film

Lonely woman director in Venice sees industry backsliding on gender

BY ADAM PLOWRIGHT

  • - Selection process questioned - The dearth of females in the top Venice competition has sparked nagging questions about the selection process and female representation.
  • When Danish director May el-Toukhy was selected for the top competition at the Venice Film Festival in July, she was the only female filmmaker in a 20-strong field -- with a movie "about the invisibility of women".
  • - Selection process questioned - The dearth of females in the top Venice competition has sparked nagging questions about the selection process and female representation.
When Danish director May el-Toukhy was selected for the top competition at the Venice Film Festival in July, she was the only female filmmaker in a 20-strong field -- with a movie "about the invisibility of women".
She joked about the irony in a press conference on Sunday, while pointing out that progress on gender bias made in the wake of the 2017 #MeToo movement appeared to be reversing.
"After #MeToo, I think all of us were really aware of this gender imbalance," she told reporters.
"And something has happened over the course of the last couple of years where we're kind of returning to, you know, what it used to be -- and so we have to be better," she added.
The protagonist of "Woman Unknown" is a bride-to-be struggling to hide her wartime secret -- a relationship with a Nazi during the German occupation of Denmark during WWII.
Women accused of having consorted with the enemy are seen in the film violently stripped, their heads shaved and red swastikas painted on their bare flesh.
The powerful film, which drew enthusiastic applause after a press screening Sunday, is "about being objectified on one hand and on the other hand being unseen and voiceless," said el-Toukhy.

Selection process questioned

The dearth of females in the top Venice competition has sparked nagging questions about the selection process and female representation.
Venice boss Alberto Barbera angered many observers in July when he said the initial 20-1 male domination of the top competition was because the submissions from women "were not enough to put them into the competition".
Since then, the festival has added another film co-directed by a woman, the documentary "NAZA" about the Israeli killing of civilians in Gaza, which will premiere on Thursday.
El-Toukhy, a Danish-Egyptian director who has worked on Netflix's "The Queen", said she had encountered gender bias throughout her career and even with her latest film.
"When I pitched the film to people, I could see that they were glazing over because they were, like, 'Oh, another Second World War film,' which I feel is unfair because we've told so many stories about the male experience during war or post-war, and we haven't really explored what it meant to be a woman during that time as much," she said.
After film school, she said she struggled to find financing for her first film.
"I think it took me six or seven years, whereas my male peers, they were much faster than me," she explained.
"My second film was really hard to get done as well."

'Structural'

She sees the under-representation of women at the top of the industry as a "structural problem" -- echoing a similar point made by American star Maggie Gyllenhaal who is head of the competition jury in Venice this year.
"I do think it's much harder for women to get their films financed," Gyllenhaal said in the first week of the festival.
"Also, could it be possible that the things that women, having had a different experience of being alive in the world, want to make movies about are not always deemed high art?" she added.
Award-winning Italian actress Jasmine Trinca told AFP Sunday: "When I see that there is only one woman in competition, I'm alarmed, I'm angry."
"I think it's a question we really need to ask ourselves and confront," Trinca said.
A study from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative described 2025 as a "Great Recession" for women directors in the United States: just nine women were attached to the 100 top-grossing films at the box office.
Only three women have won an Oscar for Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, Chloe Zhao and Jane Campion.
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film

Still on top: 'Spider-Man' dominates North American box office

  • The latest Marvel blockbuster, which had the biggest debut weekend of all time at the domestic box office, has now brought in $918 million in the United States and Canada since its July 31 release -- and an additional $1.48 billion internationally, according to industry monitor Exhibitor Relations.
  • "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" has claimed the top spot in North American box office sales for the sixth straight week, an industry group said Sunday.
  • The latest Marvel blockbuster, which had the biggest debut weekend of all time at the domestic box office, has now brought in $918 million in the United States and Canada since its July 31 release -- and an additional $1.48 billion internationally, according to industry monitor Exhibitor Relations.
"Spider-Man: Brand New Day" has claimed the top spot in North American box office sales for the sixth straight week, an industry group said Sunday.
The superhero film with by Tom Holland and real-life wife Zendaya brought in another $18 million over the long Labor Day weekend in the United States, down 20 percent on last weekend's take.
The latest Marvel blockbuster, which had the biggest debut weekend of all time at the domestic box office, has now brought in $918 million in the United States and Canada since its July 31 release -- and an additional $1.48 billion internationally, according to industry monitor Exhibitor Relations.
Christopher Nolan's epic "The Odyssey," distributed by Universal, moved up a notch to second place as it took in another $13 million in its eighth week in theaters, for a domestic total of $584.7 million.  
Third place went to the much-delayed, mixed animation-and-live action Looney Tunes flick "Coyote vs. Acme," with revenue of $11.3 million as it slipped from second place in its second week.
Warner Bros. shelved this work in late 2023 after filming wrapped up and sat on it for a $30 million tax write off, until a company called Ketchup Entertainment swooped in, acquired the rights and finally released the movie to enthusiastic reviews and a strong start.
Making its debut, "By Any Means" from Paramount grabbed fourth place with $7.4 million in sales. Mark Wahlberg and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II star in this civil rights-era crime thriller set in the deep south of the United States in the 1960s.
"This is a good opening for an original crime thriller," said David A. Gross, a film industry watcher with the FranchiseRe movie newsletter. 
"Critics’ reviews are lukewarm but the audience score is very good," he added.
Fifth place went to Sony Pictures' "Insidious: Out of the Further," which scared up $6.5 million in the third week of viewing for this sixth installment in the horror franchise.
Starring Amelia Eve, Brandon Perea and Maisie Richardson-Sellers, it follows the story of a young woman who can bring spirits into the mortal world but is herself haunted.
Rounding out the top 10 were:
"CARS: 20th Anniversary" ($6.1 million)
"Buddy" ($5.7 million)
"Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie" ($3.3 million)
"The End of Oak Street" ($2.9 million)
"The Dog Stars" ($2.7 million)
dw/sla

film

Venice festival turns gaze on war reporters, media industry

BY ALEXANDRIA SAGE

  • "Citizen Osama" covers the killing of Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul in an Israeli airstrike in July 2024, an incident that was internationally condemned.
  • An apartment building has just collapsed in an Israeli airstrike, hundreds are likely dead, and a cameraman runs towards the smoke and rubble in the opening scene of the Gaza documentary "Citizen Osama".
  • "Citizen Osama" covers the killing of Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul in an Israeli airstrike in July 2024, an incident that was internationally condemned.
An apartment building has just collapsed in an Israeli airstrike, hundreds are likely dead, and a cameraman runs towards the smoke and rubble in the opening scene of the Gaza documentary "Citizen Osama".
Palestinian director Ahmed Hassouna's film is one of several at the Venice Film Festival this year about journalism, whether the high stakes faced by war correspondents, or the morally ambiguous methods used by certain media to gain viewers.
"Citizen Osama", chosen as the Palestinian entry to compete for best foreign film in the 2027 Academy Awards, lays bare the life of a Palestinian journalist "who suffers just like anyone else" in Gaza, said its director Hassouna.
"A journalist is not a soulless camera; he is a man struggling to find water, fighting to obtain food and constantly worrying about how to find milk for his newborn baby or how to feed his wife so she can breastfeed their child," Hassouna wrote in the film's liner notes.
The documentary powerfully captures the apocalyptic landscape of Gaza City, its streets reduced to rubble and mangled rebar, and the weighty sense of responsibility shouldered by the few remaining journalists on the ground.
"I wanted to show that the journalist who captures suffering for the world is himself living through that same tragedy behind the lens," wrote Hassouna, who remains in Gaza.
UN experts, rights groups and activists have accused Israel of deliberately targeting Palestinian journalists, with the Committee to Protect Journalists counting more than 200 killed in Gaza since October 2023.
"Citizen Osama" covers the killing of Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul in an Israeli airstrike in July 2024, an incident that was internationally condemned.
In 2025, days after a film about Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna was selected to play at the Cannes Film Festival, she was killed in an airstrike.
Foreign reporters are still blocked from entering Gaza by Israeli authorities -- unless they are in tightly controlled tours organised by the military.
 

