film

Time of the sign: Hollywood landmark hits 100

BY HUW GRIFFITH

  • But, said Zarrinnam, it might start shining again.
  • The landmark word has loomed over Tinseltown since before movies started talking, becoming a symbol of the entire film industry.
  • But, said Zarrinnam, it might start shining again.
The landmark word has loomed over Tinseltown since before movies started talking, becoming a symbol of the entire film industry.
For the first time in decades, the Hollywood sign -- at least a little bit of it -- was illuminated on Friday to celebrate its 100th birthday.
The nine-letter sign is officially a centenarian but, as with many an aging grande dame in Hollywood, looks as fresh as ever.
Like the actors and actresses it looks down on, the sign has been in its fair share of films.
Directors who want to let their audience know a movie is set in Los Angeles have an easy establishing shot, while a filmmaker who wants to signify the destruction of America can set their special effects team loose on the sign.
It has also seen real life tragedy: British-born actress Peg Entwistle took her own life by plunging from the top of the letter H in 1932.

Hooray for... realtors?

The sign, a must-see for any film buff or tourist visiting Los Angeles, initially read "HOLLYWOODLAND", having been constructed in 1923 as an advertisement for an upscale real estate development.
During its first decade, it was routinely lit by thousands of bulbs, with "HOLLY", "WOOD" and "LAND" illuminated in turn as a beacon of the desireable homes on offer below.
By the 1940s, the letters were looking a little ragged.
The Los Angeles Times reported vandals or windstorms had damaged the H, before locals decided they had had enough and asked the city to tear it down.
The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, recognising that they had a blockbuster trademark on their hands, stepped in and offered to fix it up.
But the last four letters had to go -- the sign was to represent the whole town, not just a fashionable property patch, and by 1949, the newly restored sign simply read "HOLLYWOOD".

Mr Nice Guy

Three decades of baking sun and occasional storms took their toll on the 50-foot (15-meter)-high wooden letters.
Eventually, the first O reduced to a lower case "u" and the final O toppled down completely.
Enter one Alice Cooper -- the chicken-bothering father of shock rock -- who led a campaign to restore the sign to its former glory, donating $28,000.
Eight others, including actor Gene Autry, Playboy founder Hugh Heffner and singer Andy Williams, kicked in the same, each sponsoring a letter.
(Cooper is the first O, Autry has the second L, Heffner got the Y and Williams snagged the W).
The replacement letters are a tad more compact, just 44 feet high, but made of steel, although they remain characteristically off-kilter.
The Hollywood Sign Trust said last year the repainting it carried out in time for the 100th anniversary used almost 400 gallons (1,500 liters) of paint and primer.
Friday night's lighting was purely symbolic, Hollywood Sign Trust chairman Jeff Zarrinnam said, with just a little stretch of the second L cutting through the gloom.
Unlike most global landmarks, the Hollywood sign is not usually lit up at night, partially because of objections from people who live nearby.
But, said Zarrinnam, it might start shining again.
"What we are working on is a plan to hopefully light the sign on very special occasions," he said.
"We have some very important sporting events that are coming to Los Angeles like the FIFA World Cup, we have the Olympics coming (in 2028) so those are the types of events that we would probably want to light the Hollywood sign in the future."
hg/dhw

conflict

Funny? Da, da: Russian comic Dan The Stranger's new life in Germany

BY PAULINE CURTET

  • - Group therapy - At his Munich gig more than 100 people including many young Russians who now live in Germany packed the club.
  • In a club in Munich, the laughs come easily from the crowd although the jokes from the Russian comic onstage come from the darkest of places. 
  • - Group therapy - At his Munich gig more than 100 people including many young Russians who now live in Germany packed the club.
In a club in Munich, the laughs come easily from the crowd although the jokes from the Russian comic onstage come from the darkest of places. 
Running to escape the police, struggling with depression and spending a childhood with an alcoholic father are all fair game for Dan The Stranger.  
The Russian comic with piercing blue eyes left his homeland after death threats when he spoke out against the war in Ukraine. A funeral wreath was even delivered to one of his gigs before he left for Turkey with his wife and their three dogs.
Now the 35-year-old is building a new life in Germany and looking for a new following with a finely honed act of side-splitters delivered in English.
"I mostly talk about my trauma," said Dan, who prefers not to give his real name. "And of course if you lived in Russia, you have trauma -- you have enough for your whole career," he said with a grin.
He is now selling out shows like the one in Munich and has 40,000 followers on Instagram thanks to his short, deeply wry posts.
"Every time my German friends tell stories from their childhood, everyone laughs. Every time I tell stories from my Russian childhood, everyone offers help."
Or his morning routines -- staring at a blank wall for half an hour -- or checking social media.
As soon as wakes he feels the need to "read the opinions of incompetent or simply crazy people on all important issues. Now I am ready to start my day."
Meditation doesn't help, he complained in another post, because "it is impossible to relax listening to a meditation in a Russian accent."

Group therapy

At his Munich gig more than 100 people including many young Russians who now live in Germany packed the club.
His one-hour set is classic black comedy covering his schooling in Russia, his childhood in a small town not far from the Ukrainian border and run-ins with local police.
The tension builds as he recounts threats on his life after he condemned Russia's invasion of its neighbour in 2022.
But the mood shifts again as he takes on Germany's infamous red tape and cheerless bureaucrats, which draws appreciative nods from the audience. 
For some, his act can feel like group therapy.
Russian emigre and IT specialist Xenia, who moved to Munich several years ago, said there are "lots of depressing things, obviously, that go through your head" when she thinks about her home country.
But Dan "makes it possible to joke about it -- I think it kind of makes it easier".

Confounding stereotypes

Another tech worker Aleksander, 25, a fellow Russian who follows Dan on social media, said he hopes the fact the comic performs in English will allow him to reach a bigger audience.
"When people from other countries explore the Russian reality through Dan's jokes, they're going to be surprised," he said.  
"I believe that it's very much different from the overall public image of Russia."
The comedian is also touring in Spain and Portugal, which hosts a large Russian diaspora, as well as Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris.
But a return to Russia is not on the cards, especially after his long, ultimately successful battle to get an artist visa in Germany which spared him the even more complex procedure of applying for asylum.
Only around eight percent of the few thousand Russians who applied for refuge there were accepted in the first 10 months to October, according to official figures. 
At the end of his show, Dan posed for selfies with fans and chats with members of the audience, often in Russian. Many thank him for coming.
"We feel like we need to get in touch and check if everyone's OK," said Dan.
pc-dlc/hmn/fg

film

Fresh start or 'unseemly' stunt? New-look Golden Globes to unveil noms

BY ANDREW MARSZAL

  • "There's something unseemly about a Globes voter getting paid to write for the Globes website about an actor that they may end up nominating for a Golden Globe award to be given out on the stage of a show owned by the company they work for," noted a Los Angeles Times editorial this year.
  • With new owners, a change of TV network and a radically overhauled membership, the Golden Globes will hope for a clean break from years of notoriety as they unveil nominations on Monday for this year's best in film and television.
  • "There's something unseemly about a Globes voter getting paid to write for the Globes website about an actor that they may end up nominating for a Golden Globe award to be given out on the stage of a show owned by the company they work for," noted a Los Angeles Times editorial this year.
With new owners, a change of TV network and a radically overhauled membership, the Golden Globes will hope for a clean break from years of notoriety as they unveil nominations on Monday for this year's best in film and television.
But even as the scandal-wracked show seeks to reclaim its position as the fun, rowdy and celebrity-packed kickstarter to Hollywood's movie awards season, critics warn that its reforms could bring a new batch of ethical problems.
For decades, the Globes were owned, run and voted for by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) -- an eclectic group of around 100 entertainment journalists, writing for international outlets, who were often derided in the industry for their alleged amateurism and obscurity.
Those criticisms erupted in 2021, when a Los Angeles Times expose revealed the HFPA had no Black members, prompting a Hollywood boycott.
The Globes have been scrambling to survive ever since. 
In June, the awards were purchased by a group of private investors including US billionaire Todd Boehly, the HFPA itself was disbanded, and a new plan was set out to restore the Globes' luster.
Under the deal, the erstwhile HFPA's members were taken on as salaried employees of the new Golden Globes company, essentially now paid to watch movies, vote, and contribute articles for the awards' website.
That has prompted questions about potential conflicts of interest.
Muddying the waters further, the awards' new owners include Penske Media -- which runs the production company behind the Globes telecast, as well as trade outlets Variety and The Hollywood Reporter -- and Eldridge, which has a stake in film studio and regular Globes contender A24.
"There's something unseemly about a Globes voter getting paid to write for the Globes website about an actor that they may end up nominating for a Golden Globe award to be given out on the stage of a show owned by the company they work for," noted a Los Angeles Times editorial this year.
"Will the company executives urge voters to nominate high-profile stars and directors in hopes that they will show up? The new model appears to be one giant public relations machine."
But the Globes' new owners have defended the changes.
They argue that paying Hollywood-based voters a $75,000 salary ends a flawed ecosystem under which impoverished, often freelance journalists accepted lavish press trips they could not fund themselves, and collected expensive freebies from studios to help make ends meet.
Seeking to improve the awards' credibility and diversity, the group has added more than 200 non-member (and unpaid) voters based around the world, and appointed a new board including respected industry figures such as former Variety editor-in-chief Tim Gray.
"Major changes are already underway at the Golden Globes and I think people in Hollywood, and around the world, will be pleased when they see integrity restored while the sense of fun remains," said Gray, now executive vice president of the Golden Globes, in August.

