you know, the reception we got here. we came into the english harbour in antigua and all the ships, all these massive millionaires�* yachts, all sounded their hooters as i came over the line. it was fantastic! # walking down the street... # after leading those allowed to be dockside in a spontaneous bit of karaoke, it was time to be reunited with his wife, judith, after their first christmas apart in 50 years of marriage. after living on freeze—dried food, especially macaroni, after all these weeks, frank is now hoping for a fish salad and a proper bed. but any hardship, he says, has been worth it. he has already raised over £600,000 for alzheimer's research uk. mike bushell, bbc news. now it's time for a look

at the weather with louise lear. wintry weather set to dominate over the next few days, it biting initially when will dry infrequent snow showers for some of us. an amber weather warning for parts of south—east england. by the end of monday we could see in excess of 25 centimetres of lying snow, may be more. that will continue through the night tonight. at the same time the silly wendell will feed on further showers across eastern england up into scotland. sheltered western areas will stay quieter, but with temperatures below freezing, we can't rule out icy stretches almost anywhere. monday will be a case of sunny spells and scattered showers with those showery speeding and of the north sea. some of them could organise themselves into fairly frequent lines of snow showers, accompanied by some gusty wind. that will make it feel very cold indeed. temperatures on your thermometer may

read 1—3 , but factor in the one direction, it is going to feel noticeably colder. take care. —— the wind direction. hello, this is bbc news. the headlines... the 0xford—astrazeneca vaccine offers limited protection against mild disease caused by the south african variant of covid—19. but scientists say it will still help to beat the pandemic.

the uk government has no plans to introduce �*vaccine passports�* — according to the vaccines minister — who says the focus should remain on the inoculation programme itself. a himalayan glacier collapses sending a wall of water and rock down river in northern india. at least nine people have died and over 100 are missing. heavy snow could bring significant disruption to the south east of england in the coming hours with weather warnings issued by the met office for large parts of the uk. and in rugby union six nations, wales and ireland are underway in cardiff at the millennium stadium. wales leading 6—0. now on bbc news... talking movies has all the highlights from this year�*s sundance film festival which, for the very first time,

has been entirely virtual. hello and welcome to talking movies. we are in a very snowy central park here in new york city. i�*m tom brook. in today�*s programme we�*re going to be looking at highlights of this year�*s sundance film festival. normally we would be reporting from snowy park city, utah, where the festival is normally held, but this year because of the pandemic, sundance was largely a virtual affair. of course, the ski slopes of park city in utah have for years provided the backdrop to sundance, and it remains one of the world�*s most celebrated showcases. this year, it was abbreviated and mostly online, offering

a slimmed—down line—up of feature films. 0n the plus side, though, the festival�*s footprint went global, with some sundance content being made available to international audiences. like all the other film journalists and film critics accredited to sundance this year, i experienced the festival from my home here in new york, watching movies on my laptop, or, when i could make the connection work, on my television as well. it was a very efficient way of watching movies, but it was quite a solitary event, so, to compensate this year, sundance created elaborate networking opportunities online to bring together virtual festivalgoers like myself around the world. i�*m going to help you navigate this world that is sundance online. despite an instructional video, finding your way around the virtual sundance film festival could be a bit difficult, but it was worth

persisting, because some great films were unveiled. the festival has long been a champion of diversity. this year, more than half the programming was directed by one or more people of colour. but what was remarkable was how many films got completed in time for the festival, with film—makers working under lockdown. brazilian director iuli gerbase, whose film the pink cloud was in the line—up, did not find it easy. we had to do many things remotely and dub some scenes with the actors. the actors had a microphone in their house, i was in my house and the sound editor in another house and we were all on zoom, and i was directing by zoom, but it all worked out, i don�*t know how. if the pandemic was on the minds of film—makers, so, too was the recent political tumult there is in america. although few features directly critiqued the trump years, there was a sense that america�*s polarised politics could be good for the kind of independent cinema that sundance celebrates. i hope it is going to instil

a new sense of enquiry and curiosity into film—makers. despite some complications with getting reservations online, sundance�*s venture into being a virtual festival worked. obviously, it cannot match the real thing, but this year the festival succeeded in delivering some great cinema, much of it not mainstream and adventurous, binding together the independent film community at a very difficult moment in time. one of the opening—day movies, coda, which stands for children of deaf adults, generated a lot of excitement. it is powerful coming—of—age story and also a glimpse into a community whose depiction, historically, has been farfrom ideal. the main character in coda is the only hearing person in an otherwise deaf family.

