BERLIN: British singer Ed Sheeran said on Friday that the hardest part of songwriting was coming up with lines that had never been written before as a new documentary detailing his creative process premiered at Berlin’s international film festival.
The movie “Songwriter” was directed by Sheeran’s cousin, Murray Cummings, and follows the Grammy winner as he travels around the United States and England writing songs on his laptop, jamming in a garden and recording in the studio.
The intimate portrait of Sheeran, who was the most-streamed artist on music service Spotify globally in 2017, includes footage of him belting out songs while crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2, returning to high school to see his music teacher and talking to his father about his songs.
“I think the most difficult thing to do with writing a song is finding a phrase that you haven’t heard before because there’s always a song that’s going to be like: ‘I love you baby like crazy, I miss you maybe’,” Sheeran told a news conference.
He said he had learned not to push himself if he was struggling to write and did not believe writer’s block existed.
“What I do when I can’t write a song is I just put the guitar down and go and do something else for about a couple of weeks and then come back and then I’ll be able to write a song,” the 27-year-old said.
“So the way that my mind is now is, I will be able to write songs forever — they probably will start being about pretty mundane things because my life is getting more and more calm.”
Sheeran said he liked the documentary because it showed a song being written from start to finish, rather than just an album being recorded.
“I like that Murray found a niche that hasn’t really been done before. It’s quite difficult to find something that hasn’t been done in a music movie,” Sheeran said.
Sheeran, who said he planned to make a film next year in which he would play something other than himself, listed “Goodfellas,” “Cool Runnings” and “Love Actually” as his favorite movies.
Cummings told Reuters the documentary would give fans an insight into Sheeran off-stage.
“When he’s on his own he’s kind of very like relaxed and chilled and stuff. So I think they’re going to see that’s what he’s like because this film just kind of shows what I see every day,” Cummings said.
Ed Sheeran searches for new lines in movie ‘Songwriter’
Ed Sheeran searches for new lines in movie ‘Songwriter’
Riyadh exhibition to trace the origins of Saudi modern art
- Features painting, sculpture and archival documents
- Open from Jan. 27-April 11 at Saudi national museum
DUBAI: A new exhibition in Riyadh is focusing on the origins of Saudi Arabia’s modern art scene, examining how a generation of artists helped shape the Kingdom’s visual culture during a period of rapid change.
The “Bedayat: Beginnings of Saudi Art Movement” show reportedly traces the emergence of creative practices in Saudi Arabia from the 1960s to the 1980s, an era that laid the groundwork for today’s art ecosystem.
On view from Jan. 27 until April 11 at the National Museum of Saudi Arabia, it includes works and archival material that document the early years of modern and abstract art in the Kingdom, according to the organizers.
It will examine how artists responded to shifting social, cultural and economic realities, often working with limited infrastructure but a strong sense of purpose and experimentation.
The exhibition is the result of extensive research led by the Visual Arts Commission, which included dozens of site visits and interviews with artists and figures active during the period.
These firsthand accounts have helped to reconstruct a time when formal exhibition spaces were scarce, art education was still developing, and artists relied heavily on personal initiative to build communities and platforms for their work.
Curated by Qaswra Hafez, “Bedayat” will feature painting, sculpture, works on paper and archival documents, many of which will be shown publicly for the first time.
The works will reveal how Saudi artists engaged with international modernist movements while grounding their practice in local heritage, developing visual languages that spoke to both global influences and lived experience.
The exhibition will have three sections, beginning with the foundations of the modern art movement, and followed by a broader look at the artistic concerns of the time.
It will conclude with a focus on four key figures: Mohammed Al-Saleem, Safeya Binzagr, Mounirah Mosly and Abdulhalim Radwi.
A publication, documentary film and public program of talks and workshops will accompany the exhibition, offering further insight into a pivotal chapter of Saudi art history and the artists who helped define it.
