cinema

Michael Jackson fans pack Hollywood for biopic premiere

BY PAULA RAMON

  • "It's beautiful to see all these people here to support Michael Jackson and support the movie, and to show love for Michael," the film's director Antoine Fuqua told AFP. Its premiere in Los Angeles -- the adopted home of the "Billie Jean" performer -- also became a family affair, led by the film's star and icon's nephew Jaafar Jackson.
  • Hollywood was clad in black and glittering sequins on Monday to host the Los Angeles premiere of Michael Jackson's biopic, drawing fans of the King of Pop to the iconic California boulevard.
  • "It's beautiful to see all these people here to support Michael Jackson and support the movie, and to show love for Michael," the film's director Antoine Fuqua told AFP. Its premiere in Los Angeles -- the adopted home of the "Billie Jean" performer -- also became a family affair, led by the film's star and icon's nephew Jaafar Jackson.
Hollywood was clad in black and glittering sequins on Monday to host the Los Angeles premiere of Michael Jackson's biopic, drawing fans of the King of Pop to the iconic California boulevard.
The film "Michael" chronicles the legendary artist's rise from a child star to one of the world's most famous pop icons, and arrives 16 years after his death. 
It was initially released in Europe and will hit US theaters on Friday.
"It's beautiful to see all these people here to support Michael Jackson and support the movie, and to show love for Michael," the film's director Antoine Fuqua told AFP.
Its premiere in Los Angeles -- the adopted home of the "Billie Jean" performer -- also became a family affair, led by the film's star and icon's nephew Jaafar Jackson.
"(This) being the first time that I've ever got into acting and to be able to portray my Uncle Michael, it's so surreal," Jaafar told AFP.
"I'm still taking it in and not really realizing how much it's going to hit me or when it's going to hit me. But, you know, it's incredible," he added.
Jaafar's performance won praise from his uncles, who highlighted the acting newcomer's "wonderful job" in portraying a figure they knew with an intimacy few others shared.
"When I watch the movie, I think I'm watching Michael on the stage... He did such a wonderful job. (It) brings tears to my eyes," Michael's brother, Jackie Jackson, said on the black carpet.
Marlon Jackson -- another member of the Jackson 5, the youth group where Michael got his start as an artist -- reflected on how the film might offer a window into the famous family's home life.
"I think people understand and realize that the Jackson family is no different than any family. We go through our trials and tribulations, ups and downs, but we learn to agree to disagree," he said.

Family affair

Marlon, Jackie, Jaafar and La Toya Jackson -- one of Michael's sisters -- shared embraces on the black carpet, where they met the actors who portrayed them and their parents in the film.
Nia Long, who stepped into the shoes of Katherine -- Michael's mother and close ally -- remarked that, in a male-dominated world, the women of the clan "set the baseline for how the family moved."
The actress hopes the film will allow audiences to view Michael Jackson as "an artist who was a master of his artistry" and someone who "cared deeply about humanity."
As for Colman Domingo, who portrays Michael's strict father Joe Jackson: "Everyone has a story, and everyone has something you can learn from -- just like a great album."
"Hopefully this film is a great album for someone, and if they could take something from it, then we did our job."
pr/lga/cms

business

Hello Kitty's parent company to make own video games

  • Hello Kitty and other characters owned by the corporate titan Sanrio have appeared in video games before, but these were all made by third parties.
  • Seeking new fans for Hello Kitty, the company behind the enigmatic character on Tuesday launched a video games division aiming to release 10 original titles over the next three years.
  • Hello Kitty and other characters owned by the corporate titan Sanrio have appeared in video games before, but these were all made by third parties.
Seeking new fans for Hello Kitty, the company behind the enigmatic character on Tuesday launched a video games division aiming to release 10 original titles over the next three years.
Hello Kitty, which started life as an illustration on a 1970s vinyl coin purse, is emblematic of Japan's lucrative culture of "kawaii", meaning cute.
Hello Kitty and other characters owned by the corporate titan Sanrio have appeared in video games before, but these were all made by third parties.
By making original games, Sanrio wants to broaden its appeal, CEO Tomokuni Tsuji told a news conference on Tuesday.
"We also want to approach people who have not been part of our traditional fan base, like boys and adult men," he said.
The company said its first new game, called "Sanrio Party Land", would be released for Nintendo's Switch and Switch 2 consoles by the autumn.
Sanrio is investing up to 10 billion yen ($63 million) in its gaming operations over the three years to March 2027.
"Video games are a very big market. People spend a long time on games," Tsuji said. "This is a sector we must enter."
"Sanrio Party Land" will consist of more than 45 mini-games, featuring more than 145 Sanrio characters, led by Hello Kitty but also joined by the likes of Cinnamoroll and Kuromi.
The release date and price of the new game will be announced later, Sanrio said.
Unlike other Japanese cultural exports such as Pokemon or Dragon Ball, there is minimal narrative around Hello Kitty, who has no mouth.
It has appeared on tens of thousands of products -- everything from handbags to rice cookers --  and has secured lucrative tie-ups with Adidas, Balenciaga and other top brands.
The phenomenon shows no sign of slowing, with a Warner Bros movie slated for release in 2028.
hih/kaf/mtp

AI

Romanian AI music sensation Lolita sparks racism debate

BY ANI SANDU

  • In general, Lolita's lyrics are "the most cliched things", added Mihai, saying people tell her "all the time" she looks like the AI-generated singer.
  • The sultry songs of Lolita Cercel, an AI-generated singer, are a sensation in Romania, racking up millions of views online -- but angering real-life musicians and drawing criticism from the Roma minority as a racist cliche.
  • In general, Lolita's lyrics are "the most cliched things", added Mihai, saying people tell her "all the time" she looks like the AI-generated singer.
The sultry songs of Lolita Cercel, an AI-generated singer, are a sensation in Romania, racking up millions of views online -- but angering real-life musicians and drawing criticism from the Roma minority as a racist cliche.
Since debuting late last year, "Lolita" has given TV interviews, landed representation by a top booking agency and had a cabinet member use the digitally generated singer's telegenic image to promote his ministry's projects.
But the videos' popularity has stirred debate in Romania about artificial intelligence replacing humans, and has raised questions about ethnic stereotypes in a country with a history of discriminating against the Roma.
Lolita is "a very sexualised" character, "a non-Roma man's fantasy of what a Roma woman might look like", Bogdan Burdusel, a 35-year-old Roma activist, told AFP, criticising "latent and unaddressed racism" in Romanian society.
Real-life Roma singer Bianca Mihai, a contestant on the Romanian version of reality TV show "The Voice" last year, called Lolita's overnight success "unfair".
"I'm trying to build a career right now, and I feel like there's no room for me," said Mihai, 25, who juggles a full-time job as an IT consultant with studio rehearsals and an acting gig.
In reality, Lolita is the work of a man who calls himself Tom, a 32-year-old visual designer who said he did not necessarily mean for his creation to have a Roma identity.
Tom, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Lolita "doesn't necessarily belong to a specific culture".
"She reflects the reality of millions of people living in the Balkans. She embodies a Balkan identity more than a Romani one," he told AFP.
Tom, who has described his project as "a fusion of Balkan nostalgia and the synthetic future", said he chose folk music traditionally played by Roma for Lolita's songs because it "speaks the truth most bluntly" and represents "a kind of blues of our own".

'Didn't mean to offend'

"I didn't mean to offend anyone," he said, seeming shy and uncomfortable with the media attention the project has generated.
Tom said he wrote the lyrics for Lolita's songs -- about
love and everyday struggles" -- and used prompts to produce the music and videos with AI, not expecting it "to go so viral".
In public comments, he has praised AI for "democratising" musical creation.
AI-generated tracks regularly go viral, and global music industry body IFPI has called on the sector to ensure AI-generated content compensates musicians.
AI is "really good" at focusing in on people's music consumption, mimicking what the industry usually offers, said Grigore Burloiu, a lecturer in interactive technologies at the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest.
"No one woke up overnight and said: 'That's it, I like AI'... AI is all about finding the lowest common denominator," he told AFP.

