Movie review: 'Brahmastra' is a Marvel-ous super powered epic
By Fred Topel

1/5
Shiv (Ranbir Kapoor) harnesses his Astra powers in "Brahmastra." Photo courtesy of Star Studios


LOS ANGELES, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- The Indian film, Brahmastra: Part 1 - Shiva, in theaters Friday, is a superhero origin story by way of Bollywood. The action and visual effects are on par with Hollywood's Marvel movies, but it's based on Indian mythology.

The great sages meditated in the Himalayas, where they learned to harness the Great Astras -- powers of animal or elemental gods. Brahmastra was the Lord of all Astras.

In present day Mumbai, Shiva (Ranbir Kapoor) is about to find out his true power. He falls in love with Isha (Alia Bhatt), and their courtship is interrupted by hunters looking for three Astras that can unite to give their owner ultimate power.

Brahmastra introduces Shiva dancing at a Diwali festival full of colored confetti and smoke. He's backed up by an impressively large crowd of dancers.

Shiva and Isha dance again at a children's birthday party, and the kids later join in. Afterward,, Shiva sings a love ballad, and there's also a training montage song when Shiva finds Guru (Amitabh Bachchan) so he can teach him how to use his powers.

Aside from the musical interludes and the language spoken, Brahmastra isn't any different from a Hollywood origin story. Shiva has visions of the killers hunting other Astra guardians, and he's had a supernatural relationship with fire his whole life.

Like Peter Parker testing his new spider powers or Neo learning Kung Fu in the matrix, Shiva will learn how to use his fire powers and continue to fight to protect the Astra in future installments.

It's a fairly standard "chosen one" narrative in which Shiva fulfills his destiny, but an entertaining one, and every culture deserves its own. The Astras are macguffins like the tesseract and Infinity Stones that get the heroes into battle with the villains, but they do date to Hindu legend.

The romance contributes to the mythological aspect of Brahmastra. Every love story has the trope of instant deep passion, but Shiva and Isha's is a tad more believable as a component of epic myth.



The Astra battles are as epic as any confrontation between Marvel heroes and villains, too. The killers first try to take the monkey Astra, whose owner gracefully dodges projectiles with flips and can stand on the ceiling.

Shiva's fire powers create arresting shapes in the sky and form weapons. The spectacle can become exhausting, especially after an epic, two-hour, 40-minute runtime, but that, too, is a caveat of the Hollywood superhero genre.

As the title indicates, this is only part one of Brahmastra. The conclusion leaves Shiv in a satisfying place, while promising exciting new adventures to come.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001 and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012. Read more of his work in Entertainment.

Boosting vitamin D levels doesn't protect against COVID-19, studies show

By HealthDay News


Two recent studies found that boosting levels of vitamin D in adults during the pandemic didn't help protect against respiratory viruses, even though byproducts from the vitamin have long been noted for their support of immune responses to viruses and bacteria. 

Photo by PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay

While vitamin D got some attention early in the pandemic, it does not reduce the risk of either COVID-19 or other respiratory infections, two new clinical trials found.

Both studies, one done in the United Kingdom and the other in Norway, found that boosting levels of vitamin D in adults during the pandemic didn't help protect against respiratory viruses, even though byproducts from the vitamin have long been noted for their support of immune responses to viruses and bacteria.

In the British trial, researchers included 6,200 people aged 16 and older who weren't taking vitamin D supplements at the start of the study.

About half of the participants were tested for vitamin D levels as the trial began. About 86% of those had low levels and were given either 3,200 IU/day or 800 IU/day of vitamin D supplements for six months. The remaining trial participants were not tested or supplemented.

RELATED Vitamin D supplements fail to lower risk of fractures in healthy adults, study says

Regardless of dose, the investigators saw no difference in diagnosed acute respiratory tract infections or confirmed COVID-19 cases. Adverse events were similar between the groups.

The trial in Norway included over 34,700 adults who were not supplementing with vitamin D. The participants were given either a placebo daily for six months or 5 milliliters of cod liver oil, which contains low doses of vitamin D, vitamin A and omega-3 fatty acids.

Those researchers also found no effect on acute respiratory infections or confirmed COVID-19 cases.

RELATED Case study warns of risks of vitamin D overdose

Strengths of the trials included using PCR tests to confirm COVID-19 infections and high levels of compliance among participants.

Limitations were that in the British trial, participants who were taking vitamin D knew it and about half of the control group took a vitamin D supplement on at least one occasion during the trial. In Norway, limitations were that participants were young, healthy and those tested started the trial with adequate vitamin D levels.

Both studies were published online Wednesday in the BMJ.
RELATEDMany Black, Hispanic teens in U.S. have vitamin D deficiency



During the time that both trials were conducted, vaccines were rolled out in those countries. In an editorial that accompanied the research, Peter Bergman, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said vaccination is still the best way to protect people from COVID-19.

Vitamin D and cod liver oil supplementation should not be offered to healthy people with normal vitamin D levels, Bergman said in a journal news release. Clinicians could instead focus on high-risk groups, he said, including people with dark skin, or skin that is rarely exposed to the sun, pregnant women, and elderly people with chronic diseases.