Freedom of the press

 
In a politically charged season at the Venice festival, conflicts feature prominently -- with films featuring variously the Vietnam War, Chile before Pinochet's military coup, Gaza and the West Bank.
Eagerly awaited next week is the premiere of "NAZA", a documentary from Oscar winners Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor about the Israeli military's killing of civilians in Gaza.
Another Venice film with the protagonist a war correspondent is "La Ragazza con la Leica" (Girl with the Leica), which reimagines real-life Spanish Civil War photographer Gerda Taro.
Long overlooked, Taro was the photographer partner and companion of legendary lensman Robert Capa and the first woman photojournalist to die on the battlefield.
The film's director, Alina Marazzi, said their work was part of the "golden age of photojournalism."
"If we think that at the time, probably the majority of the population was illiterate and couldn't read what was written in the newspapers, through photographs you could show what was happening in places of conflict, the effects of war on the civilian population, for example in the Spanish Civil War," she told a press conference earlier this week.
Today, in the age of artificial intelligence and with millions of people wielding cameras on their phones, the accuracy and transparency of published images are not necessarily guaranteed, Marazzi said.
"We must defend freedom of the press," she said.
The ongoing battle to protect independent journalism plays out in Russian-American director Julia Loktev's "My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile", the gripping continuation of her documentary that sees the journalists forced to flee Moscow after Russia's invasion of Ukraine now struggling to rebuild their lives.
And in the Fleet Street juggernaut "Ink", director Danny Boyle covers the meteoric rise of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid The Sun through an irresistible cocktail of sensationalism and sex, forever changing the face of British journalism.
A morally questionable reporter-turned TV host is the protagonist of Lance Oppenheim's "Primetime", based on the real-life NBC television show "To Catch a Predator" that unmasked paedophiles after luring them to staged meetings with minors.
ams/adp/jxb

film

Susan Sarandon says still losing roles over Gaza stance

  • The veteran star of "Dead Man Walking" has been one of Hollywood's most outspoken pro-Palestinian campaigners and critics of the Gaza war alongside others such as Marc Ruffalo, Richard Gere and Joaquin Phoenix.
  • US actress Susan Sarandon said Sunday she was still having roles "taken away" from her in Hollywood because of her outspoken criticism of Israel's war in Gaza.
  • The veteran star of "Dead Man Walking" has been one of Hollywood's most outspoken pro-Palestinian campaigners and critics of the Gaza war alongside others such as Marc Ruffalo, Richard Gere and Joaquin Phoenix.
US actress Susan Sarandon said Sunday she was still having roles "taken away" from her in Hollywood because of her outspoken criticism of Israel's war in Gaza.
The "Thelma & Louise" star was dropped by her agency UTA in November 2023 over controversial remarks at a pro-Palestinian rally which she later said she regretted.
Speaking at the Venice Film Festival, where she has a role in Italian film "The Echo Chamber", she claimed the "narrative" around the Gaza war and the United States' support for Israel had "completely changed".
"There's a lot of things that people are aware of now," the Oscar winner told a press conference, referring to the extent of US financial and military aid for Israel.
"I've still had movies taken away recently because there are agencies that are telling people not to hire me still. But that's the power structure," she added.
"I think there has been a change in terms of the understanding of the situation and the general public, but there are still very strongly held positions within my industry that are held by Zionists and who have not relaxed their feelings towards me. 
"But I found my family, I found my people, and I'm okay," she added to a round of applause. 
The veteran star of "Dead Man Walking" has been one of Hollywood's most outspoken pro-Palestinian campaigners and critics of the Gaza war alongside others such as Marc Ruffalo, Richard Gere and Joaquin Phoenix.
Many others have signed open letters criticising Israel's conduct of the war, which has left around 73,500 Palestinians dead and 174,500 injured since October 2023, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.
The premiere of "NAZA" -- about the killing of civilians in Gaza -- by two Israeli directors looks set to be one of the most emotionally charged moments of the Venice festival when it premieres on Thursday.
Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor won an Oscar for 2024's "No Other Land", which documented the displacement of a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers.
Sarandon was dropped by United Talent Agency for telling a rally that Jewish Americans were "getting a taste of what it is like to be Muslim in this country" because of rising anti-Semitic violence. 
She issued a public apology, saying her choice of words had been a "terrible mistake" because they implied "that until recently Jews have been strangers to persecution, when the opposite is true".
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film

German director Wenders clarifies views on film and politics

  • While serving as the head of the jury at the Berlin film festival in February, Wenders told reporters that filmmakers "cannot really enter the field of politics" when he was asked about Germany's support for Israel throughout the Gaza war.
  • German director Wim Wenders clarified his views about the relationship between filmmakers and politics on Sunday after he caused an outcry at the Berlin film festival earlier this year.
  • While serving as the head of the jury at the Berlin film festival in February, Wenders told reporters that filmmakers "cannot really enter the field of politics" when he was asked about Germany's support for Israel throughout the Gaza war.
German director Wim Wenders clarified his views about the relationship between filmmakers and politics on Sunday after he caused an outcry at the Berlin film festival earlier this year.
Speaking in Venice, where he is presenting a new film about Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, the "Paris, Texas" director said he had been misunderstood.
While serving as the head of the jury at the Berlin film festival in February, Wenders told reporters that filmmakers "cannot really enter the field of politics" when he was asked about Germany's support for Israel throughout the Gaza war.
"What I said then is that as filmmakers, we are the opposite of politicians. We have empathy. Politicians work without empathy," Wenders told reporters at the Venice Film Festival when asked if he had reconsidered his views.
"We are not working with a mindset of politicians, we are working with a mindset of empathetic people. And we are into changing things. I say that again and I hope you're not misquoting me and saying we have to stay out of politics because we do the opposite. We are the antidote," he added.
At Venice's opening press conference last Wednesday, jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal weighed in on the topic, saying that movies are "fundamentally, undeniably political".
The war in Gaza has been a frequent political flashpoint at European film festivals, with organisers and movie industry leading lights asked for their views on the conflict.
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film

Indian Oscar-nominated filmmaker turns camera on his cancer

BY ARUNABH SAIKIA

  • - 'Meditative' - The central protagonist in Sen's new work is not the filmmaker himself but his surgeon. 
  • Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen's new documentary began as a "coping" mechanism after a shock cancer diagnosis, but continues the motifs of environmental degradation and caregiving that drove his previous work.
  • - 'Meditative' - The central protagonist in Sen's new work is not the filmmaker himself but his surgeon. 
Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen's new documentary began as a "coping" mechanism after a shock cancer diagnosis, but continues the motifs of environmental degradation and caregiving that drove his previous work.
Sen's "All That Breathes", which follows two brothers running a largely self-funded clinic for birds falling victim to Delhi's polluted air, won top documentary prizes at Sundance and Cannes in 2022 and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2023 Oscars.
"It became a kind of coping strategy, or a way to deal or dissociate or displace the terror of what you've just been told," Sen, 39, told AFP about his as-yet-untitled project, in an interview from his home in New Delhi.
The diagnosis brought home "the same risks" that make hundreds of birds fall every year from New Delhi's throat-burning polluted skies -- this time on "my own body", Sen said.
"Whenever you ask most oncologists why this happened, or why this current giant spike in cancer rates is occurring, a lot of them would talk about environmental factors like toxins or chemicals or the air," he said.
New Delhi and its sprawling metropolitan region of 30 million residents is regularly ranked among the world's most polluted capitals, due to a mix of emissions from power plants, heavy traffic and the burning of rubbish and crops. 
A 2024 study in The Lancet Planetary Health estimated that 3.8 million deaths in India between 2009 and 2019 were linked to air pollution.