'That hurts'

In one of Tom's most-viewed songs, a teary-eyed Lolita, wearing a red flower dress and hoop earrings, stares into the camera on a train platform.
The avatar calls herself "a cast-out gypsy", asking her married lover if she's not worth a dime compared to his "proper fine lady" who has "furs and money".
"She's exactly the kind of girl we find very easy to accept and exoticise," said real-life singer Mihai.
In general, Lolita's lyrics are "the most cliched things", added Mihai, saying people tell her "all the time" she looks like the AI-generated singer.
"It's nice to borrow elements from Romani culture, but we don't necessarily like the Romani people. And that hurts," Mihai told AFP.
Enslaved from the 14th to the 19th century, Roma were legally treated as property in a swath of Europe spanning what is now Romania and Moldova.
Mihai herself only began to publicly identify as Roma when she was around 18 years old, after her parents -- fearing she would face discrimination -- encouraged her not to reveal it.
While participating in "The Voice", Mihai was the target of anti-Roma hate speech, even receiving death threats on social networks.
Meanwhile, praise abounds on Lolita's channels, with one user calling her Romania's Amy Winehouse.
"Now I understand why people fall in love with AI," wrote another.
Mihai is watching uneasily.
"Lolita released five songs in a month and got a ton of views," she said, calculating that it would take her months to do that.
"We can't really compare. It's very hard."
ani/jza/jhb/yad

film

'The Devil Wears Prada 2' stars reunite for glamorous premiere

  • "The Devil Wears Prada 2" opens in theaters on May 1. 
  • Two decades after "The Devil Wears Prada" became a modern US classic, its stars reunited in New York on Monday for the long-awaited sequel's world premiere.
  • "The Devil Wears Prada 2" opens in theaters on May 1. 
Two decades after "The Devil Wears Prada" became a modern US classic, its stars reunited in New York on Monday for the long-awaited sequel's world premiere.
Meryl Streep, who returns as tyrannical magazine editor Miranda Priestly, was joined on the red carpet by fellow A-listers Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci.
"It was like, why did it take so long?" Streep told Disney Plus when asked about stepping back into her fearsome character's shoes. 
Tucci agreed: "Yes, exactly. It was like riding a bicycle."
"The Devil Wears Prada 2" sees a now well established Andy Sachs (Hathaway) back at Runway Magazine, where Miranda Priestly (Streep) is navigating the decline of print media.
The veteran editor is forced to go head-to-head with her former, frantic assistant Emily Charlton (Blunt) -- now a high-powered executive who controls the advertising revenue that Priestly needs. 
Kenneth Branagh joins the cast as Miranda's newest husband, along with newcomers like Simone Ashley and Lucy Liu. 
Naturally, fashion was front and center at Monday's premiere, where three-time Oscar winner Streep wore a red Givenchy outfit. 
She said in an interview that all the clothes, jewelry, bags and shoes featured in "The Devil Wears Prada 2" are to be auctioned for the Committee to Protect Journalists. 
Co-stars Hathaway and Blunt, who wore Louis Vuitton and Schiaparelli respectively, credited fans for making the sequel happen. 
"We're literally here because of you, because you took us into your hearts and kept us there for 20 years and said 'we want more.' That's why this whole dream has continued for us," Hathaway told Disney Plus. 
Other red carpet celebrities included Anna Wintour, the former Vogue editor, who is considered the inspiration for Streep's character. 
"The Devil Wears Prada 2" opens in theaters on May 1. 
Its 2006 precursor is widely seen as a definitive satire of the US fashion industry, capturing the allure of power and ambition. 
bjt/sla

entertainment

Singer D4vd charged with murder after teen's body found in Tesla

BY HUW GRIFFITH

  • The Tesla, which was registered to Burke in Texas, had been parked on the street in the upscale Hollywood Hills for around a month before it was towed.
  • Singer D4vd was charged Monday with the murder and dismemberment of his young teenage girlfriend, whose decomposing corpse was found in a Tesla that had been abandoned in the Hollywood Hills.
  • The Tesla, which was registered to Burke in Texas, had been parked on the street in the upscale Hollywood Hills for around a month before it was towed.
Singer D4vd was charged Monday with the murder and dismemberment of his young teenage girlfriend, whose decomposing corpse was found in a Tesla that had been abandoned in the Hollywood Hills.
The 21-year-old, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, faces a possible death penalty over the horrifying death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose body was discovered in September, within days of what would have been her 15th birthday.
"Celeste was just a child, under 14 years old, when David Burke allegedly engaged in repeated lewd and lascivious sexual relations with her," Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman said.
"When she threatened to expose his criminal conduct and devastate his musical career, Burke allegedly murdered her, cut up her body and stuffed her body in two bags that were placed in the front trunk of his car."
Hochman said Celeste's mutilated corpse sat rotting for four months until it was discovered.
"This horrific and gruesome murder committed by the charged sexual predator is shocking and appalling. To Celeste's loved ones: we will get the justice you seek and deserve."
Burke shot to internet fame in 2022 when his song "Romantic Homicide" became a breakout hit on TikTok.
He was on a national tour when detectives were called to a Hollywood tow yard after neighbors complained of a terrible smell coming from an impounded vehicle.
The Tesla, which was registered to Burke in Texas, had been parked on the street in the upscale Hollywood Hills for around a month before it was towed.
But investigators believe Celeste's remains may have been in the front trunk for much longer.
"The condition of her remains delayed the medical examiner's ability to be able to determine cause of death," Los Angeles police chief Jim McDonnell told the press conference.
"The substantial amount of time that passed between her death and the discovery meant that crucial evidence had degraded or disappeared."
Burke faces one count each of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains.
A lawyer entered not-guilty pleas on his behalf during a brief court appearance in Los Angeles on Monday.
Burke was ordered to appear in court again on Thursday. He remains in custody.
The artist's lawyers last week denied their client had killed the youngster.
"Let us be clear, the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez, and he was not the cause of her death," a statement from lawyers Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski, and Regina Peter said. 
"We will vigorously defend David's innocence."
Celeste, who lived in Lake Elsinore, east of Los Angeles, had been reported missing by her mother in 2024, at the age of 13. 
Her mother told reporters that her daughter had a boyfriend named David. 
Videos show Burke has a tattoo on one of his fingers matching the one reading "Shhh" that the Los Angeles County medical examiner previously revealed was on Celeste's index finger.   
The pair were also seen on streaming websites together.
hg/bgs

