- Ronaldo scores 133rd Portugal goal in Nations League win over Poland
- 40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn 'attacks'
- Eight dead as heavy rain thrashes Brazil after long drought
- Jewish school in Canada hit by gunfire for second time
- Morocco crush Central African Republic, Guirassy scores hat-trick
- Dupont scores quickfire hat-trick on Toulouse Top 14 return
- Ronaldo scores in Portugal's Nations League win as Spain sink Denmark
- Interim boss Carsley has not applied for England job
- Mets hurler Senga ready to take on Dodgers in game one of NL Championship Series
- Ronaldo on target again as Portugal defeat Poland in Nations League
- Guardians rip Tigers 7-3 to advance in MLB playoffs
- AFP, BBC win top French war reporting awards
- Carsley goes back to basics as humbled England face Finland
- Alex Salmond: the man who took Scotland to the brink of independence
- Scotland's former leader Alex Salmond dies aged 69: party
- UN warns of catastrophe as Israel fights a two-front war
- Croatia extend Scotland's losing streak
- South Africa, New Zealand boost T20 World Cup semi-final hopes
- 'Very challenging': Israel faces Hezbollah in tricky terrain
- Farrell begins to feel at home as Racing 92 beat Toulon
- South Africa boost T20 World Cup semi-final hopes with Bangladesh win
- Samson ton powers India to T20 series sweep after record total
- Djokovic to face Sinner in Shanghai final with 100th title in sight
- UN peacekeepers to remain in Lebanon: spokesman
- Pro-Conquest film fuels debate in Mexico over colonial legacy
- Samson ton powers India to record 297-6 in Bangladesh T20
- New Zealand enjoy perfect start to America's Cup defence over Britain
- Pogacar emulates icon Coppi with fourth straight Il Lombardia triumph
- UN warns against 'catastrophic' regional conflict
- New Zealand crush Ineos Britannia in America's Cup opener
- Djokovic to face Sinner in blockbuster Shanghai Masters final
- With medical report Harris seeks to play health card against Trump
- Sri Lanka seeks to match success in W.Indies T20s
- Sinner reaches Shanghai final, will end year number one
- China-EU EV tariff talks in Brussels end with 'major differences': Beijing
- Sabalenka downs Gauff in three sets to reach Wuhan final
- Israel warns south Lebanon residents to 'not return'
- Sinner tames Machac to reach Shanghai Masters final
- Buried Nazi past haunts Athens on liberation anniversary
- Harris to release medical report confirming fitness for presidency: campaign
- Nobel prize a timely reminder, Hiroshima locals say
- Hezbollah fires at Israel as wars rage on Yom Kippur
- Analysts warn more detail needed on new China economic measures
- China tees up fresh spending to boost ailing economy
- China says will issue special bonds to boost ailing economy
- China offers $325 bn in fiscal stimulus for ailing economy
- Dodgers drop Padres 2-0 to advance in MLB playoffs
- Alexei Navalny wrote he knew he would die in prison in new memoir
- Last-minute legal ruling allows betting on US election
- Despite hurricanes, Floridians refuse to leave 'paradise'
Cannes film shocks with fairy-tale horror on abortion
An early entry in the Cannes film competition has taken Cannes spectators down a dark path of unwanted motherhood to a shop of horrors with a serial killer twist.
Swedish director Magnus Von Horn's "The Girl With the Needle" -- one of 22 movies vying for the top Palme d'Or prize -- is at times so hard to watch that several viewers walked out of the film.
Von Horn told AFP he drew on his and his wife's personal experience of aborting a terminally ill foetus and wanted to explore "what happens to society when you take away the freedom of choice".
Critics have given the black-and-white film excellent reviews, with The Guardian calling it "a macabre and hypnotic horror", and Deadline describing it as "a poetic and dark fairy tale".
Von Horn, the father of two children, said he had always wanted to explore his own fears in a horror film.
"I've always wanted to make a horror, a horror of my own," the 40-year-old said.
"It's the fear that something will happen to my child."
- 'Freedom of choice' -
The film follows wilful but penniless factory worker Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) trying desperately to end a pregnancy in Copenhagen at the end of World War I after an affair with her boss.
In a city of cold muddy streets, she smuggles a knitting needle into a public bath, where she meets a charismatic older woman (Trine Dyrholm) who runs an underground adoption agency from her sweet shop.
Fuelled by an anxiety-inducing score and full of awful, breath-stopping moments, the film is loosely based on the true story of a Danish woman serial killer.
Its plots dives deep into questions about motherhood, women's choices and monsters.
Abortion is a key issue in this year's US presidential election after the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure.
Poland, where Van Horn has lived for 18 years, effectively banned terminations while he was writing the script.
He said it would be "impossible" for he and his wife to have the abortion now.
"We also had a certain amount of regret and doubt -- an experience that goes beyond our political convictions. I didn't expect it," he added.
- 'Romantic comedy'? -
After two previous features about an influencer and a former juvenile delinquent, Von Horn said he wanted to make a period horror film "all about women".
"World War I is in the shadows but there's a different war going on on the home front," he said.
"In the end Karoline goes through something that makes her as PTSDed as her husband who has been in the trenches," he said.
To tell this terrible tale, shot in 30 days in Poland, Van Horn's team had to enlist the help of a very young team of actors -- some just a month old.
"We always had to have two babies on set because if one is feeling hungry, grumpy or doesn't want to sleep, you have to have a backup," said the director, adding their mothers were on set and "very helpful".
But for his next film, Von Horn said he would probably try a different genre.
"I would like to make a romantic comedy as well," he said.
Ch.Kahalev--AMWN