'Meditative'

The central protagonist in Sen's new work is not the filmmaker himself but his surgeon. 
"I did not want to make something that was solipsistically inwards folding," he said.
It echoes his documentary "All That Breathes", where caregiving is at the emotional core of the film.
"What I loved in a surgeon was the ability to completely lose yourself, to be immersed in the absolute present," he said. 
"That feels meditative and contemplative. It's a kind of melting away of everything extraneous, and you're in the pinprick of the moment." 
- City as 'wallpaper' - 
The film is also about Sen's relationship with New Delhi, where he grew up, went to school and university, and the setting for all his work.
"The city," he said, is the "wallpaper of this film."
"In this case, the wallpaper is doing things to me, and I'm kind of reacting to it -- through a more personalised lens than I ever have."
His 2016 debut documentary, "Cities of Sleep", examined the city's  homeless population through the lens of sleep, following them in their quest for a safe place to rest. 
Sen is also heading to the Toronto International Film Festival in September to screen "Termite", his first fiction short, about two Delhi termite exterminators.
Yet the nature of his latest undertaking means it is inevitably different from his previous work.
Sen's ethnographic approach to filmmaking means shooting characters for long periods to, as he put it, "yield or slow drip certain answers".
"There's a deep pleasure in that kind of a thing," he said. 
"Time rewards you with accidents, but in this case, it would be really silly and self-congratulatory for me to say that, 'I gave this film time.'" 
Sen has had surgery, but continues the long road to recovery.
Shooting the film, he said, was a "way to not look directly at a scary thing", and "to aesthetically convert it into a project, so that you don't have to stare it in the grim eyes of what it actually is".
"I guess it's a kind of a con job."
sai/pjm/cms/ane

photography

AFP photographer wins top prize for Madagascar protest coverage

  • The exhibitions featured at the Visa pour L'Image event are on display in venues around Perpignan until September 13. cor-vgr/jj/acb
  • Agence France-Presse photographer Luis Tato on Saturday won the top prize at the prestigious Visa Pour l'Image photojournalism festival in Perpignan, France.
  • The exhibitions featured at the Visa pour L'Image event are on display in venues around Perpignan until September 13. cor-vgr/jj/acb
Agence France-Presse photographer Luis Tato on Saturday won the top prize at the prestigious Visa Pour l'Image photojournalism festival in Perpignan, France.
Spaniard Tato won the Visa d'Or prize for news photography for his coverage of Generation Z protests in Madagascar.
His work on the story had already been recognised at the World Press Photo Awards in April.
Accepting the award, 37-year-old Tato paid tribute to festival founder Jean-Francois Leroy, who died on Monday.
Leroy, he said, had given him an early break in 2018 when he showed his work for the first time.
Tato also acknowledged the young people of Madagascar, who "knew how important it was that their story be told".
In September 2025, student-led protests erupted across Madagascar over failing public services, corruption, and economic hardship. When President Andry Rajoelina dissolved his government but refused to resign, demonstrations intensified.
"I think this global movement of young people who are trying to redefine democracy and transform their societies is a very interesting dynamic, which fascinates me both as a photographer and as someone who seeks to understand the world we live in," said Tato.
Based in Kenya, Tato covers east Africa and the Indian Ocean region for AFP.
His work has already been recognised in several photography competitions, including three times at the World Press Photo awards; at the Pictures of the Year International, Sony World Photography Awards and NPPA Best of Photojournalism.
The exhibitions featured at the Visa pour L'Image event are on display in venues around Perpignan until September 13.
cor-vgr/jj/acb

music

Don't stop them now: fans party for Freddie Mercury's 80th birthday

BY ROBIN MILLARD

  • Fans sang "Happy Birthday" together, before the party continued into the night. rjm/yad
  • Thousands of Queen fans sang, cheered and partied at the Freddie Mercury statue in Montreux on Saturday to celebrate what would have been the legendary British singer's 80th birthday.
  • Fans sang "Happy Birthday" together, before the party continued into the night. rjm/yad
Thousands of Queen fans sang, cheered and partied at the Freddie Mercury statue in Montreux on Saturday to celebrate what would have been the legendary British singer's 80th birthday.
Wearing some outlandish outfits reflecting Mercury's stage costumes, fans from across the world gathered in honour of the frontman, in the Swiss lakeside town where he sought peace in his final years and recorded his last vocals.
"It is a special birthday so you've got to make the effort to come and celebrate all things Freddie," said Sonia, who travelled from Canberra.
Her friend Khristina added that she "fell in love with him, thought he was the most beautiful man -- and then my husband looks just like him!" 
The bronze statue of Mercury in a triumphant pose, erected in 1996 overlooking Lake Geneva, was decked with balloons, flowers, and tributes left by well-wishers.
Bottles of Moet et Chandon champagne, referenced in Mercury's song "Killer Queen", and his favourite Stolichnaya vodka were also left at the foot of the plinth.
Appreciation of Queen's legacy and Mercury's unique talent has only grown since his death in 1991 from bronchial pneumonia, brought on by AIDS.
Among the world's best-selling artists ever, most of the group's sales have come since the singer's passing at the age of 45.
 

Lavish birthday cake

 
Queen owned Mountain Studios, built into the Montreux Casino, and recorded six albums there.
In Montreux, the Freddie Days birthday event has been running annually since 2003, and has grown over time.
"This is the busiest I've ever seen it," said fan Gail Potter, 61, from York in northern England.
"It's this that makes Queen different from any other band," she said, looking at the sea of fans milling round the market square.
"The music keeps on going, which is extraordinary."
Fans were dressed in a wealth of different Mercury outfits, including his iconic 1986 Magic Tour yellow jacket, his "Invisible Man" sunglasses, 1982 "arrows" jackets, and his 39th birthday "Living on my Own" black and white leggings.
The event also saw concerts and talks, including one on Mercury's trailblazing 1988 "Barcelona" duet album recorded with the Spanish opera diva Montserrat Caballe.
"He would have been amazed that people still
l come from all over the world in such large numbers to celebrate -- he'd have loved it. He loved being idolised! -- though he'd have hated being 80!" composer Mike Moran, who co-wrote the album with Mercury, told AFP.
The day culminated with the cutting of a 80th birthday cake, with Mercury's sister Kashmira Bulsara the special guest.
Fans sang "Happy Birthday" together, before the party continued into the night.
rjm/yad

