videos

There are many different approaches to making a tour film that captures the life of musicians on the road. Perhaps you focus on the highs of performance or the boredom of traveling, the anonymous backstage rooms and endless planes, buses and hotel rooms. But what if you made all of that seem really fun?

Directed by Tamra Davis, “The Best Summer,” which debuts at Sundance tonight in the Midnight section, is rooted in a box of videotapes that the filmmaker found early last year while evacuating from the fires near her longtime family home in Malibu. Though they are now separated, Davis still shares the compound with Michael Diamond, better known as Mike D of the group Beastie Boys. On those tapes was footage Davis shot in late 1995 and early 1996 as the band toured through Australia and Asia, sharing bills with the likes of Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Beck, Rancid, the Amps and Bikini Kill.

“I just always had a camera in my hands,” Davis, 64, said in an interview conducted earlier this week. “I identify as a filmmaker. This is normal for me to have a camera in my hand. People don’t think twice about it. It’s so unobtrusive.”

A few days before Davis would drive to Park City, Utah, with her friend, neighbor and co-producer Shelby Meade, the two were sitting on the backyard patio of Davis’ Malibu home (it survived the fires just fine) as a couple of dogs ran around the yard. When she spots a hawk flying overhead, Davis calls for one of her two sons to be sure to round up the few chickens roaming around.

“The Best Summer” brings a blast of ’90s nostalgia to the festival. Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon are both expected to attend the screening as well.

A throughline for the movie is Davis and Hanna interviewing members of the bands, asking them a standard series of questions including their favorite color, what they’re reading and what their personal motto is before Hanna gets into trickier concepts about performance and persona, seemingly figuring those things out for herself in real time.

“With Mike, I filmed so much — every time I went out on the road with them,” says Davis. “So I had tons of Beastie Boys stuff. I didn’t know I had all of that other stuff. I filmed Foo Fighters and Beck and Pavement, I didn’t know I filmed any of that. I looked at it and I see, oh my gosh, I’m so diligent: Oh, I better get Pavement. Check.”

At the time of the tour, Davis had recently finished directing “Billy Madison,” which launched the movie career of Adam Sandler. Having made music videos for countless bands, including many on the tour, Davis had also directed Drew Barrymore in the 1992 noir remake “Guncrazy” and Chris Rock in the rap mockumentary “CB4.” She would go on to direct Dave Chappelle in “Half Baked” and Britney Spears in “Crossroads,” as well as work extensively on documentaries, including “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child,” which played Sundance in 2010.

Mike D, left, MCA and Ad-Rock of Beastie Boys as seen in the documentary “The Best Summer,” premiering at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

(Tamra Davis)

At the time of the Australian tour in “The Best Summer,” Davis and Diamond were newly married and there is a honeymoon vibe of sunny sweetness to the proceedings. The bands play for sprawling crowds in between lots of playful hangout time.

It was though manager John Silva, who works with a number of the bands in the movie, that Davis was able to start the process of getting permissions and untangling the tricky issues of music rights. She had to show each individual band the movie in order to get their approval.

“The only people I wanted notes from was the bands,” Davis says. “I work all the time with Netflix, Paramount, whatever, like all those things. I can’t get that note and then translate it to the band. But if Adam [Horovitz of the Beastie Boys] had a note or if Kim [Gordon of Sonic Youth] had a note, I would do those notes. And I felt so proud to do their note and be like, ‘Done, you’ve got that.’ That’s why I wanted to make sure it was self-funded because I could control it like that. It could just be between me and the artist. It’s just me doing the end credits.”

Working with editor Jessica Hernandez, Davis wanted to keep the loose feel of the original footage, including how she often would shoot entire songs in a single take, her camera moving from one musician to the next as one might naturally look at them from the audience. The raw sound comes from the built-in microphone on her camera. Some additional post-production work had to be done on the interview footage, but the audio of the concert footage is, for the most part, she says, unaltered.

“It’s like watching a memory,” said Davis. “And for me especially, to watch it again was like a ‘Black Mirror’ episode of going back and somebody being like: This is what it looked like from your point of view at this time. That was your experience.”

It’s something Davis has heard from other band members after showing them the film. “Adam said it felt like I reached into his brain and pulled out that memory,” she says. “He didn’t realize there was somebody filming it. So to him he was like: How did you know that memory existed in my head?”

Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail, Tamra Davis and Alfredo Ortiz in the documentary “The Best Summer.”

(Mike Diamond)

Davis had previously put Hanna in the Sonic Youth video for their 1994 song “Bull in the Heather” as well as in a short film called “No Alternative Girls,” so the two already knew each other. But they latched onto each other during the tour, taking on the informal project of the interviews and collecting candid and revealing moments with Gordon, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus and others.

