Month: October 2017

The Biltmore Estate is the largest privately owned home in the United States. Built near Asheville, North Carolina, it is still owned by the descendants of one of America’s richest families, the Vanderbilts. It is a tourist attraction and a reminder of the so-called Gilded Age of the late 19th century. VOA’s Maria Morton takes us there.
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American director David Lynch will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the upcoming Rome Film Fest.

The festival opens Oct. 26 with director Scott Cooper’s Hostiles, starring Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike, and runs until Nov. 5.

The 39 official entries include a sport section, with movies including Borg/McEnroe, I, Tonya with Margot Robbie playing figure skater Tonya Harding, and boxing drama A Prayer Before Down by director Jean Stephane Sauvaire.

The festival features onstage discussions with the likes of actors Ian McKellen and Vanessa Redgrave, director Nanni Moretti and composer Michael Nyman.

Lynch is being honored 40 years after the release of his first feature film Eraserhead. The festival cites his films of “surreal atmosphere, hypnotic images and non-linear plots.”
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The last privately owned Leonardo da Vinci painting and one of fewer than 20 by the Renaissance artist known to still exist is hitting the auction block, Christie’s announced Tuesday.

Salvator Mundi, an ethereal portrait of Jesus Christ that dates to about 1500, is expected to sell for about $100 million at Christie’s in November, making it among the most highly valued works ever to be sold at auction.

“This is truly the Holy Grail of art rediscoveries,” said Alan Wintermute, Christie’s senior specialist for Old Master paintings, explaining that the portrait sometimes called “the male Mona Lisa” had long been thought to have been lost or destroyed.

The portrait depicts Christ in vivid blue and crimson robes holding a crystal orb.

First recorded in the private collection of King Charles I, the work was auctioned in 1763 before vanishing until 1900, by which time Christ’s face and hair had been painted over, which Wintermute said was “quite common” practice.

Sold at Sotheby’s to an American collector in 1958 for 45 pounds, it again sold in 2005 as an overpainted copy of the masterwork, he said.

The new owner started the restoration process, and after six years of research it was authenticated as da Vinci’s more than 500-year-old masterpiece, which culminated in a high-profile exhibition at London’s National Gallery in 2011.

The auction house did not identify the seller, a European private collector who acquired the work after its rediscovery in 2005 and lengthy restoration. The painting stands as the first discovery of a da Vinci painting since 1909.

Salvator Mundi will be sold at Christie’s in New York at its November 15 sale of postwar and contemporary art following public exhibitions in Hong Kong, London and San Francisco.

“We felt that offering this painting within that context is a testament to the enduring relevance of this picture,” said Loic Gouzer, chairman of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art.

Speaking to its $100 million estimate, Wintermute said, “There has never been anything like it sold, and so the market will decide.”

The same sale at Christie’s will feature Andy Warhol’s monumental Sixty Last Suppers, a piece from one of the pop artist’s final series before his death in 1987.

The 32-foot, multiple-image work is estimated to fetch $50 million.
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Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is accused of raping three women in a report published Tuesday by the New Yorker. The accusation comes as Weinstein is engulfed in a scandal involving his decades-long sexual harassment of women in the film industry.

Actresses Asia Argento and Lucia Evans went on-the-record in the New Yorker story to accuse Weinstein of raping them, while another woman chose to remain anonymous.

According to the report, 13 women accused Weinstein of sexually harassing or assaulting them. Several of those accusations were previously reported by the New York Times, which published a story last week detailing eight sexual assault claims against Weinstein. All of those accusations resulted in financial settlements.

Among the accusers are some of Hollywood’s A-listers, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rosanna Arquette.

The New Yorker story says 16 current and former employees as the Weinstein Co. and Miramax either witnessed of knew of Weinstein’s sexual abuse. According to the report, all of those employees said Weinstein’s sexual deviancy was widely known within the two companies.

Weinstein was fired by the board of the Weinstein Co. on Monday following the explosive Times report.

The 65-year-old Weinstein oversaw production of many popular films over the last 30 years, including “Shakespeare in Love,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “The English Patient,” “Good Will Hunting” and “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.” He ran Miramax and later the Weinstein movie companies with his brother Bob Weinstein.