film

New Oasis film captures band's frosty reunion

BY ADAM PLOWRIGHT

  • Fans began gathering at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday morning ahead of the premiere, with the Gallagher brothers waving to them from a boat as they arrived in the sun-drenched Italian city.
  • A new film about Oasis's historic 2025 world tour, which premiered Saturday in Venice, captures the frosty reunion of the British band's Gallagher brothers -- and shows how their children have become the "cement" in their volatile relationship.
  • Fans began gathering at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday morning ahead of the premiere, with the Gallagher brothers waving to them from a boat as they arrived in the sun-drenched Italian city.
A new film about Oasis's historic 2025 world tour, which premiered Saturday in Venice, captures the frosty reunion of the British band's Gallagher brothers -- and shows how their children have become the "cement" in their volatile relationship.
Titled "Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger", the documentary reveals the moment Liam Gallagher arrived for the first meeting in 15 years with estranged brother Noel for a rehearsal ahead of their "Live '25" tour.
His first words are to object to some acoustic shields on the drums -- "they're giving me the hump" -- before he launches into the songs in characteristic style and then leaves without saying a word.
"They're English working-class men, they're not going to show emotion, not going to even shake hands," film creator Steven Knight, creator of the "Peaky Blinders" TV series and the writer of the new James Bond film, told AFP. 
Over the course of the tour, the combustible brothers gradually bury one of the most famous feuds in modern rock music, which dates back to a 2009 backstage fight before a concert in Paris.
Fans began gathering at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday morning ahead of the premiere, with the Gallagher brothers waving to them from a boat as they arrived in the sun-drenched Italian city.
Their on-stage reunion last year saw an outpouring of 1990s nostalgia and support for Oasis, one of the biggest rock bands of the past 30 years, with the film seeking to explain why they have such strong cross-generational and cross-language appeal.
Liam and Noel's reconciliation was helped by the budding relationships between their children who didn't know each other before the band reunion, according to Knight. 
"I think once their kids got involved, that was the cement. Their kids met and became mates," he added.
Asked about his work on the next Bond, Knight said he couldn't talk about it, adding only: "I'm very much looking forward to that. It's going to be really good."
 

Music at the cinema

 
"Don't Look Back in Anger" is part of a lucrative new trend of major artists releasing tightly controlled films about their tours, allowing fans who missed out on tickets to get an alternative view of the shows in the cinema.
Taylor Swift's film about her Eras Tour in 2023 grossed an estimated $260 million worldwide, while Beyonce also released a movie the same year about her tour, raking in $44 million. 
"I think it's really good, and the reason that anyone wants to fund something like this is because they see a precedent," Knight added.
The expletive-heavy Oasis movie is mostly feel-good entertainment, making no reference to contentious issues such as the "dynamic pricing" of tickets which saw some fans pay significantly more than they expected.
It also skims over the 2009 break-up and the ensuing years of rancour, but it reveals Liam's nerves about messing up, his decision to avoid all cigarettes and alcohol on tour, and how Noel was a "mess" with his emotions at the start of the first concert in Cardiff in July 2025.
The film was directed by renowned British music documentary makers Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace who worked alongside Knight.
Lovelace said they were initially "daunted" by the task.
"The eyes of the world are on this thing, and it involves two brothers who are famously volatile and we didn't know how it was going to turn out," he told AFP.
The Oasis duo as well as British acting superstar Robert Pattinson, appearing for his new film "Primetime", brought a buzz to the Venice festival on Saturday which has been largely shunned by big Hollywood studios this year. 
"Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger" releases worldwide from September 9.
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pageant

Ethiopian Miss World contestant spotlights pain of sister's murder

BY TRAN THI MINH HA

  • This summer, Ruth's 29-year-old elder sister Kidusan Yirgalem Weldesilasie was kidnapped for ransom -- disappearing from her side as she prepared for the global beauty contest.
  • Preparing to take the stage representing Ethiopia at the Miss World pageant, Ruth Yirgalem Weldesilasie thinks of her sister, who was abducted and murdered ahead of the contest. 
  • This summer, Ruth's 29-year-old elder sister Kidusan Yirgalem Weldesilasie was kidnapped for ransom -- disappearing from her side as she prepared for the global beauty contest.
Preparing to take the stage representing Ethiopia at the Miss World pageant, Ruth Yirgalem Weldesilasie thinks of her sister, who was abducted and murdered ahead of the contest. 
"I'm going to change my pain to my purpose," the 25-year-old told AFP in Vietnam's coastal Nha Trang city, as 111 contestants gathered for the Saturday night pageant finale.
This summer, Ruth's 29-year-old elder sister Kidusan Yirgalem Weldesilasie was kidnapped for ransom -- disappearing from her side as she prepared for the global beauty contest.
Kidusan was discovered dead, her remains split between two suitcases, in late July. Ruth's best friend of a decade and her best friend's boyfriend are among 10 suspects who have been arrested, she said.
Violence against women and girls is endemic in Ethiopia's deeply patriarchal society.
Ruth hopes that by defying her grief to travel to Vietnam, she has found a platform to highlight its wrongs.
"I've been wanting to do this for a lifetime," she said.
Ahead of her departure, Ruth said she thought to herself that while she cannot bring her sister back, "if I go, there are things that I will do".
Saturday's event will be the 75th anniversary edition of the world's oldest beauty pageant.
The industry has in the past been criticised for reducing women to objects of glamour, undermining the feminist cause.
But in more recent decades contests have focussed on the charity and activist work of contenders -- while still staging all-colourful theatrical performances.

'Dignity'

On a break from rehearsals outside a hotel where she lodges with fellow competitors, Ruth told AFP of the stark issues she hopes her presence will highlight.
Her social impact projects focus on children's mental wellbeing and maternal health.
When you heal a woman, "you give her dignity back", she said. "You give her another life."
But travelling Ethiopia, she has seen many other women's issues requiring advocacy.
UN data shows nearly 20 million women in the country of 130 million people were married or in a union before the age of 18.
Female genital mutilation rates, though declining, are nearly 50 percent for women between the ages of 15 and 49.
A petition calling on the government to declare violence against women a "national crisis" has been signed by nearly 170,000 people.
Decades of instability and a 2020-2022 war in the country's north have worsened the lives of legions of women.
The root cause of all the problems is the same: women treated as objects.

Putting a price on women's lives

When the kidnappers of Ruth's sister called to demand their ransom, the point hit home.
"Imagine the person that you care for most has a price one day -- you're being asked for a price", Ruth told AFP. "It was hard, very hard."
Ruth will be mourning in the spotlight, a counterintuitive choice that she battled her emotional instincts to make.
"I know when I go back home tomorrow, I'm going to sit on my couch and try to process everything and cry my eyes out," she said.
But she is motivated by the memory of her sister. 
As a child, her family would tell her: "You are the one for your sister. You are the one who is going to protect her."
She sees taking the stage in Vietnam as a way to serve the larger sisterhood of women, even if her own sibling is lost.
"I want women to think beyond what they are going through," she said.
"I want to show the world that even when the world is being hard on you, you can also make it."
tmh/jts/ami/sst

