Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare, Van Gogh didn't kill himself, George Harrison was the hero of The Beatles and Hemingway was a feminist. Revisionism has gone too far, says Geoffrey Macnab

While some actors, producers and directors left Canada to find more opportunities in Hollywood, John Dunning stayed in his homeland to become a pioneer who helped to establish the country's film industry.

Abel Ferrara has gone clean. US indie cinema's bard of drug abuse, sleaze and violence has been known in the past to turn up three hours late for interviews – and then promptly fall asleep. The colourful Bronx-born director of Driller Killer, King of New York and The Funeral, is due in Venice later this week for the premiere of his new film 4:44 Last Day on Earth about a couple confronting the end of the world. The word in advance of his arrival is that his own wild days are now firmly behind him. In the press notes for the new movie, he even quotes the Dalai Lama. The publicists are so confident that he's a reformed character that they are scheduling some of his interviews for early in the morning. Whether he'll turn up or not remains to be seen.

The BBC has apologised after broadcasting a programme on the riots under the heading: "Is there a problem with young black men?"

The White House has vigorously denied granting special favours to its friends in Hollywood after it emerged that officials are helping Kathryn Bigelow to research a movie about the supposedly top-secret assassination of Osama bin Laden.

Moviemakers producing a film about the US special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden are getting help from the Pentagon, but the Obama administration dismissed concerns on Wednesday that classified information has been divulged.

Thirty years after his death, a film by Sir Alfred Hitchcock will once more enjoy a Hollywood premiere after a copy of what is believed to be the earliest surviving film from his back catalogue was found in New Zealand.