His fall came quickly after Times reported on his unwanted sexual advances on women stretching over nearly three decades. The story said Weinstein, who is known in Hollywood for his demanding control of film productions and angry outbursts, had paid confidential settlements to his female accusers.

In a statement last week, Weinstein said that “the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.” Later, he claimed some of the newspaper’s claims were false and said he would sue for defamation.

Immediate termination

Weinstein took a leave of absence from his company on Friday, but on Sunday the board said that “in light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days,” it had told him that “his employment is terminated, effective immediately.”

Weinstein has been big donor in recent years to Democratic politicians in the U.S., including twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. But with the sexual harassment revelations, Democratic political figures scrambled over the weekend to distance themselves from the disgraced filmmaker.

Several Democrat politicians, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have promised to donate money they received from Weinstein to charities supporting women.

Clinton broke her silence on the matter on Tuesday, saying she was “shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein.”  “The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated,” she added in a statment.

President Donald Trump said over the weekend he’s “known Harvey Weinstein for a long time” and he is “not at all surprised” by the sexual abuse allegations.
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The Hollywood establishment, slow to react to the initial sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein, began speaking out against him more forcefully Monday after the powerful studio boss was fired by his own company.

Among those weighing in were his longtime allies and beneficiaries Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Kevin Smith and Judi Dench. They spoke up with a combination of disgust over his alleged behavior and remorse or defensiveness over their own business entanglements with him. Even the actors’ labor union SAG-AFTRA joined the chorus in condemning the disgraced movie mogul, calling reports of his alleged conduct “abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Director Kevin Smith, whose movies Clerks and Chasing Amy were produced by Weinstein, noted on Twitter that the producer financed the first 14 years of his career.

“Now I know while I was profiting, others were in terrible pain,” Smith wrote. “It makes me feel ashamed.”

Weinstein, 65, was fired Sunday by the Weinstein Co., the studio he co-founded, three days after a bombshell New York Times expose alleged decades of crude sexual behavior on his part toward female employees and actresses, including Ashley Judd. The Times said at least eight settlements had been reached with women.

Streep, who once called Weinstein “God” while accepting the Golden Globe for The Iron Lady, condemned his alleged conduct as “inexcusable” while also saying she did not know about it before.

“The disgraceful news about Harvey Weinstein has appalled those of us whose work he championed, and those whose good and worthy causes he supported,” Streep said in a statement.

Stories of his behavior, she said, were not universally known in Hollywood.

“Harvey supported the work fiercely, was exasperating but respectful with me in our working relationship, and with many others with whom he worked professionally,” Streep continued. “If everybody knew, I don’t believe that all the investigative reporters in the entertainment and the hard news media would have neglected for decades to write about it.”

Similarly, Dench, whose awards and nominations have been inextricably linked for two decades to Weinstein, first at his company Miramax and then at the Weinstein Co., said in a statement that she was “completely unaware” of the “horrifying” offenses.

“I offer my sympathy to those who have suffered and wholehearted support to those who have spoken out,” she wrote.

Dench won a best supporting actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love and a nomination for Philomena.

Not all were completely blindsided, however.  

Kate Winslet, who won an Oscar for The Weinstein Co.’s The Reader said in a statement that the alleged behavior is “without question disgraceful and appalling.”

“I had hoped that these kind of stories were just made up rumors, maybe we have all been naïve,” Winslet wrote.

Glenn Close had also heard the “vague rumors” of his inappropriate behavior toward.

“Harvey has always been decent to me, but now that the rumors are being substantiated, I feel angry and darkly sad,” Close said in a statement to the New York Times. “I’m angry, not just at him and the conspiracy of silence around his actions, but also that the `casting couch’ phenomenon, so to speak, is still a reality in our business and in the world: the horrible pressure, the awful expectation put on a woman when a powerful, egotistical, entitled bully expects sexual favors in exchange for a job.”

Close called on everyone to unite on both an institutional and personal level to create a new culture of, “respect, equality and empowerment.”

In ousting him from the company, the Weinstein board of directors said it was reacting to “new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days.” It did not elaborate.

A studio insider who was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that the Weinstein Co. plans to change its name.

Also, Weinstein’s name will be stripped from the TV series Waco and Yellowstone, among other projects.