film

Kiefer Sutherland still in action, but ibuprofen lending helping hand

BY ALEXANDRIA SAGE

  • "And so there's a lot of anti-inflammatory medicine used now that wasn't used 20 years ago," he joked. 
  • Action films are still the name of the game for Kiefer Sutherland, but the 60-year-old star of television series "24" now gets a little help from anti-inflammatories and body braces. 
  • "And so there's a lot of anti-inflammatory medicine used now that wasn't used 20 years ago," he joked. 
Action films are still the name of the game for Kiefer Sutherland, but the 60-year-old star of television series "24" now gets a little help from anti-inflammatories and body braces. 
Sutherland -- in Venice for the premiere of his new film "Father Joe," where he shares the limelight with Al Pacino -- told AFP Saturday that some things had changed in the two and a half decades since "24" first aired on television. 
The political thriller about US counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer ran from 2001 to 2010, with a revival and finale in 2014. 
"I do remember the days when I could run around on "24" and I could do it for 12 hours straight," he told AFP in an interview. 
"And now I've got this brace going on, I've got that brace going on, I've got whatever else, you know, these pads and these," he said. 
"And so there's a lot of anti-inflammatory medicine used now that wasn't used 20 years ago," he joked. 
In the film directed by Barthelemy Grossmann from a screenplay by Luc Besson, Sutherland plays a gun-wielding New York priest seeking justice for the city's youth, menacing drug dealers and the mob boss, played by Pacino.
"I don't get a lot of opportunities to do a fantasy, which this film is. It lives in its own world. It's good versus evil. It's broad strokes," the actor told a press conference earlier Saturday.
Sutherland said he had to master a different style of fighting than what he was used to in the film, and learned a lot during the process. 
"And I only got hurt twice," he added. 
On the vicissitudes of his career, the Canadian/British actor said that now at age 60, he worries less about the inevitable dry spells. 
"It's going to go down. Then it's going to go back up," said Sutherland 
"And I think that just when you're down, the confidence that it's going to go back up -- because it always does, you know -- is like, 'Oh!' You don't need to worry as much."
A rough patch came at about age 27 when he didn't work for a few years, he said. 
"I was panicked that it was over. And that really messes with your head," he said. 
"If it's the thing you love doing and it's the thing you want to do the most and it's the thing you care about the most, the feeling that someone can take that away from you is real. And it's very frightening," he added.
"And so every time it has kind of gone back up, the relief is significant."
Sutherland last appeared in the 2025 UK holiday film "Tinsel Town". 
 
ams/ yad
 

film

Box office magnet Robert Pattinson appears in paedophile thriller

BY ADAM PLOWRIGHT

  • "Primetime" is based on the scandal-plagued NBC reality TV show "To Catch a Predator" which saw presenter Chris Hansen lure paedophiles to fake meetings with children from 2004-2007, then unmask them in front of the TV cameras.
  • British star Robert Pattinson will look to extend his stellar 2026 box office run by playing a paedophile-hunting TV presenter in upcoming film "Primetime", which premieres at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.
  • "Primetime" is based on the scandal-plagued NBC reality TV show "To Catch a Predator" which saw presenter Chris Hansen lure paedophiles to fake meetings with children from 2004-2007, then unmask them in front of the TV cameras.
British star Robert Pattinson will look to extend his stellar 2026 box office run by playing a paedophile-hunting TV presenter in upcoming film "Primetime", which premieres at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.
Pattinson will hit screens in the dark thriller later this month, the first movie for which he has a producer credit and a first feature film from 30-year-old director Lance Oppenheim. 
"I was just extremely attached to this project from the beginning and attached to everybody involved in it," the 40-year-old told reporters in Venice on Saturday along with the cast, which includes American singer Phoebe Bridgers. 
"Primetime" is based on the scandal-plagued NBC reality TV show "To Catch a Predator" which saw presenter Chris Hansen lure paedophiles to fake meetings with children from 2004-2007, then unmask them in front of the TV cameras.
Having seen a trailer for the movie, Hansen has praised Pattinson's eerie portrayal of him while also hinting at possible legal action over what looks like a largely unflattering portrait. 
"Obviously he has practised imitating me, and while I think it's overly dramatic, I think there is a pretty good imitation there in the trailer," Hansen told US chat show Entertainment Tonight late last month.
Pattinson said the role had been challenging, with the shoot squeezed in before he started filming on summer box office hit "The Odyssey" by Christopher Nolan.
"I found the accent really difficult," he explained, before quipping: "I definitely can hear a little Chris Hansen in The Odyssey when I watch it."

Producing work

The 40-year-old has become one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, with his films this year including hit "The Drama" with Zendaya, as well as "The Odyssey" in which he plays the villainous Antinous.
He will appear in the third part of "Dune" in December. 
As co-producer, Pattinson has invested in the production of "Primetime" through his own company Icki Eneo Arlo, giving him greater control and potential financial rewards.
"He wasn't just my leading man. He was a like tried and true collaborator, and we forged this thing together," Oppenheim told AFP in Venice, explaining that Pattinson had taken part in casting, production and editing.
American indie folk singer Bridgers -- a friend of Oppenheim's -- is one of the most surprising casting choices, with the "Scott Street" performer playing a cameo as Hansen's wife.
"She's was just so relaxed and I was just so impressed, she completely got the tone," Pattinson said. 
"When Lance asked me, I was like 'No way dude, I can't," Bridgers said.
The film, made with independent US studio A24, is one of the most anticipated in the main Venice festival competition this year.
Elsewhere in Venice, fans of British rock band Oasis have begun waiting near the red carpet ahead of the premiere of a film about their reunion tour last year, with brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher set to appear from 9 pm (1900 GMT). 
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film

Stay far from battlefield, warns Japanese director in Vietnam War film

BY JULIETTE RABAT

  • Tsukamoto touched on how the use of drones in modern warfare is changing perpetrators' awareness of their killing. 
  • Modern warfare may have changed, but the suffering of victims remains the same, while those waging war will inevitably "commit horrifying acts," Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto said of his Vietnam War film at Venice.
  • Tsukamoto touched on how the use of drones in modern warfare is changing perpetrators' awareness of their killing. 
Modern warfare may have changed, but the suffering of victims remains the same, while those waging war will inevitably "commit horrifying acts," Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto said of his Vietnam War film at Venice.
"Mr. Nelson, Did you Kill People?", which premiered Friday at the Venice Film Festival, tells the true story of Allen Nelson, a black US Marine sent to Vietnam in 1966 and plagued the rest of his life by what he saw -- and did -- there. 
Director Tsukamoto, last at Venice in 2018 with his pacifist Samurai film "Killing", said that when he learned about the story of Nelson, who battled PTSD and dedicated his life to speaking out about the horrors of war, he felt compelled to portray his experience on film. 
"I wanted to depict the fact that, beyond eras and beyond borders, if people go to war, no matter what country they come from, they will experience horrifying things and commit horrifying acts," Tsukamoto told a press conference Friday.
Tsukamoto's work, which ranges from postmodern horror movies like 1995's "Tokyo Fist" to "Fires on the Plain" from 2014 about the WWII-era Japanese occupation of the Philippines, has increasingly examined the legacy of war.
In war, he said, "even if the side doing the killing changes, the victims do not". 
"Whether it’s an old-fashioned war or a drone war, in the end, people’s innards are blown out, their eyes are torn from their sockets, and the families around them are plunged into grief. In that sense, the horror experienced by the victims is ultimately the same," he said.
"Mr. Nelson, Did you Kill People?" takes its title from a question asked by a schoolchild during a talk Nelson gave following his tour in Vietnam. The query sent the Vietnam vet into a tailspin that led to family problems, medication, therapy, and ultimately redemption.
  

