Month: May 2018

From the windswept Falkland Islands, battered by the South Atlantic and home to colonies of penguins, to the heat of Kenya, India and Australia, people around the world celebrated Britain’s glittering royal wedding Saturday.

The scenes of pageantry and romance in Windsor, where Prince Harry married his American bride Meghan Markle, were beamed to locations across continents where people dressed up, raised their glasses and enjoyed the fun of a uniquely British event.

“We are very fond of our royal family and it’s lovely to celebrate an event like this,” said Falkland Islander Leona Roberts, a member of the local assembly and one of the organizers of a wedding party in the tiny capital, Port Stanley.

Children dressed up as princes and princesses for the party, where they received special gifts.

Argentina disputes Britain’s sovereignty over the Falklands, which lie 300 miles (500 km) from the Argentine coast, and the two countries fought a war in 1982 over the islands. Many islanders are fiercely patriotic about Britain.

“As a Falkland Islander, I definitely feel a bond with the royal family as a symbol of Britishness. I am a staunch royalist,” said Arlette Betts, at her home on the waterfront in Port Stanley, home to most of the archipelago’s 4,000 inhabitants.

On the other side of the world, in India, a group of Mumbai’s famed dabbawalas, or lunch delivery men, chose a traditional sari dress and kurta jacket as wedding gifts for Harry and his bride, while at the Gurukul School of Art children painted posters of the royal couple and Queen Elizabeth.

In Australia, where the British monarch remains the head of state, some pubs held wedding parties, while a cinema chain screened the wedding live across its network. Viewers dressed in finery, with prizes for the most creative outfits.

At the Royal Hotel in Sydney, guests celebrated with a fancy banquet and burst into a spontaneous chorus of “Stand by Me” when a gospel choir sang the Ben E. King hit during the ceremony in Windsor.

“I just think the monarchy as such brings everyone together,” said retiree Bernie Dennis, one of those attending the banquet. “It’s like a family wedding.”

In Melbourne, fashion designer Nadia Foti attended an “English high tea” where guests wore plastic crowns and enjoyed traditional British treats such as scones and the popular summer drink Pimm’s.

“It’s exciting for the fashion and the spectacular,” said Foti. “It’s a joyous occasion and I’ve made a plum cake to celebrate in classic English style.”

There were lavish celebrations at the Windsor Golf and Country Club on the outskirts of Nairobi, where guests had shelled out 1 million shillings ($10,000) to view the wedding on a giant screen, enjoy a seven-course banquet and fly to Mount Kenya by helicopter for breakfast the following morning.

Trainee lawyer Odette Ndaruzi, who is preparing for her own wedding later in the year, said she wanted to pick up some tips.

“I’m excited to see how the maidens in England are dressed, the jewelry and colors they are wearing,” she said.

The event drew criticism from some Kenyan media, however, due to the hefty price tag in a country where millions live in slums.

But perhaps the greatest interest in the royal wedding, outside of Britain, was in the bride’s home country, the United States.

In New York, revelers headed to Harry’s Bar to watch the ceremony on TV, surrounded by U.S. and British flags. Many posed for photos alongside cardboard cutouts of the bride and groom.

In Los Angeles, a lively crowd at the English-style Cat and Fiddle pub in Hollywood enjoyed pints of beer, royal-themed cocktails and British staples like sausage rolls and scones.

Popular tipples included the “Bloody Harry,” billed as a modern take on the Bloody Mary, but with added ginger as a cheeky nod to the prince’s red hair.
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The big day finally arrived for Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, as the couple married Saturday in the town of Windsor, outside London.

Prince Charles, Prince Harry’s father, walked the bride down the aisle.

The American former actress confirmed earlier that her father would not attend the ceremony, owing to ill health, after days of speculation over whether he would make the journey across the Atlantic.

Throngs of people descended on the historic town as well-wishers tried to catch a glimpse of the royal couple. Thousands of police officers mounted one of the biggest security operations in recent years, paid for by the public — a bill resented by some opposed to the monarchy.