Actress Lena Dunham tweeted Sunday night, “Easy to think Weinstein company took swift action but this has actually been the slowest action because they always always knew.”

Under Weinstein’s leadership, the Weinstein Co. has been a dominant force at the Oscars. It accomplished the rare feat of winning back-to-back best picture Academy Awards with The King’s Speech and The Artist.

In recent years, however, Weinstein’s status has diminished because of money shortages, disappointing box-office returns and executive departures.

His other movie credits over the years include Pulp Fiction and The English Patient.

Since the Times article, more accounts of predatory behavior have followed.

In a HuffPost report, TV anchor Lauren Sivan detailed an alleged 2007 encounter with Weinstein. Sivan, then working at a New York cable channel, said Weinstein cornered her in the hallway of a New York City restaurant closed to the public and masturbated in front of her.

Sivan said she had rejected an attempt by Weinstein to kiss her, and he responded: “Well, can you just stand there and shut up?”

The swift fall of one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures has turned up the pressure on many in the industry to speak out.

“What Harvey Weinstein did was abhorrent. He admits he did it. Why should anyone be silent in their disgust and support for his victims?” director Judd Apatow said on Twitter.

SAG-AFTRA said in its statement Monday said that everyone has the right to work in an environment free of discrimination and harassment. It provided the number for their safety hotline too.

“There is more to be done by all of us to ensure the safety of women in the industry,” the organization said.
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A satirical look at the European Union and its bureaucracy, which opens with a pig running amok in one of Brussels’ main squares, has won the prestigious German Book Prize.

Austrian writer Robert Menasse scooped a 25,000 euro prize for his novel Die Hauptstadt (The Capital) on Monday, on the eve of the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Europe’s future hangs in the balance as Britain wrangles with Brussels about the terms of its departure from the bloc after the June 2016 Brexit vote. Despite efforts to provide a united front, the other 27 members remain deeply divided over the euro, taxes and migration.

“Contemporary times are presented literarily so well that contemporaries recognize themselves and coming generations will better understand this time,” the German Publishers and Booksellers Association said.

The Austrian newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten called Menasse’s book “provocative, timely and important: a plea to remember what lies at the centre of the ‘European peace project’, and to have the courage to take it into its next phase.”

The book, published by Suhrkampf Verlag in September, was one of six books shortlisted for the prize. Menasse, clearly moved, accepted the prize in Frankfurt.
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Is it time to say arrivederci to Christopher Columbus?

A movement to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day has gained momentum in some parts of the U.S., with Los Angeles in August becoming the biggest city yet to decide to stop honoring the Italian explorer and instead recognize victims of colonialism.

 

Austin, Texas, followed suit Thursday. It joined cities including San Francisco, Seattle and Denver, which had previously booted Columbus in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day.

 

But the gesture to recognize indigenous people rather than the man who opened the Americas to European domination also has prompted howls of outrage from some Italian-Americans, who say eliminating their festival of ethnic pride is culturally insensitive, too.

“We had a very difficult time in this country for well over a hundred years,” said Basil Russo, president of the Order Italian Sons and Daughters of America. “Columbus Day is a day that we’ve chosen to celebrate who we are. And we’re entitled to do that just as they are entitled to celebrate who they are.”

 

It’s not about taking anything away from Italian-Americans, said Cliff Matias, cultural director of the Redhawk Native American Arts Council, which is hosting a Re-Thinking Columbus Day event Sunday and Monday in New York.

 

“The conversation is Columbus,” he said. “If they’re going to celebrate Columbus, we need to celebrate the fact that we survived Columbus.”

 

The debate over Columbus’ historical legacy is an old one, but it became emotionally charged after a similar debate in the South over monuments to Confederate generals flared into deadly violence in August at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

 

In Akron, Ohio, a September vote over whether to dump Columbus opened a racial rift on the city council that was so heated conflict mediators were brought in to sooth tensions.

In New York, where 35,000 people are expected to march in Monday’s Columbus Day parade, vandals last month doused the hands of a Christopher Columbus statue in blood-red paint and scrawled the words “hate will not be tolerated.” Activists calling for the city to change the parade’s name also are expected to hold a demonstration.