“It became like that friendship that you have at summer camp,” says Davis. “[Hanna] goes, I was so glad that you and I had that same energy where we were just these girls going into people’s dressing rooms, ‘OK, we’re here to interview you.’ We were just bored. We were trying to get something to do.”

It was Diamond who suggested to Davis that the end credits should say “Starring Kathleen Hanna” for the outsized role she has in the film. Another highlight of “The Best Summer” is when Hanna interviews Horovitz. The two would marry in 2006, and their moments together in the film have the energy of a rom-com meet-cute.

“She’s so bossy and she’s really forward,” said Davis. “And I’m pretty bossy too, but she’s just like, ‘Look, this is how it’s gonna go.’ And just her questions are so good. When I started to really put it together, I loved all of that. I think before I showed it to her, I texted her a couple times and I was like, ‘Kathleen, I’m making this movie and you’re all over it.’ And she was like, ‘Am I going to be embarrassed?’ And I’m like, ‘No, you’re going to love this.’”

Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of the band Sonic Youth, as seen in the documentary “The Best Summer.”

(Tamra Davis)

One thing that jumps out watching the concert footage is the lack of cell phones, how the ubiquitous screens that one sees nowadays in the audience at shows did not yet exist.

“I think there’s an authenticity about it,” Davis says. “When I look at my female performers and the artists in this film, I love how they present themselves and how equal they seem with the men. I just feel that open acceptance of everybody. I know that my kids really like that world. When you see a whole video and they’re not cutting, there’s authenticity in that. Now we never have that experience of what that’s like, to have that connection with the band — and they’re connected to you as well.”

With a few possible feature film projects percolating, Davis has been at work on a memoir, currently scheduled to come out next year, that includes anecdotes of when she went to Italy as a teenager and found herself watching Federico Fellini shoot “City of Women” or hustled her way into shadowing Francis Ford Coppola as he made 1981’s “One From the Heart.”

As a woman working as a director in Hollywood in the 1990s, there were not a lot of choices presented to Davis and she often felt she had to make the most of whatever was available.

“Sometimes people are like, oh my God, it’s amazing you got to direct ‘Billy Madison,’ you got to direct Chris Rock in ‘CB4’ or ‘Half-Baked’ with Dave Chappelle. That’s what I was offered,” she recalls. “These were unknown comedians. They’d never done a feature film. As a girl, that’s what you get what’s offered. But then how do you turn that into something special? I thought those guys were the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life. So I direct like a fan.”

It’s a statement of purpose that’s guided Davis even as she’s ping-ponged between a huge amount of TV work, from “P-Valley” to the TV version of “High School Musical.”

“I become the best viewer for that show,” she says. “And so it’s not me imposing my style on them. It’s me appreciating how much I love that, what I’m seeing in front of me. And trying to get that best version across.”

Revisiting the ’90s while making “The Best Summer” has been a positive experience for Davis, one she hopes will resonate with others as well, not simply as a fun tour doc revisiting a very specific time, but also as a reminder the things can be small, personal and handmade.

“I’m think it’s exciting for young filmmakers to see that there’s a film in the festival that’s shot by one person,” she says. “It makes you feel like you don’t need to have a gigantic everything to make a movie. One person can make a film. I feel like that’s inspiring.

“And then I’m also excited as a woman of age that you can get a film into Sundance, that your career is not over,” she adds. “I always felt like, ‘Oh, you’re too young.’ Then it’s, ‘You’re too old.’ It was never the right time for me. But I felt like it was my time, so you just had to keep doing it.”

Videos quickly emerged Saturday showing the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis protester by federal immigration agents, with Democratic leaders in Minnesota saying the footage showed the deadly encounter was the result of untrained federal officers overreacting and the Trump administration saying the man provoked the violence.

It was the second fatal shooting in Minneapolis by federal immigration authorities this month. The killing of Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7 also was captured on videos and produced a similar schism among political leaders.

At around 9 a.m. on Saturday, federal agents patrolling Minneapolis killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti after a roughly 30-second scuffle. The Trump administration said shots were fired “defensively” against Pretti, who federal authorities said had a semiautomatic handgun and was “violently” resisting officers.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who said he watched one of several videos, said he saw “more than six masked agents pummeling one of our constituents, shooting him to death.” Frey has said Minneapolis and St. Paul are being “invaded” by the administration’s largest immigration crackdown, dubbed Operation Metro Surge.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti attacked officers, and Customs and Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino said Pretti wanted to do “maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” In posts on X, President Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called Pretti “a would-be assassin.”