Barbenheimer

The new-look Golden Globes gala will take place on January 7. CBS will broadcast the event.
The network takes over from NBC, and has handed the show a coveted time slot, immediately after the final round of regular-season NFL games.
CBS bosses will be hoping for vastly improved ratings, after the 2023 Globes slumped to a new low of just 6.3 million viewers, even as other shows such as the Oscars recovered from pandemic viewership nadirs.
As recently as 2020, the Globes had drawn more than 18 million.
Offering hope for the future, industry titans such as Steven Spielberg and Eddie Murphy returned to the most recent gala, even if other prominent winners such as Cate Blanchett stayed away.
Cedric The Entertainer and Wilmer Valderrama will announce the nominees for the 81st Golden Globes on "CBS Mornings" from 1330 GMT Monday.
Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" is likely to be among the contenders for best drama, while the best comedy category is likely to feature the other half of this year's viral box office sensation -- "Barbie."
New categories have been added for "best cinematic or box office achievement" and "best stand-up comedian," in a bid to feature more household names.
Stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio ("Killers of the Flower Moon"), Emma Stone ("Poor Things"), Robert Downey Jr ("Oppenheimer") and Ryan Gosling ("Barbie") are all widely expected to score nominations.
Organizers will be fervently hoping they accept their invitations to the party.
amz/hg/sst

ONeal

'Love Story' star Ryan O'Neal dead at 82

  • Over the following years, O'Neal played a jewel thief in "The Thief Who Came To Dinner" and starred opposite his daughter Tatum O'Neal in Peter Bogdanovich's 1973 hit "Paper Moon" -- bagging a Golden Globe nomination in the process.
  • Actor and heartthrob Ryan O'Neal, the Oscar-nominated star of "Love Story" who also appeared in "Paper Moon" and "Barry Lyndon," has died, his son said Friday.
  • Over the following years, O'Neal played a jewel thief in "The Thief Who Came To Dinner" and starred opposite his daughter Tatum O'Neal in Peter Bogdanovich's 1973 hit "Paper Moon" -- bagging a Golden Globe nomination in the process.
Actor and heartthrob Ryan O'Neal, the Oscar-nominated star of "Love Story" who also appeared in "Paper Moon" and "Barry Lyndon," has died, his son said Friday. He was 82.
"This is the toughest thing I've ever had to say but here we go. My dad passed away peacefully today, with his loving team by his side supporting him and loving him as he would us," Patrick O'Neal wrote on Instagram.
O'Neal, whose smoldering looks and perfect jawline made him the ideal leading man, was also known for his tumultuous decades-long relationship with actress Farrah Fawcett.
After years of television roles in the 1960s, O'Neal's big break came in 1970's "Love Story," a box office phenomenon that earned him an Oscar nomination -- one of a grab-bag of nods for a film now credited with becoming a template for the "chick flick" genre.
Two years later he was paired with Barbra Streisand for the screwball comedy "What's Up, Doc?," another hit with US audiences that further increased his profile.
Over the following years, O'Neal played a jewel thief in "The Thief Who Came To Dinner" and starred opposite his daughter Tatum O'Neal in Peter Bogdanovich's 1973 hit "Paper Moon" -- bagging a Golden Globe nomination in the process.
In 1975 he appeared in Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon," a picaresque historical drama that is better thought-of now than it was five decades ago.
"As a human being, my father was as generous as they come," Patrick O'Neal wrote. 
"And the funniest person in any room. And the most handsome clearly, but also the most charming. Lethal combo. 
"He loved to make people laugh. It's pretty much his goal. Didn't matter the situation, if there was a joke to be found, he nailed it. He really wanted us laughing. And we did all laugh. Every time. We had fun. Fun in the sun."
O'Neal was married and divorced twice before he began a stormy, but enduring, relationship with "Charlie's Angels" star Fawcett.
The couple were together for almost 20 years from the late 1970s, but split in 1997 reportedly after she caught him in flagrante with another actress.
They reunited in 2001 until her death at the age of 62 in 2009.
O'Neal told British journalist Piers Morgan that watching "Love Story" -- in which a rich kid falls in love with a working class girl who later dies -- was upsetting.
"I lost Farrah to cancer, and I just wonder (why) that played out that way for me," he said.
"One was just a big deal and so successful, and then in real life it was just the opposite, a tragedy."
hg/amz/tjj

economy

Led by Taylor Swift's $1 bn tour, 2023 concerts set new record

  • Swift's tour broke new ground, becoming the first in history to surpass the symbolic $1 billion mark in ticket sales in 60 dates from March to November 2023.
  • Led by Beyonce and Taylor Swift, whose "Eras Tour" was the first to bring in more than $1 billion, ticket revenues from the top 100 concert tours of 2023 jumped to a record $9.17 billion, industry magazine Pollstar said Friday.
  • Swift's tour broke new ground, becoming the first in history to surpass the symbolic $1 billion mark in ticket sales in 60 dates from March to November 2023.
Led by Beyonce and Taylor Swift, whose "Eras Tour" was the first to bring in more than $1 billion, ticket revenues from the top 100 concert tours of 2023 jumped to a record $9.17 billion, industry magazine Pollstar said Friday.
Total sales for the 2023 tours (stretching for a year starting from mid-November 2022) skyrocketed 46 percent as compared to the previous year, which was also a record.
"2023 was a colossus, the likes of which the live industry has never before seen," Pollstar said on its website.
All metrics showed increases: the average revenue from a concert was up 53 percent to $2.37 million; total ticket sales rose 18 percent to 70 million; and average ticket prices were up more than 23 percent to $130.81.
Swift's tour broke new ground, becoming the first in history to surpass the symbolic $1 billion mark in ticket sales in 60 dates from March to November 2023.
But Pollstar predicted that the pop megastar, named Time magazine's Person of the Year on Wednesday, could pass the $2 billion mark by the time the tour eventually wraps up.
The only one to have come close to a billion up till now was Elton John, whose marathon "Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour" -- 328 dates over five years -- raked in $939 million.
Beyonce took in $579 million over 56 dates for her "Renaissance Tour" for second place in 2023, while Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay and Harry Styles rounded out the top five. 
Pollstar noted that this was the first time in 15 years, when Madonna and Celine Dion dominated the rankings in 2008, that two women were at the top of the rankings, calling it "an extremely positive sign for this industry."
"The duo not only smashed the glass ceiling but created a more inclusive roof in their wake," Pollstar said.
The outlook for 2024 appears to be promising, with more concerts from Swift, Springsteen and Coldplay, plus tours from the Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters and Carrie Underwood.
arb-tu/jh/sst

