Month: September 2018

At age 7, Candelaria Cabrera goes after the soccer ball with determination. She drives toward her rivals without caring much about getting hurt and deftly manages the bumps on the dirt field.

She wears a loose white jersey from Huracan de Chabas, her hometown, located 230 miles (370 kilometers) north of the capital, Buenos Aires. Printed on the back and on her red shorts is a number 4. She uses white boots and shin guards. Her long, copper-colored hair tied in a ponytail distinguishes her from the rest of the players.

“Cande,” as she is known by friends and family, is the only girl playing in a children’s soccer league in the southern part of Santa Fe province, birthplace of stars including Lionel Messi, Gabriel Batistuta and Jorge Valdano. Former Argentine coaches Marcelo Bielsa, Gerardo Martino and Jorge Sampaoli were also born there.

But a regional regulation that prohibits mixed-gender teams in children’s categories threatens to take her off the field — a ruling that has helped dramatize the inequality in opportunities for men and women in this soccer-crazed country.

“I had to sit down with her and tell her that there are some people who have to make rules in soccer and that these rules do not agree with what she wants,” said Rosana Noriega, Candelaria’s mother. “And, well, we both cried, and she said: ‘The people who make the laws are bad people.’ ”

She was 3 years old when her parents gave her her first ball. They understood that it didn’t make sense to insist she play with dolls, even if there were “comments from other moms that they should not give her male toys because it would encourage her to be a lesbian,” Noriega recalled.

Two months ago, the regional soccer authorities notified Huracan that the team could no longer include Candelaria. She could play only on a girls’ team — and there isn’t one where Candelaria lives.

Noriega took to social media to speak out about her daughter’s case and was surprised to find that she was not the only one. Girls wrote to her saying they were facing the same problem in nearby towns and more distant provinces.

Of the 230 regional leagues recognized by the Argentine Football Association, only 68 have women’s teams. This is just one of the many disparities with men’s soccer. The most notable is financial: The best-paid contract in men’s first division is around $3 million a year. In contrast, women who play in their top category receive a travel voucher of $44.

Argentina’s female players, who will play in a November runoff game for the 2019 World Cup, have struggled financially when their payments were delayed. They also expressed discomfort when Adidas, the brand that sponsors a few members of the national teams of both genders, unveiled the new shirt for the Female America Cup this year with models rather than players.

“The biggest lack is that they don’t have younger players. They start playing at age 16, 17, and by then they’ve missed out on a bunch of issues that have to do with understanding the game,” said Ricardo Pinela, president of the Football Association’s Women’s Football Commission.

“The important thing is that every club in every corner of the country gives a girl the possibility of joining a female soccer team, to play with other girls, even if it’s just for fun, and from there generate the necessary structure that … sets them on equal standing as the male players,” he argued.

After Candelaria’s case became widely publicized, her regional league committed to reviewing the rule in an assembly at the end of the year — leaving her case in limbo until then.

While she’s officially now banned, the team has let her keep playing — at least until an opponent objects.

Candelaria’s most recent match ended with her team beating rival Alumni de Casilda 7-0.

“No one should say that a girl can’t play soccer,” she said.
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CMT is changing their Artists of the Year show to honor only women, including Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Kelsea Ballerini, Maren Morris, Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman of Little Big Town and Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum.

 

The move comes as female artists in the genre have been outspoken about the lack of opportunities for them. Women have been shut out of nominations for major country awards, such as CMA’s entertainer of the year category for two years in a row, and men overwhelmingly dominate country radio charts.

 

CMT senior vice president of music and talent Leslie Fram said she hopes dedicating the entire show to women in country music — past, present and future — will spark a “much-needed change in the industry.” The show airs on CMT on Oct. 17 at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific.

 

“This year, we’re evolving the special to reflect what’s happening right now in culture and in the lives of our fans,” Fram said in a statement.

 

The network started a “Women of Country” campaign in 2013 as a way to bring more airplay to female artists, including Ballerini and Morris, and has expanded it into a tour. The network is also doing a day-long “Women of Country Music” takeover across all CMT platforms leading up to their show.

 

Three years ago, a radio consultant garnered national attention for recommending that stations limit the number of female country artists they play to boost ratings, using the analogy of tomatoes in a salad.

 

Many female artists including Morris, Cam and Underwood have all spoken out against a prevailing opinion in the industry that female fans don’t want to listen to female artists. Underwood also recently announced a national tour next year that will include only female opening acts, including Maddie and Tae and Runaway June.

 

Additional performers for the Artists of the Year show will be announced at a later date.
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Christian Marclay’s “The Clock” is both the ultimate feature film and an artwork you can set your watch by. 