More information
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The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more on vitamin D.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Michigan Supreme Court allows abortion measure to appear on November ballot

The Michigan Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Board of State Canvassers to allow a proposal that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution to appear on the ballot in November.

 File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Michigan's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a proposal that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state's constitution to appear on the ballot in November.

The state's high court voted 5-2 in favor of allowing the Reproductive Freedom for All ballot measure, which would amend the Michigan constitution to guarantee "a fundamental right to reproductive freedom" including abortion care, contraception infertility care and sterilization.

The ruling orders the Board of State Canvassers to place the ballot measure, which will appear as Proposal 3, on the ballot in November.

The bipartisan board previously was locked in a 2-2 vote along party lines last week. The board's two Republican members voted against approving the question due to objections to spacing and readability in the proposal's text.

Antiabortion group Citizens to Support MI Women and Children objected to the proposal in August, filing a challenge that said the errors caused "strings of gibberish" that should be disqualified from being included in the state constitution.

The group specifically cited three passages in the proposal where spacing issues created typos including "DECISIONSABOUTALLMATTERSRELATINGTOPREGNANCY," "POSTPARTUMCARE" and "ORALLEGEDPREGNANCYOUTCOMES."

"The consequences of this [amendment] are extremely far-reaching," Christen Pollo, a spokesperson for Citizens to Support MI Women and Children told The Washington Post. "Voters must say no to Proposal 3 to keep this confusing and extreme mess out of our state constitution."

In its decision Thursday, the Michigan Supreme Court noted that the full text of the amendment remains in 8-point type as required by law.

"Regardless of the existence or extent of the spacing, all of the words remain and they remain in the same order and it is not disputed that they are printed in 8-point type," the court ruled. "In this case, the meaning of the words has not changed by the alleged insufficient spacing between them."

Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget M. McCormack said the actions of the members of the election board who opposed the ballot measure were "a sad marker of the times" in her majority opinion.

"They would disenfranchise millions of Michiganders not because they believe the many thousands of Michiganders who signed the proposal and were confused by it, but because they think they have identified a technicality that allows them to do so, a game of gotcha gone very bad," she wrote.

A state court last week ruled that Michigan's 1931 law banning abortion is unconstitutional but the state legislature could pass a new ban following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The Reproductive Freedom for All campaign, which led the effort to collect signatures to get the question on the ballot said it would now shift its focus toward encouraging voters to turn out in November.

"We are energized and motivated now more than ever to restore the protections that we lost under Roe," Darci McConnell, a representative for the group, said.

U$A
Abortion clinic web pages offer no safeguard from tracking women, study says

Virtually all U.S.-based abortion clinic web pages include third-party tracking code enabling entities to sell or share browsing data with law enforcement or civil litigants post-Roe, new research suggests. Photo by Kristin Hardwick/Wikimedia Commons

Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Women who seek abortions are being urged to take significant precautions when searching for information on their computers and cell phones now that the Supreme Court has reversed Roe vs. Wade.

That's because virtually all U.S.-based abortion clinic web pages include a third-party tracking code that enables entities to sell or share browsing data with law enforcement or civil litigants, new research indicates.

To protect patient privacy, the researchers said abortion clinics should audit their websites to identify and remove third-party trackers.

They added that because browsing data are not protected under federal health privacy law, called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, women who seek abortions should follow government guidance to protect their privacy: install tracking blocking browser extensions and adjust privacy settings on their browsers and smartphones.

RELATED In rush to curtail abortion, states adopt stew of definitions for life

The suggestions are found in a research letter that was published Thursday in JAMA Internal Medicine. Dr. Ari B. Friedman, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, is the lead author.

Perelman also holds a secondary appointment in Penn's Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy.

The researchers looked at the web address of 414 National Abortion Federation member facilities, and then visited each URL by using a tool called "webXray," which detects third-party tracking.

For each web page, the investigators recorded data transfers to third-party domains, according to the research letter. Typically, such transfers include a user's Internet protocol, or IP, address and the web page being visited.

The researchers also recorded the presence of third-party cookies, data stored on a user's computer that can facilitate tracking across multiple websites.

They found that 99.1% of the abortion clinics' web pages included a third-party data transfer, and 69.1% included a third-party cookie.

Pediatricians tell peers: Step up to avoid 'destabilized' teen reproductive health services

"Across all web pages, we identified data transfers to 290 unique third-party domains owned by 66 unique parent entities," the research paper said.

In an accompanying editor's note, Dr. Mitchell H. Katz, president and chief executive officer of New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. called the situation "distressing."

"As physicians, we should do all we can to protect the privacy and safety of individuals seeking abortion-related health care," Katz said.

 Preparing to turn 100, Disney packs its expo with surprises

September 10 2022 

Fans cosplay in costumes while waiting in line during the Walt Disney D23 Expo in Anaheim, California.