like most teenagers, ruby is caught between two worlds, her childhood life with her parents and the future she dreams of — in this case, singing at a prestigious arts university. you can sing. it's my favourite thing. but the stakes are higher here because her family need her more than most. ruby is her family�*s translator to the world and a key employee of their struggling fishing business. the film effectively blends the emotions of a coming—of—age drama with an authentic depiction of deaf culture. director, sean hadar, a hearing person, worked hard to get it right. i spoke with a lot of codas i got there first hand experiences, i reached out to members of the deaf community, i made deaf friends, it really was, if i�*m going to do this, i have to make sure that i have the people around me to be the check and balance to my own perspective.

depicting deaf culture authentically is not only the right thing to do, but it also makes the most cinematic storytelling. watching the characters in coda have passionate discussions in american sign language is far more visually stimulating than having the characters simply speak aloud. the first time i watched an asl fight, i was like, this is awesome! like, talk about cinema! you know, you are stomping your feet, you are grabbing the other person... you don�*t walk away from a fight, because you have to be looking at each other. deaf communities take the representation of deaf people in film very seriously. there�*s even a social media campaign, #deaftalent, to call out projects that cast hearing actors in deaf roles. coda gets that one right, casting three deaf actors, including marlee matlin,

oscar winner for 1986�*s children of a lesser god, in the key roles. but there is more to it than casting. portraying deaf people well involves highlighting the ways in which they are no different to hearing people. often, they fall into two categories. it's an object of pity, being deaf is an object of pity, or, "oh, my god, how noble," they have overcome the odds, and, you know, they are a shining light in a dark time. those are the two narratives, and they are very two—dimensional. there is no depth. there is no background. there is no real story. it is just very superficial. and deaf people are like everybody else. slowly but surely, hollywood is starting to listen. millicent simmonds, a deaf child actor, recently starred in wonderstruck and a quiet place. a deaf actor who won a tony

for the recent broadway revival of children of a lesser god, will next star as a marvel superhero. in the eternals. sound of metal, about a man who loses his hearing and becomes immersed in the deaf community, was just released in december and is currently garnering serious 0scar buzz. coda, meanwhile, ended up as the smash of this festival. it won both the audience and jury awards, a rare honour, and was bought by apple tv plus for a sundance record $25 million. this means the issue of deaf representation is about to get its brightest spotlight yet. two high—profile actresses, both of whom have made a very positive impression on me over the years, rebecca hall and robin wright, made their directional debuts at sundance this year. sundance became the first major film festival to achieve gender parity in 2013 in its dramatic competition. this year, the organisers say

that half of its selection had at least one woman director. emma jones reports. what do you feel? that it is really difficult to be around people. notjust in front of but behind the camera, land is robin wright�*s directing debut. it is a powerful film for this time of isolation for many. a grieving woman, edie, wants solitude but finds healing in nature and the human company of miguel, played by mexican—born actor and director demian bichir. can we agree that you do not bring any news of life elsewhere ? what if aliens land here? i always wanted to direct a feature film. i didn�*t know what it was going to be after being on house of cards for six years. this one just resonated at the

time, and this film was just so beautiful and timely. you were robin�*s only companion in the wilderness and she was directing you. what was that experience like? it seems like she has done it all her life — directed herself, i mean. jumping from one position to another, changing hats very easily. acclaimed british actress, rebecca hall also made her directorial debut with passing. it stars ruth negga and tessa thompson and is a story about racism in 1920s new york. over half of all the faces who took part in virtual sundance this year were female film—makers, as the festival achieved gender parity across the board, eight years after it managed it in one of its competitions. nearly half of those projects were by non—white female directors, including a documentary about rita moreno, the first hispanic woman to win an oscar for west side story in 1962.