Supporters argued the wedding was likely to attract big spending by visitors and those watching in bars and big screens across the country.

The ceremony began at midday in the stunning 14th century Saint George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle, where Prince Harry was baptized in 1984.

In Photos: The Royal Wedding

Some 600 guests were invited, mainly those who have a direct relationship with the couple.

In addition, more than 2,500 members of the public were invited onto the castle grounds — the prime spot to watch the guests come and go.

“To me, that was surprising, and it was very touching. Because for as much as they don’t like the media intrusion, the royals, they’ve invited media in, they’ve invited the public in, and they’re wanting to share their special day,” said Thomas Mace-Archer-Mills of the British Monarchist Society and Foundation.

Four members of the Mumbai city-based charity the Myna Mahila Foundation were invited. The non-governmental organization provides sanitary products in the slums of the Indian capital and was visited by Meghan Markle last year. It’s one of seven charities that the couple have asked guests to make donations to instead of providing wedding gifts. The charity’s founder, Myne Mahila, says the invitation came as a huge shock.

“We are representing not just ‘Myna,’ but also the women across the urban slums in the city and India as well. I think there is a lot on the plate and a lot of pressure,” she said.

More than 100,000 people were expected to line the streets of Windsor. Many arrived early to bag the best spots for a look. Donna Werner is a self-confessed royal “superfan” who flew over from her home in the U.S. state of Connecticut and camped out for four nights on a Windsor sidewalk.

In Photos: Crowds, Stars Gather for Royal Wedding

“Every little girl has read fairy tales from her childhood on by her mother and she always dreams of becoming a princess and living in a castle. And I mean, this is it. This is a real-life fairy tale,” she said.

In a break with U.S. tradition, Meghan Markle did not have a maid of honor. All of the six bridesmaids and four page boys were children of friends of the couple. Harry’s nephew, Prince George, was a pageboy, and niece, Princess Charlotte, a bridesmaid.  

In the kitchens of Windsor Castle, 30 chefs prepared a banquet for the reception guests.

“The couple … tasted everything, they’ve been involved in every detail,” says royal head chef Mark Flanagan.

That could mean some stateside surprises among the British fare.

“Are we going to see hot dogs and these sorts of American things? I’m sure there will be a nod to the American culture where food is concerned,” said Mace-Archer-Mills.

As well as the home crowds, millions were expected to watch on television around the globe, with the promise of British pomp mixed with plenty of Hollywood glamour.

Fern Robinson contributed to this report.
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Millions around the world watch the union of British royalty and Hollywood glamour at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in Windsor, near London, England.
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“Panda Beer,” “Little General,” “Flying Fist IPA,” and “Mandarin Wheat” are among the offerings on tap at a craft beer exhibition this week in Shanghai dedicated to expanding the palette of Chinese consumers and promoting sales of high-end brews.

The 2018 Craft Beer of China Exhibition features breweries like Rasenburg Beer, Myth Monkey Brewing, Lazy Taps, Goose Island and Boxing Cat Brewery that are sharing tips on the latest technology and sales trends as Chinese shift from legacy brews to more experimental, refined and expensive flavors.

From taps at the expo flowed creative mixes of flavors and traditions, a swirling cocktail of Chinese ingredients, barley, hops and spices from around the world.

“After drinking it [craft beer], it feels much better than the domestic industry beer, and then you just can’t leave it,” said Yu Shiqi, a 40-year old craft beer consumer at the expo who dreams of brewing his own.

There’s money to be made in China, which drinks a quarter of all beer worldwide, and small-batch brewers and giant multinationals are cashing in. Though craft beer is far from upstaging local beer behemoths like Tsingtao that dominate the $28 billion national beer market, it is rising in popularity as small breweries open up in China’s major metropolitan areas like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Craft beers are typically more expensive than mass-market, low-alcohol content brews like Budweiser and China’s Yanjing. But as China’s middle class grows, so too does its tastes for finer products.