AFP /Anaheim

Disney had plenty to offer movie fans at its biennial D23 Expo, with previews of two new animated features and an announcement that the entertainment giant’s centennial next year will include a sequel to Pixar hit Inside Out.
A constellation of stars filled Hall D at the Convention Center in Anaheim, California for the expo on Friday, as Disney presented exclusive images and made the surprise announcement about Inside Out 2. 
The sequel to the 2015 film will again portray a series of competing emotions (anger, joy, fear, sadness, disgust) struggling to coexist in the head of young Riley.
Amy Poehler will again voice Joy.
But this time, Poehler told fans at the Expo, Riley is a teenager, and will be experiencing a new emotion — which the actress would not reveal.
Kelsey Mann (Lightyear, The Good Dinosaur) directs the film, set for a summer 2024 release.
There were other surprises on the opening day of D23.
Disney subsidiary Pixar announced plans for Elio, an animation about an 11-year-old boy who feels he doesn’t fit in, but, after an alien encounter, accidentally becomes Earth’s ambassador.
First images of the production, also set for a 2024 release, depict colourful aliens as well as the faces of Elio, played by Yonas Kibreab (from the Obi-Wan Kenobi mini series), and his mother Olga, voiced by America Ferrara (of Ugly Betty fame).
The studio also presented a clip from its first long-form series, Win or Lose, which follows the adventures of a ragtag school softball team.
Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character.
Expo attendees also saw early scenes from Elemental, set for a 2023 release.
The film tells the story of the love between Ember (Leah Lewis of Nancy Drew) and Wade (Mamoudou Athie, Jurassic World: Dominion) who live in the city of Elemento.
The catch: the city’s inhabitants are literally made of the basic elements — fire, air, water or earth — so they face an elemental struggle to live together despite their obvious differences. (Wade is described as a “sappy water guy” — while Ember, of course, is fire.)
The Expo’s afternoon session also brought the first clips of Disney’s live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey, and of Mufasa: The Lion King, which with computer-generated images follows the transformation of the orphan cub into the ruler of a lush kingdom.
Disney also showed a short clip of Wish, which is set in the Kingdom of Wishes and tells the origins of magic. The animated production marks the studio’s celebration — through late 2023 — of its 100 years of existence. Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) stars.
The festivities began at the Convention Center with stars such as Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kristen Bell, Jude Law, Patrick Dempsey, Amy Adams and Maya Rudolph in attendance.
Disney said it will include 100 Years of Wonder in its logo, and it introduced fans to its Memorabilia exhibit, which tells the story of the company founded in October 1923 by Walt Disney and his brother Roy Disney.
A prominent part of the exhibit: the Mickey Mouse One, an aircraft that belonged to Walt Disney himself.
Thousands of fans of “the happiest place on Earth” lined up early to enjoy interactive experiences, purchase products and meet friends.
Princesses and Peter Pan, witches, storm troopers and an array of fantastical creatures filled the halls as the Expo — normally held every two years but cancelled last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic — returned.
“Feels like I’ve got to get emotional, because I’ve been so looking forward to come back,” said actor Allen Waiserman, who arrived on opening day disguised as Cinderella’s wicked stepmother.
Waiserman said he had worked for months on his outfit, and the transformation on Friday took five hours.
“It’s not just about the Disney brand anymore.
It’s about all the fans that we’ve met, who become like family for us — who accept you for whoever you are,” he said.
“All of my friends here accept me for being dressed in drag.”
He added, “You know, we’re just so happy to be back together.” D23 runs through Sunday.

ETHIOPIA'S WAR OF AGGRESSION

Ethiopia’s Tigray rebels say ready for AU-led peace talks


Ethiopia’s Tigray rebels say they are ready to take part in peace talks led by the African Union (AU), removing an obstacle to potential negotiations with the government to end almost two years of fighting.


Tigray People's Liberation Front leader Debretsion Gebremichael earlier this month proposed a truce with four conditions including 'unfettered humanitarian access' and the restoration of essential services in Tigray 

[File: Eduardo Soteras/AFP]© Provided by Al Jazeera

The announcement was made amid a flurry of international diplomacy after fighting flared last month for the first time in months in northern Ethiopia, torpedoing a humanitarian truce.

“The government of Tigray is prepared to participate in a robust peace process under the auspices of the African Union,” said a statement by the authorities in the northernmost region of Tigray.

“Furthermore we are ready to abide by an immediate and mutually agreed cessation of hostilities in order to create a conducive atmosphere.”

There was no immediate comment from the Ethiopian government, which has long insisted that any peace process must be brokered by the Addis Ababa-headquartered AU.

But the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had until now vehemently opposed the role of the AU’s Horn of Africa envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, protesting at his “proximity” to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Sunday’s statement, which coincided with Ethiopia’s new year, made no mention of any preconditions for talks, although it said it expected a “credible” peace process with “mutually acceptable” mediators as well as international observers.

TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael had earlier this month proposed a truce with four conditions including “unfettered humanitarian access” and the restoration of essential services in war-stricken Tigray.

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, he had also called for the withdrawal of Eritrean forces from across Ethiopia, and for troops to pull out of western Tigray, a disputed region claimed by both Tigrayans and Amharas, the country’s second-largest ethnic group.

‘Choose talks over fighting’

On Saturday, the AU’s Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat had announced that Obasanjo’s mandate would be extended.

