Francine Stock talks to Shane Carruth about his new, complex film Upstream Colour which explores the theme of interconnectedness involving an organism that mutates via various hosts from a nematode worm to a vivid orchid. The director Shane Carruth was already known for an earlier experimental film, Primer, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance back in 2004.

Whilst Shane Carruth did NOT go to film school, but learnt his craft by doing, the Director of the National Film and Television School Nik Powell, and film maker Asif Kapadia - director of features including The Warrior and Far North and the documentary Senna - discuss how film schools prepare aspiring film makers for a career in the film industry. Thousands of students go to more than 1200 film schools each year around the world and CILECT, which represents the top 160 schools across 90 countries, has judged the UK's National Film and Television School as the winning school across three award categories; fiction, animation and documentary.

This announcement comes just a few days before the BFI names the film schools, universities and independent cinemas that will be partners for its new training schemes for aspiring young filmmakers. So how do film students best learn their craft: and is funding allocated fairly across the diverse film education institutions within the UK?

As the Venice film festival opens this week, Times film critic Kate Muir discusses the film which opened the festival - Gravity starring George Cluney and Sandra Bullock - and provides a round up of the best British films being screened.

And nearly half a century since Patricia Highsmith's novel, The Talented Mr Ripley, was adapted for the screen by French film maker Rene Clement - called Plein Soleil and starring Alain Delon - Sandra Hebron discusses how the representation of the psychopath has changed over time, referencing Anthony Mingella's 1999 version starring Matt Damon and Jude Law.

Producer: Hilary Dunn. Show less