US

Swiss football club turn down Kanye West concert approach

  • It is understood that FC Basel was approached about a possible June 26 concert date but turned down the enquiry.
  • Swiss football club FC Basel on Monday confirmed to AFP they had turned down an approach about staging a Kanye West concert at their St. Jakob-Park ground.
  • It is understood that FC Basel was approached about a possible June 26 concert date but turned down the enquiry.
Swiss football club FC Basel on Monday confirmed to AFP they had turned down an approach about staging a Kanye West concert at their St. Jakob-Park ground.
The US rapper had a string of performances in Europe lined up over the coming months, but several have been cancelled or postponed in the last fortnight.
The 48-year-old artist, also known as Ye, has been heavily criticised for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler.
St. Jakob-Park in Basel, on the French and German borders, is the biggest-capacity sports stadium in Switzerland and staged the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 final. The venue can host 40,000 fans during concerts.
Reigning Swiss champions Basel said they were interested in making more use of the venue in the northern city and carefully reviewed all enquiries.
"In this case, FCB received an enquiry and considered it," a spokesman for the club told AFP when asked about West.
"However, after a thorough review, we decided not to pursue the project further, as we cannot, in accordance with our values, provide a platform for the artist in question within this context."
The musician and producer has lost fans and several sponsorships in recent years following inflammatory comments and actions. 
No Basel concert was ever officially confirmed. It is understood that FC Basel was approached about a possible June 26 concert date but turned down the enquiry.
Britain has blocked the US rapper from entering the country due to his outbursts, prompting organisers of a three-night London festival he was headlining to cancel the July event.
West then announced last week that a concert he had planned to give in the French city of Marseille on June 11 had been postponed after authorities voiced opposition.
And a concert scheduled to take place in Poland on June 19 was cancelled by the venue in Chorzow on Friday, following condemnation of his antisemitic remarks.
West has previously said "I love Nazis", sold t-shirts featuring a swastika on his website, and last year released a track titled "Heil Hitler", which was banned by the main streaming platforms.
In January this year, he took out a full-page advert in The Wall Street Journal newspaper to declare "I am not a Nazi or an antisemite". He attributed his controversial behaviour to a "manic episode" brought on by bipolar disorder.
rjm/apo/jj

entertainment

Singer D4vd charged with murder over teen's body found in Tesla

  • The 21-year-old, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, was expected to appear in court Monday to face multiple charges over the horrifying death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose body was found in September, days after what would have been her 15th birthday.
  • Singer D4vd was charged Monday with the murder and dismemberment of a teenage girl whose decomposing body was found in an abandoned Tesla in the Hollywood Hills.
  • The 21-year-old, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, was expected to appear in court Monday to face multiple charges over the horrifying death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose body was found in September, days after what would have been her 15th birthday.
Singer D4vd was charged Monday with the murder and dismemberment of a teenage girl whose decomposing body was found in an abandoned Tesla in the Hollywood Hills.
The 21-year-old, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, was expected to appear in court Monday to face multiple charges over the horrifying death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose body was found in September, days after what would have been her 15th birthday.
"These charges include the most serious charges that a DA's office can bring: that is first degree murder with special circumstances," Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman told reporters.
"The special circumstances being lying in wait, committing this crime for financial gain or murdering a witness in an investigation."
If convicted, Hochman said, Burke could face a death sentence or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Burke, who shot to internet fame in 2022 when his song "Romantic Homicide" became a breakout hit on TikTok, also faces charges that he repeatedly had sex with Celeste -- who disappeared from her family home when she was 13 -- and that he cut up her body.
hg/ksb

music

Branded pop-up events take center stage at Coachella

BY PAULA RAMON

  • And the crowds those amenities attract are a gold mine for brands.
  • With a multitude of promotional events almost as long and diverse as its artist lineup, Coachella, one of the biggest music festivals in the world, is now an amusement park for influencers and a gold mine for brands.
  • And the crowds those amenities attract are a gold mine for brands.
With a multitude of promotional events almost as long and diverse as its artist lineup, Coachella, one of the biggest music festivals in the world, is now an amusement park for influencers and a gold mine for brands.
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, or simply Coachella, has become the tone-setter for the US festival circuit.
Tickets for this edition -- now in its second weekend with pop stars Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and reggaeton artist Karol G at the top of the bill -- sold out last year within four days of going on sale.
With that, organizers were expecting around 250,000 people to come over two weekends at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, where dozens of special events with fashion, beauty, beverage, and lifestyle brands were spread out among the festival's nine stages.
"I love how big it's gotten. I love how more people are open to it," 24-year-old Luz Maura told AFP at an e.l.f. Beauty station.
The pastel-colored space offered lip glosses as souvenirs, slushies to ease the high desert temperatures, makeup artists to touch up glittery festival looks, and hosted multiple selfie corners.
The "e.l.f.scape to Balm Desert" campaign drew a "six-figure audience," said Patrick O'Keefe, the company's vice president of integrated marketing, to AFP.
Promoting a moisturizing lip balm was not just about seizing on the arid, dry desert's climate -- it was also backed by sales data.
"We know that 92 percent of daily makeup users incorporate lip products into their routines," he added.
Its donut-shaped chairs and branded mirrors also serve as irresistible selfie backdrops that in turn promote the brand.

'Analog experience'

At the festival that's sometimes dubbed the "influencer olympics," Pinterest chose to swim against the tide with a "phone-free" installation.
Amid the debate over digital fatigue, "we made a willing decision to sacrifice that sort of immediate coverage in order to tell a story about what we believe in and who we are, and our hope is that, you know, long term that sinks in," Sara Pollack, the company's vice president and global head of consumer marketing, told AFP.
With their phones locked away in a pouch, visitors to the Pinterest space had to resist the urge to feed their social networks with images of the colorful bar for designing custom accessories or the makeup room.
For California resident Liz Mendoza, the "analog experience" was "a lot of fun."
"Especially in an environment like this where social media is such a big thing and you want to take pictures and post as much as you can, I think it's super nice to have a few minutes off of your phone and just be in the moment," Mendoza added.
Pollack maintained that Coachella, where they are taking part for a third year, "is a great place for us to connect with Gen Z, and Gen Z is our fastest growing demographic." 
She noted that 50 percent of Pinterest's audience was Gen Z.

'Cultural destination'

In the Coachella Valley, where temperatures can climb past 86F (30C) this time of year, so-called "brand activations" also serve as oases of shade and, in some cases, air conditioning.
And the crowds those amenities attract are a gold mine for brands.
Absolut, a vodka brand, sets up Absolut Heat Haus each year. The space looks like a nightclub, with bars and a DJ in charge of the music -- a role that last year fell to Paris Hilton.
"Coachella is a standout moment for Absolut because it's more than a music festival -- it's a high-energy social occasion and a cultural destination," said the company's brand director, Bethan Hamilton.
Flor Ruiz, who was born the same year that Coachella began -- 1999 -- said the festival's extracurriculars are key to the experience.
"For me, there's no such thing as Coachella without this," she said, as she left one of the promo events. "It's not just about the music."
"For that, we'd just go to a concert."
pr-pnb/jgc/ksb

film

Argentine film and theater great Luis Brandoni dies at 86

  • A familiar face for decades on Argentine television, Brandoni starred alongside Robert de Niro in the 2023 Disney+ miniseries "Nada."
  • Argentine cinema, theater and television legend Luis Brandoni has died at the age of 86, his friend and producer Carlos Rottemberg announced Monday on X. "Luis Brandoni has died.
  • A familiar face for decades on Argentine television, Brandoni starred alongside Robert de Niro in the 2023 Disney+ miniseries "Nada."
Argentine cinema, theater and television legend Luis Brandoni has died at the age of 86, his friend and producer Carlos Rottemberg announced Monday on X.
"Luis Brandoni has died. In 'Beto' we are losing the last leading actor of an unforgettable generation, a driving force for national theater," Rottemberg wrote, calling it a "very sad day for our culture."
Brandoni's body will be taken to the Buenos Aires legislature to lie in state on Monday afternoon.
He was admitted to hospital on April 11 after a fall at home that caused a brain-bleed.
He starred in dozens of films over the course of a prolific career, including "Waiting for the Hearse" (1985) and "The Weasel's Tale" (2019).
He also lit up the stage with hugely successful plays such as "Conversations with My Mother" and "Parque Lezama."
A familiar face for decades on Argentine television, Brandoni starred alongside Robert de Niro in the 2023 Disney+ miniseries "Nada." In the series, he played a curmudgeonly Buenos Aires food critic whose life falls apart after his housekeeper dies, while De Niro played his friend.
Brandoni was active from a young age in the center-left Radical Civic Union (UCR), one of Argentina's oldest political parties.
During Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship, when the party was banned, he briefly went into exile in Mexico.
He served two terms as an MP with the UCR in the 1990s and also served as cultural advisor to former UCR president Raul Alfonsin.
sa/ad/cb/sms

art

Desmond Morris: from 'Naked Ape' to watching 'Big Brother'