Britain

The Pogues singer-songwriter Shane MacGowan given full Irish send-off

BY PETER MURPHY

  • The Pogues fused punk and Irish folk music, with MacGowan, a heavy drinker and drug taker, quickly becoming its figurehead as the band's lead singer and songwriter.
  • The hard-living lead singer of The Pogues, Shane MacGowan, received a rousing Irish send-off with music, song and dancing on Friday, after his death at the age of 65.
  • The Pogues fused punk and Irish folk music, with MacGowan, a heavy drinker and drug taker, quickly becoming its figurehead as the band's lead singer and songwriter.
The hard-living lead singer of The Pogues, Shane MacGowan, received a rousing Irish send-off with music, song and dancing on Friday, after his death at the age of 65.
Stars including Johnny Depp, Bono and Nick Cave joined Ireland's President Michael D. Higgins and former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams at a funeral mass in Nenagh, County Tipperary, west of Dublin.
Cave performed a version of the Celtic folk-punk band's wistful "A Rainy Night in Soho" in a service that resonated to the sounds of the fiddle, flute and organ, as well as cheers, whistles and applause.
There was dancing in the aisles to a rousing acoustic rendition of his most famous tune, "Fairytale of New York" -- a duet from 1987 with the late Kirsty MacColl, which is tipped to be this year's Christmas number one.
"Shane would have enjoyed that," his sister Siobhan told St Mary of the Rosary Church, where their mother Therese used to attend Roman Catholic mass every Sunday.
Father Pat Gilbert, who led the ceremony on the day the late Irish singer Sinead O'Connor would have been 57, welcomed "the world" to the funeral of a man whom he said, "influenced, encouraged, entertained and touched" everyone he encountered.
MacGowan, who died from pneumonia on November 30 after a period of ill health, was "a poet, lyricist, singer, trailblazer" who had a "revolutionary edge to life", the priest said.
"Pirates of the Caribbean" star Depp, a close friend of the singer-songwriter, referred to MacGowan as "maestro" before reciting a prayer. 
Another was read by The Boomtown Rats singer and LiveAid founder Bob Geldof.
Symbols of MacGowan's life, including a Tipperary flag, a statue of the Virgin Mary, a Led Zeppelin record, a novel by Irish author James Joyce and a hurling stick, were brought to the altar.

'Proud Irishman'

Earlier in the day, thousands lined the streets of Dublin to their pay respects, applauding as MacGowan's wicker coffin was carried the through the city in a horse-drawn carriage.
Members of the public turned out in force in the Irish capital and threw flowers while musicians played his best-known songs. 
The Pogues fused punk and Irish folk music, with MacGowan, a heavy drinker and drug taker, quickly becoming its figurehead as the band's lead singer and songwriter.
His wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, told the church he used to carry an encyclopaedia of pharmacology and consulted it to decide whether to take a drug, and was once found eating a copy of a Beach Boys album.
"He explored the boundaries of what you can do, while you are still in a physical body. His body lasted a long time considering what he did to it," she said.
"He was creating music and lyrics all the time he was doing this."
MacGowan, hailed as a genius in the Irish poetic tradition, was born in England but spent much of his childhood in Ireland with his mother's family.
The band became an international symbol of Irishness at home and for the country's sprawling diaspora, with MacGowan's contribution recognised in a slew of tributes from political leaders.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar called MacGowan "an amazing musician and artist" whose songs "beautifully captured the Irish experience, especially the experience of being Irish abroad".
Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army paramilitary group that fought for decades against British rule in Northern Ireland, praised his support.
The Pogues' 1988 song "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six", which recounted the plight of six Irishmen wrongly imprisoned for deadly pub bombings in Birmingham, was banned from British airwaves.
Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald called MacGowan "a poet, dreamer and social justice champion".
"He was a republican and a proud Irishman. Nobody told the Irish story like Shane. He sang to us of dreams and captured stories of emigration," she said.
MacGowan, who was due to celebrate his birthday on Christmas Day, was taken for cremation in a private ceremony.
pmu-srg/phz/pvh

Britain

Dublin crowds bid farewell to Irish songwriter Shane MacGowan

  • Nobody told the Irish story like Shane.
  • Crowds lined the streets of Dublin on Friday to their pay respects to Irish songwriter Shane MacGowan, who died last month at the age of 65. 
  • Nobody told the Irish story like Shane.
Crowds lined the streets of Dublin on Friday to their pay respects to Irish songwriter Shane MacGowan, who died last month at the age of 65. 
MacGowan, lead singer of Celtic folk-punk band The Pogues, died on November 30, prompting a flood of tributes.
The thousands who gathered applauded as his coffin was carried the through the city in a horse-drawn carriage, led by the marching Artane Band, which played some of MacGowan's hits including "Fairytale of New York" and "A Rainy Night in Soho".
MacGowan, who had been in and out of hospital in Dublin since July, penned the Christmas classic "Fairytale of New York", which he sang in a duet with Kirsty MacColl in 1987. 
When the song, about a couple who have fallen on hard times, was played during the procession, the crowd could be heard applauding and singing along to the chorus.
Co-formed by MacGowan, The Pogues fused punk and Irish folk music. He was born in England but spent much of his childhood in Ireland with his mother's family.
The band became an international symbol of Irishness, both at home and for the country's sprawling diaspora, with MacGowan's contribution recognised in a slew of tributes from political leaders.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar called MacGowan "an amazing musician and artist" whose songs "beautifully captured the Irish experience, especially the experience of being Irish abroad".
Micheal Martin, Varadkar's deputy, said he was "devastated" by MacGowan's death.
"His passing is particularly poignant at this time of year as we listen to 'Fairytale of New York' -- a song that resonates with all of us," he wrote.
There were tributes too from Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army paramilitary group that fought for decades against British rule in Northern Ireland.
The Pogues' 1988 song "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six", which recounted the plight of six Irishmen wrongly imprisoned for deadly pub bombings in Birmingham, was banned from British airwaves.
Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald called MacGowan "a poet, dreamer and social justice champion".
"He was a republican and a proud Irish man. Nobody told the Irish story like Shane. He sang to us of dreams and captured stories of emigration," she said.
The funeral will take place in St Mary of the Rosary Church in the town of Nenagh, west of Dublin, at 15:30 GMT, after which another procession will take place through the County Tipperary.
MacGowan will then be cremated in a private ceremony.
pmu/srg/jwp/js

museum

Madrid's Prado museum throws spotlight on reverse side of paintings

BY MARIE GIFFARD

  • "We wanted to do an international project, not limit ourselves to the paintings of the Prado museum," he said.
  • A new exhibition at Madrid's Prado museum is throwing a spotlight on the reverse side of paintings, letting visitors see labels, seals and sketches that are usually hidden from view.
  • "We wanted to do an international project, not limit ourselves to the paintings of the Prado museum," he said.
A new exhibition at Madrid's Prado museum is throwing a spotlight on the reverse side of paintings, letting visitors see labels, seals and sketches that are usually hidden from view.
The aim of the Reversos (On the Reverse) exhibition is to change the viewer's point of view and take them behind the scenes to open a "door to the secrets of art,"  said its curator, Miguel Angel Blanco.
"This exhibition goes far beyond simply turning the paintings over on the wall," he said. 
About 100 works are on display in two rooms with black walls, including paintings on loan from 29 foreign museums and international collections such as the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
"We wanted to do an international project, not limit ourselves to the paintings of the Prado museum," he said.
In preparing the exhibit, Blanco said he has made an "in-depth exploration" of the Prado's vast collection over the past seven years and had seen "most of the paintings from the front and the back".
The inspiration was one of the Prado's most famous paintings, Diego Velazquez's 17th-century masterpiece "Las Meninas" depicting the Infanta Margarita and her courtiers. 
In the picture, the artist himself is also visible, working on a large canvas placed on the floor. The back of the painting he is working on can be seen on the left side of "Las Meninas".
A life-size replica of the back of this huge painting forms the centrepiece of the exhibition, which opened last month and runs until March.
The rest of the works are originals. Some have their painted side to the wall while others can be seen from both sides such as Swedish-Austrian painter Martin van Meytens’ 18th-century "Kneeling Nun".
The front depicts a devout young nun, kneeling at prayer as an older nun watches over. The reverse has a surprise -- it shows the nun with her habit hitched up, revealing her naked bottom.