A couple of years ago, craft beer made up only 0.3 percent of total beer consumption. It has since risen to about 5 percent, said Darren Guo, one of the exhibition’s organizers, who expect to see 30 percent growth in the craft beer market every year until 2020. “Beer culture is pretty much on the beginning or starting level.”

Laurel Liu, sales director of Beijing-based Jing-A brewery, says she gets calls from small towns asking how to start up a craft brewery.

“You don’t even expect them to have craft beer there but now they do,” Liu said. “I’m really surprised and happy to see now that craft beer in China is a thing and it’s really easier to access these products now.”

More money was spent on beer in China than the U.S. in 2017, according to beer industry research firm Drink Sector. Craft breweries were “rapidly increasing,” although foreign imports continue to dominate the high-end beer sector.

The Belgian-Brazilian firm Anheuser-Busch InBev, the makers of Budweiser, has invested heavily in China, building breweries and acquiring craft breweries like Shanghai’s Boxing Cat. Anheuser Busch also owns Goose Island, which is based in Chicago.

Michael Jordan, brew-master at Boxing Cat, and his staff experiment with flavors like egg tart, green tea, peppercorn, chai, kiwi, hibiscus and sweet potato.

Jordan chalks up some of the success of craft brewing in China to President Xi Jinping sharing a pint of IPA, or Indian Pale Ale, in 2015 in the UK with then-prime minister David Cameron.

“The ‘Xi phenomenon’ really kind of opened people’s eyes to IPA,” he said.
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The big day is nearly here for Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as the couple are to wed Saturday in the town of Windsor, just outside London. The former American actress confirmed this week that her father will not attend the ceremony because of ill health. Huge crowds are expected as well-wishers try to catch a glimpse of the royal couple and, as Henry Ridgwell reports, from the security operation, to the catering, to the flowers, the day marks the culmination of months of preparation.
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Ishea Brown and more than a dozen of her black friends will gather around the TV set in her Seattle home on Saturday to watch the biracial actress Meghan Markle marry Britain’s Prince Harry and to toast a union the hostess never imagined possible.

Brown is not a longtime devotee of all things royal, and she was not particularly interested in the House of Windsor before November. All that changed with the announcement of the wedding of the queen’s grandson to Markle, whose mother is black.

“These are things that growing up I never would have thought that we would see,” Brown, 33, said, referring to a woman with African-American heritage becoming a royal in the United Kingdom.

“I hope that women, but particularly black women, are able to see themselves in her and her mother, and know that there are no spaces that are not meant for us,” she said.

Brown has dubbed her party “Black A.F. Royal Wedding Brunch” and is using the hashtag of #WakandaWeddingWeekend, a reference to the fictional African country Wakanda featured in the blockbuster movie “Black Panther.”

Hundreds of thousands of royal watchers around the world will tune into the royal nuptials on May 19, and interest is particularly intense in the United States, with its historical, cultural and linguistic ties to Great Britain.

There has been a surge of interest and excitement among some black Americans, especially black women, who are inspired by Meghan Markle’s new-found status, said Sarah Gaither, a Duke University psychology professor who has focused on diversity issues and race relations.

“Most communities of color really aspire to have representation or role models, said Gaither, who is also a biracial woman.” That’s what I think is really unique of Meghan Markle – because she’s biracial.”

That said, Gaither pointed out some people within the black community do not fully identify with Markle because she is a biracial woman.

Kim Love, a black American with a large Twitter and YouTube following who frequently comments on social mobility issues, raised that point in an online post on Tuesday.

“Meghan Markle’s marriage does not represent a win for black women,” Love said in a tweet. “Besides, she doesn’t even self-identify as a ‘black woman,’ so please stop forcing it.”

In New York City, Claire Osborne, a 34-year-old stage manager and a fan of “Suits,” the USA Network television series that starred Markle, is one of those black women fascinated by the wedding. In fact, her interest runs so deep, she says she now spends much of her free time on Twitter to learn more about the festivities.

“A lot of my friends, we all weren’t that interested in the royal family but now she’s in there, as a person of color, we want to follow now,” Osborne said, who also plans on waking up early to watch the wedding on television. “We’re kind of rooting for her because you see someone in that world who looks like you and representation matters.”

