it may include messages to the family such as "good night mum and dad," and in the morning they might receive a good morning message. lovely messages like that. professor dempsey, how many mothers and babies are currently separated at your hospital and what's been the reaction to this technology from those who've been able to make use of it? i guess right now we do not have any covid—i9 positive mums so we're using it in our unit as a way of ensuring the dad ‘s and partners remain in contact with her baby. the response has been absolutely fantastic. we had a 100% acceptance rate. it allows families —— we had it in place for the last week or so and we had nothing but positive feedback. in fact the only negative

feedback. in fact the only negative feedback we had is that they would like some more videos. you're a victim of your own success! we got to leave it there but thanks so much for coming on bbc news to tell us all about it. now for those adventurous among us who have dreamed of one day climbing mount everest, clearly now is not the time, although one man remains undeterred! john griffin traded compass and crampons for a staircase and bannister, to climb the equivalent of the world's highest mountain, at home. duncan kennedy has more. wish me luck. here we go, bye. in these times of great uncertainty, life really does have its peaks and troughs. ooh! that hurts. right. butjohn griffin has peaked higher than most... the total height is 8850 metres. ..by climbing the equivalent of mount everest, using just the stairs in his house. just, it was an offhand remark

to my wife, literally a week ago today, in the morning. i'd walked upstairs to the bedroom for the fifth time, and i said to her, "by the time this lockdown is over, i will have climbed everest." so he did it, for real. 29,000 feet — or 41,000 steps. i've got to get to 75% minimum today. six hours a day, forfour days, but coming down... ..doesn't count towards the total. just got to sit down for a minute. by day three, it was peas on knees for this stairway to hell. my lovely wife suggested sticking frozen peas on it. daisy! even stair climbers have sherpas... ..during what's also a sponsored effort byjohn to raise money to help people who use food banks. alexa, play move any mountain. yeah!

john summited last night, to his waiting wife niri, daughter daisy and his neighbours. ending the kind of uplifting achievement he hopes will soon put everyone back on top of the world. thank you. duncan kennedy, bbc news. i'm believed he didn't have a carpet though. it would be worn out by them. let's catch up with the weather with been rich. temperatures got up to 17 degrees today were we had the best of the sunshine. tomorrow, more of us will the sunshine and it will be even warmer. quite breezy and also some rain later in the day across the west. as we go through tonight, cloud that has been affecting the northern half of the uk today will tend to melt away to allow clerestory size overhead. despite that, not an especially cold night because the breeze will be picking

up. —— allow clear size. parts of northern ireland in western scotland, there could be wind gusts of 50 mph or more. windy further east as well, but holding onto some sunshine and those temperatures in london up to 2! degrees. people further north seeing a high of 18. it does turn a bit cooler on monday as some rain cleared through but that won't last. it warms up again later hello this is bbc news. the headlines... the uk government urges people to stay at home, as the death toll from coronavirus in the uk rises by 700, including a five year old boy. spain records its lowest number of deaths this week, as the government says the crisis might be reaching its peak there. new york — the epicentre of america's outbreak —

suffers its worst day as 630 deaths are recorded in the past 2a hours. sir keir starmer becomes labour leader — and promises to work with the government to tackle the coronavirus crisis and thirteen residents of a care home in scotland are feared to have died after becoming infected with the virus. now on bbc news... in a special pandemic edition of talking movies the programme looks at how the coronavirus has devastated the movie industry in many parts of the world. hello, and welcome to this special edition of talking movies, coming to you from my home

on new york's upper west side. in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, we've been working together remotely and collectively as a programming team to look at the impact of the virus on the global film industry. of course, the struggles of the movie business pales in comparison to what's been happening in terms of the human cost of this disease, but in some parts of the world, the film industry has been totally crippled by the pandemic. china was the first major country to be hit by the virus, and its nationalfilm industry has been severely hurt. production has been closed down, as have cinemas. with the impact of coronavirus waning in china, cinemas almost opened last weekend, but the government ordered them to remain closed at the last minute. when they do reopen, going to the movies isn't exactly going to feel festive. director and cinematographer yanqiu fei lives in shanghai. 0n the news we learned that

when the cinema reopens, they are going to follow a strict rule of disinfection for the whole cinema, and every audience will be requested to show their health care code, also get their temperature checked. and the cinema will remain social distancing within the audience, meaning everyone will have an empty seat in between. 0h, also you have to wear a mask all the time. for india, the world's largest producer of movies, the lockdown has taken the life out of bollywood and the big regionalfilm industries. indians love their movies, so the closing of cinemas has been very hard. it's left us catatonic. we have no idea what to do, because cinema is like, you know, a drug in our veins, that we need our weekly fix, and we are completely lost without it. i don't think we've ever seen such a big devastation, actually, because it's a nationwide lockdown now for a few weeks, till april 1a, actually, three weeks,

