Arts

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.
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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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Batman, Superman and Spiderman aren’t the only superheroes of the comic book world. At New York Comic Con, plenty of women were on hand to remind the industry of their own hero status. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports.
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The Chinese Basketball Association is on tour in the US, with teams playing against US professional squads. Calla Yu from VOA’s Mandarin Service was at a recent game in the Washington area.
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Mick Fleetwood was 16 when he left school, told his parents he wanted to pursue a career in rock ‘n’ roll, and went to London in search of gigs.

A common tale, true, but this one has a happy ending. Fleetwood fell in with some talented blues enthusiasts, paid [barely] his dues, and soared to stardom with the first incarnation of Fleetwood Mac — and then into the rock ‘n’ roll stratosphere with the second, more pop-oriented version of the band.

“School was not a good thing for me,” said Fleetwood. “I had a learning disability, no doubt, and no one understood what those things were. I was sort of drowning at school academically. My parents were like, ‘Go and do it.’ They were picking up on the fact that I had found something. They saw the one thing that I loved with a passion was teaching myself how to play drums at home. So they sent me off with a little drum kit to London, and the whole thing unfolded.”

Fleetwood didn’t really have to rebel, though rebellion was in the air, and he had the good fortune to make friends early with Peter Green, the supremely talented guitarist whose blues sound shaped the band’s early years.

Green receives the lion’s share of the credit, and the dedication, in Fleetwood’s memoir of the band’s formative period, Love That Burns: A Chronicle of Fleetwood Mac, Volume One: 1967-1974. It has been published in a limited signed edition by Genesis Publications.

At 70, Fleetwood is eager to acknowledge his debt to Green, who left the band in 1970.

 

Fleetwood and bassist John McVie were later joined by Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham for a new lineup that hit the jackpot with Rumours, one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Green’s generosity

Fleetwood said the band’s very name reflects Green’s self-effacing approach.

“Peter was asked why did he call the band Fleetwood Mac. He said, ‘Well, you know, I thought maybe I’d move on at some point and I wanted Mick and John to have a band.’ End of story, explaining how generous he was.”

The photos and text of Love That Burns are really the celebration of an era, capturing the explosion of British music at a time when bands like The Who and The Beatles were vying for the top spots on the charts — and competing with semi-forgotten bands like Freddie and the Dreamers, who actually got top billing over the Rolling Stones on a least one concert poster.

Once Fleetwood Mac made its name as a blues band, the group was able to go to Chicago’s famous Chess Studios to record with some of the great American bluesmen, including a few of the pioneers who had helped perfect the driving Chicago sound.

Fleetwood remembers — with relief — that the longhaired crew of young Brits was able to at least play in the same room as Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon without sounding foolish.

“These are major, major players for anyone who knows anything about blues,” Fleetwood said. “Having that take place, I don’t know what they must have really thought with us funny little English kids walking into their world. … I feel good about it to this day that we held our own dignity, even with these guys.”

He said the whole experience was “like going to their church and not just being in the congregation but actually doing our version of preaching with them.”

Salute to first band

While some fans swear the early Fleetwood Mac was better than the later, far more commercial version, Fleetwood knows the group is identified more with its string of hits, including Bill Clinton’s favorite song, Don’t Stop, which earned the band a headlining gig at his inaugural celebration.

This is one reason the book focuses on the first band. Fleetwood doesn’t want it to be forgotten.

“Even as we were doing it [the book], we realized that the band was 50 years old,” he said. “So it’s really about drawing a line in the sand to say that this happened and what caused this. And it’s generally fair to say, especially in the United States, this section of the formation of Fleetwood Mac is not really known about.”
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“Hamilton” musical creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on Friday released a new song for hurricane relief charity efforts in Puerto Rico featuring many of the music industry’s biggest Latin stars.

Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Gloria Estefan, Rita Moreno Luis Fonsi and many others sing on the English- and Spanish-language song “Almost Like Praying.”

The song, a riff on the tune “Maria” from the Broadway musical “West Side Story,” lists the names of all 78 of Puerto Rico’s towns in its lyrics.