The Swiss-American artist has edited together thousands of movie clips containing clocks, watches or references to the time — one or more for every minute of the day — into a 24-hour video.

The result is a mesmerizing patchwork that moves forward in time as it dances back and forth across film history. 

Marclay compares the three-year process of creating “The Clock” to slotting together the multicolored facets of a Rubik’s Cube. London’s Tate Modern , where it goes on display this week, calls it “a gripping journey through cinematic history as well as a functioning timepiece.”

Since it was completed in 2010, “The Clock” has taken on legendary status, watched by thousands of people around the world — including a hardcore few who have seen it all in one sitting.

Marclay knows most visitors won’t see the whole thing, and admitted Tuesday that he’s never sat through the full 24 hours.

“It’s a lesson for life — we can’t do everything and we can’t see everything,” the artist said at a preview of the exhibition.

He likened the work to a painting — “You can come back to it endlessly.”

Tate co-owns a copy of “The Clock,” one of six in existence, with the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Marclay places strict conditions on how it is shown. It must always be synched to the actual time, so that midnight onscreen coincides with midnight in the screening room.

Visitors to Tate Modern can see “The Clock” for free from Sept. 16 until Jan. 20, in a screening room that can sit 150 people on comfy couches. Tate plans several all-night openings so that it can be shown in its entirety.

While few viewers of “The Clock” last a whole day, many stay longer than expected — the average is more than an hour.

It’s a seductive work that engages viewers on several levels. There’s the fun of trying to recognize the snippets as they whiz past — Jack Nicholson smirking; Cary Grant flirting; Hugh Grant, late for one of his “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

Although there’s no plot, “The Clock” contains sex, humor, action and dramatic tension. When Jeremy Irons calls Bruce Willis at 10:50 a.m. in “Die Hard With a Vengeance” and demands he be downtown in half an hour, viewers hope Marclay will cut back to Willis at 11:20. (He does).

The artist says some minutes of the day were easier to work with than others. Film history abounds in noon and midnight encounters, but not so many at 4 a.m.

Only the insomniac or the intrepid will get to see the pre-dawn segments, and Marclay doesn’t mind if late-night visitors nod off. He says he wants “The Clock” to be in synch with viewers’ body rhythms.

“I love the idea of someone going in and out of sleep,” he said. “It becomes a blur. You really become part of the thing.

“I think that’s the magic of this piece,” he added. “It’s really about you.”
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Alfonso Cuaron’s last movie, the dazzling space thriller “Gravity,” won seven Oscars and grossed more than $720 million worldwide. His new movie, “Roma,” is based on his childhood memories and was shot in black and white in the Mexico City neighborhood he grew up in.

With limitless opportunities at his disposal after the success of “Gravity,” Cuaron decided to go home. And the result — a neorealist blend of intensely personal filmmaking and overwhelming visual command — has been hailed as a masterpiece.

“There were huge and beautiful offers after `Gravity,’ and very tempting. And offers from a financial standpoint that were really appetizing,” Cuaron said in an interview. “But it was one of these things that I needed to do out of the deepest admiration for cinema that has to do with personal journeys.”

Days after “Roma” took the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Cuaron and the film arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival where the rapturous responses to his soul-searching continued unabated. “Roma,” which will have a limited theatrical release on Netflix this December, is Cuaron’s first Spanish-language film since his 2001 breakthrough, “Y Tu Mama Tambien.”

But for Cuaron, “Roma” is more than that. It’s a new beginning.

“It’s something that’s been brewing for a long, long, long time. I first started taking it seriously in 2006. It’s the film I was meant to do. It’s my first film. It’s the film in the sense that I made absolutely fearlessly. I threw away everything that I have learned to do this film,” said Cuaron. “Well, not everything because I wouldn’t have been able to do this before now.”

“Roma” is about domestic worker Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio, speaking in her native Mixtec), who devotedly works for a family that lives in the Mexico City neighborhood of Roma. Their home life, while pristine, is cracking (the father leaves his wife). And the tumult of early `70s Mexico, when student protests clashed violently with the police, is all around. Society is fraying, and it’s the women who bear much of the brunt of it.

“It’s an observation of a character journey as much as it’s an observation of a country, and a country that, like the United States and much of the world, has this perverse relationship between social class and race,” said Cuaron.

The production was unique. In the lengthy 108-day shoot, no crew member or actor had a screenplay. The only one beside Cuaron who did have a script was executive producer David Linde of Participant Media, who noted at the film’s Toronto premiere: “And I don’t speak Spanish.” Unlike most films, Cuaron also shot in absolute continuity.

“I didn’t want the actors or even the crew to have preconceptions or defined answers,” said Cuaron. “It was a process for everyone to be constantly searching. I was just honoring moments — the sense of time and space in those moments, but also honoring the emotional elements of those moments.”