 

On Sunday, three demonstrators briefly interrupted a wreath-laying ceremony at the Columbus statue in Columbus Circle. The protesters, two dressed in fake chains and one wearing a hooded white sheet, spoke out before being escorted away. Police said one person was arrested.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, appointed a committee to evaluate whether monuments to certain historical figures should be removed, prompting a backlash from fellow Italian-Americans who vowed to defend the Columbus statue, which has stood over Columbus Circle for more than a century.

 

Many Italians who migrated to the U.S. initially had a rough time. In 1891, 11 Italians were lynched in New Orleans by a mob that held them responsible for the death of a police official.

 

At the end of the 1800s, Italians began to link themselves more with Columbus. Italian-American businessman and newspaper owner Generoso Pope was among those who worked to get Columbus Day recognized as a federal holiday in 1937.

 

“It was one of the things that would allow them to become Americans symbolically,” said Fred Gardaphe, a professor of Italian-American studies at Queens College.

 

Indigenous Peoples Day began to gel as an idea before the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas.

 

South Dakota began celebrating Native American Day on the second Monday of October in 1990. Berkeley, California, got rid of Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day in 1992.

 

Many places that have adopted Indigenous Peoples Day since then, including Alaska, have sizable Native American populations.

 

A few cities have compromised. Salt Lake City officials declared they would keep Columbus Day but celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day on the same day.

 

In Akron, a city with few Native Americans and a large Italian-American community, an attempt to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day on Sept. 11 split the all-Democrat city council along racial lines. Five black members voted to rename the holiday, and eight white members voted against it, following a debate that devolved into shouting.

 

“The first voyage of Columbus to the Americas initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It would lead to the kidnapping, deaths and slavery of tens of millions of African people,” said Councilman Russel Neal, who is black.

 

But Councilman Jeff Fusco, who is Italian-American, said, “It’s a celebration of Italian heritage. It’s very similar to other days throughout the year that we celebrate for many other cultures.”

States and municipalities aren’t legally bound to recognize federal holidays, though most do. Columbus Day is already one of the most inconsistently celebrated. Places that choose to replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day may give their own workers or schoolchildren a day off, teach in schools about Native Americans instead of Columbus, issue proclamations or mark it in other ways.

 

There is no question that Columbus’ arrival in the New World under the sponsorship of Spain was bad for the indigenous people of Hispaniola, the island he colonized that is now split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

 

Many of the native people of the island were forced into servitude. Multitudes died of disease. Spain repopulated the workforce with African slaves.

 

Columbus is celebrated in Latin America, too. A massive monument to the explorer, the Columbus Lighthouse, opened in 1992 in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. Puerto Rico commemorates Discovery Day on Nov. 19, marking the day Columbus landed there.

 

Ralph Arellanes, chairman of the activist group Hispano Round Table of New Mexico, said that as a Hispanic he supports Columbus Day.

 

“It was the marriage of two peoples creating a new people, in a new land,” he said.

 

Though Columbus “wasn’t a saint,” he said, he believes Anglo-Americans like President Andrew Jackson should be held more responsible than the Spanish for the hardships Native Americans faced.

 

Arellanes also said he doesn’t understand why Italians claim Columbus for themselves when Columbus was sailing for Spain.

 

 

 
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When singer Meghan Linsey first started her country duo Steel Magnolia, a partnership with the National Rifle Association was suggested as a way to grow their audience.

 

The proposal, which she refused, was a commonplace example of how intertwined gun ownership is with country music.

 

The mass shooting on the final day of Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas has emboldened some country musicians to call for gun control, even as many others declined to weigh in. Plenty of artists avoid the issue because there’s a real risk of backlash as gun lobbyists have bolstered a connection between the patriotic themes found in country music to gun ownership in recent years.

 

“I just feel like you’re so censored as a country artist,” said Linsey, an independent musician who took a knee after singing the national anthem at an NFL football game. “I feel like the labels like to keep you that way. They don’t want you to speak out. They don’t want you to say things that would upset country music listeners.”

 

She added: “People worry about being Dixie Chick-ed.”

 

The Dixie Chicks still loom large as a lesson in country music politics. The hugely popular group was boycotted after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized then-President George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003.

 

The National Rifle Association has further strengthened the relationship between guns and country music with its lifestyle and music brand called NRA Country. NRA Country has sought to tie the music to gun-linked activities like hunting or outdoor sports, but without mention of political issues.