Hurricane Maria, the worst hurricane to hit the U.S. territory in more than 90 years, killed at least 34 people last month and left most of the island without power or access to clean running water.

Miranda, 37, whose parents migrated to the United States from Puerto Rico, said the song was inspired by his own desperate attempts to contact family members after Hurricane Maria, and his frustrations about the pace of aid reaching the island.

“I thought I could work all 78 towns in Puerto Rico into the lyrics of this song and if we did our job right, these towns will never be forgotten again,” the musician told Billboard.

The success of the Tony Award-winning musical “Hamilton” has made Miranda one of America’s most influential Latin celebrities.

He made headlines last week for saying on Twitter that U.S. President Donald Trump was “going straight to hell” for criticizing Puerto Ricans for not doing enough to help themselves.

Miranda on Friday said he had no regrets about his comments.

“I’ve never seen the president of the United States attack the victims of a natural disaster,” he told “CBS This Morning” in an interview. “That has no precedent for me and so those words coming out of me also have no precedent.”

“Almost Like Praying” will benefit the Hispanic Federation’s UNIDOS Disaster Relief Fund for Puerto Rico.
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In 1982, iconic filmmaker Ridley Scott imagined the dystopian world of 2019 as overcrowded, cynical, polluted and inhabited not only by humans but also by their genetically engineered look-alikes — a disposable workforce, called replicants.

Almost at the doorstep of 2019, filmmaker Denis Villeneuve creates Blade Runner 2049, a sequel to the original. As the lines between humanity and artificial intelligence are blurred, once again, both films probe the nature of life and its moral implications.

In the new film, 30 years have passed since replicant revolts were quelled by humans, and bioengineers redesigned replicants to obey them unconditionally. However, life overturns human designs and replicants are again surprising their creators. Lieutenant Joshi of the Los Angeles Police sends Blade Runner “K” to deal with the problem.

Joshi, played by Robin Wright, will do anything to keep order because without it, she tells K, there will be chaos. “The world is built on a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there is no wall, you got a war,” she says in a key moment.

Today’s realities

Joshi’s words resonate with today’s political realities, where walls and fences built across the planet aim to restrict the flow of humanity, to divide the “privileged” from the “undesired.”

“It really is a story trying to seek your identity in this near future world. What does it mean to be human anymore, and try and maintain love and connection as we know it today?” said Wright.

Ryan Gosling interprets Blade Runner K, a police officer and a replicant himself, programmed to exterminate his own kind. But along the way, he comes face to face with his own humanity.

“When you meet the character,” Gosling said, “he is sort of at odds with his station in life and he’s looking for some kind of connection, love and happiness in amongst this sort of nightmare that they are all living.”

K, an introvert, lives with Joi, played by Ana de Armas, a beautiful, loving companion but a digital application. Their intangible relationship highlights the isolation and artificiality around them.

The dystopian world is ruled by a genius villain, bioengineer-tycoon Niander Wallace, played by Jared Leto, and his obedient synthetics.

Harrison Ford reprises his original Blade Runner character, Officer Rick Deckard, to team up with K on his mission.

Challenges advance

“The original film proposed a future in which humanity had reached a point where cities were overpopulated, there was a lot of suffering, a challenge between classes, and this story continues on most of those themes in an interesting way,” Ford said.

“The challenges with the environment have progressed where there are life-and-death issues, and science has loosened its moral constraints and is willing to develop a biological creature identical to a human being,” he said. “But because they are owned, because they are manufactured, they are denied the potentials of human beings.”

Screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green created a streamlined story that does not match the original’s inception. But it is the visual storytelling by director Villeneuve, the cinematography by Roger Deakins and the music by Hans Zimmer that add texture to the story. Blade Runner 2049 is ruled by visual precision, unnerving music and muted colors that evoke loneliness.

Villeneuve’s precise and orderly future is more impressionistic than Scott’s chaotic and more linear story. It is anchored in the original but finds its own vision reflecting our social and political anxieties, 30 years later.
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We’re cranking up the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending Oct. 7, 2017.