'Fire at anything'

 
Through unflinchingly graphic flashbacks, the viewer is plunged into the hot Vietnam jungle where the young Nelson, played by Mark Merphy, and his platoon seek out Viet Cong, massacring innocent civilians and burning villages as a matter of course.
"We fired at anything that moved," remembers the older Nelson (Rodney Hicks) during therapy sessions with his psychiatrist, played by Geoffrey Rush.  
Tsukamoto said in an interview Saturday he tried to find a balance in the war scenes between shocking the viewer and numbing him. 
"By showing something that has a shocking impact in the viewer, then I also show how gruesome, how brutal a reality can be," he said. 
With repeated violence, however, the viewer might stop reacting, defeating the point, he said. 
Tsukamoto touched on how the use of drones in modern warfare is changing perpetrators' awareness of their killing. 
"As the technology becomes more advanced, I worry that the perpetrator’s sense of actually inflicting harm will become more and more dulled," he said.
But he noted that drone operators sometimes monitor their targets for days, firing their drone "after having watched and understood that person’s home environment and family situation."
"So in many cases, they launch an attack by drone after having developed a certain empathy for the target’s family. And it appears that precisely because of that, they do indeed suffer from severe PTSD," he said.
"So no matter how much the times change, those who are killed are in the same position as ever, and I don’t think the inner experience of those doing the killing will fundamentally change either."
The director said his goal was to make viewers "feel war with their skin, with their bodies, and to come away with a slight trauma."
"If people can feel that through this film, then I personally believe that someday, when young people see it, they will viscerally reject the idea of going to a real battlefield."
Nelson, who gave more than 1,200 talks throughout Japan about his war experiences, died in 2009 and is buried in Japan.
ams/yad

history

Argentina ordered to return Nazi-looted painting to Jewish collector's heir

  • "Portrait of a Lady" by Italian late baroque painter Giacomo Ceruti was missing for eight decades before being photographed last year hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer, who had fled to Argentina after World War II. "An order will be issued for the painting to be returned to the heir" of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, judge Santiago Inchausti declared following an agreement reached between the concerned parties.
  • Argentina is set to return an 18th-century painting stolen by Nazis from a Dutch Jewish art collector to the rightful owner's heir, a judge said Friday.
  • "Portrait of a Lady" by Italian late baroque painter Giacomo Ceruti was missing for eight decades before being photographed last year hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer, who had fled to Argentina after World War II. "An order will be issued for the painting to be returned to the heir" of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, judge Santiago Inchausti declared following an agreement reached between the concerned parties.
Argentina is set to return an 18th-century painting stolen by Nazis from a Dutch Jewish art collector to the rightful owner's heir, a judge said Friday.
"Portrait of a Lady" by Italian late baroque painter Giacomo Ceruti was missing for eight decades before being photographed last year hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer, who had fled to Argentina after World War II.
"An order will be issued for the painting to be returned to the heir" of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, judge Santiago Inchausti declared following an agreement reached between the concerned parties.
The painting was first recognized by the Dutch newspaper AD in photographs of a house for sale in the seaside resort of Mar del Plata.
It was hanging above a green sofa in the living room of Patricia Kadgien, whose father Friedrich Kadgien was a financier for the Nazi SS paramilitary organization.
He was one of several high-ranking Nazis to escape to Argentina after World War II.
Patricia Kadgien, who clutched a rosary during the hearing in Mar del Plata, was charged with concealment and placed under house arrest along with her husband when the artwork was identified.
The pair agreed to return the painting to Goudstikker's daughter-in-law and sole heir Marei von Saher and give around $3,200 to local hospitals.
"The individuals under investigation essentially committed themselves to renouncing any rights over the painting that is going to be returned," federal prosecutor Carlos Martinez told AFP.
The work "is in good condition, and expert examinations confirmed its authenticity," Martinez said.

Going on display

"Portrait of a Lady" was among over 1,000 artworks stolen from Goudstikker's collection after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940.
Goudstikker fled his country days after the invasion, leaving behind a litany of works that were divvied up by top German officials.
After the war, the Dutch state retrieved some 300 works from the collection, most of which it later returned to Goudstikker's heirs.
But more remain scattered around the globe.
The painting in question is by Ceruti (1698-1767), known as "Il Pitocchetto," and not the portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi as initially reported, the Argentine government stated in a press release.
The work is currently under the care of Argentina's Supreme Court, and it is now up to Von Saher's legal team to initiate its return to its owner.
Von Saher intends to display the painting in Argentina as a way to give visibility to Goudstikker's story.
"The family's intention is for it to be exhibited in Buenos Aires for at least a year," her lawyer Guillermo Brady told AFP, adding that his client is in talks with several museums to iron out the details.
str-lm/mr/mjf/bgs

history

Argentina ordered to return Nazi-looted painting to Jewish collector's heir

  • "Portrait of a Lady" by Italian late baroque painter Giacomo Ceruti was missing for eight decades before being photographed last year hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer, who had fled to Argentina after World War II. "An order will be issued for the painting to be returned to the heir" of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, judge Santiago Inchausti declared following an agreement reached between the concerned parties.
  • Argentina must return an 18th-century painting stolen by Nazis from a Dutch Jewish art collector to the rightful owner's heir, a judge ruled Friday.
  • "Portrait of a Lady" by Italian late baroque painter Giacomo Ceruti was missing for eight decades before being photographed last year hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer, who had fled to Argentina after World War II. "An order will be issued for the painting to be returned to the heir" of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, judge Santiago Inchausti declared following an agreement reached between the concerned parties.
Argentina must return an 18th-century painting stolen by Nazis from a Dutch Jewish art collector to the rightful owner's heir, a judge ruled Friday.
"Portrait of a Lady" by Italian late baroque painter Giacomo Ceruti was missing for eight decades before being photographed last year hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer, who had fled to Argentina after World War II.
"An order will be issued for the painting to be returned to the heir" of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, judge Santiago Inchausti declared following an agreement reached between the concerned parties.
The painting was first recognized by the Dutch newspaper AD in photographs of a house for sale in the seaside resort of Mar del Plata.
It was hanging above a green sofa in the living room of Patricia Kadgien, whose father Friedrich Kadgien was a financier for the Nazi SS paramilitary organization.
He was one of several high-ranking Nazis to escape to Argentina after World War II.
Patricia Kadgien, who clutched a rosary during the hearing in Mar del Plata, was charged with concealment and placed under house arrest along with her husband when the artwork was identified.
The pair agreed to return the painting to Goudstikker's daughter-in-law and sole heir Marei von Saher and give around $3,200 to local hospitals.
"Portrait of a Lady" was among over 1,000 artworks stolen from Goudstikker's collection after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940.
Goudstikker fled his country days after the invasion, leaving behind a litany of works that was divvied up by top German officials.
After the war the Dutch state retrieved some 300 works from the collection, most of which it later returned to Goudstikker's heirs.
But more remain scattered around the globe.
The painting is by Ceruti (1698-1767), known as "Il Pitocchetto," and not the portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi as initially reported, the Argentine government stated in a press release.
str-lm/cc/acb/mjf/bgs