 

Since about 2010, the NRA Country brand has been placed on country music tours and concerts, merchandise, an album called “This Is NRA Country,” a music video and more. It features performers such as Hank Williams Jr. and Trace Adkins. It’s unclear how much the NRA has spent on the brand, and representatives of the group did not respond to requests for information from The Associated Press.

Country duo Big & Rich, who have performed at NRA-sponsored events, were at the festival just hours before Stephen Paddock began firing from his room at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. They said it wasn’t the weapons that were the problem, but the man using them.

 

“I think if a man has ill will in his heart, then there’s weapons everywhere,” Big Kenny said. “I mean he can pick up a — anything — make a bomb, put it in his shoe. We have somebody trying to blow up stuff on trains constantly.”

 

The shooting changed the mind of Caleb Keeter, a guitarist for the Josh Abbott Band, who was among those at the festival during the attack. He wrote in a widely shared tweet that he had been a lifelong Second Amendment supporter: “I cannot express how wrong I was.”

 

Keeter said that a single man laid waste to a city because of “access to an insane amount of firepower.” Paddock had 23 guns in his room, some of which had attachments that allow a semi-automatic rifle to mimic a fully automatic weapon.

 

Others, including Jennifer Nettles of the band Sugarland and Sheryl Crow, have joined the call for gun control.

 

But there are risks.

 

When country artists have in the past tried to wade into gun politics, it can turn into a no-win situation.

 

Tim McGraw had to defend his participation in a benefit concert for victims of a mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut after criticism from gun rights advocates. His opening act, Billy Currington, pulled out of the performance over the controversy.

 

“As a gun owner, I support gun ownership, I also believe that with gun ownership comes the responsibility of education and safety — most certainly when it relates to what we value most, our children,” McGraw said in a statement in 2015. “I can’t imagine anyone who disagrees with that.”

Many artists expressed grief over the Las Vegas killings without wading into politics. Alongside her husband Vince Gill, Amy Grant led a prayer at a vigil in Nashville on Monday, a day after the shooting, while Maren Morris released a song called “Dear Hate,” in which she but declares “love conquers all.” Eric Church angrily said “no amount of bullets” was going to take away his memories of those fans killed, before debuting a song written in memory of the victims called “Why Not Me.”

 

John Osborne of the duo Brothers Osborne was in tears on national radio talking about the deaths of fans who they considered family. Keith Urban struggled to talk about the shooting to his 9-year-old daughter.

Jason Aldean, who was on stage at the festival when the shooter opened fire, said, “This world is becoming the kind of place I am afraid to raise my children in.”

Many others have donated to funds set up to help the victims and countless other selfless acts have brought the community even closer to support one another.

 

Singer Rosanne Cash, a longtime gun control advocate, called on the country music community to do more in an op-ed in the New York Times.

 

“It is no longer enough to separate yourself quietly,” Cash wrote. “The laws the N.R.A. would pass are a threat to you, your fans, and to the concerts and festivals we enjoy.”
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Harvey Weinstein has been fired from The Weinstein Co., effective immediately, three days after an expose detailed decades of allegations of sexual abuse against the movie mogul.

 

In a statement, the company’s board of directors announced his termination Sunday night, capping the swift downfall of one of Hollywood’s most powerful producers and expelling him from the company he co-created.

 

“In light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days, the directors of The Weinstein Company – Robert Weinstein, Lance Maerov, Richard Koenigsberg and Tarak Ben Ammar – have determined, and have informed Harvey Weinstein, that his employment with The Weinstein Company is terminated, effective immediately,” the company’s board said in a statement on Sunday night.

 

Weinstein had previously voluntarily taken a leave of absence following eight allegations of sexual harassment allegations uncovered in an expose by The New York Times. The board on Friday endorsed that decision and announced an investigation into the allegations.

 

But the Weinstein Co. board, which includes Weinstein’s brother, went further on Sunday. Weinstein, co-chairman of the film company, has also been its face and prime operator, making the Weinstein Co. an independent film leader and near annual presence at the Academy Awards.

 

An attorney for Weinstein didn’t immediately return messages Sunday.

 

A spokesperson for The Weinstein Co. declined to provide further details on Weinstein’s firing. Messages left for attorney John Keirnan of the firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, who had been appointed to lead an investigation, weren’t immediately returned Sunday.