The wedding service starts at 1200 GMT (5 a.m. PDT), and to get in the spirit, Brown and her friends will wear tiaras or fascinators, a style of headwear favored by women at British weddings. But in a nod to the bride’s heritage, the Seattle women will lace their hats with African prints.

In Seattle, Brown initially scheduled her get-together to start before dawn, but too many of her friends had schedule conflicts, so she changed the party time for noon, when guests will watch the festivities on delay.

Brown and her friends will sip glasses of English rose champagne and Hennessy refresh tea, a mix of the cognac and English Earl Grey black tea, which she said “is the best of both worlds.”

“We’re going to do cucumber sandwiches to be traditional, but we’ll also have fried chicken sandwiches,” Brown said. “We know that his favorite stuff is bacon and pizza, so we may have a breakfast pizza.”

While the party is mostly about having fun, Brown says her identification with Markle runs deep. Like the royal bride, she also went through a divorce and is currently in an interracial relationship.

Brown says Markle represents the kind of woman whose life was not limited by preconceptions and arbitrary social boundaries.

“I find it inspiring,” she said.
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The late King of Pop is getting his own street name in Motown, which first launched him into superstardom.

A section of Randolph in downtown Detroit will be renamed Michael Jackson Avenue during a June 15 ceremony. The announcement came Tuesday, ahead of next month’s Detroit Music Weekend.

Four of Jackson’s brothers — Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon — are scheduled to perform during the festival. They also will receive a key to the city.

The Gary, Indiana, brothers signed in 1968 with Detroit’s Motown and had hits that included “I Want You Back” and “ABC.”

Michael later would leave Motown and in 1984 recorded “Thriller,” which became the best-selling album of all time. He was 50 when he died in 2009 in Los Angeles from a prescription drug overdose.
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The Miss America Organization is putting women in its three top leadership positions following an email scandal in which male officials were caught making vulgar and insulting comments about past winners of the beauty pageant. 

The organization told The Associated Press on Thursday it is appointing Regina Hopper as president and CEO of the Miss America Organization, and Marjorie Vincent-Tripp as chairwoman of the board of the Miss America Foundation.

Coupled with Gretchen Carlson leading the Miss America Organization’s board of trustees, the group is moving on from the email scandal with women firmly in charge.

“By putting female leadership in place, we hope to send a strong signal,” Hopper told the AP. “We want young women to see Miss America as a place where they can come and benefit and be empowered.”

Hopper, a former Miss Arkansas, attorney and TV journalist, replaces Sam Haskell, whose emails about the intellect, appearance and sex lives of former Miss Americas led to his departure and a revamping of the group’s top leadership in December. She is a former correspondent for CBS News, where she won an Emmy for her work on the show 48 Hours.

The scandal began when the Huffington Post published leaked emails showing pageant officials ridiculing past Miss Americas, including crass and sometimes vulgar comments about them. The emails included one that used a vulgar term for female genitalia to refer to past Miss America winners, one that wished that a particular former Miss America had died and others that speculated about how many sex partners one former Miss America has had.

Haskell declined to comment on the new leadership.

Vincent-Tripp, who was Miss America 1991, formerly served on the Miss America Board of Trustees. She is an assistant attorney general in Florida, and formerly worked as a TV journalist. As chair of the Miss America Foundation, she is responsible for educating the public about the foundation’s values and building public support.

Vincent-Tripp replaces Lanny Griffith, who along with MAO chair Lynn Weidner stepped down during the transition.

Carlson, Miss America 1989, was named chairwoman of the Miss America board in January after the email scandal rocked the organization. Her sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes led to his departure.

Hopper said she hopes young women will realize that Miss America is now being led by women who have been through the program and have been helped by it, and that they will seek the same benefits from it.

Larry Hoffer, a volunteer at local and state pageants, said he is eager to see what the new leaders’ vision will be and expects the women will leave the organization stronger.

