| COCTEAU | French writer and director of film company has acute difficulty (7) |
| EMERALD | Writer and director of film Promising Young Woman, ------- Fennell (7) |
| KODAK | Film company has overdraft; in the smelly stuff by the sound of it (5) |
| INDIGENT | In dire need of film company dismissing English fellow |
| STUD | Boss of film company refusing one Oscar |
| STRAITS | Dire _, a position of acute difficulty (7) |
| JENKINS | Writer and director of the Oscar-winning 2016 film Moonlight (5,7) |
| BRANAGH | Kenneth - - -, writer and director of the film Belfast (7) |
| HELOISE | French writer and abbess, the lover of Peter Abelard (7) |
| RIVIERE | Jacques -, French writer and critic; author of 1912 collection Etudes (7) |
| FENNELL | Emerald - - -, writer and director of Saltburn (7) |
| EVERETT | Rupert ___, star, writer and director of The Happy Prince (7) |
| WENDERS | Wim -, director of film dramas Hammett, The Million Dollar Hotel and Paris, Texas (7) |
| ANNAKIN | English director of film comedies The Fast Lady and Monte Carlo or Bust! (3,7) |
| LENCLOS | Ninon de ---, French author and courtesan of the late 17th Century (7) |
| COLETTE | French author and actor who was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize for literature (7) |
| ANTOINE | ___ de Saint-Exupery, French author and aviator (7) |
| FULLER | Samuel ___, writer and director of films The Naked Kiss and The Big Red One (6) |
| WELLES | Orson _, actor and director of films such as Citizen Kane and The Third Man (6) |
| DIRESTRAITS | Position of acute difficulty - pop group (4,7) |