“I reiterated my full confidence in him & encouraged his continued engagement with both parties & intl actors to work towards peace & reconciliation in Ethiopia & the region,” Faki said on Twitter after meeting Obasanjo.

Faki also said he had held talks Saturday with the visiting United States envoy for the Horn of Africa, Mike Hammer.

“May the parties in the conflict have the courage to choose talks over fighting, and participate in an African Union-led process that produces a lasting peace,” Hammer said in a new year’s message for Ethiopians on Sunday.

Fighting has raged on several fronts in northern Ethiopia since hostilities resumed on August 24, with both sides accusing the other of firing first and breaking a March truce.

The combat first broke out around Tigray’s southeastern border, but has since spread along to areas west and north of the initial clashes, with the TPLF accusing Ethiopian and Eritrean forces of launching a massive joint offensive on September 1.

The United Nations had said on Thursday that the renewed fighting had forced a halt to desperately needed aid deliveries to Tigray, both by road and air.

The March truce had allowed aid convoys to travel to Tigray’s capital Mekelle for the first time since mid-December.

But in its first situation report since the latest clashes broke out, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the violence was “already impacting the lives and livelihood of vulnerable people, including the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance”.

The Ghost of Richard Harris review – a hushed reassessment of a hellraiser by his son

Venice film festival: There are some memorable moments in this documentary about the great Irish actor, but too many inconvenient truths are dismissed for it to be definitive

‘I drank because I loved it!’ … The Ghost of Richard Harris. Photograph: Harris Archive

Peter Bradshaw
@PeterBradshaw1

Sun 4 Sep 2022 

Adrian Sibley’s documentary is a genial, if sometimes incurious film about the legendary Irish actor and singer, who began his screen career as a pressure-cooker of rage on the rugby field in Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life and finally became the beatific face of snowy-haired wisdom as Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies.

This watchable film goes easy on Harris’s boozing and brawling: in fact, it takes an almost a counter-revolutionary approach to the whole subject. In recent years, talk of Ollie and Peter and Richard’s hell-raising has usually been countered with a frowning diagnosis of alcoholism, and this film simply quotes Harris’s own roistering dismissal of all that: (“I drank because I loved it!”) and pretty much leaves things there. Incredibly, Harris hired a press photographer to cover a week-long post-divorce European jaunt via private plane he took with his entourage, which took in many bars and brothels – to humiliate his ex-wife, it is alleged, although his high-jinks were covered with giggling hilarity in the papers. Harris’s cocaine habit is hardly mentioned: I suspect because it doesn’t fit in with the essentially sentimental narrative of booze.


‘He thought the world was bad and life was rubbish’ – Jared Harris’s shock at his dad Richard’s worldview

We go from Harris’s boyhood in a well-off home in Limerick in the Irish republic, his idyllic summers on Kilkee in County Clare, with a large family whose stern, disciplinarian dad was a powerful presence, and then to the Jesuit school where getting the strap was normal. He came to acting late, became a mature student at Lamda in London and, with remarkable entrepreneurial flair, rented a small theatre to mount his own production of Clifford Odets’ Winter Journey (The Country Girl); it led to a job with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, West End stage roles and then a stellar movie career, with work in musical theatre, the long-running, long-touring Camelot stage show, and an amazing side-hustle in pop music.

The most affecting parts of the film come with his three grownup sons gathering to remember him: actor Jared Harris, director Damian Harris, and actor Jamie Harris. They are still overawed by the colossal reputation which he had cultivated while far away from their growing-up (the boys had been placed at boarding schools). There is something very ghostly in Jared coming back to the sumptuous suite Harris kept at London’s Savoy hotel, where he spent his final days.

Harris with his sons, Damian and Jared, February 1966. 

Photograph: Stephan C Archetti/Getty Images
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So where did the rage come from, Jared wonders, the rage that lay behind so much of the excess? Sibley offers a very plausible explanation: when Harris was 19, his promising sporting career was ruined by a diagnosis of tuberculosis, which kept him in bed and which was also socially humiliating because TB was associated with the lower orders. It was in his sickbed that Harris discovered Shakespeare and the imaginative life – but maybe that surge of imagination fused with a surge of frustration and rage.

And how about his emotional life and family life? What was it really like, day after day, week after week, month after month for his wife Elizabeth Rees-Williams who was stuck at home and the boys sadly away at boarding school, while Harris was away on location and on tour, enjoying himself? Sexual indiscretions were an important but undiscussed part of booze episodes, and post-booze amnesia was a convenient route to self-forgiveness. The film gallantly steers away from this. Leniency is the film’s mode of operation, but it wouldn’t work without it, and it’s a watchable study of a unique talent.

The Ghost of Richard Harris screened at the Venice film festival.

A KARAOKE  FAVORITE OF MINE CAUSE HE DON'T SING HE RECITES

 

HIS MOST CONTROVERSIAL MOVIE

 

HIS BIG HIT SINGLE

RIP
Obituary: Virginia Patton, actress who starred in the Christmas classic ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ thankIs to a projectionist’s error

Virginia Patton and James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. Photo: CBS Photo Archive

September 04 2022 02:30 AM

Virginia Patton, who has died aged 97, played Ruth Bailey, James Stewart’s sister-in-law, in Frank Capra’s uplifting 1946 Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life. She was the only member of the cast personally signed up by the director, her fellow actors all being on loan from other studios, and she was the last surviving adult actor from the cast.