moreno not only suffered sexual harassment, but also appalling typecasting in her early career. i wanted to turn the parts down, but that is all that was offered, and i had to make a living. what i went through in my youth and my hollywood years, which was in my 20s... here is what is really ironic, it is still happening. this was a0 or 50 years ago. it is still happening. isn�*t this crazy? what was apparent is there�*s a call for women�*s authentic voices to be heard, wherever they come from. writing with fire, which won a special impact for change jury award at the festival, is an indian documentary about a female—run news

organisation, khabar lahariya. despite the discrimination they suffer as women and being dalits, the so—called untouchable caste, their youtube channel has over 3 million subscribers. what happens when a dalit journalist with a camera asks uncomfortable questions and does it consistently? what would that change? these were the questions that we were approaching. how do you fight a system that is nearly 3,000 years of oppression through your work? and i think that doing it in the most powerful, the most meaningful, the most non—violent way possible. that�*s something for women in film to consider as they continue to push for equal representation through the power of their work. edgar wright is one of britain�*s most talented film—makers, who really made a name for himself

with his satires like shaun of the dead and hot fuzz. he also made a name for himself with more mainstream films like scott pilgrim vs the world and, more recently, baby driver. this is his most recent film. is his first music documentary, called the sparks brothers. they have been creating cutting—edge music for 30 years and are called sparks, two brothers from california that have a distinct look and a body of work that spans over 25 albums. edgar wright has long been fascinated by them. growing up, they were sort of unreal to me, and the older i got, the fact that they were still making music that was really challenging and great and seemed to be getting better when the curve of most bands that they drop off, i was just kind of beguiled by them and needed to find out more.

sparks has a devoted following, more in europe than in their native us, but they are not exactly a household name. i know that lots of people i�*ve shown it to when i was testing the movie did not know sparks at all, and would be dumbfounded about it because they were like, "how did i miss this entire chapter of musical history?" the film is packed with interviews and performances. it looks at the brothers�* careers as musicians who have long been protective of their private lives, feeling a focus on that would distract from their music. they were comfortable with edgar wright, who had final cut on the film, doing a documentary. we had so much respect for what edgar had done as a film—maker and then also the passion that he felt for the band that it felt like if we ever were going to have a documentary about sparks, this was really the perfect person and the perfect time to do it. when you try to describe it to people, it�*s like,

"what do they sound like?" "sparks." his film is incredibly comprehensive, but also has an inspirational quality, showing that despite many ups and downs, the brothers have persisted where others would have just given up and they are still making music 50 years after they began. also, what is refreshing is that they never sold out. they never changed what they do to please others orfor commercial gain. wright can relate to that. i have certainly had some ups and downs and i think you do go through that thing where all of us just thought, maybe sell out and do something that you are not really, you�*re kind of compromising yourself, you sort of, sometimes have to double down and i admire sparks for that. covid has touched so many lives around the world, including, of course, people within the independent film—making community, so it was no surprise to find

that at sundance, there were several films that reflected our pandemic times, among them a documentary from acclaimed british film—maker kevin macdonald called life in a day 2020. the director has been telling talking movies in his own words about his very ambitious undertaking. in a year when we have all been brought together by covid, where nobody, really, in the world, has been untouched by covid and its consequences, this film, in a way that, you know, could appear kind of sentimental or hippyish but really is not when you see the film, it reinforces, kind of, the similarities between everyone in the world.

i was so surprised by how different this film was than the first one in that the form is kind of the same but the content is much more diverse. there is materialfrom nearly every corner of the world, filmed by people themselves who have smartphones with cameras and, secondly, because the things that people chose to film tended to be a lot more melancholy, sad, things, stories about loss, and i thinkjust generally people were a little bit more pensive. i have had two brothers, not one but two brothers die in police custody. we structured it around, kind of, human life, so we have got the birth of little children and then towards the end of the film we have old age and in the middle we kind of move through the years and then we kind of go through thematics even within that as well, so we go through a sequence which is about romance and love and sometimes heartbreaks, people get rejected on camera or splitting up on camera.

there is a sequence, obviously, about covid, there is a sequence about nature and how nature has returned during this time. it really did change the way i saw people. you cannot help but see these thousands of hours of footage and, you know, humanity in all its forms, without feeling uplifted by it and without feeling, you know, are we not kind of wonderful, in a way? sundance typically looks to the future with its new frontier section, in which interactive projects push the boundaries of storytelling. this year, some of the endeavours focused on social

issues, including black experiences in america. but, as christian dailly reports, there was a wide range of engaging content on offer. this year, i logged on to sundance�*s new frontier gallery from home, and inside this user interface i created a digital avatar of myself. it was like a video game. sundance attempted to recreate the physical space that they usually have at the festival but, this time, it was in cyberspace. virtual reality, or vr is usually the main attraction at the new frontier section of sundance. the film festival was aware that many people in the world still do not own vr headsets, so some projects were easy to experience withjust a computer and i was glad to find a few dealing with black experiences in the united states. i wasjust in the wrong place at the wrong time, right? i the changing same is the first of a series about racial terror in the united states.