“I think it’s an excellent, excellent move,” Hoffer said. “For a pageant that is strictly about empowering women to have not had female leadership for all of these years just never seemed to work. You basically had men deciding how women should be treated and featured on the telecast and how Miss America should be portrayed in the media. Having these women lead such a major scholarship organization shows that women are being taken seriously.”

Jill Cook, a local pageant volunteer, said she saw the new appointments as “a step forward” for Miss America. She applauded the women’s pedigrees and their success both in the pageant world and beyond.
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The NCAA is opening a door for states with legalized sports gambling to host NCAA championship events and officials in Nevada are already set to get in the game as soon as they can.

The governing body for college sports on Thursday announced a “temporary” lifting of a ban that prevented events like college basketball’s NCAA Tournament from being hosted in states that accept wagers on single games. The move comes three days after the Supreme Court overturned a federal law that barred most states from allowing gambling on professional and college sporting events.

“On Monday we contacted the Mountain West Conference, our NCAA colleagues, we also spoke with our local and regional leaders. It’s our intent to present competitive bids for national events, and we want to be aggressive in that space,” UNLV athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois said. “We know that Las Vegas as a community, we have a proven track record of success in hosting large scale events.”

NCAA President Mark Emmert said the board of governors will consider permanently revising its policy at future meetings. But the NCAA said it will not change its rules that prohibit gambling on sports by athletes and all athletic department employees, including coaches.

Emmert also is calling for federal regulations of sports gambling, joining the NFL, NBA and other leagues.

“Our highest priorities in any conversation about sports wagering are maintaining the integrity of competition and student-athlete well-being,” Emmert said in a statement.  

Emmert has said in the past that he hoped lawmakers would make exceptions for college sports if sports gambling is allowed. 

“There might be a carve-out to eliminate college athletics from sports gambling similar to what we did with daily fantasy sports,” Emmert said during a college sports forum in December in New York. That would require state-by-state lobbying unless the federal government steps in to regulate.

Lead1, an association of athletic directors for the 130 schools that play major college football, has been making that push.

“Eighty percent of our athletic directors have indicated that they oppose college sports betting,” said former U.S. Rep. Tom McMillen, who is the president of Lead1. “Our athletic directors are concerned not only about the vulnerability of young student-athletes to inducements of point shaving, but the increased compliance costs to keep their programs clean.”  

As for host sites, most of the NCAA’s major championship events are already booked through 2022, including all rounds of the men’s basketball tournament. Women’s basketball tournament sites are booked through 2020.

By suspending its policy prohibiting states with legalized gambling from hosting championships, the NCAA can go forward with already determined sites regardless of what states do with gambling laws in the near future.

If the NCAA permanently lifts the ban on states with legalize sports betting hosting NCAA-run events, the first and biggest beneficiary could be Nevada and more specifically Las Vegas.

Las Vegas officials did submit bids to host men’s basketball regionals, the men’s hockey Frozen Four and the NCAA championship wrestling meet during the last round of bidding that covered 2019-22, but legalized gambling in the state meant they never really had a shot.

Expect Las Vegas, with UNLV as the host school, to try again for all those events.

“We have a few things in the pipeline,” said Reed-Francois, who declined to give specifics on events and dates being targeted.

Lifting the ban also means UNLV and Mountain West rival Nevada would now be eligible to host NCAA events such as softball and baseball regionals at their home facilities.

“This is an opportunity for our student-athletes to be able to have a championship experience in their own backyard,” Reed-Francois said. “And I’m pretty enthused about that.”

Las Vegas does host college sports events such as the conference basketball tournaments for the Pac-12 and Mountain West and a football bowl game, but those are not NCAA-run.

The College Football Playoff is also not an NCAA-run event, but the administrators are conference commissioners who tend to respect NCAA rules. Sites for the CFP championship game have been determined through 2024, leaving two more championship sites to be determined in the 12-year contract that runs through the 2025 season. 