The shooting Saturday occurred as officers were pursuing a man in the country illegally wanted for domestic assault, Bovino said. Protesters routinely try to disrupt such operations, and they sounded their high-pitched whistles, honked horns and yelled out at the officers.

Among them was Pretti. At one point, in a video obtained by the Associated Press, Pretti is standing in the street and holding up his phone. He is face-to-face with an officer in a tactical vest, who places his hand on Pretti and pushes him toward the sidewalk.

Pretti is talking to the officer, though it is not clear what he is saying.

The video shows protesters wandering in and out of the street as officers persist in trying to talk them back. One protester is put in handcuffs. Some officers are carrying pepper spray canisters.

Pretti is seen again when the video shows an officer wearing tactical gear shoving a protester. The protester, who is wearing a skirt over black tights and holding a water bottle, reaches out for Pretti.

The same officer shoves Pretti in his chest, leading Pretti and the other protester to stumble backward.

A different video then shows Pretti moving toward another protester, who falls over after being shoved by the same officer. Pretti moves between the protester and the officer, reaching his arms out toward the officer. The officer deploys pepper spray, and Pretti raises his hand and turns his face. The officer grabs Pretti’s hand to bring it behind his back, and deploys the pepper spray canister again and then pushes Pretti away.

Seconds later, at least half a dozen federal officers surround Pretti, who is wrestled to the ground and hit several times. Several agents try to bring Pretti’s arms behind his back, and he struggles.

Videos show an officer, who is hovering over the scuffle with his right hand on Pretti’s back, back away from the group with what appears to be a gun in his right hand just before the first shot is heard.

Someone shouts, “Gun, gun.” It is not clear whether that’s a reference to the weapon authorities say Pretti had.

And then the first shot is heard.

Videos do not clearly show who fired the first shot. In one video, seconds before that shot, one officer reaches for his belt and appears to draw his gun. The same officer is seen with a gun to Pretti’s back as three more shots ring out. Pretti slumps to the ground. Videos show the officers backing away, some with guns drawn. More shots are fired.

The Department of Homeland Security said Pretti was shot after he “approached” Border Patrol officers with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun. Officials did not say whether Pretti, who is licensed to carry a concealed weapon, brandished the gun or kept it hidden.

An agency statement said officers fired “defensive shots” after Pretti “violently resisted” officers trying to disarm him.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz expressed dismay at the characterization.

“I’ve seen the videos, from several angles, and it’s sickening,” he said.

Trump weighed in on social media by lashing out at Walz and Frey. He shared images of the gun that immigration officials said was recovered from Pretti and said “What is that all about? Where are the local Police? Why weren’t they allowed to protect ICE Officers?”

Fingerhut writes for the Associated Press.

Protesters in Iran defied a government crackdown on Saturday night, taking to the streets despite reports suggesting hundreds of people have been killed or wounded by security forces in the past three days.

Videos verified by the BBC and eyewitness accounts appeared to show the government was ramping up its response.

Iran’s attorney general said anyone protesting would be considered an “enemy of God” – an offence that carries the death penalty.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to hit Iran “very hard” if they “start killing people”. Iran’s parliament speaker warned that if the US attacks Iran, Israel and all US military and shipping bases in the region would be legitimate targets.

The protests were sparked by soaring inflation, and have spread to more than 100 cities and towns across every province in Iran. Now protesters are calling for an end to the clerical rule of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei has dismissed demonstrators as a “bunch of vandals” seeking to “please” Trump.

Trump on Saturday said the US “stands ready to help” as Iran “is looking at FREEDOM”.

As protests intensify, the number of deaths and injuries continues to rise. BBC sources and US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA) have reported more than 100 people, including security personnel, killed.

Staff at several hospitals told the BBC they have been overwhelmed with the injured and dead, with BBC Persian verifying 70 bodies brought to one hospital in Rasht city on Friday night and a health worker reporting around 38 people dying at a Tehran hospital.

Iran’s police chief said on state TV that the level of confrontation with protesters had been stepped up, with arrests on Saturday night of what he called “key figures”. He blamed a “significant proportion of fatalities” on “trained and directed individuals”, not security forces, but did not give specific details.

More than 2,500 people have been arrested since protests began on 28 December, according to a human rights group.

The BBC and most other international news organisations are unable to report from inside Iran, and the Iranian government has imposed an internet shutdown since Thursday, making obtaining and verifying information difficult.

Nonetheless, some video footage has emerged, and the BBC has spoken to people on the ground.