Harvey Weinstein on Thursday issued a lengthy statement that acknowledged causing “a lot of pain.” He also asked for “a second chance.” But Weinstein and his lawyers have criticized The New York Times’ report in statements and interviews.

 

The New York Times article chronicled allegations against Weinstein from film star Ashley Judd and former employees at both The Weinstein Co. and Weinstein’s former company, Miramax.

 

“We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting,” said a New York Times spokesperson in a statement. “Mr. Weinstein was aware and able to respond to specific allegations in our story before publication. In fact, we published his response in full.”

 

The allegations triggered cascading chaos at the Weinstein Co. Numerous members of its all-male board have stepped down since Thursday. The prominent attorney Lisa Bloom, daughter of well-known Los Angeles women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred, on Saturday withdrew from representing Weinstein, as did another adviser, Lanny Davis.
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“Last Flag Flying”, a comedy-drama about Vietnam war veterans, will resonate with Trump’s America, despite, or perhaps because of, its period setting, actor Bryan Cranston said on Sunday after a screening at the London Film Festival.

Set in the United States in December 2003 — when U.S. forces in Iraq were dragging Saddam Hussein out of a “spider hole” — it is the story of three ageing former servicemen who reunite to bury the son of one of them who has been killed in action.

With President Donald Trump saying he could “totally destroy” North Korea and characterizing a dinner with military commanders as “the calm before the storm,” Cranston said “Last Flag Flying” was a timely reminder of the effect on normal Americans of ill-advised military campaigns.

“I think it has a lot of relevance today in the sense that [today] it’s not clear cut as far as the [what are the] intentions of the government or military,” Cranston, acclaimed for his lead role in the TV drama “Breaking Bad”, told Reuters. “In World War II, it was the ‘good war’, it was clear and present danger, we had to stop this mad man. Since then, with Vietnam and Iraq, [there are] a lot of questions … among the troops and the citizens as to if we are doing the right thing and what is the purpose of our being there.”

“Last Flag Flying” was produced by Amazon Studios and directed and co-written by Richard Linklater, whose greatest critical acclaim has been for the naturalistic “Before Sunset” trilogy and the 2014 “Boyhood” which won a slew of Oscar nominations.

Linklater also made comedies including “School of Rock” and “Everybody Wants Some!!,” about skirt-chasing undergraduates.

“Last Flag Flying” falls somewhere between the two genres.

The drama and comedy stem from the chemistry between the three leads, each played by a big Hollywood name.

Steve Carell is the awkward shy one who, we assume, was quiet and withdrawn even before the loss of his son. Cranston plays a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking bar owner who is his own best customer, and Laurence Fishburne, is a man who has found God and become an evangelical preacher, preferring to forget the sex and drugs they all indulged in back in ‘Nam.

Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson said the film’s ability to honor the foot soldiers while being critical of the wars they are sent to fight, could hit “an Academy sweet spot, satisfying both the more conservative oldsters and the younger, leftier types.”

Other critics said “Last Flag Flying” lacked the light touch of Linklater’s best work. The Guardian’s Benjamin Lee called it “a half-baked TV movie masquerading as Oscarbait, a curious misstep for the Oscar-nominated indie auteur.”
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A movie secretly shot inside an Australian-run detention center for asylum seekers highlights the plight of thousands of “forgotten” refugees who have been marooned for years on remote Pacific islands, its co-directors said on Sunday.

“Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time”, which had its international premiere at the London Film Festival, offers a glimpse into daily life at a detention complex on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, 160 km (100 miles) north of Australia.

Nearly 2,000 men, women and children are held on Manus Island and at another Australian-funded center on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru, where most of them have been given refugee status.

But despite their refugee status, many have been held for four years in conditions criticized by the United Nations and rights groups.

“This movie is our voice and we want people around the world to hear it,” co-director Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist from Iran, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Manus, where he has been held since 2013.

Canberra’s hardline immigration policy requires asylum seekers intercepted at sea trying to reach Australia to be sent for processing on Manus Island and Nauru. They are told they will never be settled in Australia.

“People are dying on this island,” said Boochani, referring to the recent suicide of two asylum seekers.

