The Chronology of Water is a ‘punk rock ayahuasca trip’ of a film that takes no prisoners. Stewart and her star, Imogen Poots, talk about the passion and pain that fuelled it

‘The movie is to be eaten alive and re-metabolised and shat out differently, from everyone’s perspective,” says Kristen Stewart, bracingly. The actor’s directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, has been doing the rounds at film festivals, and when we meet in London the reviews are coming in. Stewart knows that this impressionistic, arthouse collage of a film – adapted from an experimental memoir about a woman’s pain and loss, the elusive nature of memory and the reclamation of desire – is not going to be for everyone. “My favourite Letterboxd review is: ‘The Chronology of what the fuck did I just watch?’” But it matters to her that people respond to it. “Whether it’s your least favourite movie or your most favourite, it’s not lying, it’s genuine. And I’m so fucking proud of that.”

Stewart is sitting next to the film’s star, a slightly more sanguine Imogen Poots. Watching Stewart talk, her leg bouncing, her vocabulary ferocious, feels a bit like being sandblasted. It is invigorating and strangely galvanising, but you don’t go into a conversation with her half asleep. The same can be said for the film itself. “Language is a metaphor for experience,” writes the author Lidia Yuknavitch, at the beginning of the book on which it is based. “It’s as arbitrary as this mass of chaotic images we call memory.”

Pre-2008, voters with prosperous and improving lives didn’t mind being excluded from the conversation. Those days are over

Who was the last politician you listened to for any length of time? Perhaps it was Andy Burnham or Zack Polanski. Or maybe it was Wes Streeting, Nigel Farage or Zarah Sultana. Perhaps your dark secret is that it was Donald Trump.

One thing these politicians have in common is that they are all unusually good communicators. From Farage’s drawling provocations to Polanski’s pithy directness, Sultana’s concentrated blasts of outrage to Trump’s mesmerising ramblings, they compel you to listen. The completely forgettable passages that voters across western democracies have associated with political speech for decades are largely absent.

Be it The Night Manager’s Richard Roper or Blue Lights’s Gerry, classic TV characters are increasingly finding it hard to stay in the grave. Here are the 10 greatest televisual resurrections

On TV, you’re never really dead. When a beloved character is killed off on your favourite show, you can be forgiven some scepticism. Who’s to say they won’t be miraculously revived in future?

The BBC hit The Night Manager brought arms-dealing antagonist Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) back to life mid-series to face off against his old adversary, MI6 agent Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston). The action duly cranked up several gears, building temptingly towards Sunday’s finale. Will Roper be eliminated for good this time?

How does it feel when ICE agents swarm your city? Minneapolis residents on why they are rising up

Since the beginning of January, thousands of ICE agents have been deployed to the city. Confusion, violence and chaos followed. Two people have been killed, hundreds have disappeared – but that’s not the full story. Because thousands of residents in the city have been mobilising.

Annie Kelly spoke to five people living in Minneapolis about how they have been taking on ICE – and the consequences. Patty O’Keefe explains what it’s like to be a legal observer, and how ICE agents smashed her windows and detained her. Jenny talks about why her childhood experience of her father being detained by ICE has pushed her to stand up for others. A teacher explains how the city has changed and an organiser on why tactics have had to change as ICE strategies have developed. “We all grab a whistle before we leave. I know it’s a joke here. Make sure you’ve got your keys, phone, wallet, gloves, and now your whistle.”

I heard this huff, then a stomp. A growl that sounded like a death warning

Last November, I’d been out for the evening with friends who were visiting Los Angeles. Afterwards, I checked the notifications on my phone. There was a motion alert from one of the cameras around my house. It had captured a big black bear nosing around my bins.

We get wildlife here: raccoons, skunks. But I’d never had a bear rummaging through my trash. I watched as it turned things over, then wandered off. I assumed he had left.

Very few things are more daunting than a house move. But it doesn’t have to be hell. Here is how to transport everything without breakages – or injuries

Moving home can be incredibly stressful. How should you make sure you get everything from A to B without breakages or injuring yourself? Removal professionals share the secrets to a smash-free, smooth move.

US president warns Keir Starmer over closer ties with China during British PM’s trip to secure lower tariffs and better access to Chinese market

Donald Trump has warned the UK against doing business with China, just hours after Keir Starmer lauded the economic relationship during a landmark visit to Beijing.

The US president said it was “very dangerous” for the UK to pursue closer ties with the rival superpower as the prime minister’s three-hour talks with leader Xi Jinping underlined a thaw in previously strained relations.

Book The Crown’s Silence details how crown profited from and protected trade in enslaved African people for centuries

MPs, experts and campaigners have called on King Charles to make a formal apology for transatlantic slavery, after research highlighted how the British crown and Royal Navy extended and protected the trade in enslaved African people for hundreds of years.

The king has previously expressed “personal sorrow” at the suffering caused by slavery and has spoken of committing to “finding creative ways to right inequalities that endure”. However, the British crown has never issued a formal apology.

Maj James Hook and Col Samantha Shepherd charged with offences relating to case of soldier who took her own life

Two serving British army officers face criminal charges over the handling of a case of sexual assault of the teenage soldier Jaysley Beck, who later took her own life.

Beck, a Royal Artillery Gunner, was assaulted during a training exercise in Hampshire in July 2021, when she was 19, and killed herself five months later.

Exclusive: Branch of Iranian software company TSIT, which makes Gap Messenger, is registered in Sussex

The creators of a messaging app accused of handing user data to the Iranian regime live on a windswept hill in a British coastal town, the Guardian can reveal.

Hadi and Mahdi Anjidani are the cofounders of TS Information Technology, established in 2010 and now registered at the address of a tax accountancy in Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex. It is the UK branch of an Iranian software corporation, Towse’e Saman Information Technology (TSIT).