'Unknown brushstroke'

In some cases, the backs of paintings contain labels, stamps or seals that were placed there at a later date which help trace the history of the works  -- the collections they belonged to, the palaces where they were displayed or any restoration undertaken on them.
One section of the exhibition focuses on the materials that have been used over the centuries as supports for paintings, including copper, porcelain and even ivory.
The exhibition features the original stretcher frame -- the wooden structure over which a painting canvas is stretched -- of one of the world's most famous works: Pablo Picasso's 1937 masterpiece "Guernica", regarded by many critics as the most moving and powerful anti-war painting in history.
It was discovered two years ago at one of the warehouses of New York's Museum of Modern Art where the famous painting was moved for safekeeping when World War II broke out.
"They saw that there was a label that says 'Picasso, San Francisco'," he said, explaining that it was one of 30 cities the painting had been taken to.
"It was nailed onto the stretcher frame and unnailed 45 times," Blanco said, describing it as "the frame with the most nail holes in history". 
The stretcher frame features a black stain which "is the unknown brushstroke of 'Guernica', it is a brushstroke that escaped Picasso and was captured here on this crossbeam," he added.
"Guernica" finally returned to Spain in 1981. Since 1992, it has been on display at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid which is located near the Prado.
mig/ds/hmw/db

games

'Baldur's Gate 3' crowned game of the year

  • "The team at Larian spent their hearts and souls for six years on this game, sometimes under very difficult circumstances," studio founder and chief Swen Vincke said while accepting the award.
  • Role-playing hit "Baldur's Gate 3", based in the world of Dungeons and Dragons, was named video game of the year at an awards ceremony in Los Angeles late Thursday.
  • "The team at Larian spent their hearts and souls for six years on this game, sometimes under very difficult circumstances," studio founder and chief Swen Vincke said while accepting the award.
Role-playing hit "Baldur's Gate 3", based in the world of Dungeons and Dragons, was named video game of the year at an awards ceremony in Los Angeles late Thursday.
Set in a fantasy realm of wizards, elves, barbarians and other characters, it is the latest installment in the titular franchise, created by Larian Studios.
"The team at Larian spent their hearts and souls for six years on this game, sometimes under very difficult circumstances," studio founder and chief Swen Vincke said while accepting the award.
"This was our Covid game; along the way we lost quite a few people."
Vincke was dressed in armor, in keeping with a character from the game which has won millions of fans since its release in early August.
Other contenders for the title at the 2023 Game Awards included survival horror game "Alan Wake 2," which took top prizes for direction and narrative.
The game, developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Epic Games, centers on a best-selling author trying to escape an alternate dimension.
"When more than 100 people believe in the same vision and build something out of it we can make miracles, we can make art, and we can be more than the sum of our parts," game director Sam Lake said while accepting an award.
"Our world today could use a bit more of that."
The ceremony featured appearances from celebrities including Matthew McConaughey and Timothee Chalamet, as well as an array of trailers for new titles in the works.
Japanese video game icon Hideo Kojima provided a glimpse at an "OD" game he is making in collaboration with actor and filmmaker Jordan Peele.
Kojima said on stage that he is working with Microsoft's Xbox game studios and its cloud computing team to make "OD" something uniquely immersive.
"It is a game, don't get me wrong, but at the same time a movie; a new form of media," Kojima said through an interpreter.
OD explores the concept of testing one's fear threshold while blurring the boundaries of gaming and film, according to Kojima Productions.
Peele, who directed the movies "Nope", "Us" and "Get Out", described what Kojima was creating as completely immersive and utterly terrifying.
"I grew up watching movies and I'm a game creator, and Jordan grew up playing games and he is a movie director now," Kojima said.
"This collaboration will be really awesome."
gc/leg

conflict

Gaza and Instagram make an explosive mix in Hollywood

BY AUDREY PILON-TOPKARA

  • Well before social media, boxer Muhammad Ali, the actor Jane Fonda and singer Bob Dylan were adored or hated over their opposition to the Vietnam War.
  • Hollywood celebrities are paying the price for taking sides in the Gaza war -- plastering their social media accounts with slogans such as "Free Palestine" or "I stand with Israel".
  • Well before social media, boxer Muhammad Ali, the actor Jane Fonda and singer Bob Dylan were adored or hated over their opposition to the Vietnam War.
Hollywood celebrities are paying the price for taking sides in the Gaza war -- plastering their social media accounts with slogans such as "Free Palestine" or "I stand with Israel".
Israeli actress Gal Gadot, best known for starring in "Wonder Woman", has expressed unyielding support for her country since October 7, when Hamas fighters burst out of Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostage, according to Israeli officials.
"I stand with Israel, you should too," she declared to her 109 million Instagram followers.
She has continued to regularly publish or share posts demanding that Hamas release the civilians it is holding -- earning her both approval and criticism.
"While you're at it, can you use your platform to share all the missing and killed innocent Palestinians too?" a user on X, formerly Twitter, wrote in response to one of her posts.
In reprisal for the October 7 attacks, Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip and launched a ground invasion, killing more than 17,000 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Hamas government.
The Instagram account of American model Gigi Hadid, who is of Palestinian descent and followed by 79 million, has spent less attention on fashion in recent weeks.
She cited the "systemic mistreatment of the Palestinian people by the government of Israel".
"Stop spreading lies. You and your sisters are antisemitic," said one comment, with many others expressing similar views.
Famous stars can generate equally strong admiration and repulsion from the public, especially if they comment on divisive issues.
Well before social media, boxer Muhammad Ali, the actor Jane Fonda and singer Bob Dylan were adored or hated over their opposition to the Vietnam War.
More recently the actors Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie and Sean Penn showed their support for Ukraine by visiting the country, in moves that were approved by most of their Western fans.

Insults

But the Israel-Palestinian issue is more divisive than most, exposing celebrities to even fiercer backlashes.
Kylie Jenner, the half-sister of socialite Kim Kardashian, shared a pro-Israeli post with her 399 million Instagram followers shortly after October 7, which according to US media she deleted an hour later after being hit with insults.
The Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon was dropped by her talent agency in November for comments she made at a pro-Palestinian rally, for which she later apologised.
Melissa Barrera, star of the fifth and sixth instalments of the "Scream" franchise, was cut from the cast of the seventh by the producers, who said they had "zero tolerance for anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred".
The Mexican had denounced what she called "ethnic cleansing" in Gaza.
Celebrities who take sides in the conflict have "a lot to lose and little to gain", said Nicolas Vanderbiest, founder of the public relations firm Saper Vedere in Brussels.
Producers and sponsors have little appetite for mixing geopolitics and business, he said.
In this issue, two "extremely organised" communities are on the lookout, creating a "herd affect", Vanderbiest added.
Tom Cruise prevented his own agent from losing her job after she had referred to "genocide" on her Instagram account, according to the cinema trade press.
Celebrities could just stay quiet, but with this conflict there is "pressure to pronounce" and no immunity from criticism, said Jamil Jean-Marc Dakhlia, a professor of information and communication at Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris.
"Silence is seen as taking a position," Dakhlia said. "So we are in a situation where you are forced to take sides, and not necessarily with much nuance."
American singer and actor Selena Gomez, with 429 million Instagram followers, has been criticised for not taking a stronger stance on the issue.
Along with hundreds of others, including Hadid, singer Jennifer Lopez and actor Joaquin Phoenix, she took a middle road, signing a petition calling for a ceasefire and the safe release of hostages.
Earlier, hundreds of celebrities, including Gadot, had signed an open letter thanking US President Joe Biden for supporting "the Jewish people" and calling for the release of all hostages held by Hamas. 
Very few signed both.
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Global Edition

