The first look at the controversial film shows the actor as an outlaw in a production that led to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins

The first trailer has emerged for western Rust, the production that saw an on-set accident lead to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

The film stars Alec Baldwin as an outlaw in 1880s Kansas who breaks his grandson out of jail after he accidentally kills a rancher who is sentenced to hang. It also stared Frances Fisher and Travis Fimmel.

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After years of soaring costs and ever-expanding maps, open world games are getting smaller, and developers are creating richer landscapes in the process

For more than 20 years the action adventure genre has been dominated by open-world games. They started in quite a constrained way, with titles such as Shenmue and Driver offering miniature cities to wander about, but during the 21st century, they grew to encompass whole kingdoms. Now we have titles such as Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring and Death Stranding that contain vast and highly varied environments; Minecraft worlds are reportedly 60,000km wide. And let’s not forget space sims such as Elite Dangerous and No Man’s Sky, which effectively contain whole galaxies.

This whole design model, however, is starting to seem a teeny bit unsustainable. Not only is it astonishingly expensive to build giant worlds (it’s rumoured that the forthcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 will cost in the region of $2bn), but the market is also saturated with competitors all promising many hundreds of hours of exploration. Is there really an unlimited supply of players willing to buy and play more than two of these a year – especially now that we’re being incentivised to stick around through live service features, such as regularly updated costumes, missions and locations?

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Late-night hosts discuss fallout from Trump officials accidentally sending Yemen war plans to a journalist

Late-night hosts examine the fallout, denials and revelations from the Trump administration accidentally sending war plans to a US journalist.

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iOS, Android, Mac, PC (version played); Patrones & Escondites
Inspired by a remarkable true story, this book-like journey through a deserted house filled with secret panels and hidden passages presents some ingenious conundrums

Your House is inspired by a remarkable true story . Back in the 2000s, a rich New York couple paid architect Eric Clough to renovate their new apartment, with the slightly odd request that a poem about their family should be hidden away in one of the walls, like a time capsule. Inspired by this, Clough took it upon himself to make a few unorthodox modifications to the dwelling without his clients’ knowledge.

Just over a year after the couple and their children had moved in to their home, Clough sent them a cryptic note. This clue led them to a hidden panel, behind which was a book, which in turn led them on a scavenger hunt through their own apartment. Clough had crammed the rooms with hidden messages and complex puzzles that it took the family weeks to solve. One involved wrapping a piece of leather cord around a bed post to reveal a message. Another involved removing two decorative knockers then joining them together to form a crank, which was used to wind open a hidden panel in the dining room, behind which were various keys and keyholes. All of this eventually led to the hidden poem.

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‘Our hair stood on end as the air around us became supercharged. There were telegraph poles and hailstones the size of oranges dropping out of the sky’

I am a proud American, although that notion has been politicised to death in this country, where you’re not considered patriotic unless you’re a Republican. For my Spina Americana series, I chose to explore a part of the US where people are solidly conservative and won’t budge – partly because they feel abandoned by the rest of the nation.

This area is typically referred to as “flyover country”, and has been written off politically, socially and culturally for decades. I wanted to meet and learn about its inhabitants while also sharing my own fears and hopes for our mutual land. It involved making myself vulnerable, but if I only approach people who are like me, what am I really gaining?

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Exclusive: Filmmaker who won an Oscar earlier this month says Israeli settlers were aided by IDF soldiers who beat him with their rifles

During an attack on Oscar-winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal on Monday, Israeli settlers were aided by two Israel Defense Forces soldiers who beat him with the butt of their rifles outside his home and threatened to kill him, the film-maker has said.

In an interview with the Guardian, Ballal, one of the four directors of the film No Other Land , which documented the destruction of villages in the West Bank and won best documentary at this year’s Academy Awards, recounted how two Israeli soldiers first encircled him while a settler was assaulting him, before violently striking him on the head and threatening to shoot him.

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Milton Court, London
Michael Zev Gordon’s new piece about his Polish Jewish ancestors, for two narrators, a baritone and string orchestra, was performed with nuance, solemnity and intensity

There is memory, but there is also “post-memory”. Mingled with the recollection of our own life stories, we humans also carry those of others, told or sometimes concealed by those we once knew, or even never met. But what is passed down becomes ours too. This interwoven fabric of past, present and future is the rewarding inspiration behind Michael Zev Gordon’s compelling and intelligent new concert piece, A Kind of Haunting .

Gordon’s substantial setting is for two narrators, baritone and string orchestra. Premiered by the Britten Sinfonia under Jonathan Berman, it proves true to its title. The score explores Gordon’s search for his Polish Jewish ancestors, murdered in the Holocaust in 1941: an event of which Gordon’s own father barely spoke, and which the composer and his own children now own too. The focus is on the haunting not just the horror. As Gordon says, the work explores the potency of the Holocaust’s aftereffects – a gift and a curse, as Marianne Hirsch’s narration has it.

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Film assistant says actor groped her several times in three incidents while filming Les Volets Verts

A woman accusing Gérard Depardieu of sexual assault has told a landmark trial in Paris that the actor groped her buttocks and her breasts several times in three separate incidents on a film set.

Depardieu, 76, is accused of groping a 54-year-old set dresser and a 34-year-old assistant during filming in 2021 of Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters). He denies any sexual assault.

The third day of the Paris trial focused on the testimony of the younger plaintiff, who said Depardieu had first groped her bottom when she was alone with him for a brief moment between the backstage area and the film set.

“Out of the blue, he put his hand on my butt,” she told the court on Wednesday, adding she was in shock, “petrified” and said nothing.

In a second incident, she alleged, Depardieu had suddenly put both his hands on her breasts. “I said no; I was scared,” she said. She also said she had told Depardieu “no” during a third similar incident.

The plaintiff said she reported the issue to her direct manager, who then alerted others in charge of the film production, prompting anger from the actor.

Depardieu repeatedly denied the allegations on Wednesday in court, saying: “I’m not like that.”

“I think that maybe, I don’t know, she was wary because of my reputation of being vulgar, crude, rude,” Depardieu said. “But I’m not only that. I still respect people.”

The actor also told the court he was almost always accompanied by aides on the film set, including his bodyguard, and suggested that he would rarely find himself alone with a film worker.

On Tuesday, Depardieu acknowledged that he had used vulgar and sexualised language with the set dresser who has accused him of sexual assault. He said he grabbed her hips during an argument, but denied that his behaviour was sexual and that he only did so to stop himself slipping.

The four-day trial is to continue on Thursday, with the verdict expected at a later date.

The actor faces up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (£63,000) if convicted.

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Barbican Hall, London
The Solisten’s historically informed style played on modern instruments, with Kapelis’s crisp piano articulation, made for a musical equivalent of Bridgerton

String players wielding baroque bows don’t often share the stage with a pianist sat at a modern Steinway grand, but that was the setup for this immersion in JS Bach’s keyboard concertos – six of them, performed by the pianist Alexandros Kapelis and the Berliner Barock Solisten.

Formed of players moonlighting from the Berlin Philharmonic, the Solisten play on modern instruments but in historically informed style – hence those bows. As for Kapelis, he combined the ornate decoration you would expect from a harpsichord – agile, swerving scales; filigree trills and ornaments that pinged off the starting note – with techniques available only on the modern piano, making subtle but frequent use of the sustaining pedal and, in a couple of ravishing quiet slow-movement passages, bringing the mute pedal into play. The effect was like the costumes in Bridgerton: authentic silhouette; bright, modern palette.

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