A new stadium is being built in Las Vegas for the Oakland Raiders and is expected to ready for the 2020 season.
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A tale of a woman who flees the life of a gangster’s wife. The clash of the traditional versus the modern. A documentary look at a rising new musical sound.

Universal themes, told from the African perspective at the New York African Film Festival.

This year’s 25th annual festival features more than 70 films from 25 African nations and the African diaspora, with offerings in every genre, from comedy and satire to full- length dramatic features, documentaries, shorts and some hybrid-category films.

Festival founder and director Mahen Bonetti said every film has something that is intangibly, yet vividly, African about it “under the skin.”

“It’s atmosphere. It’s color. It’s language. It’s intonation,” he said. “And I think it comes from us being storytellers. It’s a living thing. You dip your foot in that stream, and the water feels different.”

Something for everybody

Offerings include the New York premiere of “Borders,” a feature film by Apolline Traoré of Burkina Faso. It’s about four women traveling by bus across several West African frontiers, starting in Dakar and traveling, via Bamako, Cotonou and Ouagadougou, to Lagos.

Also featured is “Makila,” a French-Congolese co-production about a 19-year-old girl who marries a gangster but goes into hiding to start a new life.

Lovers of politically tinged satire may seek out “Wonder Boy for President” — a charismatic unknown is tapped by corrupt politicians to run for president of South Africa.

Featured documentaries include “Tahar Cheriaa: Under the Shadow of the Baobab,” a Tunisian documentary about one of the core fathers of Pan-Africanism. There’s also “Birth of Afrobeat,” about the grassroots creation of the musical genre in Lagos.

Traditional values and the human heart clash in “Still Water Runs Deep,” a short feature film written and directed by Abbesi Akhamie, a young Nigerian-American. It centers on a stern family patriarch who searches in vain for a wayward son who has gone missing.

Akhamie said the main character reminded her of her own highly traditional father.

“Usually, he is in control of everything. He is the leader of his flock. But this time, when one of his sheep’ goes astray, it’s something he just can’t control. And how do you really deal with that as a man, as a father?”

Mixed reviews

Akhamie is proud that the film was selected by festival producers but noted its storyline received mixed reviews in Nigeria, where happy stories are the norm.

“This is very independent and raw,” she said. “Also, Nigerians don’t want negative images coming out of the country. It’s a very communal society. And if they see something they don’t like, they’ll tell you, ‘Don’t do that.’ They’re hypersensitive.”

Festival founder Bonetti, who comes from Sierra Leone, welcomes — even relishes — controversies over the films. She said audience views often run counter to type.

“When people leave the theater, I sometimes see the white person arguing that we are patronizing Africans,’ while the African is saying No! That’s how it is!’ And then everyone goes off and has a drink.”

Some films explore the African immigrant experience in the United States. Yusuf Kapadia directed “Mamadou Warma: Deliveryman,” a short documentary about a young man from Burkina Faso who works as a bicycle deliveryman in New York after being shot by police during a student protest in his homeland.

One of Bonetti’s favorites is “Purple Dreams.”

The film documents six disadvantaged African-American teenagers in North Carolina who find purpose and redemption in a local music and theater group.

“It’s a very triumphant story about young people facing so much adversity, but overcoming that adversity through culture. It keeps them alive. It keeps them out of jail. It gives that hope.”

In some cases, that hope was well-founded. One member of the troupe will soon make his debut in the Broadway hit musical “Hamilton,” while another has been accepted into the Ailey II Dance Company.

Bonetti acknowledged that putting on a film festival that explores the diversity and complexity of Africa and the African diaspora is a constant challenge.

“But what is beautiful is that all of these filmmakers keep giving us a face and a voice,” she said. “I’m beaming to be sharing this quality of work with our patrons here in New York and the world.”

The New York African Film Festival is co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and runs May 16 through May 21.
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With its characters herding cattle through an austere, dusty landscape, “The Harvesters” bears a passing resemblance to a Western. But the setting of the movie, which won critical acclaim for its first-time director in Cannes, is not the Wild West but South Africa, and its cowboys are Afrikaners, a community that thrived in the apartheid era but now faces an uncertain future.