Three consecutive weeks, three consecutive Hot Shot Debuts in the Top Five – that’s incredible, and it’s not even our biggest story!

Number 5: Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee & Justin Bieber “Despacito”

Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber retreat a slot to fifth place with their former 16-week champ “Despacito.”

On Oct. 2, Luis took off from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on a mission to help those in his Puerto Rican homeland affected by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Also on board were fellow Puerto Rican stars Chayanne, Nicky Jam and Ricky Martin. Luis’ “Despacito” partner Daddy Yankee is already on the island, working with the food bank Feeding America.

Number 4: Logic Featuring Alessia Cara & Khalid “1-800-273-8255”

Logic, Alessia Cara, and Khalid also lose a slot, in fourth place with “1-800-273-8255.” 

On Sept. 29, Logic appeared to suffer an onstage breakdown in Pennsylvania. He walked off midway through his show, but later finished the set, telling the crowd he was battling exhaustion. Posting later on Twitter, the 27-year-old rapper said he needed to seek a better work-life balance.

Number 3: Taylor Swift “Look What You Made Me Do”

It’s a down week for Taylor Swift, who loses her Hot 100 crown in third place with “Look What You Made Me Do.” Taylor is one of many celebrities reacting to the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Taylor sent bouquets of flowers to a Los Angeles police station after the shooting. One of its off-duty police officers was injured during the shooting, which has claimed 59 lives.

Number 2: Post Malone Featuring 21 Savage “Rockstar”

The past three weeks have seen three straight Hot Shot Debuts in the Top Five. Post Malone and 21 Savage get lucky this week, as “Rockstar” opens in second place.

This is Post’s third and highest-ranking countdown single — and it’s currently number one in Australia. Growing up in Texas, the rapper — real name Austin Richard Post — says his parents turned him on to all kinds of music. He says he wants to break boundaries with his songs, incorporating sounds from all different genres.

Number 1: Cardi B “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)”

Congratulations to Cardi B, reaching the Hot 100 summit with “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves).” Cardi is the first solo female rapper to top the Hot 100 since 1998, when Lauryn Hill did it with “Doo Wop (That Thing).”

This thing is over for now, but we’ll be back next week with a brand new lineup.
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In 1982’s ‘Blade Runner,’ filmmaker Ridley Scott imagined the dystopian world of 2019 as overcrowded, polluted and inhabited by humans and their genetically engineered look-alikes. As 2019 nears, filmmaker Denis Villeneuve creates ‘Blade Runner 2049.’ As the lines between humanity and artificial intelligence are blurred again, both films probe the nature of life and its moral implications. VOA’s Penelope Poulou looks at what sets Denis Villeneuve’s sequel apart from Scott’s classic.
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The saga of two families pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy in the Mississippi Delta after World War II explores a racial divide that is relevant even today, the filmmaker of new movie Mudbound said.

“I feel like Mudbound kind of comments on who we are now,” director and co-writer Dee Rees told Reuters at the Mudbound premiere in London Thursday.

“It’s about family, it’s about what it means to not be able to come home, it’s about citizenship, who’s an American, who’s not and so like those things would be, like timeless,” she added.

Mudbound, based on Hillary Jordan’s novel of the same name, stars Jason Mitchell, Garrett Hedlund, Carey Mulligan and Jason Clarke and follows the struggles of two farming families, one black, one white, in the heart of the American South in the 1940s.

Mudbound, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival for independent movies, is garnering strong reviews and Oscar buzz, and will debut on Netflix on Nov. 17.

The film explores the friendship of two men, one from each family, as they return from war and find common ground while their families face an unending struggle for and against the unforgiving land.

“What this film does so cleverly is it creates empathy,” Mulligan said.

“It gets you in the mind of all the different characters. It makes you look at so many people’s different perspectives and it asks you to ask the right questions, but it’s not prescriptive. It’s not telling you what to think.”
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A leading Iranian chess player, barred from her homeland’s team after she refused to wear a headscarf, will now compete as a player for the United States, the US Chess Federation said.