Fashion world descends on UK's Manchester in Chanel show

BY CAROLINE TAIX

  • Having a Chanel show here is amazing for the city," added Emma Kara, who lives in the region. ctx/imm/md
  • Scintillating colours and celebrities lit up a gloomy Manchester on Thursday as the British city famous for its past textile industry flaunted the latest fashion in a prestigious Chanel show.
  • Having a Chanel show here is amazing for the city," added Emma Kara, who lives in the region. ctx/imm/md
Scintillating colours and celebrities lit up a gloomy Manchester on Thursday as the British city famous for its past textile industry flaunted the latest fashion in a prestigious Chanel show.
Lashed by rain and plunged into winter darkness from 3:30 pm, the city's gritty industrial heritage was not an obvious choice as the setting for the glitz and glamour of the French luxury group's Metiers d'Art event.
But the show proved otherwise as models strutted down the catwalk sporting dazzling bermuda shorts, mini-skirts and eye-catching outfits under a temporary covering in a city-centre street.
Tweed suits -- a quintessential British classic -- pearls and camelia also captured attention.
Actor Hugh Grant, director Sofia Coppola, local football stars Ruben Dias and Luke Shaw as well as brand ambassadors Charlotte Casiraghi and Kristen Stewart were among the celebrities in attendance. 
"I loved the rock attitudes, the 60s looks," British actor Jenna Coleman told AFP.
The northern English city was a hub of the 19th-century industrial revolution, processing half of the world's cotton in 1860.
It has since reinvented itself as a centre for culture and sport, home to Manchester United and Manchester City football clubs and producing music icons including The Smiths, Simply Red, Oasis and Stone Roses.
The English National Opera will soon leave London to call Manchester home.
Chanel's creative director Virginie Viard said Manchester was the starting point for a musical culture that changed the world, inspiring her to bring the show there for its pioneering and creative spirit.
The Manchester City Council welcomed the event as a "fantastic homage" to the city and the regard for it worldwide.
"There are plenty of references to the city. Having a Chanel show here is amazing for the city," added Emma Kara, who lives in the region.
ctx/imm/md

media

UK to raise BBC licence fee after two-year freeze

  • The government froze the fee for two years in January 2022 and had been expected to increase it by 9.0 percent next year.
  • The UK government announced Thursday that the BBC licence fee will rise after a two-year freeze, but the broadcaster indicated the increase would not be enough to ward off further cuts.
  • The government froze the fee for two years in January 2022 and had been expected to increase it by 9.0 percent next year.
The UK government announced Thursday that the BBC licence fee will rise after a two-year freeze, but the broadcaster indicated the increase would not be enough to ward off further cuts.
The annual household payment, which provides most of the BBC's funding, will go up to £169.50 ($213) from £159 starting in April 2024, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said.
The government froze the fee for two years in January 2022 and had been expected to increase it by 9.0 percent next year.
But Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said the new rate would instead rise by September's inflation rate, which was 6.7 percent.
"This is a fair deal that provides value for money for the licence fee payer while also ensuring that the BBC can continue to produce world-leading content," she said.
Frazer also announced a review into the licence fee that will look at alternative methods of funding, with findings expected next autumn.
The fee funds BBC television, radio and online services as well as programming, many of which are exported commercially worldwide.
Supporters maintain it provides excellent value for money, and a range of services from news and current affairs to wildlife documentaries, children's output, drama and music.
But critics, including rival commercial broadcasters, have long complained that its guaranteed funding model, which criminalises non-payers, is unfair.
Thursday's announcements come as the BBC faces increased funding pressure.
The corporation is currently looking to make £500 million in savings and recently announced cutbacks to its flagship "Newsnight" political programme.
It warned that the fear increase "will still require further changes on top of the major savings that we are already delivering".
"Our content budgets are now impacted, which in turn will have a significant impact on the wider creative sector across the UK," the BBC board said in a statement.
The BBC has come under increasing claims from right-wingers since the UK's divisive Brexit referendum in 2016 of political bias and pushing a "woke", London-centric liberal agenda.
But the public service broadcaster, founded by Royal Charter and operating independently of government, has faced similar accusations of bias from the political left.
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ballet

'Dance is beautiful': Kenyan slum reaches for ballet stars

BY DYLAN GAMBA

  • - 'An inspiration' - Bravian does his daily exercises in a small room, undisturbed by the loud music from a nearby bar. 
  • Bravian Mise hits a series of grand jetes -- leaping like a gazelle across the cramped living room -- and pirouettes during an exhaustive rehearsal at his home in a Kenyan slum.
  • - 'An inspiration' - Bravian does his daily exercises in a small room, undisturbed by the loud music from a nearby bar. 
Bravian Mise hits a series of grand jetes -- leaping like a gazelle across the cramped living room -- and pirouettes during an exhaustive rehearsal at his home in a Kenyan slum.
The 13-year-old has been practising ballet for four years and is among a hundred or so children who have been rehearsing for months to perform Tchaikovsky's Christmastime favourite "The Nutcracker" in Kenya's capital Nairobi.
The famous ballet tells the story of young Clara, who receives a painted wooden nutcracker shaped like a soldier for Christmas.
At night, the toy comes to life and fights against a mice invasion until the nutcracker-turned-prince defeats the evil mouse king and carries the little girl to his magical kingdom far, far away.
"I had never heard of this ballet before performing in it," Bravian says, a smile plastered on his face.
"I love dancing, I dance because it's beautiful."
Before the curtains open, dancers are put through their paces by Cooper Rust, an alumnus of the School of American Ballet, and director of Dance Centre Kenya -- a non-profit giving lessons to underprivileged youngsters in the city. 
"It is important to show the world that ballet is not just for one type of person," the American instructor, a former professional ballerina, told AFP. 
"Ballet is about skill and talent, and drive and passion, not socio-economic background."

Lofty dreams

Despite Kenya's burgeoning dance scene, the country does not host a professional ballet company. 
"We are getting there," counters Rust. 
But a lot needs to be done, and funding is a constant problem. 
At the Nairobi National Theatre, the young troupe made up of children aged between seven and 17 executes perfect arabesques to live music by a Kenyan orchestra. 
For nearly two hours, they dominate the stage, working their way through an assemblage of colourful costumes and accessories. 
By the time they execute the famous Russian dance, the crowd is utterly won over. 
A beaming Bravian savours the moment.
Nothing predestined his journey to the stage.
The schoolboy lives with his brother, sister and parents in Kuwinda, a ramshackle shanty town west of Nairobi. 
He, like around 50 other children, receives grants to buy dance accessories and his transport to rehearsals is catered for -- which would be unaffordable otherwise.

'An inspiration'

Bravian does his daily exercises in a small room, undisturbed by the loud music from a nearby bar. 
"It's much harder for children who come from poor backgrounds, they have to work harder to succeed," Bravian's mother, Rehema Mwikali, told AFP, watching admiringly as her son danced.
"I am so proud of him, he will make it."
Despite the difficulties, Bravian is optimistic: "One day I will be a professional dancer."
But the young dancers have a long way to go.
More than a thousand children have enrolled in Dance Centre Kenya since it started in 2015 but only one -- Joel Kioko, who now lives in the United States -- has gone professional.
But Rust is determined to change that.
"Our school is not even nine years old, and it takes 10 years to train a dancer," said Rust, expressing optimism that other students will also go pro.
Many of the youngsters hope to one day join the ranks of hallowed ballet stars.
Lavender Orisa, who received a scholarship last year to study at the English National Ballet School in London, grew up in the Nairobi slum of Kibera.
"Coming from Kibera, it was impossible for me to imagine one day dancing in London," said the 17-year-old, who is now back in Nairobi to finish high school.
"People tell me I am an inspiration to them," she told AFP.
She already has a major supporter in Rust, who said her student has the potential to pursue an "international career in ballet".
dyg/ho/amu/pvh

film

Between love and exile: Albanian filmmaker captures nation's struggles

BY BRISEIDA MEMA

  • The film is about more than migration, Beqiri told AFP: "It's about the love between these two young people and the sacrifices they have to make in search of a better future." 
  • With short films centred on poverty, migration and love, Erenik Beqiri has helped draw the global spotlight to Albania's film industry by telling stories at the heart of the country's social and economic fault lines.
  • The film is about more than migration, Beqiri told AFP: "It's about the love between these two young people and the sacrifices they have to make in search of a better future." 
With short films centred on poverty, migration and love, Erenik Beqiri has helped draw the global spotlight to Albania's film industry by telling stories at the heart of the country's social and economic fault lines.
"It's not every day you get the chance to make a film," the director told AFP. "When you do, you have to convey something that has a profound effect on your life and the lives of others. Migration is one of them."
Although Beqiri lives in Albania, exile remains ever present in his life. 
"There are, of course, emotions and feelings that are very much my own. Everything that I have felt but also observed all around me -- from the daily lives of my friends, my family, the people I live among."
Since the fall of its brutal communist government, Albania has been radically transformed by migration. 
According to official figures, at least 1.68 million Albanians, or 37 percent of the population, left the country between 1990 and 2020.
The huge outflow has left swaths of the countryside abandoned, while billions of euros in remittances sparked a property boom that has seen cranes fill its cities, and apartment blocks crowd the once-pristine coastlines.  
The phenomenon is now a cornerstone of life for many Albanians, whether they are business owners, overseas workers, or a filmmaker. 
"A Short Trip", which won the award for best short film at this year's Venice Film Festival, tells the story of Mira and Klodi, a young Albanian couple who travel to France hoping to find Mira a husband so she can obtain French citizenship. 
The film is about more than migration, Beqiri told AFP: "It's about the love between these two young people and the sacrifices they have to make in search of a better future." 
The story began as a sketch involving a couple dreaming of a better life, he said, before evolving into a snapshot of lives transformed by the bitter realities of migration that many Albanians confront when trying to move abroad.

