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Steve Rogers’ new quartet of spots for Amazon Prime Video, produced by Somesuch, wittily depicts TV heads transformed by their favourite shows. The justly award-laden director reveals how he and the Droga5 team behind the ads embarked on a relentless quest for the best, and talks about the link between building character and production design

Swedish director Olof Lindh has always recognised the alchemy required to pursue filmmaking as a viable career path. Thankfully, weaving his magic came rather naturally to Olof, who spent his childhood crafting projects, playing with different disciplines. Whether he was busy constructing a dark room at school or experimenting with homemade pyrotechnics; it was all a labour of love for him. His ascent into directing is unsurprising then, given his commitment to learning and developing himself, as well as his accurate understanding of how the industry operates. We caught up with Olof to discuss becoming a Biscuit-eer, bracing himself ahead of production and believing in the creativity of actors.

Sparks clearly flew between the Sweetshop and Australian director Joel Harmsworth and it’s easy to see why, given his recent work for the RSF. Drawing on his own experiences of escaping extinguishment, Harmsworth brings honesty on-set, preferring to work with children – rather than animals, approaching spots like silent films and playing quite literally with fire. Most surprising perhaps is his commitment to creating work as authentically as possible, deciding to lean on reality rather than rely on post – a tactic that’s bound to pay off

Gabriel Bisset-Smith’s portfolio is so prolific, so diverse and so good that we need another week off to finish viewing all of his short films, tv series, music videos, and really funny sketches. And now that he’s joined Dirty Work at Rattling Stick we’ll be seeing way more of it.

Niccolò Montanari talks with director / cinematographer Daria Geller about creating an intriguing fashion narrative that goes way beyond the catwalk for Russian label, Brier

As adept at directing the comedy of orgasmic opera singing as she is the tragedy of a family facing cancer or a sensuous music video for Seinabo Sey , Stockholm-based director Sheila Johansson has justly earned a slew of awards for work that is varied in tone, though always bears a strong visual style.

With now over twenty international fashion film festivals worldwide, fashion films certainly have their own dedicated festival circuit to engage with. 1.4 asked curator Niccolò Montanari to select those films screened at the recent Milan Festival that resonated with him for their visual language

Simple. Enigmatic. So goddamn compelling. And totally uplifting in its own mysterious way. Rob Chiu sat on his film idea for five years until he found the right time and place and then the perfect track - Kathryn Joseph's 1111

We talk with director John Merizalde about exploring online radicalization – “the dark parts of the internet and the dark parts of the human psyche” – in his latest short film, Incel

Matilda Finn brings her distinctive filmic language to interweave an electrifying car race through the woods with surreal dreamscapes of grief for Sophie Hunger’s track, Tricks. We talk with the young director about her portrayal of the Seven Ages of women

The directing founders of The Blink Fish creative collective, Giacomo Boeri and Matteo Grimaldi, shot this film for the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana to celebrate Milan Fashion Week. Video curator and publicist Niccolò Montanari talks with Giacomo about their creative development in the world of fashion, film and advertising.

Stink director Salomon Ligthelm has created an emotionally pitch-perfect film for a previously unreleased home studio cassette recording of Prince solo at his piano captured in 1983

Blaring our summer soul

Issac Lock has mastered lampooning the fashion world with his cleverly written scripts and fashionistas want, really really want, every bit of it. We talk with the recently-signed Somesuch director about his latest shoot with Victoria Beckham for Vogue and find out why he can articulate the language of fashion with such panache

How does the creative process work between twins? We ask the LA directing duo TwinTaoers – now signed to You Are Here in London too – about their strong story-telling so often based on social issues

As part of Los Angeles' Neuehouse series of "New Pioneers" lectures, director and founder of Free The Bid Alma Har'el interviews director Crystal Moselle about her just-released feature film Skate Kitchen and how she found her own filmic language when she decided to not to stick to the rules.

The new season has arrived with ads that kick ass

It’s difficult to tell between the facts and the fiction in Kristoffer Borgli’s films. He’s a master at appropriating the real experiences and personalities of his friends and his own life and turning them into visual essays that heighten the absurdity of modern culture.   Kristoffer’s latest short film, A Place We Call Reality, and music video for Jordan Raf, Scales of Saint Michael, both satirise and play on the contemporary self-help movement for spiritual guidance and meaning in life. And then some.  In the video, Jordan Raf is pissed on, stabbed with a syringe, pulverised, and generally abused, humiliated and tortured by his body-building, emotionless assailant. The resultant film is both simultaneously compelling and completely unwatchable. 

Based on interviews with a childhood friend, Charlotte Regan has brilliantly crafted a compelling narrative about a 15 year old cocaine dealer. 1.4 talks with the director about the process of making the short film

The low-down from director Chris Saunders on creating a dance fest for Rudimental & Major Lazer's Let Me Live track

We like jaw-dropping in-camera feats. We like complex dramas too. And we certainly like funnies. It's all here in 1.4's global round-up of ads

Dream like imagery swims through Alex Browning's short film, After Dark Inferno. We catch up with the new director following the film's screening on Random Acts

SOMEONE'S TURNED UP THE HEAT

In between his commercial work, Danny Sangra is on a continuous roll of making short films with his trusted group of collaborators. The films are connected through characters, themes and storylines that re-emerge into an interlocking body of work. On the release of his latest WAR we talk with the Lief director and discover what makes Sangra so unique and adept at dialogue.

Jodeb brings his fabulously dark mysterious imagination and brilliant filmmaking craft to Jack White's latest track Corporation

Oscar Hudson is the best. He won the 1.4 Gold Medal for Brilliant Filmmaking at our last awards show and his unique inventiveness has now won accolades wherever he drops a music video, short film or ad. He’s a visual trickster. He leads us down paths that are constantly surprising and we can never predict where he’s going to take us except to somewhere unimaginably complicated.

We wanted to know what the new roster was like at DirtyWork, Rattling Stick’s new platform for emerging talent. So we got the six initial directors - Sam Davis, Harry Barber, Pilgrim, Amar Hernández, Eve Mahoney and Nathan James Tettey – to do their, er, own dirty work. The rule was that each director quizzed the next director ten questions until they’d gone full circle.

Fred Rowson has leapt over the picket fences of his much-loved suburban tales to the next level of complex cinematic filmmaking with this film, for Years & Years’ latest album Palo Santo. We talk with the Blink director about the process of collaborating with the band's frontman Olly Alexander and below print an edited transcript of their interview with Munroe Bergdorf at the Bafta-launch of the film

New York-based director Jean Claude Billmaier merges choreographed dance with over hundred VFX shots to portray the explosive tensions and release of our work-driven lifestyles with an original score from R&B singer and producer Toulouse. Interview by Niccolò Montanari

Vincent Lambe’s harrowing brilliant short film, Detainment, based on the transcripts and records of the James Bulger case, won the new director Gold in the short film category, the Special Jury Award and a standing ovation at the Young Directors Award Ceremony in Cannes