Dorsa Derakhshani, 19, who was born in Tehran, was forbidden from playing by the Iranian Chess Federation following the Gibraltar Chess Festival in January, US Chess said on its website. She did not wear a hijab during the event.

Since then, she has moved to the United States where she attends Saint Louis University and plays for the school’s team.

Derakhshani will now compete as an official United States chess player, US Chess posted on its website this week. US Chess is the national governing body for chess competition, sanctioning championships and overseeing player rankings.

​’Welcomed and supported’

“It feels good and … peaceful to play for a federation where I am welcomed and supported,” the website quoted Derakhshani as saying.

On a U.S. radio broadcast last week, she said: “I’m looking forward to finally having a stable trainer and a team, and I really wish to become grandmaster.”

She also said she hopes to become a dentist.

Derakhshani holds the titles of International Master and Woman Grandmaster with the World Chess Federation (FIDE).

A few weeks after the Gibraltar competition, the Iranian Chess Federation announced it was banning Derakhshani for not wearing a hijab. It also banned her brother, who had played an Israeli player in Gibraltar, US Chess said.

Ban may be a distraction

Derakhshani said on the National Public Radio broadcast that she had competed before without a headscarf and thought the ban was issued for other reasons.

The announcement was made during the Women’s World Chess Championship in Tehran, and all three Iranian competitors had lost in the opening round.

“So in the middle of all this, they needed another distraction … which worked perfectly,” she said in the broadcast. “Everybody started talking about us.”

Several top players including the U.S. women’s champion Nazi Paikidze boycotted the Tehran competition because players were required to wear a headscarf, US Chess said.

 
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George Clooney will be the 46th recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award.

 

The American Film Institute announced Thursday it will honor the actor-director at a gala tribute in Los Angeles in June.

 

The 56-year-old Clooney may be on the young side for lifetime achievement awards, but this isn’t his first. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 2015 handed him its lifetime achievement award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award.

 

AFI board of trustees chairman Howard Stringer calls Clooney “America’s leading man.” Stringer in a statement hails Clooney as “a modern-day screen icon who combines the glamour of a time gone by with a ferocious passion for ensuring art’s impact echoes beyond the screen.”

 

Clooney’s next directorial effort is the 1950s home invasion drama “Suburbicon,” which opens later this month.
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Most Americans think refusing to stand for the national anthem is disrespectful to the country, the military and the American flag. But most also disapprove of President Donald Trump’s calling for National Football League players to be fired for refusing to stand.

The NFL protests began last season with quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who knelt during the national anthem to bring more attention to the killings of black men by police officers. The protests spread this season, as the former San Francisco 49er was unable to sign on with another team and as Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett said he had been racially profiled by Las Vegas police, and then Trump sounded off.

According to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 52 percent of Americans disapprove of professional athletes who have protested by refusing to stand during the national anthem, compared with 31 percent who approve. At the same time, 55 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s call for firing players who refuse to stand, while 31 percent approve.

In the poll, African-Americans were far more likely to approve of the players’ protests.

“I don’t see kneeling while the anthem is being played as being disrespectful,” said Mary Taylor, 64, a retired law librarian from Olympia, Washington.

Taylor, who is white, said she supported police but understood why players were protesting. And her personal politics also factor in.

“I’m for it because Donald Trump is against it,” she said.

The form of the protest seems to matter. The poll found Americans were more likely to approve than disapprove of players who, instead of kneeling, linked arms in solidarity during the anthem, 45 percent to 29 percent.

Reluctance to acknowledge

“People don’t want to be confronted with their racism in any form. If they are confronted with it, they want it in the mildest form possible,” said DeRay Mckesson, a Black Lives Matter activist who has protested police actions since the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The NFL protests got more attention and morphed into a bigger debate about patriotism after Trump told a crowd at an Alabama rally last month: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now! Out! He’s fired. Fired!’ ”

That prompted dozens of NFL players, and a few team owners, to join in protests. They knelt, raised fists or locked arms in solidarity during pregame ceremonies when the anthem was played.