'Collective effort'

Born to parents who were artists during the final days of the communist era, Beqiri had longed to be a filmmaker since childhood, when he scrambled to get his hands on DVDs of movies not shown in Tirana's few cinemas.
His first short film, "The Van", released in 2019, follows Ben, a young Albanian labourer looking to make fast cash to pay a smuggler and leave the country.
To finance his trip, he fights other men for money inside the back of a van, in a bruising tale of poverty, ambition and violence.
The movie became the first Albanian production selected for the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival. 
"Both my films are about migration. But the real issue is the relationships between the characters," Beqiri said.
"It's when the characters are alive, when they go through intense emotions, that the film works."
For his French producer, Olivier Berlemont, Erenik's cinema is "marked by narrative and visual audacity, a unique style that is sure to assert itself even more in the future".
But for the filmmaker, his success is the result of a tireless team effort from his production crews. 
"The success of a film is never the work of a single person, it's always the fruit of a collective effort," he said with a streak of shyness when asked about the awards and recent success. 
"It's true that awards pave the way to success, but once it's all over, you wonder: What am I going to do next? The film is already in the past, so you have to think about what you're going to do tomorrow."
For his next project, the director remains tight-lipped. 
"I just want to make the best film."
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television

Norman Lear, sitcom king who changed TV -- and America

BY MICHAEL MATHES

  • In the mid-1970s, at the height of his eight-decade career, Lear had five sitcoms in prime time -- during an era when Americans watched television collectively.
  • Norman Lear was television's prolific genius whose trailblazing sitcoms in the 1970s and 1980s revolutionized US entertainment -- and helped change the way a nation saw itself.
  • In the mid-1970s, at the height of his eight-decade career, Lear had five sitcoms in prime time -- during an era when Americans watched television collectively.
Norman Lear was television's prolific genius whose trailblazing sitcoms in the 1970s and 1980s revolutionized US entertainment -- and helped change the way a nation saw itself.
With boundary-breaking shows like "All In the Family" and "The Jeffersons," Lear -- who has died aged 101 -- helped millions of viewers confront their deepest fears, frailties and prejudices with humor and humanity.
Among his milestones was creating the first African American nuclear family regularly appearing on television: the Evans clan on "Good Times," beginning in 1974.
He injected the sensitive subjects of race, sexuality, class, inequality and politics into his work, breaking the sitcom mold and beaming modern visions of family life into US households.
Lear abandoned the idealistic representation of American families and adopted a more real-world depiction -- and in so doing, he changed the face of television.
"What was new was that we were engaging in reality," the famed creator said in the 2016 documentary "Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You."
Fellow comedy star Mel Brooks hailed Lear as "the bravest television writer, director and producer of all time."
Lear's family, in announcing his death, said Wednesday their patriarch wrote about real life, "not a glossy ideal."
"At first, his ideas were met with closed doors and misunderstanding. However, he stuck to his conviction that the 'foolishness of the human condition' made great television, and eventually he was heard."
In the mid-1970s, at the height of his eight-decade career, Lear had five sitcoms in prime time -- during an era when Americans watched television collectively.
Broadcaster CBS estimated at the time that a staggering 120 million Americans watched Lear programming each week.
The six-time Emmy Award winner wrote, produced, created or developed roughly 100 specials and shows including 1980s mega-hit "The Facts of Life" and the long-running "One Day at a Time."
Tributes poured in: in an extremely rare collective tribute, five major broadcast networks -- CBS, NBS, ABC, Fox and the CW -- simultaneously aired in memoriam cards Wednesday evening to honor Lear.
One card featured his picture and the other said, "thank you for making us all family."
President Joe Biden also hailed Lear, calling him "a transformational force in American culture, whose trailblazing shows redefined television with courage, conscience, and humor, opening our nation’s eyes and often our hearts."

Blue-collar comedy

Lear's most explosive creation was "All In the Family," a blue-collar comedy so audacious that its first episode, in 1971, came with a disclaimer.
The half-hour show featured Archie Bunker, lovably irascible but bigoted, narrow-minded and clashing with his liberal relatives.
It marked a TV paradigm shift.
"Television can be broken into two parts, BN and AN: Before Norman and After Norman," writer and producer Phil Rosenthal said in the 2016 documentary.
Lear, donning his trademark porkpie hat, also produced or funded such big-screen classics as "The Princess Bride" and "This is Spinal Tap."
But television was his magic medium. 
Never far from the surface in Lear's shows were the issues gnawing at American society: misogyny, racism, homophobia, women's rights and political division.
He dug deep into the exigencies of Black life. And while "Good Times" was intended as a white audience's window into Black America, "The Jeffersons" represented the American Dream for Black people.
From 1975 to 1985, "The Jeffersons" portrayed African American success through an unapologetically Black couple "movin' on up" in New York society. 

Conservative critics

Norman Milton Lear was born on July 27, 1922 into a Jewish family in New Haven, Connecticut. 
His mother emigrated from Russia, and his father was a salesman who served time in jail and had a bigoted streak that embarrassed his son -- but also served as source material.
Lear dropped out of college to enlist in the US Army, flying 37 World War II bombing sorties.
By 1949 he moved to Los Angeles, where he found success writing for TV variety shows.
He also produced films including 1963's "Come Blow Your Horn" starring Frank Sinatra, and in 1967 received an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay for "Divorce American Style."
With "All In the Family" and the TV shows that followed, Lear's influence skyrocketed.
So did his concern about the mix of politics and religion.
Criticism from conservative circles poured in. His revolutionary comedy earned him rebukes from President Richard Nixon and televangelist Jerry Falwell, who called Lear "the number one enemy of the American family."
Lear pushed back against the burgeoning religious right, and in 1981 founded People For the American Way, a group promoting civic engagement and freedom of expression and religion.
Lear's work ethic was legendary. After his 100th birthday, he collaborated with TV host Jimmy Kimmel on specials in which star-studded casts performed remakes of classic Lear shows.
A pioneer on multiple fronts, Lear's portrayal of true-to-life traumas sealed his reputation.
In one watershed 1972 episode of "Maude," the title character agonizes over terminating her pregnancy, a plotline that brought the abortion fight to prime time one year before the Supreme Court guaranteed the right to abortion.
Half a century later, Lear -- who married three times and had six children -- told "E! Insider" the issues his sitcoms addressed still resonate today.
"The culture has shifted and changed... but the way families experience life is pretty much the same," he said.
mlm/sst/bgs/tjj

rights

Pioneering Cuban movie maintains its relevance 30 years later

BY LETICIA PINEDA

  • The International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, which opens Friday in Havana, will pay two tributes to the film, known in Spanish as "Fresa y Chocolate," which received a standing ovation at its premiere in 1993.
  • It has been three decades since the seminal film "Strawberry and Chocolate" generated both ovations and tears, marking a before and an after in Cuban cinema.
  • The International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, which opens Friday in Havana, will pay two tributes to the film, known in Spanish as "Fresa y Chocolate," which received a standing ovation at its premiere in 1993.
It has been three decades since the seminal film "Strawberry and Chocolate" generated both ovations and tears, marking a before and an after in Cuban cinema.
The film was cathartic in a country that only barely had come to recognize the rights of homosexuals.
But the actor who was the protagonist, Jorge Perugorria, says Cuba has moved backward in terms of the freedom of expression also invoked by the movie. 
The International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, which opens Friday in Havana, will pay two tributes to the film, known in Spanish as "Fresa y Chocolate," which received a standing ovation at its premiere in 1993.
Perugorria, 58, talked to AFP about the film along with the rest of its cast in an emotional reunion at La Guarida restaurant, a mansion in central Havana that in the early years of the revolution was subdivided into apartments and served as setting for the movie.
On the terrace of the mansion, Perugorria, recalls the "collective catharsis" that the film provoked.
"It was as if the public had the need to see that film... because it dealt perhaps with what many had in their heads... frustrations" and issues buried and out of reach of the public, he recalls.
At the time, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a severe economic crisis -- called the "special period" -- pummeled the island, and an obscure policy that marginalized homosexuals and dissidents was only beginning to be reevaluated.
In the film, Diego, a refined gay art lover, befriends David, a staunch defender of the ruling Communist Party, in an environment of censorship and homophobia.