Cuaron estimates that 90 percent of the film comes from his own memories and old photographs. He reproduced his family’s home, cast actors who looked as close as possible to his family members and obsessed over recreating the details of his early life. Cuaron served as his own cinematographer after his usual director of photography, Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, had to pull out due to other commitments.

“I reproduced every inch of my childhood home with 70 percent of the original furniture,” Cuaron said. “We reproduced every single tile that existed in that house. We shot on the street of my childhood home. We shot in most of the places where those scenes took place.”

And though “Roma” is of a far smaller scale and more intimate than his “Gravity” or “Children of Men,” the 56-year-old filmmaker used many of the techniques he’s mastered from more spectacle-driven movies. He shot it digitally in 65mm and used Dolby Atmos for the lush sound design. In the film’s climactic moment, the sounds of the churning surf on a beach envelop the audience.

On the stage of the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, Cuaron explained the journey of “Roma” to the crowd: “I really wanted to come to terms with the elements that forged me.”
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The response to Bradley Cooper’s romantic saga “A Star Is Born” has been intense. Critics have boasted of crying uncontrollably. Fans outside theaters have swooned for its star, Lady Gaga. Words like “glorious,” “rapturous” and, of course, “gaga” are running rampant.

 

“Having been on the other side of it, when you do something that doesn’t do well, people tend to avoid you,” Cooper said in an interview alongside his co-star. “I don’t see people, like, going the other way as I’m walking down the street.”

Quite the contrary. Since making landfall at the Toronto International Film Festival, “A Star Is Born” has provoked the kind of mania rarely seen in even the feverish realm of a film festival. It’s been hailed as “a transcendent Hollywood movie” (per Variety) and “damned near perfect” (per Rolling Stone).

 

And it has predictably flown to the top of Oscar prediction lists in just about every category, including its original songs. It’s a breakthrough for Cooper, directing for the first time, and Gaga, who’s leading a movie for the first time.

 

“I have been trying not to read any reviews. But every once in a while, my friends will read over and go (shoving phone in face): ‘You have to see this!'” says Gaga. “But I have to say truly, I feel like an audience member now. Watching the film back, it really impacts me on a deep emotional level.”

And it seems to be impacting those in the audience similarly. Even its trailer, watched by millions on YouTube, has sparked a rare eagerness. Anthony Ramos, who plays a friend of Gaga’s character in the film, said he’s been constantly harangued about details making the film.

 

“It’s lighting in a bottle, man,” said Ramos. “From the moment I stepped on set, the way Bradley works and the way Stefani works, I was like, ‘This could be crazy.’ And sure enough, here we are and people are buggin’ out.”

 

Acclaim hasn’t been universal for “A Star Is Born,” which stars Cooper as the seasoned rock star Jackson Maine and Gaga as a struggling artist he falls in love with. Its sheer popularity is certain to engender the kinds of waves of backlash that are typical of any big cultural force parading through Oscar season.

 

Warner Bros. will release the film Oct. 5 and is planning a sizable awards campaign. It’s the third remake of the original 1937 film, following the 1954 version with Judy Garland and James Mason, and the more rocking 1976 version, with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.

 

This remake was initially developed with Clint Eastwood directing and Beyonce potentially starring. Cooper first discussed the role with Eastwood, his “American Sniper” director, before ultimately taking the directing reins himself. In a gesture of encouragement, Eastwood visited the set the first day of shooting.

For Lady Gaga, the experience was transformational. She dyed her hair her natural color. She and Cooper performed songs live.

 

“There can be a 100 people in the room and 99 don’t believe in you, and just one does. And it can change everything,” Gaga said at the press conference. “I wouldn’t be here if Bradley didn’t believe me. My dad, and also Bradley.”

 

“I wanted to give everything that I had, every last drop of blood, all my fear, all my shame, all my love, all my kindness,” she added. “I wanted to give it to him.”
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Larry Probst will step down as chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, exiting with a complicated legacy that includes restoring the federation’s international reputation while leaving it saddled with as many problems on the home front as he faced when he arrived.

Probst, who announced his departure Monday, will step down at the end of the year, to be replaced by Susanne Lyons, a board member who recently finished serving as interim CEO following the resignation of Scott Blackmun in February.

Lyons and new CEO Sarah Hirshland are tasked with restoring credibility to a federation that has been widely criticized for its slow response to a mushrooming sex-abuse scandal in Olympic sports.

 

“I became chairman at a difficult time for the USOC and worked diligently with my colleagues here in the U.S., and around the world, to change the USOC for the better,” Probst said. “It’s now time for a new generation of leaders to confront the challenges facing the organization, and I have the utmost confidence in Susanne’s and Sarah’s ability to do just that.”