Broken down by race, 55 percent of African-Americans approved of players refusing to stand for the anthem, and 19 percent disapproved, the poll found. Among whites, 62 percent disapproved and 25 percent approved.

Seventy-nine percent of blacks disapproved of Trump’s call for players to be fired, while just 8 percent approved. Among whites, 48 percent disapproved and 38 percent approved.

Thomas Sleeper of Holden, Massachusetts, said he considered the protests to be free expression protected by the First Amendment, and he said pregame protests were most likely the best stage for them because “individually protesting is not going to get as much press.”

“They want people to know that the country isn’t living up to its full standard,” said Sleeper, 78, who is white. “This is a way to get noticed, and possibly get some action taken.”

Chandler, Arizona, business owner Larry Frank, 67, said the protests were inappropriate and disrespectful to military veterans. Trump’s response, he said, was “dead on.”

“We should keep politics out of our sports,” said Frank, who served in the Air Force. “We pay them to come out and play games and entertain us. Using this medium is not the right way to do it. Do it off the field. Let’s not interfere with the process of a good business and a fun sport.”

The poll showed that overall, about 6 in 10 Americans agreed with the assessment that refusing to stand for the anthem was disrespectful to the military, and most also said they thought it was disrespectful to the country’s values and the American flag. About 6 in 10 blacks said they did not consider it disrespectful.

Just 4 in 10 Americans overall, and about half of African-Americans, said they thought refusing to stand for the flag could be an act of patriotism.

Boycott campaign

Frank, an avid Arizona Cardinals fan who is white, said he planned to boycott watching football on Veterans Day to show his disgust with the players’ protest, part of a larger campaign being promoted on social media.

Thomas Peoples of New Brunswick, New Jersey, said the protests were a personal decision for each player. He said he didn’t think their actions were meant to show disrespect for the country or the military.

Still, he would not participate in such a protest.

“It’s not my approach to resolve a problem,” said Peoples, 66, who is black. “I’m not a protester. But they’re expressing their feelings about how some Americans are treated in this country.”

The AP-NORC poll of 1,150 adults was conducted September 28-October 2 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which was designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents was plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. The poll included a total of 337 black respondents, who were sampled at a higher rate than their proportion of the population for purposes of analysis. The margin of sampling error among blacks was plus or minus 5.7 percentage points. For results reported among all adults, responses among blacks were weighted to reflect their proportion among all U.S. adults.
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British author Kazuo Ishiguro has been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The prize committee in Sweden says Ishiguro, through his novels, has “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

The committee said the 62-year-old author was born in Nagasaki, Japan.  He moved to Britain when he was five-years-old.

Ishiguro has written numerous novels, but the committee said on Twitter his most celebrated work was The Remains of the Day, a story about a butler at an English country estate.  

The novel was turned into a movie featuring Academy Award winners Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.

Swedish academy secretary Sara Danius said Ishiguro is “a writer of great dignity” who has “developed an aesthetic universe all his own.”

“He is a little bit like a mix of Jane Austen, comedy of manners and Franz Kafka.  If you mix this a little, not too much, you get Ishiguro in a nutshell,” Danius said.

As the recipient of the $1.1 million prize, the world’s most prestigious literary award, Ishiguro joins the ranks of Doris Lessing and Ernest Hemingway.

The recipient last year was poet/songwriter Bob Dylan, an influential contributor to popular music and culture for the past half century.

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 110 times between 1901 and 2017, according to NobelPrize.Org.

 

 
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Red carpets are being unrolled as the British capital prepares to play host to some of international cinema’s big names for the 12 days of the London Film Festival.

The opening night gala is the European premiere of “Breathe,” the directorial debut of Andy Serkis, who came to fame as an actor for his motion-capture portrayals of CGI characters such as Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” films.

Stars including Oscar-winner Emma Stone and Bryan Cranston will be at the event promoting films – the tennis drama “Battle of the Sexes” and the Richard Linklater-directed comedy “Last Flag Flying” respectively.

The 61st edition of the festival will show 243 feature films from 67 countries, as well as a slew of shorts and documentaries.