It’s a Wonderful Life centres around Stewart’s George Bailey, who contemplates taking his own life after a financial disaster but is saved when an angel, Clarence (Henry Travers), earns his wings by showing George how the world would have turned out if George had not been born.

Patton, a tall, blonde, dazzling young starlet, owed her part to a projectionist’s mistake. She had made a test reel for the producer-director George Stevens, but a few days later Capra was in the projection room to watch Stewart and Donna Reed, who played his wife Mary, in early scenes from It’s a Wonderful Life.

The projectionist picked up the wrong can of film and unwittingly screened Virginia’s test, but Capra sat through it and decided she would be ideal for the part he had in mind.

The role was small but crucial. In a scene shot at a railway station in Pasadena, Ruth alights from a train as the new bride of George Bailey’s brother Harry, and announces that her father has offered Harry a lucrative job elsewhere, crushing George’s dreams of leaving Bedford Falls.

She adored working for Capra. “It was a wonderful atmosphere that some other directors didn’t produce.”

It’s a Wonderful Life was not a box-office success on its release, particularly in the US, but affection for it blossomed as repeat showings became a fixture of Christmas television. Patton joked that she had been “in more homes than Santa Claus”, but she knew there was something special about the film while she was working on it.

“People of all generations can still identify with Jimmy Stewart’s character,” she said in 2011.

In 1995 It’s a Wonderful Life was one of 45 films chosen by the Vatican to commemorate the 100th anniversary of filmmaking.

Patton’s role, however, was not quite as chaste as she had been promised. As she put it: “I was a teenager playing a very sophisticated woman, or so I thought.”

These contrasting features are revealed when Stewart kisses her in the film, although Capra had told her that this would not happen.

Virginia Ann Marie Patton was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 25, 1925, the daughter of Donald Patton and his wife Marie. Her father’s work took the family to Portland, Oregon, where she was educated at Jefferson High School before moving to California.

“I wanted to make it in Hollywood,” she said. “I could think of nothing else. When I arrived on Hollywood Boulevard, however, I have to admit my slight disappointment at seeing Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Hedy Lamarr and others sauntering along the sidewalk.”

She studied acting at the University of Southern California and soon secured several minor film roles with Warner Brothers.

After It’s a Wonderful Life, she made four more films, including the Ku Klux Klan exposé The Burning Cross (1947). But the previous year Warner Bros had released her from her contract, and without the backing of a big studio her career started to founder.

She retired from acting in 1949 to marry Cruse Moss, an American Motors executive. Although Capra urged her to think twice about abandoning her acting career, she had no regrets and “couldn’t see me doing that for my life”.

The couple settled in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she ran an investment business. Moss died in 2018; they had three children.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]

French abortion drama ‘Happening’ tops Venice Film Festival
 

Director Audrey Diwan holds her Golden Lion award for Best Film

 next to actor Anamaria Vartolomei at the Venice Film Festival. Reuters

 

Penélope Cruz 

Taylor Russell 

Lindsey Bahr
September 11 2021

Audrey Diwan’s abortion drama L’Evenement”(Happening) has won the Golden Lion at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, while the runner up honour went to Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God.

Diwan's film about a French college student who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy on a search for an abortion was the unanimous choice from the prestigious jury that included recent Oscar winners Bong Joon Ho and Chloé Zhao.

The competition this year was robust, including well-received films like Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” and “The Hand of God.” Twenty-one films were vying for the prize, which has become a promising early indicator of a film’s Oscars prospects.

“I did this movie with anger. I did the movie with desire also. I did it with my belly, my guts, my heart, my head,” Diwan said Saturday. “I wanted “Happening” to be an experience.”

Diwan is the sixth woman to have directed a Golden Lion winning film. Others include Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”), Margarethe Von Trotta (“Marianne & Juliane”), Agnès Varda (“Vagabond”), Mira Nair (“Monsoon Wedding) and Sofia Coppola (“Somewhere”).

Sorrentino took the runner up prize, the Silver Lion, for his semi-autobiographical film “The Hand of God,” while Campion won the Silver Lion for best director for her period epic “The Power of her Dog.” It’s her second time winning a runner-up prize at Venice. Her first was in 1990 for “An Angel at My Table,” a Janet Frame biopic.

“It’s amazing to get an award from you people,” Campion said, talking to the jury standing beside her. “You’ve made the bar very, very high for me in cinema, Bong, Chloé.”

Penélope Cruz won the Volpi Cup for best actress for her performance as a new mother in Almodovar’s “Parallel Mothers.” She thanked her director and frequent collaborator for, “Inspiring me every day with your search for truth.”

“You have created magic again and I could not be more grateful or proud to be part of it,” Cruz continued. “I adore you.”

Gyllenhaal won best screenplay for her adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s 2008 novel “The Lost Daughter,” which is both her first screenplay and film as a director.

