Stay in and watch these brilliant epic promos

Ladies, how are you spending your time in lockdown? Nurturing that sourdough starter? Attempting cross-stitch? Taking long and luxurious baths? In this entertaining isolation creation, shot entirely on phones, Raine Allen-Miller suggests getting to know ourselves a bit better instead – and she’s roped in her friends and family to help spread the word via an enjoyably 80s-tinged music video that extols the benefits of closing your doors and opening up your legs

Well-known for capturing intimate live sessions and a master of the one-take shoot, FRIEND director Colin Solal Cardo has honed his up-close-and-personal style with pop videos for the likes of Robyn and Charli XCX. His raw performance-based videos recently stepped up a gear with La Vita Nuova, a cinematic short film for long-time collaborator Christine and the Queens. We chatted to the French director about the dangerous allure of the single shot, catharsis through filmmaking and why performance will always be part of his DNA

Filip Nilsson’s work always has a feel good edge to it whether it’s manipulating monkeys for the Swedish legend Håkan Hellström or creating a belting user-generated video from 1,000 dancers and musicians around the world for Major Lazer.

Raw and immersive, the work of London-based filmmaker Aneil Karia sears with authenticity in every shot. Whether it’s capturing the gritty underbelly of the East London drug trade in cult TV series Top Boy or exploring the murky waters between mental illness and mental wellness in award-winning short film BEAT, Karia focuses his lens on hard-hitting topics like knife crime and racism with empathy and even-handedness. Fascinated since childhood by the city he now calls home, Karia’s London is as much a star of his films as the A-list talent – Ben Whishaw, Riz Ahmed, Kano – he collaborates with. Recently signed to Somesuch, he talks to 1.4 about his feature film debut, the importance of casting and whether the pain of lockdown is enough to produce a seismic shift in our world.

Musician Thomas Azier and filmmaker Ayoto Ataraxia met three years ago at a time when they were both questioning the rules their respective industries asserted over their work. Here the two artists discuss how their desire for more improvisation resulted in this collaborative fusion of pitch perfect music and film

Figuring out how to bring effects to life without CGI can be challenging. Actually executing them even more so. LA-based Kimberly Stuckwisch and Nelson de Castro reveal the painstaking way they approached the light special effects in their first but not last film they directed together

Agile's new signing Brock Neal-Roberts distorts the standard, seemingly relaxed, nature of shot-at-home music videos with this piece for Berwyn directed entirely by screen sharing. By manipulating the digital form he has created an alternate world of the haunting emotions of the track.

Radical Media director Joshua Osborne reveals the stories and the creative processes behind Tom Misch and Yussef Dayes as they riff and jam on their first album together

Take some time off, put your feet up and take a look at Blink director Will Hooper’s totally absurd, cleverly funny and technically complicated music videos. The super-talented, almost-new director, who was about to shoot his first commercial when lockdown skittled the project for now, talks to us about his desire to make bowling alley animations, a video game and wouldn't mind designing a ghost train.

Martin Garde Abildgaard uses his knack for visual metaphors to look at the importance and difficulties of keeping relationships alive for Tom and His Computer’s latest track Future Ruins

Let's roll through the looooong weekend with top promos from brilliant filmmakers around the world - some shot before Covid times, some created after.

Watching 1.4's Showcase Icon winner golden boy Henry Scholfield’s work is a bit like being taken by the hand and pulled through the looking glass. The self-taught director and ‘dance nut’, who started out making music videos for local grime artists, likes his camera to be an active observer – it’s spun around with Stormzy and Stromae and dived into the action with Dua Lipa – and he chooses choreographers with the same care as a sommelier selecting a fine vintage. Add a mastery of speedy turnarounds into the mix and it’s no wonder world-class artists keep coming back to work with him. His latest promo, for Dua Lipa’s lockdown anthem Break My Heart, is a typically tricks-y mash-up of seamless VFX, stunts and camera transitions. 1.4 found out more…

Across the world filmmakers haven't lost their creative spark while documenting lockdown life

We talk with Joe Connor about directing photographers around the world under the Covid1-19 global lockdown for the Rolling Stones’ track Living in a Ghost Town and catch up with the recently signed to Rogue director about what makes him click

A ton of ingenious resourcefulness lies behind New Zealand director Alexander Gandar and musician-artist Chelsea Jade’s enduring music video collaboration

Nur Casadevall first came on our radar with her beautiful and thoroughly disturbing short film Lina. Since then she has signed to CANADA in London and Barcelona and has turned her talent to creating commercials, fashion and quirky content. Definitely one to watch. Now.