'Impossible metaphor'

"That final embrace," between Diego and David at the end of the film, "is a song, a reconciliation between Cubans," but "it is farther away today than it was 30 years ago," says Perugorria, who plays Diego.
"The differences between Cubans have widened," and the embrace "has become an almost impossible metaphor," he adds.
For Vladimir Cruz, 58, who played the role of David, the film identified both the repressed and the repressors.
"We had experiences of people who came out of the cinema and said: 'I have acted like this, I have been intolerant, I have repressed homosexuals,'" Cruz recalls among photos and sculptures preserved from the set.
The story shows how "the right to participate in society was taken away from those who thought differently. And in that sense, I think Cuban society... has progressed, but at the official level we have gone downhill," Cruz says.
He celebrates the legalization of equal marriage in 2022.
"But anyone who thinks differently, (even) one millimeter, with respect to the predominant ideology or the official ideology, continues to suffer the same problems that Diego had and that led him to migrate," Cruz says.
Nearly 500,000 Cubans, or almost 5 percent of the population, left the island left the island since 2021 in an unprecedented wave, according to US immigration figures.
Perugorria agrees: "Today, just as the exhibition of German (another character in the film) was censored 30 years ago, films and exhibitions are still censored."
Cuba needs "a cultural policy that is for everyone in our diversity, our complexity, not just for a group that thinks one way," says Perugorria.

'Cornered and harassed'

"'Strawberry and Chocolate' advocates for that" and is still "current," Perugorria maintains, citing the case of the more than 300 young people who staged an unprecedented protest for freedom of expression in November 2020.
 A good part of them emigrated.
"It's sad to think that there are people who don't just leave, but are thrown out, because they are cornered and harassed," he says.
Behind the cameras, another fraternal story was built between Tomas Gutierrez Alea (1928-1996) and Juan Carlos Tabio (1943-2021), codirectors of the film.
Seriously ill, Gutierrez Alea underwent surgery during filming, but returned to the set four days later. The actors say that he would slowly climb the wide stairs of the mansion to direct in the mornings, then Tabio would follow his friend's recommendations in detail on the set.
"That story of friendship between these two great artists and their love for cinema also had a lot of weight in the film," says Perugorria.
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fashion

New York's Met takes a feminist look at global fashion

BY ANDREA BAMBINO

  • The exhibition, originally scheduled for 2020 to celebrate a century of women's suffrage in the United States but delayed by the pandemic, ends on a more political note, looking at absences and omissions in museum collections.
  • New York's Metropolitan Museum has pulled the curtain back on its latest blockbuster exhibit, showcasing women couturiers many of whom have been kept in the shadows of obscurity until now.
  • The exhibition, originally scheduled for 2020 to celebrate a century of women's suffrage in the United States but delayed by the pandemic, ends on a more political note, looking at absences and omissions in museum collections.
New York's Metropolitan Museum has pulled the curtain back on its latest blockbuster exhibit, showcasing women couturiers many of whom have been kept in the shadows of obscurity until now.
One of the centerpieces of the "Women dressing women" exhibition is a dress by pioneering African-American designer Ann Lowe who was largely ignored in her day, even though she designed Jackie Kennedy's wedding gown in 1953.
The muslin dress is exquisitely detailed, sporting silk roses and intricate taffeta.
Three decades before Jackie O stepped out in Lowe's masterpiece, forgotten French fashion house Premet released a dress designed by Madam Charlotte called "La garconne." 
"This 'little black dress,' predates Chanel's successful take on the garment by three years," said Mellissa Huber, associate curator of the Met's Costume Institute.
Through the 80 pieces by 70 creators, the exhibition also looks at the art of womenswear from the 20th Century up to the modern day, as well as the environmental advocacy of designers like Gabriela Hearst and Hillary Taymour. 
"The biggest overarching takeaway is really to celebrate and demonstrate the incredible range and diversity of women designers who have been present throughout history and who have made so many meaningful contributions to fashion," said Huber.
"We aspire to dispel the stereotypes that women are more practical than men, or that they all designed with themselves in mind."
For women, the story begins in the anonymity of sewing workshops to which they were often relegated. 
But several French women designers made their mark in the early 20th century, including Madeleine Vionnet, Jeanne Lanvin and Gabrielle Chanel
In handpicking outfits designed by Elsa Schiaparelli, Nina Ricci and Vivienne Westwood, the Costume Institute delved into its collection of 33,000 pieces representing seven centuries of clothing. 
The exhibition, originally scheduled for 2020 to celebrate a century of women's suffrage in the United States but delayed by the pandemic, ends on a more political note, looking at absences and omissions in museum collections.
Even as the exhibit gets under way, preparations are also in full swing for the 2024 Met exhibition and Gala, the fashion world's party of the year -- and the theme will be "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion."
The Met Gala, which draws an A list of celebrities, will take place in Manhattan on May 6 to celebrate the opening of the exhibition, which the public can view from May 10 through September 2. Both are cosponsored by popular video sharing app TikTok.
The sweeping and immersive exhibition will feature about 250 garments and accessories spanning four centuries, from the Costume Institute's vast archives of 33,000 pieces -- from a 17th century embroidered jacket to an Alexander McQueen gown from spring-summer 2001 made of shells.
The Met Gala is the primary source of funding for the Costume Institute. Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour took over the charity gala in the 1990s and transformed it into one of the world's buzziest fetes.
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assault

Hip-hop mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs again accused of rape

  • It is the fourth lawsuit leveled against Combs alleging similar abuse and rape.
  • A fourth woman has publicly accused music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs of sexual assault, alleging he and others gang-raped her when she was 17, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
  • It is the fourth lawsuit leveled against Combs alleging similar abuse and rape.
A fourth woman has publicly accused music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs of sexual assault, alleging he and others gang-raped her when she was 17, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The filing says Combs -- an artist and producer also known as Puff Daddy -- met the unnamed woman in 2003 after his associate Harve Pierre singled her out at a lounge in Detroit and convinced her to take a private jet to New York to meet the rapper.
Prior to taking the flight, Pierre forced the then 17-year-old to perform oral sex on him before taking her across state lines to Combs' studio.
There, the group of men including Combs plied her with drugs and alcohol before violently raping her repeatedly, the civil suit filed in a federal court in New York alleges.
Her lawyer Douglas Wigdor -- who also represented R&B singer Cassie, the first woman to publicly come forward against Combs -- said that "the depravity of these abhorrent acts has, not surprisingly, scarred our client for life."
It is the fourth lawsuit leveled against Combs alleging similar abuse and rape.
The first, from Cassie, was settled two days after it was filed under the New York Adult Survivors Act, a law that opened a one-year window for sexual assault claims to be filed that otherwise happened too long ago to litigate.
Combs has vehemently denied all accusations against him. His lawyer did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment on Wednesday's filing.
Following Cassie's lawsuit, plaintiff Joi Dickerson-Neal alleged she had been "drugged, sexually assaulted and abused" in 1992 by the rapper and that he had filmed and distributed the acts as "revenge porn."
Another complaint filed anonymously accuses Combs and music collaborator Aaron Hall of raping her.
In recent weeks, an additional lawsuit accused Pierre of abusing his position atop Combs' label to groom and sexually assault his former assistant. The suit says Combs' company, Bad Boy Entertainment, looked the other way.
Combs, 54, founded Bad Boy in 1993, and was a major figure in hip-hop's commercialization over the course of the decades that followed. His proteges included the late Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige.
He is among hip-hop's billionaires, not least due to his ventures in the liquor industry.
The recent lawsuits against him describe Combs as a violent man who used his celebrity to prey on and intimidate women.
mdo/sst