so it's a big shock and i think... i mean, we've survived all kinds of other disasters, natural disasters, floods, famine, all kinds of stuff. riots, communal riots. but this, we've never seen something as comprehensive as this, because the whole nation is under lockdown. hollywood, of course, has been upended by the virus. bond. james bond. the newjames bond movie was the first major picture to be postponed. others have followed suit. the disaster has shut down production at virtually every american movie company. it's completely stopped. initially, whenever, you know, the virus first started coming to the united states, it was that productions are being suspended for a couple months or a couple weeks, now everything has stopped indefinitely. i'm thinking of, you know, bigger movies like fantastic beasts, the matrix 4 movie, every disney, marvel show, every netflix show, every hbo show, the friends reunion, for example is postponed indefinitely until this is under control.

i don't want to stay here. i'm sorry, i would never... hey, hey. see? right now my priority is giving my baby somewhere safe, do you understand? some studio movies placed in cinemas were subsequently made available by the screening giants. this is a very significant move, with ramifications for the entire industry. typically are 90 days between when a movie finishes its run and theatres and is available on screen on demand, and for a long time some studios and some streaming sites like netflix or hulu have been trying to chip away at that 90 days, because it is a big loss for them, financially. and so i think now... now that we are seeing new releases come on streaming, on demand, so much quicker, that might be a really lasting change. normally at this time of the year, the movie industry would be looking forward to the cannes film festival, which is held in may. but cannes has been postponed, as have dozens of other film—related events.

but festivals are adapting. south by southwest was cancelled, but it's been showcasing films in its line—up by putting them online. case in point, a short horrorfilm called regret, from director santiago menghini. they could have easilyjust closed down the festival and just said, sorry, just the circumstances are what they are and operate, you know, with the intention of starting up next year. but they didn't, they actually came back to us and said, look, we're really working on something for everyone to have an opportunity to show the film. even now, since they've announced this platform, it's been released, i have been getting a lot of great feedback, something i wouldn't have had if it wasn't for their initiative and the effort to really help the film—makers, i would have been left basically abandoned. clearly the global film industry is being rocked by the pandemic. the damage will almost certainly continue to be done. experts believe it will take months, even years, for the movie business to recover.

now let's move to pandemic themed films, movies that deal with pandemics, like steven soderbergh's contagion, have been streamed in record numbers in recent days by audiences preoccupied by current events. but, as emma jones reports, contagion is just one of many films that speak to our predicament. 100 years ago, a deadly influenza virus infected hundreds of millions of people. this is pandemic, a documentary investigating virus outbreaks and how to prevent the next one. eerily, it arrived on netflix around the same time as the public became aware of a virus called covid—19. since then it's been streamed millions of times, presumably for the benefit of hindsight. within one month a virus can spread throughout the country. a month after that, it is widespread throughout the world. actually experiencing contagion has resurrected steven soderbergh's 2011 film of the same name, which has been watched again by millions with fresh eyes.

made with the advice of medical experts, contagion is a sober examination of a pandemic spreading across the world with now all too familiar themes. it really foretold what we are experiencing today. it's obviously in greater numbers in the film, but in terms of the way it spread, it starts in hong kong, this fictional virus in the movie, and it spreads via the way that this current virus spreads. the average person touches their face three to five times every waking minute. the question is not if we get patients, it's when we'll get them. 93 days by steve gukas, starring danny glover, actually deals with a historic outbreak of ebola in nigeria, which was contained. but hollywood has also treated sickness as a standard blockbuster plot device, an enemy to be defeated. what chance did 1995's outbreak, caused by a monkey smuggled into california carrying a lethal

virus, have against these a—list actors? we've got 19 dead, we've got 100 more infected, it's spreading like a bushfire. what are you talking about? if one of them's got it, then ten of them have got it now. it's not just films about pandemics which play upon the human fear of infection. that fear also stalks a whole movie genre, the horrorfilm, where often an epidemic can unleash a future that nobody‘s quite bargained for. what's interesting is how many different monster movies seem to reflect our fears of infection and disease. if you think about any dracula film, there's that fear that something might come from across the sea, from another land, it might infect our country and spread out throughout society, and how scary that is. zombies used to be these shambling reanimated corpses that lurched through graveyards. it really changed with 28 days later, the film directed by danny boyle and written by alex garland. in that, they are no longer reanimated corpses,

they are people who have been infected by a virus. it has those scenes of an empty london, which we are seeing in reality at the moment. world war z with brad pitt, in that film its really about globalisation, about how these infections don't just take over a city or a building but can spread throughout the world. is anyone doing better than we are? the isolation that an estimated quarter of the globe are experiencing now has been anticipated in films such as i am legend, where will smith seems totally alone in a post—apocalyptic new york, to 0ldboy by park chan—wook, where the main character is locked up for 15 years without human contact. but if alone is bad, alone with someone else can be worse. just look at what happens in the lighthouse by robert eggers, where two men are isolated for weeks