“I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be here,” Gyllenhaal said. “I was married in Italy, in Puglia. I found out I was pregnant with my second daughter in Italy. And really my life as a director and writer and my film was born here in this theater.”

Gyllenhaal said her film is “Italian in its bones” even though it was shot in Greece and in the English language.

“In a way as women we have been born into an agreement to be silent and Ferrante broke that agreement,” Gyllenhaal said. “I had the same feeling seeing ‘The Piano’ when I was in high school.”

John Arcilla was awarded the Volpi Cup for best actor for “On The Job: The Missing 8.”

The festival has in the past decade reestablished itself as the preeminent launch pad for awards hopefuls. Zhao’s “Nomadland” won the prize last year and went on to win best picture, best director and best actor at the Oscars. In addition to Zhao and Bong, who served as president, the jury also included actors Sarah Gadon and Cynthia Erivo and directors Saverio Costanzo (“My Brilliant Friend”) and Alexander Nanau (“Collective”).

Zhao’s trajectory was the second time in four years that the Golden Lion winner has won best picture. Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” shared a similar path. Venice’s 2019 winner, “Joker,” simply went on to get a best picture nomination (and ten other nods as well).

Not winning the top prize at Venice doesn’t end an Oscar campaign before it starts, though. Many eventual winners simply premiered at the festival, and not always even in the competition before winning best picture (“Birdman” and “Spotlight”) or best director (Damien Chazelle for “La La Land,” Alfonso Cuarón for “Gravity” and “Roma,” del Toro for “The Shape of Water” and Alejandro G. Iñarritu for “Birdman”).

Some of the biggest films at the festival were not part of the competition, including Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel,” Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” and Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho.”

In the Horizons section, “Pilgrims” by Laurynas Bareisa won best picture. The actor award went to Piseth Chhun of “White Building” and actress to Laure Calamy for “A plein temps,” which also won best director for Éric Gravel.

The awards ceremony brings to a close the first major film festival of the fall season which thus far has appeared to be a resounding success, despite the delta variant. The COVID safety protocols were strict and the films strong.

But Venice also successfully brought the glamour back to a red carpet that may have been less crowded than usual but made up for in viral moments, from a teasingly tender embrace between co-stars Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain to the red carpet debut of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck — although perhaps it should be called a debut redo since the two rekindled a romance that ended 18 years ago.

Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras wins Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion

"All the Beauty and the Bloodshed," a documentary about photographer Nan Goldin, won the festival's best film award. Cate Blanchett and Colin Farrell were crowned best actors.

"All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" is Laura Poitras' latest documentary, about photographer Nan Goldin

The Golden Lion for best film went to "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed," a documentary about acclaimed photographer Nan Goldin, and her David-vs.-Goliath campaign against the influential Sackler family for their role in the opioid epidemic. It was directed by Academy Award winner Laura Poitras, whose 2014 documentary, "Citizenfour" portrayed Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal.

There were 23 films competing for the top award at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, which took place from August 31 to September 10.

'Saint Omer' lands runner-up Silver Lion award

The Silver Lion grand jury prize went to Alice Diop, for "Saint Omer." The French filmmaker's feature debut also earned her the Lion of the Future award. Diop's previous documentary film, "We," had won the top prize of the Encounters section at the 2021 Berlinale.

Alice Diop's "Saint Omer" was acclaimed as "hypnotically absorbing" by Variety

The Silver Lion award for best director went to Luca Guadagnino ("Call Me By Your Name") for his film "Bones & All," a cannibal romance starring Timothee Chalamet and Taylor Russell. The Canadian actress also won the Marcello Mastroianni award for best new talent.

The Special Jury Prize recognized Jafar Panahi's latest work, "No Bears." The Iranian director was arrested in July and must now serve a six-year sentence that was originally handed to him in 2010. Panahi had been defying his country's authorities work ban for years, finding creative solutions to nevertheless pursue filmmaking.

The award for best screenplay went to British-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, who also directed his Venice entry, "The Banshees of Inisherin." One of the two co-stars of the black comedy-drama, Colin Farrell, won best actor, while Cate Blanchett took the best actress nod for her portrayal of an acclaimed orchestra conductor who faces a sudden downfall in Todd Field's "Tar." Accepting the award, she also thanked her co-star, German actress Nina Hoss.

Cate Blanchett's performance in "Tar" was also acclaimed

US actress Julianne Moore leads seven-person jury

Julianne Moore served as the president of the competition's seven-person jury, which included Argentine director Mariano Cohn, Italian director and screenwriter Leonardo Di Costanzo, French director Audrey Diwan (who won the Golden Lion last year with "Happening"), Iranian actress Leila Hatami,  and Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

British-Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro, who is also a member of the jury, couldn't participate in the awards ceremony due to a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. 

There weren't however any particular COVID restrictions during the event, leading the ceremony's host, actress Rocio Munoz Morales, to say at the beginning of the night that the fest "shined with normalcy."

The world's oldest film festival, Venice is renowned for selecting Academy Award-winning films; eight of the last 10 Oscars for best director went to filmmakers whose works premiered in its competition.