music

'Are you not entertained?' Taylor Swift named Time Person of the Year

BY MAGGY DONALDSON

  • "Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light," Time editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs wrote in a statement.
  • With a prolific musical output, a remarkably bankable tour and a name that's headline catnip, it's no surprise that Time Magazine has declared 2023 the Year of Taylor Swift.
  • "Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light," Time editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs wrote in a statement.
With a prolific musical output, a remarkably bankable tour and a name that's headline catnip, it's no surprise that Time Magazine has declared 2023 the Year of Taylor Swift.
In its annual issue honoring a Person of the Year -- a nearly century-old designation whose recipients include Volodymyr Zelensky, Martin Luther King Jr. and Greta Thunberg -- the magazine called music's reigning deity a "rare person who is both the writer and hero of her own story."
Nearly two decades into her career the 33-year-old's star simply keeps rising: Swift is smashing industry records, and her conversation-commanding "Eras" tour is set to bring in an estimated $2 billion in revenue -- and become the first tour to cross the symbolic $1-billion mark.
With hundreds of millions of social media followers and a staunchly loyal fan base, she can move any dial with the tiniest of efforts.
"Taylor Swift found a way to transcend borders and be a source of light," Time editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs wrote in a statement. "Much of what Swift accomplished in 2023 exists beyond measurement."
"She mapped her journey and shared the results with the world: she committed to validating the dreams, feelings and experiences of people, especially women, who felt overlooked and regularly underestimated."
By some estimates her sprawling empire is worth more than $1 billion, and the massive $92.8 million opening this fall of her tour-documenting film is but another jewel on the artist's crown.
Advance ticket sales for the movie topped $100 million worldwide, theater operator AMC said, making it the best-selling feature-length concert film in history. 
And Swift's blossoming romance with Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce has also brought the NFL a whole new wave of fans, as her hundreds of millions of social media followers track the couple's every move.
It's not new for Swift, who since her teenage years has seen her dating life broadcast to the world.
"There's a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don't know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don't know if I'm being shown 17 times or once," she said of the current frenzy around her game-day appearances.
"I'm just there to support Travis," she continued. "I have no awareness of if I'm being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads."

'Taylor's Version'

After winning a mainstream audience for her introspective country songs, Swift went full pop for her fifth studio album, "1989."
It was "an imperial phase," she said in Time, a moment that saw her seemingly reach her zenith.
The years that followed grew increasingly taxing, she said, as the public grew weary of constant attention on her at a moment before US society had re-examined its hyperfixation on and criticism of young female celebrities.
Her media-hyped feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian didn't help: "I had all the hyenas climb on and take their shots," Swift says.
The difficult moment coincided with the satisfaction of her record deal with Scott Borchetta at Nashville's Big Machine Records.
Swift decided it was time to move on and signed a major new deal with Universal that granted more agency and ownership of her own work.
But her relationship with Big Machine haunted her, as the sale of her catalog to a private equity firm triggered a massive dispute over musicians' rights -- and a bold new era of Swift's career.
She publicly assailed Borchetta as well as her former manager Scooter Braun -- who founded the rights holding company that acquired Swift's catalog -- as a "manipulative" bully who took advantage of her professionally when she was a fledgling star.
Her cunning next move was a huge risk that perhaps only an artist of her stature and wealth could take: Swift decided she would re-record her first six albums to own their rights, urging her fans to listen to "Taylor's Version" instead of previous releases.
Swift has sweetened her re-records with previously unreleased tracks -- like the 10-minute version of "All Too Well" -- breaking records, delighting ardent fans and bringing new Swifties into the fold.
As she drops re-records, Swift has also released four albums of new work since 2019's "Lover," including last year's "Midnights," which is poised to earn her a fourth Album of the Year Grammy.
Doing so would see her surpass the likes of Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder as the winningest artist of the ceremony's most prestigious prize.
"This is the proudest and happiest I've ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I've ever been," Swift told Time. "Ultimately, we can convolute it all we want, or try to overcomplicate it, but there's only one question."
"Are you not entertained?"
gw-mdo/nro

film

AI and A-listers: Sundance festival line-up unveiled

BY ANDREW MARSZAL

  • Among these are a pair of features from Stewart that Yutani predicts will be "two of the most talked-about films at the festival."
  • Kristen Stewart is among several Hollywood stars heading to next month's Sundance festival.
  • Among these are a pair of features from Stewart that Yutani predicts will be "two of the most talked-about films at the festival."
Kristen Stewart is among several Hollywood stars heading to next month's Sundance festival. But artificial intelligence -- the subject of, and technology behind, several new films -- could steal the show.
Among the line-up for Utah's influential indie movie fest are a "generative" music film that plays differently on each viewing, two documentaries about loved ones using AI to communicate after death, and an interactive "digital griot" that will teach audiences how to vogue.
"One of the things that was striking to see, as we were going through these films and talking about them as a team, was how AI just kept popping up," Sundance director of programming Kim Yutani told AFP.
"Whether it be in a documentary, whether it be influencing a documentary... that's going to be a really interesting part of the festival this year."
The schedule, announced Wednesday, comes at a time when the entertainment industry is struggling with the encroaching and polarizing impacts of AI -- a key sticking point between studios and unions, and part of the reason behind this year's devastating Hollywood strikes.
Among Sundance's new offerings are "Eno," which explores musician Brian Eno's career and creative process, using a "generative engine" to mesh together near-infinite different versions of a film from hundreds of possible scenes.
The technology uses prompts and keywords to find and create associations between scenes, changing or reshuffling the lineup each night, just as a touring band might do at each new gig.
"It's something new -- a film that's never the same twice," said Eugene Hernandez, Sundance's new festival director.
Documentary "Love Machina" follows a couple's bid to make their love last forever, by transferring consciousness into an advanced humanoid named Bina48.
"Eternal You" looks at startups hoping to create AI avatars so that relatives can contact their loved ones after they have died -- for a fee.
Meanwhile, "Being (the Digital Griot)" invites audiences to interact with and ask questions of an AI storyteller. The "griot" can debate, draw on poetry, and even teach viewers to dance.
"It will be a fun experience, and pretty enlightening too," said Yutani.

Stars in the snow

Two months on from the end of Hollywood's strikes, performers -- from major stars to breakthrough newcomers -- are free to head to the festival's snow-capped Rocky Mountain base at Park City and promote their latest works.
Sundance received a record 17,435 film submissions. Ninety movies and shows were selected, including 85 world premieres.
Among these are a pair of features from Stewart that Yutani predicts will be "two of the most talked-about films at the festival."
"Love Lies Bleeding" casts the former "Twilight" star as a gym manager whose affair with a bisexual bodybuilder turns violent and criminal. 
"Love Me," also starring Steven Yeun, is mysteriously billed as the online romance between "a buoy and a satellite" in a post-human world.
"I think we should leave it at that!" joked Yutani. "That was all the information that we had before we pressed play."
Elsewhere, Jesse Eisenberg will direct himself and Kieran Culkin as two mismatched cousins visiting their grandmother's Polish homeland in "A Real Pain." Eisenberg also stars in family drama "Sasquatch Sunset."
Saoirse Ronan gives a hotly tipped performance in "The Outrun" as an alcoholic who returns from London to the wild beauty of Scotland's Orkney Islands to heal.
And Jason Schwartzman experiences a crisis of faith when his former music teacher re-enters his life as an adult bat mitzvah student in "Between The Temples."

'Unsettling'

Director Richard Linklater has two films at the festival.
He oversees Glen Powell in "Hit Man," about a strait-laced professor turned fake assassin, and offers a portrait of his hometown in documentary series "God Save Texas."
Huntsville, Texas is the location of a massive prison complex, where thousands of prisoners live lives unknown to the residents beyond its walls.
Prisons also provide the subject of six-part series "Conbody VS Everybody," about a former convict whose jailhouse-inspired gym employs other ex-cons in a bid to break the cycle of recidivism.
And in a US election year, a special world premiere of documentary "War Game" will allow audiences to watch as real-life US spy chiefs, defense officials and politicians from several administrations conduct an unscripted role-play exercise in which they must handle a political coup after a contested presidential election.
"It's certainly unsettling, in the pit of my stomach the entire time, knowing that the games can be very close to reality," said Hernandez.
"The topicality of it being an election year makes it for an exceptional opportunity to have just a deeper discussion."
Co-founded by Robert Redford, Sundance runs this year from January 18-28.
amz/hg/sst