Eloquent, elegant, emotional, and edgy, this music video by new director Jessy Moussallem is a powerful ode to the rise of the spirit of Arab women. Watch it and your heart will soar. We talk with the just-signed to Caviar director about life and work in the Lebanon, and the importance of long conversations til sunrise anywhere

Pulse director Matt Houghton captures the grit and sweat of twins Lina and Laviai's five-year desire to race at the World Championships this weekend

Saam Farahmand constantly surprises and this time he rocks up with a gaspingly good, pushing-the-edges film for Jagger: Daniels are back on short-form track with their signature humour, quirks and cleverness; 1.4 award winners Parachutes get even more ambitious; while another 1.4 winner Pablo Maestres shows us again why he’s one of our favourite directors with his distinctive originality; Sean Pecknold ventures into live action with his long-term collaborators Fleet Foxes; and Calum Macdiarmid creates a mystery narrative beautifully shot

Partizan director Sing J Lee draws on his own personal experience to shoot a classic tale of the yin-yang, rural-urban cultural divide

It was a good three years ago when we first met Kibwe following a slew of awards for his wildly ambitious, insanely wonderful film Jonah. With the release of the making of his next just-as-brill, heart rendering short film Robot and Scarecrow we caught up with the Nexus director in his studio complex Factory Fifteen

Axel Byrfors went on a short trip to Buenos Aires, fell in love with the city and stayed to make films. Now home again in Sweden he's making a film about the conversation between sled dogs and Siberian wolves

Hypnotising and gaspingly magical, the films of director Jonathan Alric, who with his cousin Guillaume Alric make up the electro dub band Blaze, are meticulously crafted fusions of music and visuals. The multi-layered narratives emotionally express male sensitivity in intimate but unsentimental ways that hit home deep. We talk with the Parisian directors and musicians about their meticulous creative process

All magnificent in their own brilliant fusion of music and visuals

Now working at Walt Disney Animation, Yonatan Tal talks to Benoit Berthe about the push-pull dilemmas of Gen Y which he explores so eloquently in his award-winning CalArts graduation film, Mr Carefree Butterfly

The master of unbridled creativity and imagination, Michel Gondry’s short film Detour is entirely shot on iPhone 7 Plus for Apple. Inspired by the works of Jaques Tati and Albert Lamorisse, Gondry uses all the iphone’s filmmaking tricks – such as stop frame, slo-mo, night shoots – which are demonstrated in a series of clips.

Pulse Films director Fred Scott talks about his documentary-style portraiture for his film series which celebrates which celebrates Pride in London + the 50 years of progress in LGBT rights.

Shortlisted at the YDA in Cannes, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg graduates director Gabriel Borgetto and creative producer Nathalie Kraft create a fabulous frolic on a minuscule budget in Majorca.

Tor Fitzwilliams, Stink Films' executive producer and juror of the Cannes Lions Film Craft category, chooses the films which really resonated with her

Not shy to explore sensitive narratives, Stink Films new director Salomon Ligthelm can also get gritty with a gangland story on the streets of Paris. Authentic narratives which resonate with cinematic craft

We like Real. We like humour. We really like this new director, Andrea Jade Colomb's work. Just signed to Outsider, she's a breath of fresh air who's going to create a directing storm

We talk with new director Matthew Sterling about his graduation film, True Strength, which conveys a sophisticated insight into inner emotional life.

Following on from The Sacred Egg’s stunning film, Lights Out, for Royal Blood they have directed another epic performance video with a fictional twist – this time for Arcade Fire’s new release Everything Now. We talk with the Riff Raff duo aka Alex Mavor and Ed Kaye about how their early love for doing things in camera grew into experimenting with post. Madly, wonderfully so.

Guest editor and fashion film consultant Niccolò Montanari's selection of films challenge the accepted notion of manhood.

We need to own up – we haven’t viewed the entire shortlist of the Berlin Fashion Film Festival, we’ve dipped and dived and selected six that we thought were pretty damn smart and sartorial. We’re saving the rest to view during the festival, a couple of days in a vibey warehouse in the middle of Berlin. Yep, there’ll be loads of fashion films to view, but also great debates, speed dating creative sessions and of course lots of partying.

Elton John said Jack Whiteley and Laura Brownhill's video for his track Bennie and the Jets was full of wonderful things, and indeed it is. It’s a glorious stylised choreographed whirl in black and white which is vastly different from the Rattling Stick director’s usual colourful narratives. We catch up on the back story with Jack

We’ve just spent the entire Saturday, when we should be out in the sunshine, replaying "May I Have This Dance" as well as "Friends", both for Francis and the Lights. They are compelling, mesmerising and their simplicity belies the craft that must have gone into these. We talk with the Park Pictures director about the value of making music videos in spite of being a successful movie director

An Iranian refugee and animator, Majid Adin through Blink Ink, along with Rattling Stick's Jack Whiteley and Laura Brownhill; and Somesuch's Max Weiland launch winning videos

Ben Strebel has been thumping out a string of excellent films such as his music videos of Ugandan skateboarders for Naughty Boy and his starkly heart stirring clip for Parisi. Now his latest commercial work scuffs the polished branding of Nike into a new realm of gritty urban portrayals of life in Moscow and Istanbul. We catch up with director prior to his move back to the UK

Young Replicant (Alex Takacs) talks about his "very visceral, bloody, emotional experience" of filming alt-J's sensually sombre story of two secret lovers and their desperate plan to elope under the auspices of death

There's definitely Gold amongst this batch

In association with Free the Bid, we bring you our second part of our showcase of female directors’ work that we love.

Admittedly with a bias for stories about gritty, independent, head-strong, beautiful, witty females, 1.4 goes on a bender of watching the latest films, commercials and music videos directed by women for a two-part showcase series published also on Free The Bid. Here’s the first selection of our favourite current pieces, next six out soon

New director Raine Allen-Miller talks about creative freedom and making her latest film, Trickle for Denai Moore, look like an old oil masterpiece

1.4 talks with Tilly and Nick Dutton who have launched a stunning in-house film, Woza, for their Cape Town-based surf brand Mami Wata – pidgin west African for Mother Ocean. Directed by Argentinians Pato Martinez and Francisco Canton from Pantera production company. Woza tells the story of an African surfer who has been taken as a lover by the African water spirit Mami Wata. It features 22 year-old Transkei surfer, Avuyile Ndamase

Sing J. Lee co-directs with pop artist Halsey for her track Now or Never - six-minutes of epic cinematic action which gets better and better on repeat viewing. Bear in mind that the script was purposely created as a homage to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (with the maestro’s blessing) and the narrative falls into place.  It all began when the Partizan director met up with Halsey in a tattoo parlour…

Nicolas Ménard's charming soul searching journey is capturing the hearts and minds of festivals and filmmakers around the world