Shot just before full lockdown, director Franck Trebillac collaborated with performance artist Tom Heyes to create this stunning music video shot on the south downs for Amon Tobin and Thys' track Letter From St Anthony

Making a sequel to an award-winning film is a hard act to follow but Prague-based Marek Partyš returns to the Tibetan village and creates another warm, funny video with as much heart and entertainment as his first

Daniel Soares returned to Portugal from his New York base to shoot a video for Gohu titled "All is Great". But it wasn't. We talked with the director about how he and the artist changed their tune to adapt to the times.

Prettybird UK’s latest signing Yousef has directed a tongue in cheek promo for Piero Pirupa’s new anti-drugs track Braindead in the style of a public safety video on acid. We talk with the new director about collaborating around the world with 2D and 3D artists as the global lockdown began to hit production and discover a talent whose laptop is his workhorse and who could create something bizarrely wonderful out of self-shot footage from an artist, stock footage or animation.

Iranian-born, LA-based director and photographer Saam Gabbay loves a good party and this year he had planned a great gathering of near and dear friends and family to celebrate his birthday. But then the coronavirus hit and LA along with most of the world went into lockdown. Instead of his planned get-together he drove to their houses capturing his loved ones looking through their windows in a poignant film and portrait project which beautifully and profoundly reflects a community in self-isolation.

Director Adi Halfin directs and edits a world of interiors and solo dancers

Niccolo Montanari talks with the Spanish director Amanda Lago about her second music video collaboration with Fatal Tiger - an experimental, choreographed improvised dance

Music videos may be staying at home but they're certainly not standing still. Take a look at the latest work from this time of isolation and some others made in the day when it was still ok to be touchy feely

From a family drama in a dystopian world of stilt-wearers to a high school choir with the power to sing people to death, Dylan Holmes Williams’ darkly comic work reveals a knack for telling surreal stories in relatable settings. As his latest short, The Devil’s Harmony, garners gongs galore on the festival circuit, Stink’s latest signing tells us more about his ‘grounded supernaturalism’, the importance of sound design in horror and why he’s worried he’ll never have a good idea again.

"Last week at Stink we realised we were in a pretty unique position," writes global head of Stink Rising Katie Lambert, "with directors, staff and creatives positioned all over the world. This sparked the idea of asking all these people to present some kind of creative offering, showing their situation and perspective. We’ve been overwhelmed with the responses - from poems, through photography to film. And tonally we’ve had toilet jokes, heartfelt love letters, frustration, despair and hope. For 1.4 only we decided to give a little sneak preview of what’s coming up - corners of photos, stills from films - all hints at the work from our global village."

Thierry Albert explores that nurturing space of childhood solitude with this languid beautiful film of his son wandering and wondering in an empty Mallorcan garden.

Between the Activists and the Cynics is the majority of us - those who are steeped in goodwill but also entrenched in our own instinctual and flawed behaviors and are arguably the biggest threat to the planet, says communications agency Futerra. 1.4 asked Amelie Lambert, fresh from the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership, to highlight how filmmaking can open up our awareness with inspiring narratives. The world maybe falling apart but it’s also a world of hope

The musician Loyle Carner’s videos have featured regularly on 1.4 because the films are creatively sharp. Now Ben has teamed up with his brother Ryan to direct other artists, debuting with this natural narrative for Arlo Parks. The film, Eugene, explores the agony, jealousy and confusion that comes to light when lines between platonic and romantic love blur.

Spanish directing collective RÉALITÉ is rooted in experimentalism. Their style has always been playful; sometimes they’ve expressed nostalgia through collages, other times they’ve contrasted animation with live action or choreography. Their love of incorporating mismatched mediums into their jobs makes their style recognisable but they insist that really, it’s teamwork that they most enjoy about filmmaking.