  • - TV fame - Morris denied he set out to be provocative when he wrote "The Naked Ape" over a four-week rush just after the counter-cultural "Summer of Love" in 1967. 
  • Celebrated British zoologist Desmond Morris, who died Sunday aged 98, shook up the world in 1967 when his book "The Naked Ape" posited that humans are essentially primates still captive to evolutionary impulses.
  • - TV fame - Morris denied he set out to be provocative when he wrote "The Naked Ape" over a four-week rush just after the counter-cultural "Summer of Love" in 1967. 
Celebrated British zoologist Desmond Morris, who died Sunday aged 98, shook up the world in 1967 when his book "The Naked Ape" posited that humans are essentially primates still captive to evolutionary impulses.
The idea that homo sapiens -- while cleverer and less hirsute than the average ape -- should be analysed as a belonging to the animal world was not new to anthropologists. 
But it was not mainstream among the general public, in a less secular age when, still for most, man was made in the image of God. The book sold upwards of 20 million copies in at least 23 languages.
His death, confirmed Monday to AFP by his son Jason Morris, followed what he called "a lifetime of exploration, curiosity and creativity". 
"A zoologist, manwatcher, author and artist, he was still writing and painting right up until his death," Jason Morris said in a statement. 
"He was a great man and an even better father and grandfather."
Morris's career was not without controversy. 
Feminists and some other scientists objected to his contention that men and women evolved to do different tasks -- split between hunting and managing the home -- and that the modern world was shaped around that.
Gender differences were hard-wired, Morris argued, but he said urbanisation had entrenched an inappropriate split which favours competitive traits in business -- the modern equivalent to prehistoric hunting grounds.
"Because of the structure of urban life, men have been unfairly favoured over women," he told The Oldie magazine in 2021, marking his 93rd birthday.

TV fame

Morris denied he set out to be provocative when he wrote "The Naked Ape" over a four-week rush just after the counter-cultural "Summer of Love" in 1967. 
He said he was simply setting down observations from working as a curator of mammals at London Zoo.
In fact, his early ambition was to change how we view the world but through modern art.
Born in southern England in 1928, Morris watched his father die a slow death from wounds suffered in World War I, an experience that informed his youthful desire to find expression through surrealism after World War II.
After a post-war stint as an army conscript, Morris exhibited some of his works alongside the Spanish master Joan Miro in 1950, and said he only studied zoology to better understand the natural world for his art.
In 1993, he told the Swindon Advertiser newspaper -- founded by his great-grandfather -- that his early fascination with wildlife was honed at a local park.
While he continued to paint and exhibit throughout his long life, Morris found his professional calling in popular science, becoming head of a television and film unit at London Zoo in 1956.

'Monkey Matisse'

His contemporary, David Attenborough, became a friendly rival on a different TV channel, both using the newly emerging medium to bring zoology into the home.
Morris's two passions overlapped in 1957 when he curated an exhibition of chimpanzee paintings and drawings in London.
One three-year-old chimp called Congo produced more than 400 works, and was hailed as "the monkey Matisse" and "the Picasso of the Simian world".
The success of "The Naked Ape" -- which inspired a Eurovision Song Contest entry in 2017 by Italy featuring a dancer in a gorilla suit -- brought global fame.
But a stinging tax bill in Britain saw Morris move in 1968 with his wife to Malta, where he worked on a sequel about city-dwellers called "The Human Zoo".
Five years later, with the addition of their son, the couple moved back to England where Morris took up a fellowship at Oxford University. 
A succession of books and TV series followed. 
In the 2000s, Morris wrote opinion pieces from an anthropological perspective on the contestants in the reality television hit "Big Brother".
Asked by The Guardian newspaper in 2007 if he had any regrets, he lamented not sticking to art.
"I still consider myself a serious artist but a very minor one, and I'm a minor artist because I've been doing too many other things."
In 2019 he moved to Ireland, and acquired a property near Dublin which was transformed into the Dun Laoghaire Institute of the Visual Arts (DIVA), according to a website dedicated to Morris's life.
"He sees it as his gift to Ireland for welcoming him in his final years," the site said.
jit-jj/jkb/rmb

music

Amy Winehouse's father loses suit against friends selling her clothes

  • A few were described as "abandoned by Amy" therefore her father "has no ownership nor immediate right to possession".
  • The father of music superstar Amy Winehouse on Monday lost a UK lawsuit he brought against two of her friends, who auctioned some of her clothes and other possessions years after her death.
  • A few were described as "abandoned by Amy" therefore her father "has no ownership nor immediate right to possession".
The father of music superstar Amy Winehouse on Monday lost a UK lawsuit he brought against two of her friends, who auctioned some of her clothes and other possessions years after her death.
The late singer's former stylist Naomi Parry and her friend Catriona Gourlay sold dozens of items, including a black Armani bag and dresses Winehouse wore on her last tour in June 2011.
The court heard arguments in a trial that they "took advantage" of her father's forgetfulness and pocketed more than $1.4 million in sales.
Both denied acting dishonestly and said the items had been given or lent to them by the singer, even if there was no proof.
But Amy's father, Mitch Winehouse, sued the pair, alleging they did not have the right to sell the items, which went under the hammer between November 2021 and May 2023 by Los Angeles-based auctioneers.
Judge Sarah Clarke said in her written judgment that she found that "neither Ms Parry nor Ms Gourlay deliberately concealed any of their disputed items from the claimant".
"Even if I am wrong about that, Mr Winehouse could have discovered what disputed items the defendants had with reasonable diligence," she added.
Dismissing the case, the judge ruled that the 155 items, including ballet slippers, dresses, handbags, earrings and make-up were owned by the two women or gifted to them.
A few were described as "abandoned by Amy" therefore her father "has no ownership nor immediate right to possession".

'Extraordinary generosity'

Singer-songwriter Winehouse, who enjoyed meteoric global success, died in July 2011 from alcohol poisoning, aged just 27.
She was a distinctive figure with her beehive hairdo, heavy black eye make-up, multiple tattoos and smoky voice.
Winehouse shot to fame with her Grammy Award-winning 2006 album "Back to Black", which included the track "Rehab" charting her battle with addiction.
Parry said after the ruling that the court "has cleared my name, unequivocally and in full, after years of deeply damaging and unfounded allegations".
"I stood beside Amy as a friend, a creative partner, and her costume designer. What we shared was built on trust, loyalty, and a genuine love of the work," Parry added in a statement.
The judge ruled Winehouse had a "longstanding, close friendship" with both women before she even became famous and was known for her "extraordinary generosity towards her friends and also those she barely knew".
This "particularly involved gifts of clothing, fashion accessories and other style items to her close friends," the judge added.
"She had more items than she could ever wear, use or store" and routinely gave away clothes and accessories to her friends and family.
According to court documents, her father believed any sums collected from the sales organised by Los Angeles-based Julien's Auctions would be due to him and the Amy Winehouse Foundation.
The foundation is a charity set up in the singer's name working with young people to foster hope and self-reliance.
jkb/jj/rmb