on an island. in a couple of years we're going to see the creative effects of the coronavirus outbreak in cinemas. what you think we're going to see? it is going to be heavyweight political dramas, of course, with actors pretending to be donald trump, it's going to be slasher movies and stalker movies with people being chased through the empty streets during the eerie lockdown, heist movies set at the same time, people robbing the banks with no one around, there are going to be romantic dramas, romantic comedies with people falling in love over social media or people falling in love across the street from each other but, of course, they can't get close because of the lockdown. they're going to be so many films set during this crisis that we are going to get sick of it. watch this. it's transmission. so we just need to know which direction. until now, hollywood's portrayal of infection always brought along a solution. a vaccine, or perhaps brad pitt. the time of coronavirus means this generation of moviegoers could find it much harder to accept that a hero really can come and save the day.

with everyone cooped up in their homes with nowhere to go, it's mutating. with everyone cooped up in their homes with nowhere to go, the pandemic has led to a huge increase in streaming in recent days. so much so that the surge in streaming may further change the way in which we watch movies in the future. perhaps hastening the demise of the traditional cinema. i certainly hope that isn't the case. anyway, streaming is now very popular. i spoke to movie lovers in the us, india, china, germany, japan and denmark, and it was no surprise to find that all of them in the midst of this pandemic have been streaming movies, sometimes for hours at a stretch. there are no movie theatres, there is nowhere else to experience moving images other than on your computer screen, so i think that streaming platforms have become the full on opportunity

for people to watch film and tv now, so it's a historic high. so what films have people been watching in their homes? sergei lives in tokyo. i've definitely been watching several pandemic films. the one most watched lately, i think, is outbreak. i hear from most of my friends, they do watch those films lately. especially now, like, in the last week, because everyone is depressed, in general. your town is being quarantined. movie lover fatima, who lives in arizona, has rather different tastes. i have a few friends who are watching some more of those dystopic pandemic movies, but i find myself drawn more to movies that draw a sense of comfort, the feel—good kind, just to comfort myself during these uncertain times. it is hard to single out the ideal movie to watch in these pandemic times. you know, the movie that almost everyone i know has been turning to for comfort, suddenly, seems to be moonstruck,

the romantic comedy starring cher and nicolas cage that's set in brooklyn heights. if you're based in new york like i am, it's a nice reminder of what it like outside. do you love him, loretta? i love him awful. that's too bad. she loves me. it's the right amount of escapism, without seeming too sickly sweet. the pandemic hasn't just prompted millions to drift to streaming platforms, but it's also had an impact on film—makers. in delhi, the pandemic has given director tariq vasudeva much food for thought. what it makes me think is once this is over, there has to be a shift in how people are approaching cinema, and how much they are... how much they are exploring the idea of unity. with audiences becoming so accustomed to streaming movies at home during the pandemic, there are concerns that once the coronavirus outbreak has subsided, cinemas will remain empty, they could just disappear.

jad salfiti is a british journalist based in berlin. there are many, many excellent independent cinemas here in berlin, and they are the ones that will be hit the hardest. there is no end in sight for self isolation, they are going to be closed at least until the end of april, so it's not clear what will happen to many of these independent cinemas. but some moviegoers take a more optimistic view. actually, when the cinemas open again, i think that people are going to go to the cinemas a lot, at least the first couple of weeks, and then it's probably going to tone down a bit and be just like before. because right now, i think a lot of people are tired ofjust, like sitting at home and streaming. i mean, it's ok, but sometimes it's also nice to, like, get out of the house, meet with some friends and see something on a big screen. but with all this streaming taking place, it's become clear that in the midst of this pandemic, the magic of cinema still prevails.

it is definitely helping to take people away from disconcerting realities. as esteemed film—maker david lynch once stated, cinema is like opening a door and going into a new world. while the streaming giants are getting most of the attention in these days of social distancing, there is a host of smaller streaming platforms online offering some great alternatives. from his home in connecticut, film critic noah gittel has been looking at what's available beyond the mainstream. like many people around the world, i've had some extra time at home lately, and i'm spending it watching movies. what i've discovered is that there's a whole world of cinema beyond the usual suspects of streaming services, and for those smaller streamers looking to break out, this could be the moment.

