The Woman Next Door

The nation that gave us both Fellini and Nina Rota also has an excellent jazz scene (I hope it's not news to you) and so perhaps it's inevitable that we get such projects as "Night On The City" from Paolo Fresu, "La Dolce Vita" from Bruno Tommaso & Enrico Rava. This project doesn't actually use too much music from the Truffaut films' soundtracks (plus a few spoken-word excerpts) – it's the films in their enitirety that serve as inspiration to the composer. Rita Marcotulli can be a straightforward jazz pianist & composer (check out her trio with Palle Danielsson and Peter Erskine on YouTube!) but a as project leader she loves to expaad into pop, rock, folk, world etc. So this record needs to be listened in full, with the quirky transitions between various styles and approaches. Lots of pleasures, big and small, to be found. – G.A.

"Aretha was private. I respected this and she trusted me." Linda Solomon met Aretha Franklin in 1983 when she was just beginning her career as a photojournalist and newspaper columnist. Franklin's brother and business manager arranged for Solomon to capture the singer's major career events-just as she was coming back home to Detroit from California-while Franklin requested that Solomon document everything else. Everything. And she did just that. What developed over these years of photographing birthday and Christmas parties in her home, annual celebrity galas, private backstage moments during national awards ceremonies, photo shoots with the iconic pink Cadillac, and more was a friendship between two women who grew to enjoy and respect one another.

Tells the story of a strange cult, which came to light in 2013 when a sensational news story broke about three women emerging from a small flat in Brixton in south London after decades in captivity. Tracing the group back to its roots in the 1970s, the film describes how its leader Aravindan Balakrishnan, a student of Indian origin, believed in an international communist revolution and created a tiny political sect that followed the teachings of China's Chairman Mao.