crime

Hit reality show helps rev up Japan's delinquent youth subculture

BY TOMOHIRO OSAKI

  • The latest to capitalise on the genre is Netflix, whose recent reality show "Badly in Love" spotlighted Japan's "yankii" (delinquent) culture by starring 11 young men and women, including former "bosozoku" (motorcycle gang) members. 
  • Sporting towering Elvis-style hair and a school uniform modified into a rebellious silhouette, 15-year-old Reona worships Japan's classic bad-boy subculture recently taken global by a hit Netflix dating show.
  • The latest to capitalise on the genre is Netflix, whose recent reality show "Badly in Love" spotlighted Japan's "yankii" (delinquent) culture by starring 11 young men and women, including former "bosozoku" (motorcycle gang) members. 
Sporting towering Elvis-style hair and a school uniform modified into a rebellious silhouette, 15-year-old Reona worships Japan's classic bad-boy subculture recently taken global by a hit Netflix dating show.
Japan in the heady 1980s teemed with hot-blooded teens who rebelled against society through dangerous motorcycle rides, school "wars" and full-on street brawls.
Their outlandish fashion and supposed traits such as chivalry have since made them Japan's pop-culture darlings, from anime to film, despite its conformist population's disdain for rule-breakers. 
The latest to capitalise on the genre is Netflix, whose recent reality show "Badly in Love" spotlighted Japan's "yankii" (delinquent) culture by starring 11 young men and women, including former "bosozoku" (motorcycle gang) members. 
And a yankii-themed exhibition is now underway in Tokyo, re-enacting the 80s chaos with flamboyantly modified motorcycles and heavily embroidered "tokkofuku", military-style jackets worn by the bikers. 
High-schooler Reona, who AFP has chosen not to name in full because he's a minor, mimics the 80s rebels by donning baggy school trousers designed to create an imposing impression.
"I think their hardcore manliness on full display is so cool," he told AFP. 
A fighting spirit, loyalty to friends and straightforwardness are redeeming qualities often associated with the subculture. 
Modern delinquents, meanwhile, are sometimes derided for their childish TikTok clout-chasing, online bullying and the underhanded way they scam elderly people as part of so-called "black-market part-time gigs".
Prank videos have gone viral in recent years showing teenage customers committing unhygienic antics at Japan's famed sushi conveyor-belt restaurants -- so-called "sushi terrorism".   
"Getting arrested for riding around your motorcycle may have some honour, but getting arrested for those sushi pranks is plain lame," Reona said.
Hirotaka Sotooka, 43, laughs off his eight-year-old son's precocious penchant for gangster-like attire, but draws a clear line.
The parent is willing to tolerate motorcycles, fistfights and fashion statements, but "I don't want him to bully the weak, be violent toward women or do anything purely evil", he told AFP. 
"Otherwise it's his life to enjoy," he said, proudly watching as his son strikes a perfect tough-guy pose before a bosozoku-style bike showcased at the yankii exhibition during its February iteration.

'Embarrassing'

Japanese teens still do make headlines vrooming recklessly, skirmishing or even duelling, but they are now commonly seen as less belligerent after many moved online to vent.
The number of bosozoku members, too, plummeted nearly 90 percent to 5,880 in 2024 from their peak in 1982, police data shows.
That is partly because "surveillance cameras are now everywhere" and "everyone films you on an iPhone and leaves proof of your act", Kenichiro Iwahashi, a former outlaw biker turned delinquency expert, told AFP.
With the risk of arrest much higher, bosozoku gangs as hardcore as those in the 80s known for their unlicensed, unhelmeted and tokkofuku-flaunting style are "almost non-existent today", he said.
While long popular in fiction, yankii youths remain deeply frowned upon in real life for their transgressive behaviours and occasional transitions to full-fledged career criminals.
Satoru Saito, who performs as a "yankii comedian" complete with towering quiff, shaved eyebrows and tokkofuku, sometimes finds himself vilified online by those almost allergic to his "anti-social" appearance.
"For some people, this is a hard no," the 33-year-old told AFP.
"Most of these yankii folks are doing things like fighting or committing crimes, and the act of riding motorcycles at midnight can be extremely noisy, so I get why they are hated."
This makes "Badly in Love" an audacious project that few conventional TV broadcasters would have dared to green light.
From "Tokyo Revengers" to "Crows", manga and movies themed on school gangs have always made popular content as escapist fantasy.
But featuring these troublemakers beyond fiction would have "risked exposing TV stations to criticism from the public that they are endorsing the yankii culture", influential entertainment writer Motohiko Tokuriki told AFP.
Mindful of the risk, Netflix says it went beyond strict legal compliance to "avoid sensationalism" and contextualise cast members' past slips into delinquency. 
"We had extensive internal discussions... to ensure the production would not be perceived as glorifying or condoning the violence," "Badly in Love" executive producer Dai Ota told AFP.
Overall, his gamble paid off: the show, with Season 2 already set for release later this year, has maintained a weeks-long top 10 presence, including in South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
"Our hope was to show that these young people -- who have often been marginalised or labelled as 'social outcasts' -- are simply youths who worry, struggle and genuinely grow."
Despite her tough, heavily tattooed exterior, Season 1 participant Otoha told AFP she is "not at all what people think of me".
The 23-year-old "introvert" now calls her past delinquency "embarrassing".  
"I'd like people not to admire us, but take us as their anti-role model."
tmo/aph/sjc/fox/abs

film

Who's Bad? Not Michael Jackson in new big-budget biopic

BY ADAM PLOWRIGHT

  • But the involvement of the family has led to accusations that the film sugar-coats the image of a man who was dogged by sexual abuse allegations before his death by overdose in 2009, aged 50.
  • A new Michael Jackson biopic will shortly arrive in cinemas telling the story of the King of Pop's early career, but it's a tightly controlled story that avoids any reference to the child sex abuse allegations that dogged his later life. 
  • But the involvement of the family has led to accusations that the film sugar-coats the image of a man who was dogged by sexual abuse allegations before his death by overdose in 2009, aged 50.
A new Michael Jackson biopic will shortly arrive in cinemas telling the story of the King of Pop's early career, but it's a tightly controlled story that avoids any reference to the child sex abuse allegations that dogged his later life. 
Titled "Michael" and beset by production and legal problems, it spans his childhood in Gary, Indiana, and climaxes with the moonwalking megastar performing in London during his Bad World Tour.
Distributors Lionsgate are hoping for global revenues of $700 million from a production budget of $200 million, which would push it close to the $910 million earned by "Bohemian Rhapsody" in 2018 -- a record for a musical biopic.
Made by the same producer as the Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody", Graham King, it features Jackson's nephew Jaafar Jackson in the main role, a 29-year-old with no previous acting experience.
"They threw me right in the deep end," Jaafar told US talkshow host Jimmy Fallon earlier this month, adding that he had been helped with the dancing by his uncle's real-life choreographers.
"It was really a surreal, spiritual moment," he said of playing one of the most recognisable characters in pop music. 
- 'Controlled narrative' - 
Jaafar Jackson delivers a strong performance as the gloved and thrusting singer, while the concert scenes are sure to delight fans of the "Thriller" and "Bad" albums.
At the Berlin premiere on April 10, Jackson's sons Prince and Bigi were joined on the red carpet with his brother Jermaine -- Jaafar's father.
All the surviving Jackson siblings are credited as executive producers, meaning they all had a right to review the film before its global release from Wednesday.
But the involvement of the family has led to accusations that the film sugar-coats the image of a man who was dogged by sexual abuse allegations before his death by overdose in 2009, aged 50.
His daughter Paris, who had no involvement, has been one of the most outspoken critics.
"A big section of the film panders to a very specific section of my dad's fandom that still lives in the fantasy, and they're gonna be happy with it," the actress and singer wrote on Instagram last September.
"The narrative is being controlled and there's a lot of inaccuracy and there's a lot of just full-blown lies."