“It is a delight to welcome some of the most thrilling storytellers from across the world to the Festival – we love to watch and engage with the extraordinary conversations that the Festival brings,” said Amanda Nevill, chief executive of the British Film Institute.
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Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project” takes place in a blindingly purple low-budget motel named the Magic Castle, just down Route 192 from Disney’s Magic Kingdom. For the children of single parents who live there, the Kissimmee, Florida, motel is a playground — even if they’re living in poverty.

 

“The Florida Project,” which opens in theaters Friday, is an ebullient, candy-colored movie wrapped around the very real issue of hidden homelessness. Families nationwide are living below the poverty line and eking out an existence in cheap motels, but the problem is particularly acute — and ironic — in the shadows of Walt Disney World.

 

“When Chris Bergoch, my co-screenwriter, brought it to my attention, I was like: ‘This is happening? There are literally kids who are homeless outside of what’s considered the most magical place on the Earth for children?’” said Baker, the 46-year-old independent filmmaker.

1,700 homeless families

 

Studies and investigative reports, including one in 2014 by The Associated Press , have found that an estimated 1,700 families are homeless in Florida’s Osceola County, with most living in the motels surrounding one of the country’s top tourist destinations. Efforts in recent years have been stepped up to get mentally ill homeless people off the streets around Orlando, yet the county still lacks shelters. Many simply find their low-paying service industry jobs don’t cover rent.

But if you’re expecting a stern lesson from “The Florida Project,” you’ll be surprised to find one of the most vibrant, spirited and heartbreaking films of the year. “The Florida Project” stars Willem Dafoe as the kindly father-figure manager Bobby, but its central characters are played by newcomers. The feisty, scamming Halley (Bria Vinaite) is the 23-year-old mother to Moonee (7-year-old Brooklynn Prince), a free-spirited troublemaker who, with her friends (including the 6-year-old Valeria Cotto), are a delightful menace to Bobby and the motel’s residents.  

 

“We wanted it to be a throwback, in a way. What I mean by that is: Little Rascals 2017,” said Baker. “I wanted to do something very similar where it was presenting the kids as kids, first and foremost — and have the audience embrace them, love them, laugh at them. And then hopefully at the end, the audience is sitting during the credits, and the issues have had a light shined on them that will have them talking on their way home.”

Films focus on the overlooked

In stories ranging from pornography actresses in the San Fernando Valley (“Starlet”) to immigrants in New York (“The Prince of Broadway”), Baker has made films depicting the lives of those Hollywood often overlooks a specialty. His last movie, “Tangerine,” was a micro-budgeted breakthrough, winning a Spirit Award and earning the praise of Francis Ford Coppola. Baker shot the transgender prostitute tale on iPhones with a mix of professional and non-professional actors, including the celebrated leads Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez.

 

“When I made ‘Tangerine,’ I moved to Los Angeles and I thought that Los Angeles was shot out, meaning that there’s no other stories to tell,” said Baker. “Then I found there’s a whole other world south of Olympic that we haven’t even seen in film unless it was ‘Straight Outta Compton.’ You realize who’s telling these stories. They’re not thinking outside their box, and often their sugar-coated visions of who they are.”

“My films are a response to what I don’t see,” added Baker.

Issue film as entertainment

 “The Florida Project,” the director says, was an effort to go further in packaging an issue film as an entertainment. The approach drew the interest of Dafoe, a veteran actor eager to appear as a “non-actor,” he says. Especially appealing was the opportunity to work among non-professional performers on location in Orlando.

 

“It was one of those experiences where you able to riff off what was there. You were able to deal with what’s in the room,” said Dafoe. “My dressing room was not a trailer. It was one of those rooms. Troy lived down the hall. Troy became my friend. Troy was a resident who lived there for many years. That adds a dimension. It makes you learn things and gives you an experience.”

Since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, “The Florida Project” — as well as Dafoe and Brooklynn’s performances — has been widely lauded as among the best of the year. No one has enjoyed the ride more than Brooklynn, a natural performer who has tweeted and Instagramed her adventures. Making the movie, the Orlando native said, was like summer camp. She and her young co-star, Val, now consider themselves best friends.