film

Oasis fans gather in Venice for band reunion film

  • Their reunion, which led to the 2025 world tour, saw an outpouring of nostalgia and support for Oasis, a pioneer of so-called "Britpop" in the 1990s and one of the biggest rock bands of the past 30 years.
  • Fans of British rock band Oasis gathered in Venice on Saturday ahead of the premiere of a behind-the-scenes film about the group's reunion tour last year, with the Gallagher brothers set to walk the red carpet.
  • Their reunion, which led to the 2025 world tour, saw an outpouring of nostalgia and support for Oasis, a pioneer of so-called "Britpop" in the 1990s and one of the biggest rock bands of the past 30 years.
Fans of British rock band Oasis gathered in Venice on Saturday ahead of the premiere of a behind-the-scenes film about the group's reunion tour last year, with the Gallagher brothers set to walk the red carpet.
Die-hard followers of the Manchester duo reserved places in front of the main Venice Film Festival hall in the morning, prepared to wait all day in hot and humid conditions ahead of the 9 pm (1900 GMT) premiere.
The Disney film "Don’t Look Back in Anger" captures the reconciliation of Noel and Liam Gallagher after 15 years of not talking to each other following an infamous bust-up in Paris in 2009.
Their reunion, which led to the 2025 world tour, saw an outpouring of nostalgia and support for Oasis, a pioneer of so-called "Britpop" in the 1990s and one of the biggest rock bands of the past 30 years.
The film was made by British music documentary makers Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace along with Steven Knight, the man behind the "Peaky Blinders" TV show who is also writing the script for the next James Bond movie.
"Don’t Look Back in Anger" is part of a trend of major artists releasing tightly controlled big-screen films about their tours, allowing fans who missed out on tickets to get an alternative view of the shows.
Taylor Swift's film about her Eras Tour in 2023 grossed an estimated $260 million worldwide, while Beyonce also released a movie the same year about her tour, raking in $44 million. 
adp/cw

literature

In Iceland, the mystery of the poet, the tomb and the Danish grocer

BY PIERRE-HENRY DESHAYES

  • "He has become a part of the Icelandic soul and still is," native enthusiast Kari Stefansson told AFP. Standing near the austere, lichen-speckled tombstone, the geneticist and eccentric dandy, 77, is a keen reader of Hallgrimsson and can recite his verses from memory.
  • In a small enclosure of lava stones in a grassy field, a modest tombstone bears the name of an Icelandic legend: Jonas Hallgrimsson.
  • "He has become a part of the Icelandic soul and still is," native enthusiast Kari Stefansson told AFP. Standing near the austere, lichen-speckled tombstone, the geneticist and eccentric dandy, 77, is a keen reader of Hallgrimsson and can recite his verses from memory.
In a small enclosure of lava stones in a grassy field, a modest tombstone bears the name of an Icelandic legend: Jonas Hallgrimsson. But are the bones beneath it really those of the poet, or a Danish grocer?
Hallgrimsson is an icon in his country: a beloved poet and naturalist, the craftsman behind the renewal of the Icelandic language, and one of the founders of Icelandic national romanticism.
He died in 1845, nearly a century before the country finally gained independence from Denmark. 
"He has become a part of the Icelandic soul and still is," native enthusiast Kari Stefansson told AFP.
Standing near the austere, lichen-speckled tombstone, the geneticist and eccentric dandy, 77, is a keen reader of Hallgrimsson and can recite his verses from memory.
"What separates art from everything else in the world is the ability to appeal to your emotions. And he appealed to my emotions, and Icelanders in general, extremely strongly," he said.
Despite this fervour, Stefansson and other enthusiasts are haunted by doubt about the grave due to historic uncertainty surrounding Hallgrimson's burial.
They are calling for it to be opened to make sure the remains really belong to Hallgrimsson. A formal request has been submitted to authorities.

Bones of contention

When Hallgrimsson died in Copenhagen after falling down a staircase, his remains were placed in a grave in the Danish capital where other bodies -- three, four or five, depending on the source -- were also buried.
In 1946, amid the patriotic fervour that followed the proclamation of the Icelandic republic two years earlier, the bones were repatriated to the North Atlantic island.
"This whole case is somehow a repetition of Iceland becoming independent from Denmark," said Jon Karl Helgason, a former University of Iceland lecturer and specialist in "the case of the bones".
Independence was about "power coming home" and "in some sense, it was a repetition to get the bones of the national poet home."
But time had taken its toll. After a century underground, the remains were in poor condition. 
"There was a grocer, a businessman, his wife, child, and everything got mixed up over the years," recalled Pall Valsson, author of a biography of Hallgrimsson.
"And we don't have a skull. We don't have legs."
To be absolutely certain, some have called for DNA tests to be done. But Icelandic authorities say they cannot authorise the opening of the grave without a court ruling.
"My understanding is that it is wrapped up in tremendous bureaucracy," lamented Stefansson.
"Now this is in the hands of all kinds of committees and lawyers. So my guess is that it's going to take some time."
Lecturer Helgason believes, citing a 1946 photograph of the grave's contents as evidence, that the tale of the mixed-up bones is nothing but a "nasty rumour".
He is nonetheless happy for the debate to continue.
"It keeps the matter alive. It keeps the corpse living."

Unassuming grave

While the controversy drags on, the remains lie a stone's throw from a small church in the enchanting setting of Thingvellir.
With rifts and fractures criss-crossing the land -- scars left by the separation of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates -- the UNESCO World Heritage site is the original site of the Althing, considered the world's oldest still-functioning parliament, founded in 930.
The poet's supposed final resting place is surprisingly nondescript.
According to the church warden, the graveyard serves as a landing pad for helicopters during VIP visits.
One family, unaware that it was a gravestone, was even caught picnicking on the slab, she said.
"Many Icelanders don't want this mystery to be solved," said biographer Valsson.
"Because we love mysteries, we don't want to solve them."
And what if it were solved?
"I think that we should simply lift our hat and bow and apologise to Jonas for the interruption of his peaceful rest, and then fill the hole and go home," Stefansson said.
phy/po/rlp

TikTok

How a Dostoevsky novella took TikTok by storm

BY ANNA PELEGRI WITH AFP REPORTERS IN MOSCOW

  • Paloma Lima, a 29-year-old influencer and fan of Russian literature, told AFP that young TikTok users came to her YouTube channel after reading "White Nights."
  • Marcelo Nogueira is not well versed in the classics but the 27-year-old Brazilian book influencer was seduced by Fyodor Dostoevsky's "White Nights," a 19th-century tale of love and loneliness at the center of an unlikely TikTok craze.
  • Paloma Lima, a 29-year-old influencer and fan of Russian literature, told AFP that young TikTok users came to her YouTube channel after reading "White Nights."
Marcelo Nogueira is not well versed in the classics but the 27-year-old Brazilian book influencer was seduced by Fyodor Dostoevsky's "White Nights," a 19th-century tale of love and loneliness at the center of an unlikely TikTok craze.
Dostoevsky's story of a dreamer who, while strolling through the streets of Saint Petersburg, meets a young woman with whom he falls madly in love has become a bestseller in Brazil, nearly 180 years after its release.
Editora 34 publishing house told AFP that its sales of the novella, one of Dostoevsky's earliest works, had jumped 463 percent year-on-year.
In the United Kingdom and Spain, it is also flying off the shelves.
Nogueira, who has 13,000 followers on TikTok, explained that Gen Z readers found an echo in "the figure of the solitary dreamer, which is how many young people feel today."
Dostoevsky follows the narrator over four nights and a morning during which he ceases living in his imagination and embraces reality for the first time.
His peregrinations are the prelude to a love story as passionate as it is fleeting.
"My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?" the narrator exclaims in one of the lines most quoted on social media, reflecting on the enduring value of brief bursts of joy.