'Human story'

A third of the original film exploring allegations against the star had to be cut and re-shot.
Lawyers for the Jackson estate realised there was a clause in a settlement with one of the singer's accusers, Jordan Chandler, that barred any mention of him in a film, Variety film magazine reported.
Although Jackson was never convicted in criminal or civil court, other alleged victims filed lawsuits after his death, several of which are still active.
The film was originally scheduled for release in April 18, 2025 before being pushed back by a year.
Several documentaries including 2003's "Living with Michael Jackson" and 2019's "Leaving Neverland" focused on his habit of inviting children to spend nights with him.
"I would love that the film would tell the most human story about Michael Jackson possible," Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African and African American Studies at Duke University, told AFP recently.
"But I also realise that we're in a period of time where Hollywood does not deal with celebrities in that way."
The film is almost certain to give another boost to the money-spinning family franchise. 
"MJ: The Musical" opened on Broadway in 2022 and has been staged in other countries, while the Cirque du Soleil production "Michael Jackson ONE" has been running in Las Vegas since 2013. 
adp-agu-burs/pdw/jxb/ane

Canada

'Super Mario Galaxy' rules N. America box office for third week

  • "'Super Mario' and 'Project Hail Mary' continue to drive the business in their third and fifth weekends -- they're carrying the box office," said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.
  • "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie" -- based on Nintendo's popular video game franchise -- topped North America's box office for the third week in a row, industry estimates showed Sunday.
  • "'Super Mario' and 'Project Hail Mary' continue to drive the business in their third and fifth weekends -- they're carrying the box office," said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.
"The Super Mario Galaxy Movie" -- based on Nintendo's popular video game franchise -- topped North America's box office for the third week in a row, industry estimates showed Sunday.
The animated sequel from Universal and Illumination Studios tracking the adventures of Mario, Luigi and friends in outer space raked in another $35 million, Exhibitor Relations reported.
That puts the worldwide box office total of the film -- which features the voices of Jack Black, Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy and Brie Larson -- at nearly $750 million. 
Holding its own in second place is another space adventure, Amazon MGM's smash hit "Project Hail Mary," which earned $20.4 million over the weekend in the United States and Canada.
The film, which stars Ryan Gosling as a teacher-turned-astronaut who awakes on a spaceship with a mission to save Earth from a dimming sun, has earned more than $570 million worldwide, and its run in movie theaters has been extended.
"'Super Mario' and 'Project Hail Mary' continue to drive the business in their third and fifth weekends -- they're carrying the box office," said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.
Debuting in third place is "Lee Cronin's The Mummy," an original horror flick from Warner Bros, which earned $13.5 million. The film is not related to Universal's adventure films starring Brendan Fraser.
In the fourth spot at $4.8 million was "The Drama," A24's romantic comedy with a dark twist starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson about a couple unraveling just before their wedding.
And finishing in fifth at $3.8 million was another rom com, Universal's "You, Me & Tuscany" starring actress-singer Halle Bailey and Rege-Jean Page of "Bridgerton" fame.
Rounding out the top 10:
"Hoppers" ($2.9 million)
"Normal" ($2.7 million)
"Busboys" ($1.6 million)
"Bhooth Bangla" (1 million)
"Exit 8" ($670,000)
bur-sst/dw

religion

'DJ Priest' mixes religion and rave in Buenos Aires tribute to Pope Francis

BY LEILA MACOR

  • Francis, who was born in Buenos Aires and served as archbishop of the city before his papacy began in 2013, died on April 21, 2025.
  • Jeans, a clerical collar and a rosary on his wrist: this is how Father Guilherme Peixoto -- the "DJ Priest" -- appeared in central Buenos Aires on Saturday to spin electronic music at a massive rave paying tribute to Pope Francis one year after his death.
  • Francis, who was born in Buenos Aires and served as archbishop of the city before his papacy began in 2013, died on April 21, 2025.
Jeans, a clerical collar and a rosary on his wrist: this is how Father Guilherme Peixoto -- the "DJ Priest" -- appeared in central Buenos Aires on Saturday to spin electronic music at a massive rave paying tribute to Pope Francis one year after his death.
Techno versions of the "Super Mario" soundtrack and "Ameno" -- the 1990s classic that emulates Gregorian chant -- were mixed with excerpts from Francis's speeches in Plaza de Mayo, the political heart of Argentina, which had been transformed into a Catholic celebration.
From behind the decks, Peixoto energized tens of thousands of people beneath a laser light show, flanked by the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral and Casa Rosada, the seat of the Argentine government.
Peixoto told AFP his goal for the event was "to let the music touch hearts so deeply that young people return home with a desire to change the world."
On stage, an illuminated cross hung above Peixoto as a nearby screen showed a large white dove flapping its wings as a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
Many people in the crowd wore halos fitted with white lights, sold by street vendors for less than $10.
The concert kicked off with an audio clip of Francis saying, "The Church is not an NGO." Later, the 52-year-old Portuguese priest recited Francis's frequent request to young people to "make some noise."
Francis, who was born in Buenos Aires and served as archbishop of the city before his papacy began in 2013, died on April 21, 2025.
Tomas Ferreira, a 25-year-old lawyer, told AFP that while he is not Catholic, he thought it was "really great that the priest is trying to bring people together through the fusion of electronic music and religion."
"Religion is modernizing, and that's a good thing," he said.

From Guimaraes to the booth

A native of Guimaraes, Portugal, Peixoto has served as a parish priest in the Archdiocese of Braga, northern Portugal, since 1999. 
His Sunday masses, he said with a laugh, "are normal. It's a normal liturgy."
He entered the seminary at age 13, but always kept one foot in the world of music. As a young man, he played the organ in a pop-rock band alongside his fellow seminarians.
"Going to church and going out to a bar or a club to listen to music felt the same -- it was normal," he recalled in an interview with AFP.
In the early 2000s, he organized karaoke nights to raise funds for his debt-ridden parish. He learned how to mix music by watching videos on YouTube and practicing the craft over several years.
"When I first started learning how to mix, I also began to immerse myself in electronic music culture. It wasn't just about understanding the technicalities, how to structure a set, but grasping the very essence of what an 'electronic music journey' truly is," Peixoto said.
"It was a long, long process -- a journey that led me right here."

Breakthrough in Ibiza

The Covid-19 pandemic marked the turning point for Peixoto.
He began streaming live sets on Facebook, his videos went viral and the nickname "DJ Priest" stuck.
"Techno started becoming a bit more melodic, which is the style I play now," said Peixoto.
"The music isn't quite as intense or heavy as it used to be. Instead, it serves as a vehicle capable of conveying messages, thoughts and melodies."
He said he conveys "messages of peace."
Peixoto's breakthrough moment came in Ibiza in July 2024, when he celebrated his 25th anniversary as a priest by performing in front of thousands of people.
He said he was concerned about how people would react to seeing a priest in the DJ booth. But the fear quickly faded when he said he saw young people showing "such incredible warmth."
"I get goosebumps when I feel that we are all united on the dance floor, that we are all on this journey together," he said.
lm/lb/lga/aks