 

“Me and my mom and dad went over this,” Brooklynn said of the film’s more adult nature. “They weren’t really sure about this movie. But I came to them and I said, ‘I want to bring awareness to these kids and show people the light — my light for Jesus.’”

Movie an eye-opener

The low-budget production was for both Brooklynn and Dafoe an eye-opener: an up-close view of the homelessness most never see.

 

“I learned things about a certain kind of poverty, a certain kind of cycle of homelessness and hopelessness,” said Dafoe. “It’s a rich movie. It’s a poor little rich movie.”

 
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The long-awaited sequel to the cult classic “Blade Runner,” a 1982 sci-fi thriller, finally hits movie theaters on Friday.

But there is not much that stars Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling can say about “Blade Runner 2049,” for fear of revealing major plot spoilers.

Ford, who reprises his role as an older Rick Deckard, and Gosling as a new ‘blade runner’ Officer K, told Reuters that the film offers a glimpse into the potential impact of a rapidly changing climate and an increasingly isolated society reliant on technology.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: The first film touched upon the future or what they envisaged the world to be. Now we’re 30 years on, what elements does this film address which you think will resonate with audiences today?

Gosling: “Overpopulation, global warming, being isolated by technology.”

Ford: “Social inequity.”

Gosling: “The false narratives we create about large groups of people in order to make ourselves feel better about how awful their circumstances are.”

Ford: “The necessity to have a moral structure into which to pour what’s possible and to make judgments about what we use and what we don’t use.”

Q: How would you say this film pushes forward messages about humanity that weren’t covered in the first one?

Ford: Well I would just quibble with the word ‘message’ because it’s an experiential opportunity because you discover your relationship to the ideas in the context of an emotional geography so I think as an audience, it has an opportunity to engage you in a way that is pretty rare.

Q: How did you go about playing your character with ambiguity as it is not always known who is a human and who is a Replicant?

Ford: I don’t think there’s a style to the acting necessarily. There is so much new information coming at you as a character and as an audience that you just want to be still and make sure that you’re reading this right, that you really know what’s going on so the characters are constantly in the midst of a dilemma that is like drinking out of a gardening hose. There is so much happening to them that it’s close to overwhelming for them.
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Country star Jason Aldean said Tuesday that he would cancel three shows this week to honor victims of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, in which a gunman opened fire on a crowd at a Las Vegas music festival during the singer’s Sunday show.

Aldean canceled stops in Los Angeles, San Diego and Anaheim, California, as part of his “They Don’t Know Tour.” The tour will resume in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on October 12 and refunds will be offered for the canceled shows.

“I feel like out of respect for the victims, their families and our fans, it is the right thing to do. It has been an emotional time for everyone involved this week, so we plan to take some time to mourn the ones we have lost and be close with our family and friends,” Aldean said in a statement.

The singer added: “Our first time back onstage will be a very tough and emotional thing for us, but we will all get through it together and honor the people we lost by doing the only thing we know how to do — play our songs for them.”

Aldean was on stage on Sunday night at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival when Stephen Paddock, a retiree armed with multiple assault rifles, strafed the crowd at the concert from a high-rise hotel window, killing 59 people and wounding 527.

Jennifer Lopez, currently in her “Jennifer Lopez: All I Have” residency at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, also canceled her scheduled shows this week. The performances will be rescheduled for later dates.

“Jennifer is heartbroken that such a senseless tragedy occurred. Her thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families,” the singer’s representatives said in a statement Tuesday.

Organizers of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas said on Tuesday they would offer refunds to people who no longer want to attend for security concerns after the Las Vegas shooting.

Earlier this week, Warner Brothers said it would scale back Tuesday’s world premiere of sci-fi film Blade Runner 2049 after the Las Vegas tragedy, canceling the red carpet, where stars chat to reporters and pose for photos.

ESPN’s Monday Night Football and ABC’s Monday episode of Dancing With the Stars both opened with a moment of silence for the victims of the tragedy.
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