the headlines on bbc news: harvey weinstein appears in court charged with rape and sexual abuse — his attorney says he will plead not guilty. a 96—year—old d—day veteran speaks of surviving a hammer attack — as a man is jailed for 16 years for attempted murder. president trump says the planned summit with north korea could still go ahead, despite cancelling the meeting yesterday. now on bbc news, it time for the film review. hello and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases is mark kermode. so mark, what do we have this week? very interesting week, we have the breadwinner which is an oscar

nominated animation. solo: a star wars story, another one. and mckellen: playing the part. and the breadwinner, based or taken from a book? yes, by deborah ellis. this is from the studio that gave us song of the sea and secret of kells. this is adapted from deborah ellis‘ book. taliban era kabul, and essentially a young girl is selling goods in the street with her father. her father was a teacher by trade and lost a leg in the war with afghanistan. clearly, they are struggling materially, but he teaches her the power of history, and most importantly, the power of stories. let's have a look at the clip. clip: our people have always told stories, from our very beginning... a fractured land in the claws of the hindu kush mountains, scorched by the fiery

eyes of the northern deserts. black rubble earth against ice peaks, our land was the petrified skeleton of a monster. the land of the noble and honourable, we were a pathway to everywhere, carrying goods from east to west. we studied the stars and began to see order amidst the chaos. we were scientists, philosophers and storytellers. questions sought answers, and then more questions. we began to see our place in the universe. on the one hand you have that sort of animation, the circlings and cut outs, then you have the more realistic backgrounds of the streets of kabul. which are almost photorealistic backgrounds. with these very simply drawn but very expressive faces. what happens is the father is arrested by the taliban, and the mother and sister are unable to get

food, because you can't go out without a male chaperone. our young heroine cuts her hair, puts on her dead brother's clothes and goes out in the streets disguised as a boy. she discovers that, when you're a boy, you can go wherever you want. a whole new world. but she is also on a mission, not only to provide for her family, but also to get her father from jail. i just thought this was wonderful. it's brilliantly directed, it deals with very dark subject matter. like imprisonment... this is what i was thinking. the situation in afghanistan. very bleak for women. absolutely what it is about. it is very much a feminist story, but also a universal story, but it is told through the eyes of the central child, an 11—year—old girl, and because we see it through her eyes, we can see terrible things, and yet her bravery, courage, humour and laughter sees us through. second thing is, i think the way that the animation is done, in different styles, with the very realistic portrait

of the streets and markets, juxtaposed against the cutout circling animation of the story within the story, in which there is a story about a young boy having to go up against a dreadful elephant king which kind of mirrors our heroine's journey, and those two fits together beautifully. the mix of eastern and western influences. i have seen it three times, and every time, i saw something i missed. i genuinely think it is universal. it is a 12a certificate. it is telling a very difficult and very important story for audiences of all ages. you will love it. i can't wait. i wonder if the animation makes it more bearable, something that is difficult. is that true? absolutely true. animation can talk about subjects that live—action movies couldn't do, because of the transformative power. i mean, it's much more complicated now. people who are making these movies are brilliant animators. we are living through a golden age of animation. you have things like coco.

we are in a wonderful time for animation. this is right at the forefront. it is wonderful. it is called the breadwinner, you will have to seek it out, because many screens are showing another movie this week, but do seek it out. it is wonderful. are they showing another star wars? there is another one. the other one was only six months ago. this is now another one of the stand—alone spin offs. solo: a star wars story. it is about han solo and his first meeting with chewbacca. his growing love affair with the millenium falcon. and the whole thing is kind of wrapped up in a heist caper narrative in which they have to steal. it had a very troubled production. it was originally directed by the guys who made the lego movie. long into the production, they left and they were told to go, they brought in ron howard. that seems, wow, that's a big deal! it is surprisingly coherent. it does have a coherent tone. the tone is basically flimsy and fun, and alden ehrenreich is very, very good

as the young han solo. we see him growing into the character we know and love as harrison ford. there are some zippy action sequences. and it has that kind of throwback flash gordon thing that the original star wars movies have. they also have the force and the religion and the samurai stuff. this doesn't, it just seems it much more like something... landa calrissian is really good fun. it does seem like, i am not entirely sure i needed this. did i really want another one of these? it is a bit baggy in the middle. it is fine, but hardly essential. i didn't feel there was a huge amount of jeopardy. it's not rogue one, which is a war movie. we are going to get to the point of any gap of the star wars story, they will make another movie to explain it. if someone goes through a door — oh, what happened when they went through that door? now there's three movies to fill in the gap. moving on, ian mckellen,

