The ultimate in low-budget film-making, the Ormonds specialised in bad-taste drive-in movies until a plane crash turned their attention to God. Now, with a major reevaluation, their time has come

In 1986, Jimmy McDonough, the acclaimed biographer of Neil Young, Tammy Wynette, Al Green and Russ Meyer , was sent a photo in the post. It was a black-and-white still from an obscure 1963 movie, of “a very voluptuous dame leaning over a guy without a shirt on,” he says, speaking from his home in Portland, Oregon. “The guy has a ‘Myrtle’ tattoo on his arm, and she’s lighting a cigarette.” The words “and after the cigarette, we’ll …” ran across the image. “It looked very seamy,” says McDonough. Yet the title of the film, Please Don’t Touch Me, suggested otherwise.

There was a mysterious credit at the bottom: “Distributed by the Ormond Enterprises.” “My mind danced,” says McDonough. They were a family, he found out: husband and wife Ron and June Ormond, and their son, Tim, from Nashville. Operating independently on shoestring budgets, they handled almost every aspect of production themselves, as well as often appearing in the films alongside nonprofessional actors drawn from their social circle. Their output spanned a dizzying array of genres – westerns, country music jamborees, documentaries, monster movies and other grindhouse fare. But what really set the Ormonds apart was their commitment to a higher cause: God.

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For centuries stonemasons have left secret signature works in buildings. In an age of machines, they are a testament to what it is to be human

The “topping out” of Salisbury Cathedral last week marked the end of a 37-year restoration project, which has returned the 14th-century building to its former glory. But as the scaffolding is dismantled over the next few weeks, after the traditional ceremony of completion and blessing, a small part of the humanity of the endeavour will disappear from view. Six small stone carvings, including the figure of a female stonemason, will be hidden away among its parapets, invisible from the ground.

For centuries, stonemasons have left such concealed signatures in the great buildings of Europe. In creating a record of herself as a female mason, the carver Carol Pike is following the example of a medieval forebear who chiselled what is believed to be a 12th-century self-portrait atop a pillar in Spain’s Santiago de Compostela cathedral.

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Ulma family including unborn child all beatified for their actions to help Jews during second world war

The Vatican has beatified a Polish family of nine – a married couple and their small children – who were executed by the Nazis during the second world war for sheltering Jews.

During a ceremonious mass in the village of Markowa, in southeastern Poland, papal envoy Cardinal Marcello Semeraro read out the Latin formula of the beatification of the Ulma family signed last month by Pope Francis.

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Those who moan that we’re losing our religion are quick to demonise the most vulnerable

A shape less recogni sable each week,

A purpose more obscure. I wonder who

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The state council rejected complaints that the ban was discriminatory and could incite hatred against Muslims

France’s top administrative court has upheld a government ban on traditional overgarments worn by some Muslim women and girls in schools and rejected complaints it was discriminatory and could incite hatred.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government announced last month it was banning the abaya in schools as it broke the rules on secularism, or laïcité , in education.

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Indonesian photographer Riska Munawarah uses old family pictures and fabric to construct works that question Islamic women’s identity

Aceh is the only province in Indonesia that applies sharia law. Since its implementation in 2006, the Aceh government has made it mandatory for every Acehnese Muslim woman to wear the hijab.

I remember when, soon after the law came into force, the sharia police raided the area outside our house, approaching every woman who wasn’t wearing the hijab in public and handing out head scarves. My mother was shopping at the time and came home with a headscarf. From that moment on she wore the hijab. I was eight at the time and couldn’t understand why she was being made to wear one.

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New digital billboard project by For Freedoms to launch in response to the rise of hate toward the Jewish community

Nuance isn’t usually a byword for propaganda, but the latest public art campaign from non-partisan artist collective For Freedoms is filled with images that mesmerize and bewilder.

The new series, The Highest Form of Wisdom is Kindness, is a response to the surge in antisemitism in the US and whose name derives from the Talmud, features works by a dozen artists – Jewish and non-Jewish – including Deborah Kass, Joel Mesler, Ruvan Wijesooriya, and MacArthur “Genius” photographer Carrie Mae Weems. The project will launch on digital billboards in eight American cities in early September, in advance of the Jewish high holidays.

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Girls who refused to remove banned garment given letter saying ‘secularism is not a constraint, it is a liberty’, says minister

On the first day of the new academic year French schools sent home dozens of girls for refusing to remove their abayas, the education minister said on Tuesday.

Defying a ban on the Muslim garment, nearly 300 girls showed up on Monday morning wearing an abaya, Gabriel Attal told the BFM broadcaster. Most agreed to change, but 67 refused and were sent home, he said.

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Abaya-wearing girls are seen not simply as students, but as envoys of global Islamism conspiring against the French nation

When Gabriel Attal, the French education minister, went on national television for an interview to mark the start of the new school term, he had a clear message: “I have decided that the abaya can no longer be worn in school.” He elaborated: “When you walk into a classroom, you should not be able to identify the pupils’ religion by looking at them.” An official statement came a few days later confirming the ban on the long, loose dress worn by some Muslim women and girls. The practical effect of the announcement is that any young woman who turns up at the gates of her school wearing an abaya faces being barred from attending class or mixing with her classmates. “But,” added the minister, “students will be welcomed and there will be a conversation with them to explain the meaning of the rule.”

The ban on wearing the abaya should be seen as part of the colonial relationship that exists between the French state and French citizens descended from postcolonial immigration. It has a history marked by three key events: in 1989 the principal of a school expelled three teenage girls for wearing headscarves in class. In 1994 a government memorandum created a distinction between so-called “discreet” religious symbols, which it said were acceptable in schools, and “ostentatious” religious symbols, which were not. In 2004 a new law banned the wearing of veils or any “conspicuous” religious symbols in state schools.

Kaoutar Harchi is a French sociologist and the author of As We Exist: A Postcolonial Autobiography

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