 

The 68-year-old Probst, a longtime executive at video-game behemoth Electronic Arts, spent hundreds of days overseas during his 10 years at the helm, helping repair badly fractured international relationships that stemmed from decades’ worth of financial disagreements with the IOC, to say nothing of the sometimes-curt style of his better-known predecessor, Peter Ueberroth.

 

Probst’s work helped bring the 2028 Olympics to Los Angeles, giving America a win after a number of embarrassments, including Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Games, and the mistaken, and ultimately aborted, choice of Boston as a candidate for 2024; both debacles came on Probst’s watch.

 

Probst also earned a highly coveted spot on the International Olympic Committee — a position that gave him insider status in the decision-making process. But critics said he didn’t use the position to advocate for U.S. athletes, especially on matters concerning Russian doping, where he rarely broke ranks with IOC president Thomas Bach, who supported Russia’s return to the Olympic fold despite solid evidence of wrongdoing.

 

In the United States, doping has been overshadowed of late by the sex-abuse scandal.

 

The USOC has gotten some credit for creating the U.S. Center for SafeSport to serve as a clearinghouse for all Olympic-related sex-abuse cases. But it has been criticized — and sued — for not acting quickly enough, or taking its share of responsibility. That played a part in Blackmun’s departure, and it’s no surprise to see Probst, whose greatest successes came with Blackmun at his side, follow him out shortly after.

 

Blackmun helped stabilize the federation after Probst and his board surprisingly dismissed CEO Jim Scherr following a successful 2008 Olympics and replaced him with Stephanie Streeter, whose short tenure was a complete failure. Many viewed Scherr’s firing as a self-inflicted mistake, and Probst was forced to spend a large part of his tenure rebuilding trust on both the domestic and international levels.

 

Among his successes were establishing a charitable foundation that raises multiple millions for Olympic athletes, the settling of a controversial revenue-sharing agreement with the IOC, and improving an already healthy financial situation under the tenure of Chief Marketing Officer Lisa Baird. (Baird left the Olympic movement last month.)

 

The U.S. also stayed atop the medals table in the Summer Games, and had largely successful Winter Olympics under Probst’s watch, though the U.S. team’s total of 23 in Pyeongchang earlier this year — its lowest haul in 20 years — raised some eyebrows.

 

That disappointing showing came as the Larry Nassar scandal was turning into front-page news, and one of the most-repeated critiques of the USOC was that its leaders cared about medals more than the people who won them.

The delicate task for Lyons and Hirshland will be to make sure the USOC keeps winning, while also changing the culture in their own organization, as well as in the various sports that make up the Olympics.

 

“I wish Susanne and Sarah the best of luck in handling the very complex and difficult scenario they find themselves in,” Scherr said.
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A new Indian movie about human trafficking starring Freida Pinto and Demi Moore is to be screened in towns and villages around the country to raise awareness of a crime that affects millions.

“Love Sonia,” which traces the journey of a young girl trafficked from rural India into the global sex trade, hits cinemas in the country this week after screenings on the international festival circuit.

Director Tabrez Noorani said he wanted to champion “hope and courage” and raise awareness of trafficking around the world.

“I want to show that the crime of trafficking is not restricted to, say, India or China. It’s a global problem,” Noorani told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

“Everyone has to be aware … that it’s happening in their backyard,” he said.

India is home to at least 8 million slaves, according to the latest figures from the Australian-based Walk Free Foundation. 

Government figures show the country recorded more than 8,000 human trafficking cases in 2016, 20 percent higher than the previous year, although rights activists say many cases go unreported.

Many victims are from rural areas and are often lured with promises of jobs in cities. Instead they are forced to work in brick kilns or farms, enslaved in homes as domestic workers, or sold to brothels.

The founder of anti-trafficking charity Shakti Vahini said movies were an effective way to raise awareness in rural areas — particularly if they featured major stars.

“We go out and do a lot of lectures. But when they see it in a movie, they see the danger as more real,” said Ravi Kant.Other films to have been used in this way include “Mardaani,” a 2014 film i

n which a woman police officer takes on a child trafficker.

“Mardaani” director Pradeep Sarkar said it was important to show traffickers were “regular, normal people living next door.”

“Love Sonia” is the directorial debut of Noorani, a veteran producer whose credits include “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Life of Pi”, and stars the acclaimed Indian actor Rajkummar Rao alongside Moore and Pinto.

Noorani said he wanted to make an “authentic film” on an issue he has worked on for many years as a board member of the Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.

“The film heroes hope and courage,” Noorani said. “Education is the best way to fight human trafficking. People will hopefully walk out of theatres eyes wide open.”
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