The story follows teenage boy Janno, the oldest child and only son in a God-fearing family whose life and sense of self are thrown into chaos by his parents’ decision to foster an orphan, Pieter, a 13-year-old child recovering from drug addiction and life as a rent boy.

Writer-director Etienne Kallos, a South African, but not an Afrikaner, was drawn to the story of a community in a “post-post-colonial” world that finds itself increasingly isolated.

“They are overlooked, I would say, in many ways,” Kallos told Reuters in Cannes.

“They are under-represented, especially because the only thing people think about is apartheid. But there’s so much more going on.

“The new generation of Afrikaners was born completely outside the apartheid regime and they’re moving towards some sort of a new Africa and don’t know what that is yet.”

There is a sense of identity under threat, both for the community and for Janno himself, played by newcomer Brent Vermeulen, whose deep feelings for his best friend do not fit with the macho rugby-playing culture.

Screen Daily said: “This assured feature debut effectively hints at a churning savagery beneath the surface, which is every bit as unforgiving as the stark landscape.” That landscape, in Eastern Free State and KwaZulu-Natal, with its mesas, striking flat-topped mountains, was the starting point for Kallos.

“I set out to make a film about place,” he said. “We worked hard to somehow capture … a grandeur that the landscape is bigger than the people. “I wanted to feel the landscape was more important than the characters or more powerful than the characters.”

“The Harvesters” (“Die Stropers”) is in competition in the “Un Certain Regard” section at the Cannes Film Festival that runs to May 19.
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Gold-medal Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman and dozens of other women who spoke out about sexual abuse by Larry Nassar will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at this year’s ESPYS.

 

The July 18 show in Los Angeles honors the past year’s best athletes and moments in sports. Alison Overholt, a vice president at ESPN, says the women have shown “what it truly means to speak truth to power.”

 

More than 250 gave statements in court when Nassar was sentenced for sexual assault in January and February. They said the sports doctor molested them while they sought treatment for injuries.

 

Michigan State University announced a $500 million settlement with Nassar’s victims Wednesday. He assaulted females at his campus clinic, Lansing-area home, area gyms and major gymnastics events.

 

The ESPYS will be broadcast live on ABC at 8 p.m. ET from the Microsoft Theater.
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In his home in Marrakech, artist Lahcen Iwi brings out a cutter and gets to work, slicing up squares of used tires to craft his sculptures.

From dragons to unicorns, Iwi creates his artwork out of tires he collects from landfill sites and scrapyards.

The Moroccan artist believes that there is something noble in recycling tires, “injecting art” into an object that would otherwise be harmful to the environment.

“It is a good message for humanity,” he said.

A single sculpture can take Iwi anything from a week to two months to make.

He sells his art and previous works have gone on display in exhibitions in France.

 
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A love story between a wealthy young Mumbai businessman and a countrywoman who comes to work as his servant will challenge Indians’ preconceptions about class, said first-time feature director Rohena Gera as she presented her film in Cannes.

Sir is not typical Bollywood fare, as it shines a light on social prejudice and gender roles. The two characters do not get to explore their possible feelings for one another as social norms put a romantic relationship out of reach.

“I think, at least in India, it will probably make people quite uncomfortable,” Gera told Reuters.

“I think that’s a good thing because I think it begs the question: Why are you uncomfortable? … If we raise those questions and we start talking about it, I think we can take a step to actually resolving some of it.”

Gera, whose film screened in Critics’ Week, a side-event of the Cannes Film Festival, acknowledged the difficulties for a woman to make movies in a predominantly male world.

“Sometimes we are all interested in what we’re interested in, men or women, and when men are decision-makers they tend to decide what is interesting for all of us,” she said.

Sir received broadly positive reviews, with Hollywood Reporter’s Jordan Mintzer saying that despite as times feeling more televisual than cinematic, “Gera has nonetheless crafted a warmly nuanced look at love in a place filled with constraints and contradictions.”

The Cannes Film Festival runs to May 19.
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