music

From Armin van Buuren to Mochakk, electronic music dominates Coachella

BY PAULA RAMON

  • "Giving rise, for example, to this Coachella lineup," she said. pr/jgc/aks/lga
  • From established stalwarts like Fatboy Slim to rising artists like Australia's Ninajirachi, this year's edition of the annual Coachella music festival dedicated nearly half of its lineup to electronic musicians.
  • "Giving rise, for example, to this Coachella lineup," she said. pr/jgc/aks/lga
From established stalwarts like Fatboy Slim to rising artists like Australia's Ninajirachi, this year's edition of the annual Coachella music festival dedicated nearly half of its lineup to electronic musicians.
The traditionally rock-centric festival in Indio, California -- headlined this year by singers Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G -- reflects the surge in popularity of electronic music in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"It's testament to the rise of electronic music, generally," Swedish DJ Adam Beyer told AFP.
"Much of it is so much more accessible. Also, there is a lot of electronic collaboration and influence in pop so it feels much more visible across the board now," he added.
Among the highlights of the festival's second weekend was the premiere of electronic musician Anyma's "ÆDEN" show on the festival's main stage, after the set was canceled the previous weekend due to high winds.
"I mean man, I love it, it's like... a rave after another, you know?" festival attendee John Good said as he left the Nine Inch Noize show, a joint act by industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails and German producer Boys Noize.
The second day of the festival featured a set by Beyer with trance legend Armin van Buuren, who popularized the subgenre for a global audience.
"The term is now so broad," van Buuren told AFP, referring to electronic music.
"It's no longer just 'house music,' but even tracks by Sabrina Carpenter have some sort of electronic drums in them. I guess electronic music has spread through and had an impact on all genres of music," he said.
Beyer and van Buuren agreed that the delineation between electronic and traditional genres has faded in recent years along with listening habits.
"This younger generation doesn't really approach music through strict genre labels anymore. It's more about mood, energy and context," van Buuren noted.
The 49-year-old Dutch DJ argued the festival setting was optimized for electronic acts.
"Festivals and large-scale shows have become more immersive and experience-driven, and electronic music is built exactly for this kind of setting," he said. "It's physical, emotional and repetitive in a way that works on this larger scale."

'Unpredictable'

At the Sahara tent, Coachella's stage dedicated to electronic music, the lineup featured a variety of DJs from a range of subgenres.
Among them was Brazilian DJ Mochakk, who called his Coachella debut his "biggest gig to date." 
The 26-year-old's influences include Brazilian genres like MPB and Tropicalia, as well as artists like Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque. 
"Music always goes in cycles," he told AFP.
"With electronic music I think it's this mix of old and new that people connect with. 
"Also how open it is, you can blend so many genres in one set, keep switching energy, keep it unpredictable," he added. 
"That keeps it exciting, and I think that's probably why it's been growing so much everywhere."

Techno-flamenco

Another electronic music act at Coachella this year was the duo MESTIZA, consisting of Spanish artists Pitty Bernad and Belah, who brought their cultural influences -- including flamenco dancers -- to the stage.
"Electric music has something very special, and that's why it's understood all over the world," Belah said.
The genre, she added, "has no borders."
"For a long time it was hard to find places where we could go to listen to electronic music," said Pitty, adding that "it has evolved in a dramatic way." 
"Giving rise, for example, to this Coachella lineup," she said.
pr/jgc/aks/lga

entertainment

Hollywood, Silicon Valley turn out for the 'Oscars of Science'

BY PAULA RAMON

  • So there will be a lot of big questions that we'll have to sort through as a society," Altman told AFP. The Breakthrough Foundation was started by Google co-founder Sergey Brin; Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan; science patrons Julia and Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe. Six prizes worth $3 million each were presented at the 12th edition of the awards.
  • Big names from the worlds of film, technology, music and sports gathered on Saturday in Santa Monica, California for the Breakthrough Prizes, popularly known as the "Oscars of Science." 
  • So there will be a lot of big questions that we'll have to sort through as a society," Altman told AFP. The Breakthrough Foundation was started by Google co-founder Sergey Brin; Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan; science patrons Julia and Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe. Six prizes worth $3 million each were presented at the 12th edition of the awards.
Big names from the worlds of film, technology, music and sports gathered on Saturday in Santa Monica, California for the Breakthrough Prizes, popularly known as the "Oscars of Science." 
The awards, co-founded by philanthropists and tech entrepreneurs, recognize the research achievements of leading scientists around the world in three broad categories: Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics.
"These are some of the most heroic and inspiring people we get in the world," actor Edward Norton told AFP.
According to the "American History X" star, it was important to turn out and "to highlight what this kind of work contributes to all of us."
"The United States has the most anti-science administration in US history," the actor said. "It's always important, but if it was ever especially important, the moment is now."
In the last year, the Trump administration has slashed funding for science, halting projects and devastating workforces.
Rock climber Alex Honnold agreed with Norton, adding that he hoped the fluctuations "of the political climate... are short-term compared to the long-term effort required to make these kind of gains in human knowledge."
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the collaboration between his company's artificial intelligence technology and some of the award-winning scientists "is moving things faster and faster, and letting them discover new things and bring them to the world faster than they could before."
"Change this fast is really disorienting. So there will be a lot of big questions that we'll have to sort through as a society," Altman told AFP.
The Breakthrough Foundation was started by Google co-founder Sergey Brin; Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan; science patrons Julia and Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe.
Six prizes worth $3 million each were presented at the 12th edition of the awards.
French mathematician Frank Merle was honored for his work on nonlinear equations describing the behavior of waves, fluids and other systems.
Merle told AFP the funding is "essential" for science. 
"Science is one of the foundations of our civilization," he said.
Hollywood A-listers Ben Affleck, Lily Collins, Robert Downey Jr., Gigi Hadid, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Gal Gadot, Naomi Watts and her husband, Billy Crudup, also attended the event, alongside public figures like Bill Gates and Paris Hilton.
pr/lb/aks/lga

sculpture

South Korea's chainsaw artist carves a name for herself at 91

BY CLAIRE LEE

  • At 15, Kim, who was a war refugee, changed her name to Yun Shin – "truth and faith" – on the advice of a monk who urged her to spend her life discovering her "true colour".
  • South Korean sculptor Kim Yun Shin wields a chainsaw with a quiet focus, refining a craft the 91-year-old has honed over decades spent far from home.
  • At 15, Kim, who was a war refugee, changed her name to Yun Shin – "truth and faith" – on the advice of a monk who urged her to spend her life discovering her "true colour".
South Korean sculptor Kim Yun Shin wields a chainsaw with a quiet focus, refining a craft the 91-year-old has honed over decades spent far from home.
Long overlooked in her home country, Kim has more recently gained recognition as a pioneering artist, featuring in a sweeping retrospective at South Korea's esteemed Hoam Museum of Art.
The solo exhibition, titled "Two Be One", is the institution's first since its founding in 1982 to spotlight a woman artist, and includes some of her signature abstract sculptures hewn from hardwood with her tool of choice.
"The saw is my body," Kim told AFP in her studio in Paju, a city northwest of the capital Seoul.
"When I lift it and cut (the wood), it has to move exactly like me -- the saw has to become me, and I have to become the saw."
Hoam is exhibiting about 170 of Kim's sculptures and paintings, reflecting her reverence for nature and blending spirituality with meditations on existence, material and form.
Born in 1935 in Wonsan, now in North Korea, she grew up playing alone in the countryside, talking to trees and rice paddies, and making eyeglasses out of sorghum stalks.
At the time, Korea was under Japanese colonial rule. Kim saw her older brother disappear after joining the independence movement, and pine trees in her town cut down for fuel.
"Those trees were my friends," she said, recalling the pain of seeing them uprooted -- and her drive to salvage and transform them into works of sculpture.
"I think I wanted them to endure -- to keep living on within that (art) form. Maybe that's why I've loved working with wood so much."

Chainsaw carving

Kim's family fled south during the horrors of the Korean War, and she later studied in France before returning to become an art professor in Seoul.
South Korea was then under a brutal military dictatorship. Authorities held artists in suspicion: a friend of Kim's was interrogated simply for using red, a colour associated with North Korean communism.
"Women, in particular, were virtually invisible," she told AFP, noting that her superiors would comment on the length of her skirt and tell her to refrain from smoking on college campuses.
At 48, drawn by the abundant trees in Argentina, she made the unusual choice to move to the South American nation, then just restoring democracy after a dictatorship of its own.
She ended up staying for 40 years, taking up chainsaw carving.
Kim focused on dense, durable wood such as palo santo and"algarrobo", and also worked with quarries in Mexico and Brazil, experimenting with stone sculpture using materials such as onyx and sodalite. 
She managed to forge her "own artistic world, nourished by the country's culture and nature", Tae Hyun-sun, senior curator at Hoam, told AFP.