Several videos, confirmed as recent by BBC Verify, show clashes between protesters and security forces in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city.

Masked protesters are seen taking cover behind bins and bonfires, while a row of security forces is seen in the distance. A vehicle that appears to be a bus is engulfed in flames.

Multiple gunshots and what sounds like banging on pots and pans can be heard.

A figure standing on a nearby footbridge appears to fire multiple gunshots in several directions as a couple of people take cover behind a fence on the side of the boulevard.

In Tehran, a verified video from Saturday night shows protesters also taking over the streets in the Gisha district.

Other verified videos from the capital show a large group of protesters and the sound of banging on pots in Punak Square, and a crowd of protesters marching on a road and calling for the end of the clerical establishment in the Heravi district.

Internet access in Iran is largely limited to a domestic intranet, with restricted links to the outside world. But during the current round of protests, authorities have, for the first time, not only shut down access to the worldwide internet but also severely restricted the domestic intranet.

An expert told BBC Persian the shutdown is more severe than during the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising in 2022.

Alireza Manafi, an internet researcher, said the only likely way to connect to the outside world was via Starlink satellite internet, but warned users to exercise caution, as such connections could potentially be traced by the government.

On Saturday, Trump wrote on social media: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

He did not elaborate, but US media reported that Trump had been briefed on options for military strikes in the country. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported the briefings had taken place, with WSJ describing them as “preliminary discussions”. An unnamed official told the WSJ there was no “imminent threat” to Iran.

Last year, the US conducted airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

As dawn broke on Sunday in Iran, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah (king), who lives in the US and whose return protesters have been calling for, posted a video to X.

Its caption said: “Your compatriots around the world are proudly shouting your voice… In particular, President Trump, as the leader of the free world, has carefully observed your indescribable bravery and has announced that he is ready to help you.”

He added: “I know that I will soon be by your side.”

He claimed the Islamic Republic was facing a “severe shortage of mercenaries” and that “many armed and security forces have left their workplaces or disobeyed orders to suppress the people”. The BBC could not verify these claims.

Pahlavi encouraged people to continue protesting on Sunday evening, but to stay in groups or with crowds and not “endanger your lives”.

Amnesty International said it was analysing “distressing reports that security forces had intensified their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters” since Thursday.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said those speaking out against Khamenei’s government should not face “the threat of violence or reprisals”.

At least 78 protesters and 38 security personnel have been killed in the past two weeks, HRANA reported.

BBC Persian has confirmed the identities of 26 people killed, including six children.

A hospital worker in Tehran described “very horrible scenes”, saying there were so many wounded that staff did not have time to perform CPR, and that morgues did not have enough room to store the bodies.

They said many people died “as soon as they reached the emergency beds… direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well. Many of them didn’t even make it to the hospital.”

The protests have been the most widespread since an uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.

More than 550 people were killed and 20,000 detained by security forces over several months, according to human rights groups.

Additional reporting by Soroush Pakzad and Roja Assadi

In a bid for greater user engagement, Walt Disney Co. will introduce vertical videos to its Disney+ app over the next year, a company executive said Wednesday.

The move is part of the Burbank media and entertainment company’s effort to encourage more frequent app usage, particularly on smartphones.

“We know that mobile is an incredible opportunity to turn Disney+ into a true daily destination for fans,” Erin Teague, executive vice president of product management, said during an onstage presentation in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. “All of the short-form Disney content you want, all in one unified app.”

Teague said the company will evolve that capability over time to determine new formats, categories and content types.

Disney’s presentation also touched on its interest in artificial intelligence. Last month, San Francisco startup OpenAI said it had reached a licensing deal with Disney to use more than 200 of the company’s popular characters in its text-to-video tool, Sora. Under the terms of that deal, users will be able to write prompts that generate short videos featuring Disney characters and use ChatGPT images to create those characters’ visages. Some of those Sora-generated videos will be shown on Disney+, though the companies said the deal did not include talent likenesses or voices.

Disney also said it would invest $1 billion into the AI company.

Part of Disney’s move toward AI is to appeal to young Gen Alpha viewers, who are more comfortable with AI and “expect to interact with entertainment” instead of simply watching stories on the screen, Teague said.

“AI is an accelerator,” she said. “It’s why collaborations with partners like OpenAI are absolutely crucial. We want to empower a new generation of fandom that is more interactive and immersive, while also respecting human creativity and protecting user safety.”

BBC

Bottles with sparklers held in the air

Questions about foam padding on ceiling

Exit routes from the bar

Sparklers used before

YouTube