international streaming services that could see a boom in viewing numbers include spuul, which focuses on indian content and has over 1000 films and series, as well as asian crush, which focuses on asian cinema and could be a destination for fans of parasite, this year's best picture winnerfrom korea. other services such as movie, which features a hand—picked selection of award—winning cinema that is curated monthly, shutter, a haven for horror fans and shout factory tv, which specialises in cult and b—movies, are all offering free or low—cost trials, hoping to lure viewers that are looking for titles beyond the offerings at netflix, amazon and hulu. i think that these companies, they recognise that they have an incredible opportunity here to reach audiences that might not otherwise be kind of compelled to search for something that they don't already have. so they are reallyjust trying to lure them with an extended free trial and then,

of course communal, the hope with any free trial is that people either forget to cancel or like it enough to keep subscribing. in fact, the streaming service landscape is getting more crowded now than ever, with theatrical distributors and physical cinemas themselves even getting into the game. film and video distributor kino lorber has launched virtual marquee, partnering with 150 american independent theatres to stream the films that they would have been showing in cinemas and splitting the revenue. they started their programme with bacurau, an award—winning brazilian western that was slated to open on march 6th. what's interesting about our programme is that although this was developed as kind of an interim, as a stopgap to allow theatres to recapture revenue while the physical doors were closed, we see this as a way of creating a virtual expansion of the screening opportunities.

even if they go back to normal, they are very pressed, most of the time, to play films quickly, move them out, they are locked in calendar schedules and such. well, suddenly with the kino marquee programme they will have now virtual screens to play on. it is a change that could stretch to all corners of the movie world, with ripple effects that are hard to predict. at least for now, independent cinema seems to have an advantage — while new blockbusters are being postponed to later this year or even 2021, the latest independent films are nowjust a click away. around the world, the film—making community is responding to the pandemic with stories directly related to the impact it is having. ten directors in greece have just completed short films on the subject and some are very moving.

"life can find a home during the pandemic" is the theme of ten new short films completed by top greek film—makers, at the behest of a film festival when it postponed its documentary festival last month. it's artistic director would like creativity to flourish in this time of darkness. art can be made in any situation as long as there is an artist or an audience. our partners implement creation, give the means to this hope. we are asking film directors to make a movie in their confinement. it is a liberating action, because there is no borders within four walls. we are staying home, washing our hands properly and making films without disinfectant. among the films made for this endeavour in the past few days

was one shot within the home of a director. the camera pans across piles of books in her home. i decided to do it because at the time i was rearranging the books on the book shelves in the house. by doing this, i was coming face—to—face with my past and my previous lives, so this three minute film is about the experience of time, the fact we are constantly in a rush and suddenly we're forced to sit back and look at our lives, look at ourselves and look at our role in society and the world. another short film is called foghorn, defined by that sound. it is an abstract work featuring wetla nds and animals. it makes use of previously shot material. my film ended up to

be about some pretty bleak atmosphere of the city, athens in silence, in contrast to the happiness of animals that see human action not being there any more. the man behind this collective creative endeavour was motivated by a desire to help the film—making community but also wants to give people hope and demonstrate that art can play a role in bringing that about. we are strong, we are fighting. the last years, during this big economic crisis particularly in greece, we questioned the role of the artist and said it was not important, and now billions of people are inside their homes, consuming art. and so it is the fundamental of our society and existence. the completed films will be shown on the youtube channel for

the film festival. the endeavour is just one of the many ways in which film—makers and film festivals are responding to the pandemic, when the desire to be creative trumps the stress and anxiety that could be holding film—makers back. well, that brings this special edition of talking movies to a close. we hope you have enjoyed the programme. please remember you can always reach us online, and you can find us on facebook and twitter. from me, tom brook, and the rest of the talking movies production team in new york and beyond, it is goodbye, as we leave you with a great clip from a hollywood classic which might lift your spirits in the midst of these very difficult times. # i'm singing in the rain.

#just singing in the rain. # what a glorious feeling, i'm happy again. # i'm laughing at clouds so dark up above. # the sun's in my heart, and i'm ready for love. # let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place...# good evening, temperatures across some southeastern parts of the uk got up to 17 degrees today where we had the best of the sunshine. tomorrow more of us had the best of the sunshine. tomorrow more of us will see sunshine and it will be even warmer. quite breezy and also some rain later in the day across the last. cloud has been affecting the northern half of the uk will tend to

melt away and now clear skies overhead. despite that night an especially cold night because of the breeze we will be picking up all the while. when particularly strong in western areas and we will see clouds a little later on in the far southwest of england. there could be when guests at 50 mph or more. wendy further east but holding onto some sunshine and temperatures in london are 21 degrees. it does turn a bit cooler on monday at some rain clears through and it will not last, it warms up through and it will not last, it warms up again later in the week.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. the uk government urges people to stay at home as the death toll from coronavirus in the uk rises by 700, including a five—year—old boy. our thoughts today are also with the family of the five—year—old child with underlying health conditions who's tragically died. so again, you must stay at home to protect the nhs and to save lives. as china delivers 300 ventilators to nhs hospitals, the strain shows on frontline hospital staff. it feels like a losing battle, but it's not because we've all got hope and we're all trying to do...