Boochani filmed the documentary on a mobile phone and sent it in short clips via WhatsApp to Dutch-Iranian film-maker Arash Kamali Sarvestani, who made it into a movie.

Most of the footage was recorded surreptitiously.

“We were alone … I, Behrouz, and a smart phone – that’s it,” Sarvestani told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview in London.

The movie shows asylum seekers struggling to cope with the camp’s monotony and prolonged separation from their families, while a journalist investigates reports of ill-treatment in a solitary confinement unit nicknamed “Chauka” after a local bird.

Interviews are alternated with stark, silent shots of a butterfly, a kitten or children playing on the other side of the security fence separating the camp from the outside world.

“We wanted to make it poetic, we wanted to give space to the audience to think,” Sarvestani said.

Boochani couldn’t attend the London premiere as he is not allowed to leave Manus Island. He and Sarvestani have never met in person.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama late last year agreed to resettle up to 1,250 asylum seekers held in Australian immigration centers in PNG and Nauru. In exchange, Australia agreed to take Central American refugees.

In September, a few dozen refugees left for resettlement in the United States under the refugee swap that U.S. President Donald Trump described as “dumb” but begrudgingly said he will honor.

But Australia is now facing increased pressure to resettle asylum seekers from Manus Island because of the planned October 31 closure of the camp that has been subject to violence from locals.

Concerns persist that many of the refugees will not be offered U.S. resettlement.

“Everything is uncertain … we are worried,” said Boochani.

Australian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
…

When Israel’s envoy told UNESCO delegates last July that fixing the plumbing in his toilet was more important than their latest ruling, it highlighted how fractious geopolitics are paralyzing the workings of the agency.

Whoever wins the race to replace Irina Bokova as head of the U.N.’s cultural and education body next week will have to try to restore the relevance of an agency born from the ashes of World War II but increasingly hobbled by regional rivalries and a lack of money.

Its triumphs include designating world heritage sites such as the Galapagos Islands and the historic tombs of Timbuktu — re-built by UNESCO after Islamist militants destroyed them.

But in a sign of how toxic relations have become, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly last month that UNESCO was promoting “fake history.”

Like Israel’s plain-speaking envoy Carmel Shama Hacohen, Netanyahu was referring to UNESCO’s designation of Hebron and the two adjoined shrines at its heart – the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque – as a “Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger.”

Jews believe the Cave of the Patriarchs is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives, are buried. Muslims, who, like Christians, also revere Abraham, built the Ibrahimi mosque, also known as the Sanctuary of Abraham, in the 14th century.

Israeli-Palestinian hostilities, though, are only part of a minefield of contentious issues on which the U.N. body has to hand down rulings.

Japan, for example, threatened to withhold its 2016 dues after UNESCO included documents submitted by China on the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in its “Memory of the World” program.

The Paris-based organization, which also promotes global education and supports press freedom, convenes its executive council on Oct. 9 to begin voting on seven candidates.

Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, France, Lebanon, Qatar and Vietnam have put forward candidates. There is no clear front-runner.

UNESCO’s struggles worsened in 2011, when the United States cancelled its substantial budgetary contribution in protest at a decision to grant the Palestinians full membership. UNESCO has been forced to cut programs and freeze hiring.

“It’s an organization that has been swept away from its mandate to become a sounding board for clashes that happen elsewhere, and that translates into political and financial hijacking,” said a former European UNESCO ambassador.

Drawing Lots

All the candidates have vowed a grassroots overhaul and pledged independence from their home nations.

France and China, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, argue the agency needs “strong leadership, which can only come with the backing of a major power.

Chinese candidate Qian Tang has almost 25 years experience at UNESCO. His bid fits into Beijing’s soft power diplomacy, though Western capitals fret about China controlling an agency that shapes internet and media policy.

Former French culture minister Audrey Azoulay carries the support of France’s new young president, Emmanuel Macron. But the last minute French candidacy has drawn the ire of Arab states, notably Egypt, who believe it should be their turn.

The Arab states face their own political tests. Their three entries underscore their own disunity, something the Egyptian hopeful Moushira Khattab has indicated stymie the Arab bid.

The crisis engulfing Qatar and its Gulf Arab neighbors, who have called Doha a “high-level” sponsor of terrorism, meanwhile may have hurt the chances of former Qatari culture minister Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kawari.