Bowled over

Tens of thousands of comments on BookTok, a popular book community on TikTok, attest to the popularity of one of Russia's greatest novelists with the social media generation.
It "bowls you over: it's real life written in a poetic way," user @thayslaaaa commented.
Paloma Lima, a 29-year-old influencer and fan of Russian literature, told AFP that young TikTok users came to her YouTube channel after reading "White Nights."
"It makes sense" because it's a "short and intense" book and falls into one of the most popular tropes on TikTok, she said, citing popular narratives such as "friends becoming lovers."
In Russia, the phenomenon is a source of both surprise and pride.
Speaking at the Moscow Book Fair, Ekaterina Kvitko, a 28-year-old author, said young Russian readers were far less enthused.
Perhaps it's because it's a "story about a protagonist who is alone, searching for some kind of love, some crutch to lean on. Maybe teenagers in the West are living in that state right now," she mused.

Criticism or advertising?

"White Nights" has emerged as a gateway book for Dostoevsky's work, with some young readers progressing onto more challenging novels, such as "Crime and Punishment."
It's an "unexpected" phenomenon, says Danilo Hora of Editora 34, reporting a 53 percent increase in sales of Dostoevsky's iconic tale of murder and guilt during the first seven months of the year.
In an era when short TikTok and YouTube videos are being blamed for eroding attention spans and fueling a reading crisis, social media, it transpires, is creating new audiences for the classics.
"Being a reader is a very beautiful idea; it can even be marketed. There's an associated aesthetic that's spreading" on TikTok, Nogueira said.
Aesthetics are also driving demand for the physical book over the digital version.
"It attracts more attention to have a wonderful cover than a Kindle," said Nogueira.
For his video discussing the book he used an edition with a colorful pop-art cover of a couple kissing, which is sold out in several bookstores in Rio de Janeiro.
Cecilia Rosas, a Brazilian researcher and translator of Russian literature, hailed the interest in the classics on social media.
She stressed, however, the importance of distinguishing between literary criticism and what often passes for such on social media but which, in her view, amounts to "advertising."
burs-app/tmo/cb/hol

culture

Bayeux Tapestry 'virtually unchanged', UK museum says, after France spots broken threads

  • The British Museum said in a statement sent to AFP that a draft report it received this week on the tapestry's condition before and after arrival "strongly suggests the Tapestry's condition is virtually unchanged".
  • The British Museum on Friday insisted the Bayeux Tapestry's condition was "virtually unchanged" after France said two broken threads had been noticed following the centuries-old embroidery's move to London.
  • The British Museum said in a statement sent to AFP that a draft report it received this week on the tapestry's condition before and after arrival "strongly suggests the Tapestry's condition is virtually unchanged".
The British Museum on Friday insisted the Bayeux Tapestry's condition was "virtually unchanged" after France said two broken threads had been noticed following the centuries-old embroidery's move to London.
The 11th-century work will be displayed at the British Museum from next week until July next year as part of an unprecedented loan from France to Britain.
French and British conservators carried out a full check of the tapestry's condition when it arrived in London in July.
"A break of two threads over a length of 70 metres of a tapestry was reported," French Culture Minister Catherine Pegard told the country's RTL broadcaster.
The tapestry "was examined with particular care. It took a lot of time because the experts went over it centimetre by centimetre," Pegard said, while stressing any damage was minor.
"So today, if we say it is in the same state after having arrived in London as it was when it left Bayeux, I think we're not very wrong."
The British Museum said in a statement sent to AFP that a draft report it received this week on the tapestry's condition before and after arrival "strongly suggests the Tapestry's condition is virtually unchanged".
The London museum said the report on the embroidered work's condition is not yet final and has yet to be agreed by its conservators and the French team.

'No visible alteration'

According to the British Museum, thread breaks, measuring a few millimetres at most, are not considered significant damage, and could have happened at any point since "before" photos were taken in September 2025 at the Bayeux Museum.
The tapestry's full condition check on arrival was the first such examination carried out since 2020, the British Museum noted.
Depicting the 1066 Battle of Hastings and the invasion by William the Conqueror's Norman army, the tapestry is widely thought to have been made in England before being transferred to Bayeux in France.
It is believed to be the first time the 68-metre (224-foot) embroidered artwork has left France in more than 900 years, and the first time it has been moved in over 40 years.
During its journey to London, the fragile artefact was kept under tight security in a specially designed double case to limit vibrations and maintain constant temperature and humidity levels. 
A French culture ministry official said in July after its arrival there had been "no visible alteration" to the embroidery in transit.
La Croix newspaper earlier this week reported a more thorough check by experts had confirmed "no major damage".
They only noted "slight tears in two areas" of the linen canvas, the daily said.
King Charles III on Wednesday hailed the loan of the artwork as a "precious symbol of trust at a time when trust seems sadly to be in short supply between nations".
France's President Emmanuel Macron said he hoped the two countries could "forge a bond as close as the threads of this thousand-year-old embroidery".
jt-pr/ah/am/rlp

history

Argentina to return Nazi-looted painting to Jewish collector's heir

BY FEDERICO BRUNO

  • "Portrait of a Lady" by Italian baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi was missing for eight decades before being photographed last year hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer, who had fled to Argentina after World War II. "An order will be issued for the painting to be returned to the heir" of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, judge Santiago Inchausti declared following an agreement reached between the concerned parties.
  • Argentina is set to return an 18th-century painting stolen by Nazis from a Dutch Jewish art collector to the rightful owner's heir, a judge said Friday.
  • "Portrait of a Lady" by Italian baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi was missing for eight decades before being photographed last year hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer, who had fled to Argentina after World War II. "An order will be issued for the painting to be returned to the heir" of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, judge Santiago Inchausti declared following an agreement reached between the concerned parties.
Argentina is set to return an 18th-century painting stolen by Nazis from a Dutch Jewish art collector to the rightful owner's heir, a judge said Friday.
"Portrait of a Lady" by Italian baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi was missing for eight decades before being photographed last year hanging in the home of the daughter of a senior Nazi officer, who had fled to Argentina after World War II.
"An order will be issued for the painting to be returned to the heir" of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, judge Santiago Inchausti declared following an agreement reached between the concerned parties.
The painting was first recognized by the Dutch newspaper AD in photographs of a house for sale in the seaside resort of Mar del Plata.
It was hanging above a green sofa in the living room of Patricia Kadgien, whose father Friedrich Kadgien was a financier for the Nazi SS paramilitary organization.
He was one of several high-ranking Nazis to escape to Argentina after World War II.
Patricia Kadgien, who clutched a rosary during the hearing in Mar del Plata, was charged with concealment and placed under house arrest along with her husband when the artwork was identified.
The pair agreed to return the painting to Goudstikker's daughter-in-law and sole heir Marei von Saher and give around $3,200 to local hospitals.
"The individuals under investigation essentially committed themselves to renouncing any rights over the painting that is going to be returned," federal prosecutor Carlos Martinez told AFP.
The work "is in good condition, and expert examinations confirmed its authenticity," Martinez said.

Going on display

"Portrait of a Lady" was among over 1,000 artworks stolen from Goudstikker's collection after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940.
Goudstikker fled his country days after the invasion, leaving behind a litany of works that were divvied up by top German officials.
After the war, the Dutch state retrieved some 300 works from the collection, most of which it later returned to Goudstikker's heirs.
But more remain scattered around the globe.
Ghislandi's work is currently under the care of Argentina's Supreme Court, and it is now up to Von Saher's legal team to initiate its return to its owner.
Von Saher intends to display the painting in Argentina as a way to give visibility to Goudstikker's story.
"The family's intention is for it to be exhibited in Buenos Aires for at least a year," her lawyer Guillermo Brady told AFP, adding that his client is in talks with several museums to iron out the details.
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