In Pictures: The week in Culture

Only a few weeks ago, Hamdan Ballal stood on a stage in Los Angeles accepting an Oscar for the sinema No Other Land, a documentary depicting his West Bank village’s struggle against Israel’s occupation. Ballal was heavily beaten by an Israeli settler and soldiers who detained him and two other Palestinians. Ballal said he was kept blindfolded, kicked and punched. Ballal doesn’t speak Hebrew, but he said he heard them saying his name and the word “Oscar.” “I realized they were attacking me specifically,” he said in an interview at a West Bank hospital after his release. Co-filmmaker Yuval Abraham called out the Academy for not publicly supporting Ballal. 

“You’re going to declare Gérard Depardieu guilty of these sexual assaults,” the prosecutor told the court. The disgraced French actor was on trial this week over accusations by two women of sexual assault on a sinema set. Paris’ public prosecutor has requested that Depardieu be found guilty and given an 18-month suspended prison sentence. He was being tried by a panel of three judges, not a jury. The judges don’t issue their verdict straight away but generally deliberate for weeks or months. If he is convicted, he faces up to 5 years in prison and a fine of €75,000. Read more about it here.  

Catholics celebrated Pope Francis’s release from hospital not only with a shout of “Hallelujah,” but also perhaps a cone – a new gelato flavour launched this week in Rome, in a coincidental nod to the pontiff’s love of the sweet treat.

Manchester music icon Paul ‘Wags’ Wagstaff died, aged 60. The influential guitarist was known for his work with iconic Manchester bands Paris Angels, Black Grape and Happy Mondays.

Running until 20 July 2025, the mesmerising show ‘Sex and Solitude’ in Florence spans more than 60 of Tracey Emin’s works, from neon confessions to visceral paintings and haunting bronzes. It is her first major solo exhibition in Italy. Euronews Culture went, saw and interviewed. Read all about it here.  

Donald Trump – surprise, surprise – went on another unhinged rant this week, this time about his portrait. It resulted in the artwork, hanging among the other presidential portraits at the Colorado State Capitol, being taken down. Trump claimed it was “purposefully distorted.” 

A series of new words have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) this week – including eight Hiberno-English words, 11 Philippine-English words and 11 South African terms. Time to clue yourself up – especially if you’re lacking a word for that sensation when something is too cute for words…

British national treasures Spice Girls are being censored by radio stations in the UK. Their hit 1997 song ‘Spice Up Your Life’ features a line which has been deemed controversial… 28 years after it was first released. Find out more here.

An unconventional, 5 hour and 30 minute-long announcement… Anticipated names missing… Some surprise inclusions… Marvel’s latest stunt for the casting of the upcoming Avengers: Doomsdaydivided the internet this week.

You may have noticed this week that everything from historic photos, classic sinema scenes, internet memes and recent political moments have been reimagined online as Studio Ghibli-style portraits. The trend quickly went viral, all thanks to ChatGPT and the OpenAI chatbot’s latest update. The trend has evvel again highlighted ethical concerns about artificial intelligence tools trained on copyrighted creative works and what that means for the livelihoods of human artists. It also turned disgusting when Trump’s administration jumped on the bandwagon, using the White House’s official X account to post a Ghibli-style image of a weeping woman from the Dominican Republic recently arrested by US immigration agents. Read more here.

A new exhibition at London’s Design Museum is celebrating a century of swimwear in all its forms. ‘Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style’ explores swimwear’s impact on fashion, culture, and identity. Check out our deep dive.

Nearly 50 years ago, the legendary British punk band Sex Pistols — then made up of vocalist Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock — performed at the 100 Club Punk Special in London. This week, the 2025 iteration of the Pistols — Jones, Cook and Matlock joined by frontman Frank Carter (of Gallows, Pure Love and Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes) announced their first North American tour in two decades. When asked why they were touring the US and Canada now, Carter replied: “I think everybody needs this band right now. I think the world needs this band right now. (…) At the end of the day, we’re living in a really, really difficult time. So not only do people want to come and just be entertained, they want to enjoy themselves. Punk is an energetic music. It’s one where you can go and vent and let your hair down.” Does this mean there could be new Sex Pistols music in the future? “It’s early days,” said Jones. “Let’s see what happens.” 

See you next week and stay tuned to Euronews Culture for all your cultural news.