it is a very respectful and very powerful experience where you basically walk in the shoes of a black man who gets pulled over in a suburb and taken to prison, like, for really no good reason, but thatjourney is really familiar and it shows you through your steps how familiar it is, how it feels like it was since slavery times, how it was during jim crow. i found another project that was the culmination of the work of five different artists called travelling the interstitium with 0ctavia butler. each work was somehow inspired by the pioneering fiction writer, who was passionate about putting black people at the centre of stories with science fiction or fantasy elements. one of the works, called quantum summer, put me on an island with music emanating from different parts of the environment. you walk around an island that

i have created called planet inkwell and you can go to different sites on this island and you will hear different songs, different raps, it is really an audiovisual meditation on the future of blackness, technology and ancestral intelligence. i also came across 4 feet high, a series about a young wheelchair—bound girl who was on a quest to express her sexuality in the midst of a growing political movement in her school to include sexual education in the curriculum. this project also incorporated vr. we wanted to break the usual image that society has about disability that is kind of an angel or on the other side like a heroine or something like that, so we wanted her to be like a normal teenager with the same questions and the same aims as we all have at that age.

0verall, what sundance was able to accomplish with their virtual presentation of new frontier was notable and more accessible than their past physical gatherings, but like some of the artists i spoke to, i missed the feeling of immersion that comes from placing yourself in an installation that sets the stage for you to experience an imaginative digital realm, and i hope to be able to do that in person again very soon. well, that brings our special programme looking back at highlights of this year�*s sundance film festival to a close. we hope you have enjoyed the show. please remember, you can always reach us online at bbc.com and you can find us on facebook and twitter. since we featured edgar wright�*s documentary about the sparks brothers, we thought we would leave you with their song about the bbc, which they say is a fantasy but also a tribute to the corporation. # now that i own the bbc

# what am i supposed to do with that thing? # now that i own the bbc # what am i supposed to make of this thing? # all this power, all this glory # all these djs # what was i thinking, what was i thinking? # what was i thinking? # what could i have been thinking? # hey, rupert murdoch, help me out... # hello. the cold air has arrived. it took its time. first thing this morning across suffolk it was wet snow and sleet. given a couple of hours and this was the story in kent with the snow starting to accumulate now. there are two reasons for the cold

weather, it is cold air coming out of scandinavia across that cold northern sea and that is going to dominate for the next few days. we have the remnants of a storm causing disruption with blizzard —like conditions across northern europe and the tail end of that weather front enhancing the risk of snow across parts of east anglia and down to essex and kent. this has been the story over the last few hours. the met office continues to have an amber weather warning in force, and that will stay until lunchtime on monday. we could see significant accumulations developing, 25 centimetres or more. blizzard —like conditions here with strong and gusty winds making it feel bitingly cold, but it will be a cold story right across the country. windy conditions driving further snow showers and across eastern england and eastern scotland, sheltered western areas should escape the worst of those and keep some sunny spells, but the temperature is perhaps only likely to peak at a maximum of 4 degrees, and when you add in the strength and direction of

the wind, it is going to feel more like minus four degrees. moving out of sunday into monday, not that much in the way of significant change. we have still got that keen easterly wind, plenty of isobars in the char driving in some snow showers. what may happen as we got there monday, we could see some funnelling of snow showers, organised bands of snow showers, organised bands of snow showers, snow accumulations will start to develop. the further west, you will see the best of the central with a little more shelter, but again it will not be a very warm day by any means, and still when you add in the wind, it is going to feel bitterly cold. that is the story on monday. into tuesday, hopefully the isobars will open a little across england and wales and the snow showers drift further north and east. keep an eye on the weather front into the south—west, might bring some snow into the channel islands and the isles of scilly. as we go to the week, hopefully things get a little quieter and a little less cold.

this is bbc news. the headlines at 1!me the 0xford—astrazeneca vaccine offers limited protection against mild disease caused by the south african variant of covid—i9. but scientists say it will still help to beat the pandemic. we may not be reducing the total number of cases, but there is still protection in that case against deaths, hospitalisations and severe disease. the uk government has no plans to introduce "vaccine passports", according to the vaccines minister, who says the focus should remain on the inoculation programme itself. of course, you have the evidence that you have been vaccinated held by yourgp. if other countries require you to show proof of that evidence, then that is obviously up to those countries. a himalayan glacier collapses,

sending a wall of water and rock downriver in northern india.