if you are watching this programme on the friday edition, happy birthday ian mckellen and there is a whole film to celebrate. you were saying before, is it a documentary? it's him looking back at his life, college, theatre, sexuality, becoming a political activist for lgbt causes, and then going back to schools and taking his vast knowledge to schools. he talks about how for a long time theatre was the central of his life, then of course how he moved into movies. and they filmed our progress up the ridge. i think only once because we would have left our footprints in the snow, therefore could not do it twice. as we were going along, and i am going snow up to my knees, with a perilous drop on one side, and a bit of a peak at the other. i could be on everest.

it is about as far away from green screen as you can get. we were there. constantly, we were there, and you can ask any of the actors, there were other locations. i remember other locations where we were lifted up by helicopter, to spend the day in the sunshine with a fantastic view, surrounded by mountains. you could listen to his voice all day, couldn't you ? couldn't you ? this is directed by the same guy who made chicken. he's taken this and he's illustrated this. he has also done dramatisations in which mckellen's word and lip—synched by actors recreate key moments. those dramatisations works surprisingly well. really, surprisingly well. scott chambers who was so brilliant in chicken, features in one as well. i thought the whole thing

was like a lovely leather armchair. you can just sit there and let these stories wash over you. how engaged and how passionate he is. yes, he is a theatre actor to some people, a film actor to others, and that is why it is so glorious. here he is withjudi dench. he says it is very difficult to play with her, because the audiencesjust love her. which is absolutely true. this is playing later on on sunday, and opens properly on friday, but it is a real pleasure to watch. excellent. and your best debut? jeune femme, young woman. you will have to seek it out, but really, really good. all of the heads of department on the film work are all female so it is

just a terrific piece of work and i think you will really like it. and dvd, the post? it is a film by steven spielberg, a historicalfilm about the battle between the freedom press and a corrupt president. i don't know why, but it seemed terribly contemporary. i love it when you say what you think, mark. it is a great film, don't let me be too rude about it. good to see you as ever and a reminder that you can find all the film news and reviews from across the bbc, on the website. all our previous programmes on the i—player as well. that is it for this week, it is a really, really interesting week. thank you for being with us. see you next time.

happy cinema—going. it's been a lovely day came across northern parts of the country, as he had been to the course i have the southern areas which are under the threats of some thunderstorms, which could be really intense during the course of saturday night. and at a moment, it looks like we're going to hold onto quite a bit of cloud. which will fizzle away in northern england and southern scotland, just the odd shower dotting around, warm humid murky nights to come across wales. and across scotland as well. some really warm thundery air and an area of low pressure from the south,

which will trigger the showers and storms in the next few days. if you showers and thunderstorms to start saturday morning, that the cloudy start, it will across most areas, with an area of showers and storms as he moved to the southwest of england, could bit further north and east words, you'll have to tune into the forecast for details. lots of sunshine and low cloud, towards the northeast coast of scotland. 25 and 26 maybe even higher, but it could be cooler on the north sea coast. those and showers on saturday night, with parts of england towards wales was some torrential downpour is. but elsewhere it would be a dry night with clear spells across the south. tsonga sunday morning we start off with lots of sun shined across northern england large hail, may be

some flash flooding for some of the areas, certainly across wales, the best of the sunshine in the north east of the country, and would be a warm month, maybe 27 celsius, that then moves the bit further north on bank holiday monday, across northern ireland and so that's gotland, we could see some thunder and rain here, it will fizzle out through the day, and after the cloudy murky start, the sunshine will break to that cloud and the temperature will shoot up, and especially across england and wales. so the main m essa 9 es england and wales. so the main messages is going to be warm this holiday weekend, for some severe thunderstorms across the south, which will increase. hello. this is bbc world news today. i'm ben bland. our top stories. the film producer harvey weinstein is taken to court in new york in handcuffs, to be charged with rape. the defendant used his position, money and power to lure young women

into situations where he was able to violate them sexually. bail is set at a $1 million, and he'll have to wear a gps tracker. harvey weinstein's lawyer says his client will plead not guilty to all charges. mr weinstein did not invent the casting couch in hollywood, and to the extent that there is bad behaviour in that industry, that is not what this is about. bad behaviour is not on trial in this case. we'll have the very latest on the start of a court case which is set to grip the world. also in the programme: