George Clooney’s foundation is planning to open seven public schools for Syrian refugee children.

 

The Clooney Foundation for Justice announced a new partnership Monday with Google, HP and UNICEF to provide education for more than 3,000 refugee children in Lebanon.

 

George and Amal Clooney said in a statement Monday that the foundation’s commitment of more than $2 million toward education for Syrian refugees aims to prevent thousands of young people from becoming “a lost generation.”

 

The couple said Syrian refugee children “have been victims of geography and circumstance” for whom formal education can make all the difference.

 

George and Amal Clooney established the Clooney Foundation for Justice last year to support equity in courtrooms, classrooms and communities around the world.
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In 2016 “Moonlight” won best picture and “Hidden Figures” was the 14th highest grossing film of the year, but popular Hollywood films remained as white and male-dominated as ever.

A new report from the Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism finds that the representation of women, minorities, LGBT people, disabled characters in films remains largely unchanged from the previous year, despite heightened attention to diversity in Hollywood.

At the bottom of the wrung and most egregiously disproportionate to their U.S. demographics are women, Hispanics and disabled characters. Exclusion, the report says, is the norm in Hollywood, not the exception.

 

For nine years since 2007, USC has analyzed the demographic makeup of every speaking or named character from each year’s 100 highest-grossing films at the domestic box office (with the exception of 2011), as well as behind-the-camera employment for those films including directors, producers and composers.

 

“Every year we’re hopeful that we will actually see change,” Stacy L. Smith, a USC professor and the study’s lead author, told The Associated Press. “Unfortunately that hope has not quite been realized.”

 

Women remain vastly underrepresented when it comes to both speaking roles and lead or co-leading parts in films. Of the 4,583 speaking characters analyzed from the top 100 films of 2016, 31.4 percent were female, a number that is basically unchanged since 2007. Also, only 34 of the films depicted a female lead or co-lead — and only three of those were from underrepresented groups.

 

“We see a real stalling out,” Smith said.

 

In terms of race and ethnicity, the landscape remains largely white, with Hispanics grossly underrepresented compared to the breakdown of the U.S. population. Of the speaking characters surveyed: 70.8 percent were white; 13.6 percent black; 5.7 percent Asian; 3.1 percent Hispanic; and less than 1 percent American Indian, Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian. According to the latest U.S. Census, the nation is 61.3 percent white, 17.8 percent Hispanic, 5.7 percent Asian, 13.3 percent black, 1.3 percent American Indian and Alaska Native and 0.2 percent Native Hawaiian.

 

More striking still is the film by film “invisibility” breakdown, which finds that 25 of the 100 films did not feature a single black character in a speaking role; 54 films had no Hispanic characters (14 higher than in 2015); 44 had no Asian characters (a rare improvement from 2015 which tallied 49 films with zero Asians).

 

For women of color, it’s a bleaker story.

 

“We can’t just talk about females in film anymore. What our data shows most powerfully this year over any other year is the real epidemic of intersectional invisibility in film,” Smith said. “If you cross gender with race and ethnicity, you see that the bottom really drops out for females of color on screen.”

 

The data speaks volumes: 47 films featured no black females; 66 had no Asian females; and 72 had no Hispanic females.

 

Also largely invisible are LGBT females, who were excluded from 91 of the top 100 films of 2016. There was a notable increase in films with gay speaking characters in 2016 — 36 up from 19, but zero transgender characters. Most of those — 79.1 percent — were white and 76 of the 100 films had no LGBT characters. Only one, “Mooonlight,” featured a gay protagonist.

 

The study also examined characters with disabilities — its second year doing so — and found that despite nearly 18.7 percent of the U.S. population identifying as disabled only 2.7 percent of all speaking characters were depicted as disabled.

 

Behind the camera, things continue to be dismal for female directors — in 2016 there were only 5 female directors out of 120 (including co-directors) and none were black.

 

Every year there are indicators of change, however, including this year with the successes of “Wonder Woman,” “Get Out” and “Girls Trip” among others, and more on the horizon. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has also recently made strides to diversify its membership.

 

“The question is with all of these high-profile examples, will the memo to Hollywood be read seriously and will they actually start engaging in more inclusionary hiring practices,” Smith said.

 

USC has a number of recommendations for changes — including adding five female speaking parts to each top film (which would result in gender equity in just three years) and encouraging A-listers to implement equity clauses into their contracts. The organization is also available to studios and content creators looking for advice, understanding or even lists of working female directors to consider.

 

“Diversity is not just something that just happens,” said Katherine Pieper, a research scientist on the report. “It’s something you have to think about and aim for as an objective and achieve.”
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Husky-voiced, French actress Jeanne Moreau has died. She was 89.

The French president’s office announced her death Monday in a statement.

American director Orson Welles once described Moreau as “the best actress in the world.”

Moreau is perhaps best known, in her long, prolific career, for her role in Francois Truffaut’s 1962 film “Jules and Jim.”

Her international career found her acting in films with a host of directors, including Welles, Michelangelo Antonioni, Tony Richardson and Luis Bunel.

She turned down the role of Mrs. Robinson in Mike Nichols “The Graduate.”

She received a number of awards for her work, including a best actress prize at Cannes, a BAFTA, and a honorary Oscar.

French President Macron said Moreau “embodied cinema” and was a free spirit who “always rebelled against the established order.” He praised her range that extended beyond her early roles as a femme fatale.

Moreau, who worked into her 80s, was found dead at her home in Paris Monday morning, the French news agency, AFP, reported.
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The only known surviving Italian issue poster for the classic movie “Casablanca” has sold for $478,000 in Dallas at a public auction of vintage movie posters.

 

The firm Heritage Auctions says the price ties a record for the highest amount paid for a movie poster at a public auction.

 

The 1946 Italian poster — four years after the Oscar-winning movie was made and first shown in the U.S. — measures 55.5 inches (1,409.7 millimeters) by 78.25 inches (1,987.55 millimeters). It previously was owned by a collector in London.

Auction spokesman Eric Bradley says the buyer Saturday chose to remain anonymous.

 

Bradley said Sunday the price equaled the record amount paid in 2014 for a poster for “London After Midnight,” a 1927 silent movie where Lon Chaney played a vampire.
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Ulaanbaatar’s urban music scene is buzzing with a new vibe created by a hip-hop duo mixing into their sound the traditional art of throat singing, or “Khoomei,” as Mongolians refer to it.

Rap group Fish Symboled Stamp, named for a fish-shaped seal traditionally used to brand horses in the landlocked nation, incorporates the nearly 1,000-year-old vocal tradition of communities across Siberia and Central Asia.

Khoomei means “pharynx”, and performers imitate the sounds of nature, emitting a melody of harmonics alongside a continuous drone, UNESCO, which added the art form to its intangible heritage listing in 2009, says on a website describing it.

Lead bass vocalist Sanjjav Baatar, 32, founded the group with rapper Battogtokh Odsaikhan, 30, in 2010, when they started experimenting with music styles.

Finding the voice that best suited them took some time.

“I couldn’t understand what voice I should use,” Baatar said. “One day my partner said, ‘Why don’t you rhyme with your Khoomei voice?’ I tried it out, and it sounded really good.”

Odsaikhan believes the cultural reference sets Fish Symboled Stamp apart from other Mongolian hip hop groups.

“Mongolian hip hop is no different from that in the West. It’s just copy and paste,” he said.

The pair say they were inspired by Mongolian folk religion and frequent childhood visits to the vast steppe undulating in every direction.

Mongolia’s climate and environment contributed to the development of Khoomei, said Lhamragchaa, a throat singing teacher at a private school in Ulaanbaatar.

 

“Our ancestors were herding their cattle in the open grasslands and were hearing the sounds of nature, like wind blowing, and trying to imitate them,” said Lhamragchaa, who has only one name, like many Mongolians.

Bataar and Odsaikhan are proud of their culture, nationalism and Mongolia’s historical legacies, which predominate in their lyrics.

Fish Symboled Stamp represented Mongolian art at the recent opening of an art gallery, drawing favourable comment for their skills in folding together traditional and modern music.

“Such performances can make Mongolians proud of their cultural heritage,” said Otgonbileg, a 50-year-old teacher.
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John Morris, a celebrated American photo editor who brought some of the most iconic photographs of World War II and the Vietnam War to the world’s attention, has died at 100.

His longtime friend, Robert Pledge, president and editorial director of the Contact Press Images photo agency, told The Associated Press that Morris died Friday at a hospital in Paris, the city where he had been living for decades.

Among his proudest achievements, Morris edited the historic pictures of the D-Day invasion in Normandy taken by famed war photographer Robert Capa in 1944 for Life magazine. In addition, as picture editor for The New York Times, he helped grant front-page display to two of the most striking pictures of Vietnam War by Associated Press photographers Nick Ut Cong Huynh and Eddie Adams.

During a career spanning more than half a century, Morris played a crucial role in helping to craft a noble role for photojournalism. He also worked for The Washington Post, National Geographic and the renowned Magnum photo agency.

His job as a photo editor included sending photographers to war zones or other reporting sites, advising them on the angles of their photographs, choosing the best shots in the stream of images transmitted and staging the selected images for the news outlets.

Describing himself as a Quaker and a pacifist, Morris was also known for his political commitment, backing the Democratic Party and being an early support for Barack Obama. Even at his advanced age, Morris had closely followed the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and had been “appalled” by the election of Donald Trump, his friend Pledge said.

Morris felt his fierce anti-war convictions did not contradict his work with photographers covering war zones.

“He believed that photography could change things,” Pledge said in a phone interview from his New York office. “Morris was convinced that images of horrors, devastations, damage to minds and bodies could prompt a movement of hostility to war in the public and eventually help make the world wiser.”

Born in New Jersey in 1916 and raised in Chicago, John Godfrey Morris described himself as a journalist. His first major assignment in 1943, as picture editor for Life magazine in London, made him responsible for getting to the world the 11 famous, grainy black-and-white photos of the Allied invasion taken by Capa on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944.

In a 2014 interview with The Associated Press for D-Day’s 70th anniversary, Morris recalled that Capa sent four rolls of negatives via couriers to his editors in London. But, because of an alleged mistake by a young dark-room assistant, three of the rolls were ruined.

“The first three, there was nothing just pea soup, but on the fourth there were eleven frames, which had discernible images, so I ordered prints of all of those,” he recounted.

For years, Morris blamed himself.

“I used to go around with a sad face saying I am the guy who lost Capa’s D-Day coverage. Now I say I am the one who saved it! It was, needless to say, an awkward moment,” he told the AP.

Years later during the Vietnam War, as a photo editor for The New York Times, Morris insisted that difficult pictures be published because they showed the horrors of the war.

On at least two memorable occasions, he got disturbing pictures published on the front page of the renowned paper.

The first one, by AP photographer Eddie Adams, showed a Saigon police chief executing a Vietcong prisoner at point-blank range in 1968 during the opening stages of the Tet Offensive. The second one, by AP photographer Nick Ut Cong Huynh, depicted a naked 9-year-old girl and other children fleeing a napalm bombing in 1972. Both photographs won Pulitzer Prizes.

Morris, who was married three times, is survived by his partner, Patricia Trocme, four children and four grandchildren, Pledge said. He was awarded the Legion of Honor, France’s highest award, in 2009.
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The Vatican’s Sistine Chapel Choir is embarking on its first U.S. tour in 30 years, hoping to show audiences in New York, Washington and Detroit that it has abandoned the habits that earned it a reputation as the “Sistine Screamers.” 

 

The group of 20 adults and 30 boys, colloquially known as the “Pope’s Choir,” is the world’s oldest choir. It started singing for pontiffs about 500 years ago. Today, the choir performs regularly in the Sistine Chapel below Michelangelo’s masterpieces, at Masses the pope celebrates in St. Peter’s Basilica and for international concert appearances.

Return to early glory

 

Hearing the singers’ dulcet tones today, it’s hard to imagine they earned the nickname the “Sistine Screamers” a few years ago for their habit of belting out their numbers operatically, relying on volume instead of technique.

“Truly, they were singing in a manner that had no relation to the old music,” choir master Monsignor Massimo Palombella said.

 

To return the choir to its early glory in the 16th century, when the group attracted the best singers in Europe, Palombella did extensive research. He sifted through the Vatican archives, studying music manuscripts and analyzing the handwriting of Renaissance composers. 

Members from many countries

 

These days, the choir once again is drawing talent. Its current members include singers from Poland, Britain, Brazil and Argentina. Diegogaston Zamediom says being the first Argentine singer in the choir of the first Argentine pope is the “maximum of the maximum.”

 

Palombella, who was named choir master in 2010 and was recently reconfirmed, hopes the concerts in the U.S. will effectively “communicate the image of God and spirituality that this music brings with it.”

 

Enrico Torre, a 27-year-old alto, said he is looking forward to visiting New York so he can catch a Broadway musical.
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Jessica Williams says it’s a great time to be an actress of color, and applauds Netflix for leading the way in promoting diversity.

 

Williams, who cut her teeth as a correspondent on “The Daily Show,” takes on her first starring role in the streaming network’s original film, “The Incredible Jessica James.”

 

The actress feels Netflix helped shape stories about people of color, citing original programming like “Master of None” and “Orange is the New Black” that are able to “showcase people of color in an amazing way.”

 

While inclusion continues to improve, especially on Netflix, Williams says the struggle for racial equality is far from over.

 

“I think it’s a difficult time in some ways to be a person of color, and I think the same for actors of color, but I also think it’s a great a time. Because I think now … there’s so much more room, I think, for us to be seen, and there’s room for us to create our own stories,” Williams said.

 

Williams feels great pride that she’s part of movement toward greater diversity on screen, calling it something that makes her heart warm and sing. She said she remains mindful of the actresses who paved the way.

 

“It’s like so many black actresses that came before me and my generation. They came before and they did not necessarily have this opportunity that I feel like I have now, and so I’m really grateful for that, and I really do think it’s a really great time to be an actress that is black, in a way,” she said.

 

But that doesn’t make shifting gears from a comedy news show to a feature film an easy choice. Williams certainly felt some trepidation with the move.

 

“I was really nervous because this movie does have comedy in it. It also has a lot of heart, and some sweet moments. So I was worried whether I would be able to portray that or not. But I had a lot of fun doing it, and I found out that I could,” she said.

 

Written and directed by Jim Strouse – who previously directed Williams in his 2015 film, “People Places Things” – the story was written with Williams in mind. Her desire was to correctly depict the “life of a modern, young black woman,” and took it a step further by also taking on the role as an executive producer.

 

“Just in case I had things to say creatively,” Williams said.

 

Strouse called Williams a comedy ninja and the right actress to portray the ever-changing nature of romantic relationships.

 

“I remember when a relationship goes astray or whatever, you break up, you don’t talk and in like maybe months down the road you have coffee,” he said. “Now it’s like, you ghost and maybe a couple months down the road you start liking each other’s photos again. It’s a weird time.”

 

He called the dynamic interesting, then with a knowing smile said, “I don’t know if it’s healthy.”

 

As for her previous gig, Williams has the distinction of being the youngest correspondent hired for “The Daily Show.” Now she’s hoping to join the list of the show’s alumni who have moved on to bigger and better things.

 

“To be mentioned among people like Samantha Bee or Hassan Minaj and Steve Carrell and Steve Colbert is insane,” she said. “It’s, it’s very surreal and I think – I packed up everything to move and be on the ‘Daily Show’ and I was nervous because I was 22. I was, umm, I had a lot of big shoes to fill working with Jon Stewart. I felt like in the beginning I had a lot to prove, and it’s really an honor to be among those people.”
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A collection of yawing mouths and extracted teeth, booming stereo speakers and colorful hookah pipes adorn shop fronts in Somalia, a colorful contrast to the airbrushed artworks of big business.

Somali mural artist Muawiye Hussein Sidow, also known as “Shik Shik,” is the man responsible for the art that features on more than 100 shops, including barbers, tea shops and supermarkets across Mogadishu.