A record number of Netflix productions, four films, were also in the run. Among them, Noah Baumbach's "White Noise," a satire of US consumerism and academia starring Adam Driver, opened the festival. The streaming giant's productions however left empty-handed.

French actress Catherine Deneuve and US filmmaker and scriptwriter Paul Schrader (Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," 1974), both received a Golden Lion for their lifetime achievement at the opening of the festival.



VENICE FILM FESTIVAL: STARS ON THE RED CARPET
Harry Styles: Just the right collar?
Hundreds of fans melted in the sun waiting for him to arrive: Harry Styles, a member of former boy band One Direction until 2016, has become a pop phenomenon in the realms of music and fashion in recent years. He also wants to establish himself as an actor. He had his first major film role in the thriller "Don't Worry, Darling"; on the red carpet, he showcased his sense of style in a Gucci suit.
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Edited by: Wesley Dockery

Venice Film Festival: documentary 'All The Beauty And The Bloodshed' wins Golden Lion

The oldest international film festival – and one of the most important, especially considering its proven track record for premiering future Oscar contenders – has come to a close.

The Competition jury of this 79th edition led by Julianne Moore has crowned Laura Poitras’ documentary All The Beauty And The Bloodshed as the winner of the coveted Golden Lion award for Best Film.

"Documentary is cinema"

This is historic win for several reasons: not only is it only the second time in the festival’s 79-year history that a documentary wins the Golden Lion (following Italian director Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro GRA, which won the Golden Lion nine years ago), but it’s the third time running that a female filmmaker wins the Golden Lion, after Chloé Zhao in 2020 for Nomadland and Audrey Diwan last year for the abortion drama Happening.

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed is the portrait of artist Nan Goldin and her campaign against the Sackler pharmaceutical dynasty, who was responsible for the opioid epidemic.

Poitras, an investigative journalist, previously won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2015 for her blisteringly powerful Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour.


Laura Poitras with the Golden Lion

“This is for Nan,” stated Poitras when receiving the Golden Lion. “Monday is her birthday, so we’ll bring this to Nan.”

She also thanked the festival for recognizing that “documentary is cinema”.

Goldin is one of the world’s most important living American artists and a documentarian of the US’ LGBT+ history. Her story is a rich and complicated one and will doubtlessly be celebrated further as the fall season continues.

There is no release date for the film as of yet, but the film's distributor, Neon, has stated that the theatrical release would coincide with a retrospective of Goldin's work at the Moderna Museet, set to open 29 October. HBO Documentary Films recently acquired it for a television run.

Bones and Banshees

Two other major winners this year are two films Euronews Culture flagged very early on as potential award winners: Bones And All and The Banshees Of Inisherin.

Italian director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Suspiria) won the Silver Lion for Best Director for Bones And All.

He teamed up once again with Timothée Chalamet for the adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’ novel about a pair of drifters (Chalamet and Taylor Russel) who embark on a road trip and fall in love. The twist in this seemingly by-the-book coming-of-age drama? The two scamps more-than-dabble in cannibalism.



Luca Guadagnino wins Best Director 

Guadagnino crafts some of the most sensorial cinematic journeys put to screen, and Bones And All is without a doubt one of the most anticipated indie titles of 2022. Audiences will be able to sink their teeth into this tender yet bloody love story about the intense impossibility of love in November.

His lead actress, Taylor Russell, the breakout star from Waves, nabbed the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Talent.

Colin Farrell beat several frontrunners to take the Best Actor award for his performance in The Banshees Of Inisherin. He accepted his award via video link from Los Angeles. His director, Martin McDonagh won Best Screenplay for the Ireland-set drama.

Many thought that Brendan Fraiser would win Best Actor for his celebrated big screen comeback in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, but the latter remains another frontrunner for acting prizes in the near future.

This is the second time Martin McDonagh wins the Best Screenplay award in Venice, following 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which went on to win Best Film at the Oscars. Time will tell if his 2022 Venice win will also herald future Oscar wins.



Martin McDonagh wins Best Screenplay 

The Banshees Of Inisherin sees him reunite with his In Bruges stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson for an absurdist tragicomedy set in 1920s western Ireland. They play two lifelong friends, Pádraic and Colm, whose relationship breaks down when one suddenly decides to cut off all ties with the other. The repercussions ripple across the small-town community and threaten to descend into violence.

This dark comedy about friendship shows off McDonagh’s knack for blurring comedy and tragedy and will be released on 21 October.

Blanchett heading for the Oscars; France wins big

Cate Blanchett predictably won Best Actress for her towering performance as a classical conductor in Todd Field’s Tár, a win which kickstarts her Oscar campaign as frontrunner for best actress.

When accepting her award, Blanchett thanked Field, saying that he has “been absent from our screens for too long…and I’m glad you’re back.”


Cate Blanchett wins the Volpi Cup for Best Actress 

Indeed, Tár is Todd Field’s first film in 16 years - a Terrence Malick-sized absence after 2006’s Little Children. It is an account of renowned composer Lydia Tár, the first female chief conductor of a German orchestra. She is days away from recording her pivotal new piece, and trouble is looming.

