local Government Association, says the numbers of people needing support “are going through the roof” and the lack of available homes “creates a real challenge”.

He says there is a need for long-term investment to build more council houses as well as reform to housing benefit to make sure more people can be kept in their homes.

Danielle has few home comforts in her temporary flat, which has plain white walls and a TV on the floor. Her wish is for a place she can make her own and paint her daughter’s bedroom walls pink.

She has Halloween decorations on a shelf, while in a corner of the living room there is a long box containing a Christmas tree. On top, there is a child’s yet-to-be-filled-out wish list for Father Christmas, while a pack of red and white baubles and a can of snow spray sit nearby.

“These are all my little Christmas bits I’m going to do with the kids when we eventually have a home,” Danielle says, but she still has no idea when that might be.

“They have told me I’m not going to be here for Christmas,” she says. “So, I don’t know where I’ll be. I just hope it’s not on the street.”

It seems the housing crisis has reached a point where even extreme vulnerability is no guarantee of help.

Councils want more secure longer-term government funding so they can build more homes, but with more children than ever living in temporary accommodation, this is a chronic national problem that will take more than one Christmas to solve.