Adjoa Andoh

"Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in...

"Following her record-breaking run in science fiction, Ann Leckie, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke and Locus Awards, brings her immense talent to an epic fantasy novel about the hidden forces that guide our fates. Having helped win a war at great cost in human lives and to its own power, the god known as the Raven of Iraden was forced to continue to fulfill its commitment to its followers and slowly regain its strength through the steady...

Before becoming the first female private investigator in Botswana, eight-year-old Precious Ramotswe tracks down a thief who has been stealing her classmates' snacks.

23 POLITICS: Another aspect of everyday life. From silent cinema to the 21 st Century, movies from the visually astonishing The Enchanted Desna to Divorce Iranian Style to Bigelow’s Strange Days have gained their energy and attack from their politics. 24 GEAR CHANGE: We like to be taken by surprise in films. This short chapter, narrated by Sharmila Tagore, looks at such surprises. 25 COMEDY: Is comedy universal? Who have been the great comedy filmmakers...

09 STAGING: Scene staging is an element of film form pointing clearly to cinema’s origin – theatre. Kinuyo Tanaka in The Moon Has Risen uses staging to shape the scene’s invisible geometry, accentuating the tension between characters. Maren Ade in Toni Erdmann stages the scene through depth, facilitating the tragicomic punchline. And in Maria Schrader’s Stefan Zweig: A Farewell to Europe, the criss-crossing complex staging in the final scene...

03 BELIEVIBILITY: Easy to spot, but not so easy to understand. Believability is about simple human stories, truth about life, real emotions, responding to the world. Howdo directors create a reality without it feeling fake? True stories can help, but what’s the trick? Here are some answers, with a masterclass in believability from Lois Weber’s The Blot to Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann. 04 INTRODUCING CHARACTER: Going to a house, overhearing people,...

15 POV: Is cinema the art of point of view? Jocelyn Moorhouse, Ida Lupino, Norway’s Edith Carlmar, Sofia Coppola, Italy’s Liliana Cavani, Kelly Reichart, the great Larisa Shepitko, Jennifer Kent and other great directors demonstrate the art of POV in films. 16 CLOSE UP: If close ups give movies their intensity, films from Belgium, Hungary, Australia, Finland, China, America, France, Germany and Ukraine, shot over ten decades, show how best to...

06 CONVERSATION: A basic human interaction – how to make it cinematic? Angela Schanelec directs us to focus on body language in Places in Cities, Cecile Tang uses the zoom as guide through the emotional shifts in The Arch, and Sofia Coppola in The Virgin Suicides shows us an unspoken conversation through division with songs and split screens telling a story of impossible longing. 07 FRAMING: Frames describe and paint the scenes. They can make sport...

01 OPENINGS: With examples from 1943 to 2013, from China to Iran, Australia to Finland, we look at how to open a film: from mysterious, direct, floating, foreboding to plunging straight in. All are instructive in how to create an immediate world. Learning from example. 02 TONE: What’s the tone of a film – not its story or theme, but what its world feels like? Back to Hollywood and director Dorothy Arzner with Merrily We Go to Hell and its glamorous...

18 BODIES: Bodies in cinema can be enticing, dancing or brutalised. Jane Fonda narrates this chapter about how the great directors—including Agnes Varda, Andrea Arnold, Iran’s Marva Nabili, Finland’s Pirjo Honkasalo, Marta Meszaros and Poland’s Wanda Jakubowska—have filmed bodies. 19 SEX: From bodies to sex – the most controversial aspect of film. In this chapter Diane Kurys, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Jamie Babbit, Safi Faye, Athena Rachel...