Voting takes place over a maximum five rounds. If the two finalists are level, they draw lots.
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The rise and fall of flamboyant, ferocious Ezekiel Dlamini, a black South African boxer known as “King Kong” who was jailed for murder, inspired a 1959 musical whose black cast performed for multi-racial audiences, testing the apartheid system of that era. Now the musical that helped to propel the careers of singer Miriam Makeba and trumpeter Hugh Masekela is back on the stage in South Africa.

“King Kong: Legend of a Boxer” highlights the jazz infused with indigenous influences that flourished in some black urban areas, particularly Johannesburg’s Sophiatown, in racially segregated South Africa in the 1950s, as well as the underworld of gangsters and bars known as shebeens accompanying the creative ferment. The backdrop, while not explicitly addressed in the play, is the white minority rule that systematically marginalized the country’s black majority.

The show, which ends a run at the Joburg Theatre on Sunday and returns to The Fugard Theatre in Cape Town on Dec. 12, is a cautionary tale. In 1957, Dlamini fatally stabbed girlfriend Maria Miya, an act that resonates in a country whose high rate of violent crime counts many women among its victims.

One theme in the musical is “the importance of understanding and owning your power but also taking responsibility for it,” said Nondumiso Tembe, a Los Angeles-based South African actor playing the role of Joyce, a host at a bar called Back o’ the Moon who becomes romantically entangled with the boxer. Tembe noted that the killing of women “has sort of become an epidemic in our society today.”

In a reminder of that scourge, President Jacob Zuma last week condemned the fatal shooting of eight women and girls, reportedly members of the same family, in a village in KwaZulu-Natal province and said curbing violence against women is a priority for his government. Police are investigating whether the killings were the result of a family feud or were linked to political rivalries that periodically turn violent in the region.

Some South African commentary on “King Kong” has recalled Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee athlete who was imprisoned for murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013.

Dlamini was a gambler and brawler from a rural village who flouted conformity and gained a big following in Johannesburg, becoming South Africa’s “non-European” heavyweight champion. (Black and white boxers were not allowed to fight each other in those days.) An old photograph shows him bare-chested, wearing chains that he donned to show his humiliation after losing a fight.

Eventually, he “became involved with local gangsters and succumbed to bouts of drunkenness and with that came an increasingly violent and paranoid lifestyle,” the musical’s program says. He killed Miya after a quarrel, according to reports. Dlamini asked to be put to death after he was convicted, but was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. Soon after that, he drowned in a prison reservoir in what was believed to be a suicide.

A 1979 remake of “King Kong” got bad reviews and quickly collapsed.

In this year’s version, Dlamini is played by Andile Gumbi, who had the role of Simba in “The Lion King” on Broadway and elsewhere. Briton Jonathan Munby directs.

In the original show in South Africa, Makeba played Joyce, Dlamini’s lover, but was soon bound for bigger success in the United States. She died in 2008. Masekela, who was 19 when he performed in “King Kong,” said Saturday that he was canceling commitments in the near future because of prostate cancer.

The original show, a huge success in South Africa that also toured Britain, featured composer Todd Matshikiza and a mostly white management and production team. Nelson Mandela, an amateur boxer, attended the opening night of the musical that embodied the potential for multi-racial collaboration at a time when South Africa’s racist rule was staunchly enforced.

By skirting the injustices of apartheid, the original “King Kong” production dodged any move by authorities to shut it down. Similarly, the musical could have faced a crackdown if white actors had joined the all-black cast on stage, said Pat Williams, who wrote the original lyrics.

Williams, who lives in Britain, said a big difference between the 1959 and 2017 shows is that the current actors are professionals, while some in the old cast were inexperienced with theater but all too familiar with the grit and hardship of life in apartheid South Africa.

“It was their own lives they were putting on the stage,” she told The Associated Press. “The result was electric.”
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According to the American Medical Association, a big anti-smoking effort launched more than 50 years ago saved more than 8 million lives in the US. Before 1964, when the official data on smoking and its link to cancer was published, 42 percent of American adults smoked a cigarette on a regular basis. Now, just 18 percent do. VOA Russian correspondent Masha Morton traveled down America’s Tobacco Road to see how the area is transforming.
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