Sidow’s work has a hand-drawn simplicity, usually involving bright, eye-catching colors. Some pieces stretch over several meters.

Sidow’s father was a commercial artist, who passed his knowledge and skills on to his son.

Sidow, 31, took on his father’s business in 1998 and his painting supports not only his own family, but helps sustain his dad as well as many others.

“I make the pictures to get daily food for my wife and three kids,” he told Reuters. “I also give daily food to [my] retired old father. Now I have become an art teacher there are many artists whom I taught how to make pictures, and they also get their daily food.”

Sidow said he never duplicated murals and that inspiration came from Somali daily life.

Aside from feeding his family and brightening up the urban landscape, Sidow still has ambitions to do more with his art.

“God willing, I hope I will also make pictures in the neighboring countries.”
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Models endured waits of up to six hours in their quest to become elaborate human canvases in an Austrian town this weekend, as the 2017 World Bodypainting Festival and world championships got under way.

The event sees participants decorated not just in paint, but in elaborate latex makeup, creating appearances that would not be out of place in a science fiction film.

On Friday, some of the human exhibits included a scaly-skinned woman with an animal skeleton headdress, another with multiple sets of horns, while the more reserved were semi-naked, painted with butterflies, apes and flowers.

“My painting is called ‘Utopia’ and stands for a world in which all dreams come true,” said artist and third-time participant Karen Dinger from Germany.

Her painting and costume, which took six hours to create, features heart-shaped red and white wings that stretch from the model’s head to knee-level and a painted moon on the leg.

The three-day festival, which is in its 19th year, sees 60 artists from over 50 countries take part, and competitions in 13 separate categories including special effects bodypainting, brush and sponge painting and ultraviolet effects.
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In the rubble of Nepal’s 2015 earthquake, a team of dedicated woodworkers is finding inspiration to re-create what was lost.

The centuries-old Char Narayan and Hari Shankara temples were destroyed by the massive April 2015 earthquake that shook the Himalayan nation, killing nearly 9,000 people. The temples were the jewel of Patan Durbar Square, which is thronged by thousands of tourists and local visitors every day. The structures were crumpled by the force of the tremor, and the carved doors, roof and brick structure lie in ruins.

A team of dedicated woodworkers is now trying to restore Nepal’s heritage. They have been working six days a week, for nearly two years, repairing the beautifully hand-carved wooden doors and windows.

The broken wooden beams are being replaced by new ones, but the workers are trying to use the salvaged portions as much as possible.

The “Silpakars” — as woodworkers from the Newar ethnic community are known — have passed down their craft and skills for generations.

“I am proud to continue my ancestral trade and help restore a big part of Nepal’s history that was destroyed by the earthquake,” said Shyam Krishna, chiseling away the wood pieces.

He and his fellow workers are paid only about $15 a day each, which is much less than they would earn as building furnishers.

“It is not about the money. We might make less money, but this is a moment of pride for us to be able to restore the heritage of our country,” he said.

Already two years at work, they will likely need another year to just get the windows, doors and beams ready.

Nepal faces criticism from the international community for slow progress in reconstruction work despite a $4.1 billion international pledge.
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In June of 2016, Mikah Meyer set out on an ambitious journey — to visit all 417 national park sites in America. He estimates it will take him three years to complete his non-stop journey. One-third of the way through his adventure, he shared highlights – and lowlights – with VOA’s Julie Taboh.
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Married country stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood are sharing the love by handing out wedding gifts to fans.

Jude and Jamie Blanchard attended Brooks’ show in Lafayette, Louisiana, last month with a sign that read: “Best Week Ever. Garth this Friday, our wedding next Friday.” Brooks took notice and serenaded them with “To Make You Feel My Love.” He also asked if they wanted anything off their wedding registry, and Jamie passed along a wedding invitation to the stage.

The Lafayette Daily Advertiser reports a pair of lounge chairs, a KitchenAid mixer and other items from the stars showed up at the Blanchards’ door.

This month, Brooks and Yearwood offered to pay for a Hawaiian honeymoon for a couple who got engaged at an Oklahoma City show.
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