Animation, live action narratives or elaborate special effects – Lebanese-American director Najeeb Tarazi is a master of all skills: CGI, editing, writing and directing complex ideas. The director talks about his creative process, his love of collaborating and why he enjoys editing on a Friday or Saturday night while Los Angeles is buzzing

Dougal Wilson, Rupert Sanders, Martin de Thurah, Spike Jonze, Lance Accord, Ben Smith, Errol Morris and Garth Davis - such a familiar line-up of names vie for top spot in AICP Direction shortlist

Californian director Daniel Iglesias Jr's distinctive film language is born out of his talent to write, meticulously pre-vis, shoot, edit and play around with special effects

Vedran Rupic, the Business Club Royale director, talks about how he and his team made this brilliant bonkers Swedish film for Salvatore Ganacci

Rose Hendry takes us on a melodic tracking journey, spinning around and turning into rooms with musical instruments until we finally arrive in a room with the artist Trish Clowes herself. We talk with HLA’s new director about the techniques behind the video for Clowes’ track, Abbott & Costello

AICP’s shortlist of international advertising excellence

No surprises that Nike ads feature big time in AICP single commercials shortlist. Take a look at these cracking ads from Spike Jonze, Kim Gehrig, Lance Acord, Georgia Hudson, Dougal Wilson, Rupert Sanders, Derek Cianfrance, Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin

This year’s winning entries of Adfest’s Fabulous Five short film competition for young commercial directors are brilliant.

Cyprien Clément-Delmas explores our collective attitude towards pollution and climate change in this film for Paris artist Basile di Manski out of the director’s new creative studio Intrusion.

Big hits and big hitters just keep on rolling

Rolling with the very best

The music is great. The visuals are brilliant. And the messages are parfait

Allie Avital weaves a mesmerising and beautifully shot tale of a woman who accidentally destroys every man she meets

Political, funny, visceral and in-your-face is how choreographer and visual artist Olivia Norris describes Bully Fae’s music and lyrics. It's a description which perfectly echoes this film for his track Sissy Fatigue, made by Norris and her creative collaborators - performers, costume designers, cinematographer and “everyone’s ideas”.

Full marks for this interesting twist to the script and sophisticated crafting of an appeal film for blood cancer research

Inspired by Fred Rowson’s work as a writer and director on Years & Years' Palo Santo album campaign last year, giffgaff head of advertising Abi Pearl Ward asked the Blink director to create a consistent fictional universe, full of recurring characters and detail, all interwoven between TV, print, outdoor and digital. The result, with reference to our current climate, is a celebration of democracy and freedom of choice

We talk with Skunk director Ben Strebel about his creative process for his latest music video, Wasted, for new band The Hour. Strebel explores the liberating behaviour of a group who live in a world of established anonymity and like to play dangerously

Three favourite ads from Adfest in Pattaya that scooped up in the Film Craft category

The most magnificent role model for every female filmmaker has passed away. With love, we show again Agnès Varda’s film for Miu Miu which we published two years ago in a female-directed showcase of stories about gritty, independent, head-strong, beautiful, witty females - which perfectly sums her up. Still making movies last year at 90 we will miss her wit, warmth and wisdom dearly.

Halal director and previous KesselsKramer creative director Johan Kramer has been spinning facts and fiction and now ping pong balls throughout his filmmaking career. We catch up with the director and talk about the fine line between documentary and fiction and looking for the most original way of telling a story

Without dialogue, set in one location, and with a runtime of almost five minutes, New Land director Daniel Kragh-Jacobsen returns to commercials with the almost greatest love story ever told for shoe brand Bianco. Two people fall in love with each other without the other ever knowing. The only thing that keeps them apart is their overthinking. We talk with the director about longer format narratives for advertising, and the benefits of taking a two-year break from commercials to shoot tv series and short films. Oh he forgot mention The Lift has already clocked up over 10million views across social media and reposts.

Visual narratives of love, lust, torment and wildly good dancing

We talk with director Yags about working on a £500 budget and being padlocked in an old asylum on location while making this film for new artist Luckie.

Men and women behaving badly, the work of Fat Lemon writer/director Jim Owen features an excruciatingly funny carnival of morons. From his painful depictions of first date fails in Panic Stations, to his hilarious Kooples spoof series (The Wankers) plus spots for brands such as BBC, McVities and Maltesers – his work displays a subtlety that gives bittersweet depth to his characters. Carol Cooper talked to the master of cringe comedy about editing his own work, finding the truth and inflating ridiculousness for our pleasure.

SMUGGLER’s latest signing Tom Speers’ debut short film ingeniously captures the unrestrained boisterousness of youth and the dawning of sexuality. We talk with the new director about how you entice your cast to swim in freezing water and the pain and joy of editing the film himself.

Earth is an amazing place, full of incredible things. But being human, sometimes we tend to forget how awesome our planet really is. Created by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam for S7 Airlines, VISIT EARTH aims to convince aliens to visit our planet and perhaps, in the process, remind the good people of Earth that we have a pretty great home worth exploring. The long-form episodic content, which has already been viewed over 35 million times in Russia after first launching there late last year, is now available for English-speaking extraterrestrials. Director Mackenzie Sheppard meanwhile beams up answers to a few queries

When Joe Wheatley's grandmother passed away in 2016, a series of happy accidents unearthed decades of home video, chronicling a lifetime of experience, love and loss. The DirtyWork director niftily edited the memories together into this superb short film

Vladimir Baranovsky’s videos are packed with experimental techniques and fast cuts for commissioned work from Boiler Room to Raf Simons. And yet his short film, Ousemane, which has won so many plaudits is a comparatively slow-paced, exquisitely told narrative that he wrote himself.

We chat with Mill+ new director Melody Maker about her musical and fashion background and now her move into filmmaking