Pave the way

Like many women artists of her generation, Kim has only recently gained global recognition, said Rachel Lehmann, the co-founder of Lehmann Maupin which represents Kim internationally and has shown her work in London and New York.
"Her perseverance and lifelong dedication have helped pave the way for subsequent generations of women artists," she told AFP. 
Kim returned to South Korea after a major 2023 solo show in Seoul that propelled her to the Venice Biennale the following year.
Among her former mentees in Buenos Aires is Korean-Argentine filmmaker Cecilia Kang, 40, an award-winning director who is now making a film about her. 
As the daughter of Korean immigrants, she felt pressure to follow a conventional path, but Kim -- whom Kang first met when she was 13 -- showed her "that pursuing a life doing what one loves is possible".
At 15, Kim, who was a war refugee, changed her name to Yun Shin – "truth and faith" – on the advice of a monk who urged her to spend her life discovering her "true colour".
Those words have always "stayed vivid with me", she said. "Sometimes I feel they are what have carried me through this life."
cdl/mjw/ane

cinema

Paramount's CinemaCon charm offensive gets lukewarm reception

BY PAULA RAMON

  • - Hail Mary - For cinema owners, much depends on what happens with Warner Bros. and whether Paramount Skydance can keep its promise to maintain a steady stream of films.
  • Paramount Skydance was on a charm offensive at CinemaCon this week, trying to convince theater owners that its megabucks deal to swallow Warner Bros. would be good for the industry.
  • - Hail Mary - For cinema owners, much depends on what happens with Warner Bros. and whether Paramount Skydance can keep its promise to maintain a steady stream of films.
Paramount Skydance was on a charm offensive at CinemaCon this week, trying to convince theater owners that its megabucks deal to swallow Warner Bros. would be good for the industry.
A glitzy promotional film narrated by Tom Cruise ended with the world's most bankable movie star sitting atop the company's water tower, gazing over Hollywood.
"The future is Paramount, and the future looks pretty great from here," said Cruise.
The firm's chief executive David Ellison, attuned to fears that the $111 billion offer for a rival studio would result in cuts, bounded onto the stage at Caesars Palace to insist it would not crimp production.
"I came here today... to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word. Once we combine with Warner Brothers, we're going to make a minimum of 30 films annually," he told the audience, pledging 45-day theatrical windows before any film is available to stream.
"Long live the movies!"
The response from theater owners was lukewarm, and maybe for good reason: they've been here before.
"Disney said a lot of similar things when they were acquiring 20th Century Fox. They committed to maintaining the level of output," Matthew Hoopfer of Michigan-based cinema chain Studio C told AFP. 
"20th Century Fox was a major studio; they had 10, 12 movies a year. I think in the Disney showcase (this year) between 20th Century and Searchlight, there were five or six movies."
Cinema United, the umbrella group that organizes CinemaCon, has declared itself skeptical about the takeover.
"While recent pledges attempt to address the threats of consolidation to our industry, they are not yet sufficient in addressing our concerns," organization president Michael O'Leary told AFP.
"We remain open to tangible commitments that will ensure a vibrant global theatrical exhibition industry for years to come."
Cinema owners are not the only ones who are worried.
An open letter signed by thousands of Hollywood luminaries -- from acting heavyweights Jane Fonda and Joaquin Phoenix to directors J. J. Abrams and Denis Villeneuve -- opposed the consolidation and fretted it would mean "fewer jobs... higher costs, and less choice for audiences."

Hail Mary

For cinema owners, much depends on what happens with Warner Bros. and whether Paramount Skydance can keep its promise to maintain a steady stream of films.
A decade ago, annual spending at the North American box office frequently topped $11 billion. 
But the Covid-19 pandemic and the explosive growth of streaming put a hole in that, with yearly revenues drooping to less than $9 billion.
Signs are good, however, for 2026.
A strong first quarter, aided by crowd-pleasers like "Project Hail Mary" and "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie," has some industry-watchers predicting this year could be one of the best in a while.
In the halls of CinemaCon -- where optimism regarding the box office rebound was palpable -- theater owners said the only guaranteed balm was good content, and lots of it.
Chance Crusenberry, owner of a historical drive-in theater in Virginia, said the new uber studio would have to keep its pledge to pump out movies.
"If they want to be successful and they want us to be successful and the movie theaters to stay open, they have to follow through," he said.
The bidding war for Warner Bros., which industry watchers had long held to be flailing a little, ironically emerged as the studio was having a banner year.
"One Battle After Another" scooped up the Best Picture Oscar, beating out in-house rival "Sinners," with both films also scoring at the box office.
But recent successes are only part of the value proposition: the Warner Bros. library is deep, and includes money-spinners like "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings."
To get its hands on that library, Paramount Skydance had to fend off a rival bid from cash-rich Netflix, with reports suggesting it leaned heavily on financing.
A heavy debt load might muddy the waters, said Bryan Sieve, president of Odyssey Cinemas in South Dakota.
"It's going to be an awful big challenge to service that amount and still be able to maintain the capital requirements necessary to have such an aggressive 30-film slate," he told AFP.
While a vein of skepticism ran through many of the theater owners AFP spoke to in Las Vegas, they were united in one thing: if the merger goes ahead, they need it to succeed.
"We hope that they can do it," said Sieve.
pr/hg/sla/hol

film

French film star Nathalie Baye dead at 77: family to AFP

  • Baye, a stalwart of French cinema, starred in some 80 films and took home the best actress Cesar -- France's equivalent of the Oscars -- four times, including three years running from 1981 to 1983.
  • French film star Nathalie Baye, a multi-Cesar Award winner who starred in Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me if You Can," has died at the age of 77, her family told AFP on Saturday.
  • Baye, a stalwart of French cinema, starred in some 80 films and took home the best actress Cesar -- France's equivalent of the Oscars -- four times, including three years running from 1981 to 1983.
French film star Nathalie Baye, a multi-Cesar Award winner who starred in Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me if You Can," has died at the age of 77, her family told AFP on Saturday.
Baye, a stalwart of French cinema, starred in some 80 films and took home the best actress Cesar -- France's equivalent of the Oscars -- four times, including three years running from 1981 to 1983.
She died Friday evening at her home in Paris from Lewy body dementia, her family said.
The neurodegenerative disease can alter mood, movement and provoke hallucinations.
Baye's career saw a late surge of internationally high-profile roles, including playing Leonardo DiCaprio's mother in "Catch Me if You Can" and a French aristocrat in "Downton Abbey 2".
She also worked with Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan, who cast her as one of his many difficult mothers in "Laurence Anyways" and "It's Only the End of the World".
"Une liaison pornographique" -- whose English title was the more demure "An Affair of Love" -- won her the best actress prize at the Venice film festival.
Baye had a five-year relationship with rocker Johnny Hallyday, dubbed the "French Elvis",  whose death in 2017 sparked national mourning. 
Their daughter Laura Smet is also a famous actress, who starred alongside Baye as a mock version of themselves -- bickering, competitive, yet very close -- in the hit series "Call My Agent!".
Baye was born in 1948 in Normandy to bohemian parents who were both painters. But struggling with dyslexia, she left school at 14 and went to Monaco to learn dance. 
Her breakthrough came in the 1970s when she teamed up with arthouse directors such as Francois Truffaut, Maurice Pialat and Claude Sautet, and then in the 1980s with Jean-Luc Godard.
dar/ekf/ach