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

Sam Pilling is a master storyteller when it comes to music videos. Now he turns his filmmaking skills to the racetrack for Sky F1. We catch up with the Pulse director about the challenges of filming a team of horses

Rag’N”Bone Man, (Rory Graham) marries his heart-thumping vocals with extraordinarily moving narratives for his music videos. We’re thinking in particular of Truman & Cooper’s Hell Yeah from a couple of years ago which picked up at the 1.4 Awards  and now director Greg Davenport has created this stunning story for his next single, Skin.

Sam Hibbard has brought his Australian humour and his agency creative experience to directing really funny, really good English commercials - but it's this totally charming short film of a boy obsessed with country line dancing that blew us away.

From linear story telling in the trilogy Silhouettes for Aquilo, Eoin Glaister’s work has taken a surreal curve with Paul White and Danny Brown’s Accelerator and now this delightful whacko story of an older couple dancing to their own tunes for Glass Animals.  We catch up with the Agile Films director about directing dancing dogs and ice skating on Sheppey

We thought Pedro Martin-Calero was a director of slow-moving, architectural pieces and now he's come up with this cliff-hanging tour de force for Honda. We talk with the Colonel Blimp director about the making of his first commercial (see the making of film too).

Allie Avital, just signed to Partizan, talks to us about the influences of her Russian family and working with music artists on both sides of the Atlantic

There’s nobody like Tom Noakes, just read his interview and look at his work and you’ll see what we mean. He can pull off epic stunt work for commercials and then create a brilliant dead-pan dance-off music video for Tigerilla. We quizzed the director about life since his Australian childhood to being signed to Prettybird for UK and US.

Danish teenagers Holger Karberg and Oliver Busch - who have been working at Bacon since leaving school - have created a stunning first short film. Here we talk with the director and producer about the paradox of rumours, and learning on the job

Good old, or even Goodoil, Antipodean emotional engagement for Toyota is a good hoot, with some bumper (groan) ads from Europe too

Smooth, complex, and groovy film making with some very fine tracks

We're loving the messages and tone coming from these Super Bowl ads - and not only because they're funny or epic or simply downright brilliant film making.