The intensely unnerving drama is released in cinemas on 7 October.

Elsewhere, French drama Saint Omer by documentarian Alice Diop won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, as well as the Lion of the Future – Luigi de Laurentiis Award for a debut film.



Alice Diop wins the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize 

Saint Omer is the narrative feature debut of Diop. In this nuanced and claustrophobic legal drama, Diop chronicles the trial of a Franco-Senegalese mother who committed infanticide. It’s an extraordinary film that is based on the real-life case of Fabienne Kabou, a French-Senegalese Philosophy student who killed her 15-month-old daughter by leaving her to drown on a beach in northern France.

Politically engaged Venice

Finally, the Special Jury Prize went to No Bears by celebrated Iranian director Jafar Panahi.

As we noted in our preview of this year’s festival, No Bears was one of the most anticipated titles, especially after the imprisonment of its director, who was sentenced to six years in prison this year.

Venice's Artistic Director Alberto Barbera expressed the festival’s support for Iranian filmmakers persecuted in their country and his dismay at the incarceration “for no reason” of Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, directors who are “only guilty of using their right to freedom of expression”.

Earlier today (10/09), Venice jury head Julianne Moore, jury member Audrey Diwan and Barbera chose to join activists from the International Coalition Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR) on the red carpet in a flash mob calling for the release of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi from Iranian prison.



Audrey Diwan (left) and Julianne Moore (centre), protesting on the red carpet for the release of Jafar Panahi 

Getty Images© Provided by Euronews

On July 12, Panahi was arrested in Tehran and slapped with a six-year prison sentence after he inquired about the arrests of fellow directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Al-e Ahmad.

Moore held a sign emblazoned with Panahi’s face and the call to action: “Release Jafar Panahi!”

Panahi is no stranger to Venice, having won the Golden Lion for The Circle in 2000. His newest film is a political thriller that follows two parallel stories of love. His win serves to remind audiences how lucky they are to be watching the output of a voice that refuses to be silenced, even against Iran’s crackdown on free expression and peaceful dissidence.

A streaming loser

While many expected the Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde, The Whale or Florian Zeller’s _The Father_-follow up, The Son, to go home with some awards, the major loser this year is Netflix.

With four films in Competition this year – Noah Baumach’s White Noise, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde and Romain Gavras’ Athena – the streaming giant was looking for a repeat of 2018, when Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma won the Golden Lion. Last year, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog (another Netflix title) won best director and foreshadowed Campion’s Oscars campaign.

Still, we're not too worried for the streamer - Blonde comes out on 28 September, Bardo is released on 16 December, and White Noise hits the streaming platform on 30 December. All three remain highly anticipated titles and should rear their heads when it comes to awards nominations next year.

The Golden Lion La Biennale di Venezia© Provided by Euronews

The full list of the Venice Film Festival 2022 Competition award winners can be found below – you can be sure that these are the films that everyone will be talking about in the second half of this year and which will dominate awards chat once the fall festival season is over:
Golden Lion for Best Film: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed - Laura Poitras (USA)
Silver Lion - Grand Jury Prize: Saint Omer - Alice Diop (France)
Silver Lion - Award for Best Director: Luca Guadagnino – Bones And All (Italy/USA)
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Cate Blanchett - Tár (USA)
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin (Ireland/UK/USA)
Award for Best Screenplay: Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin
Special Jury Prize: No Bears - Jafar Panahi (Iran)
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Talent: Taylor Russell - Bones and All

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The Associated Press. All rights reserved© Provided by Euronews

Styles stokes sexuality debate with 'My Policeman' premiere in Toronto

Andrew MARSZAL
Sun, September 11, 2022 


Pop superstar Harry Styles discussed the complexities of sexuality and said he found the closeted gay man he plays in 1950s drama "My Policeman" depressing, as his latest movie premiered at the Toronto film festival Sunday.

"My Policeman" is one of several LGBTQ-themed movies in what organizers have hailed as a "breakthrough" year at North America's biggest film festival, along with Billy Eichner's rom-com "Bros" and critically praised gay military drama "The Inspection."

But the world premiere of Styles's latest movie comes as the British actor-singer faces allegations from some high-profile critics of appropriating queer culture, including his gender-non-conforming fashion choices, while keeping his own sexuality ambiguous.

In the film, he plays Tom, a policeman caught in a forbidden love triangle with a young woman and an urbane art gallery curator in 1950s Britain, when homosexuality was illegal.

"I think there's so much nuance to them, and so much complexity that comes for people in real life around sexuality and finding themselves," Styles told a Toronto press conference.

The movie, which also stars Emma Corrin and Rupert Everett, jumps between 1957 and 1999, depicting the trio at two different stages of their lives, when Britain's attitude and laws about homosexuality had radically changed.

It deals with the consequences for all three of Tom's being forced to hide his love for curator Patrick.

"I think Tom's version of acceptance is a pretty depressing one -- I think he accepts that he's gonna deny this part of himself for a really long time," said Styles.

He noted: "For me, the reason why the story is so devastating is because ultimately to me, the whole story is about wasted time.

"I think wasted time is the most devastating thing, because it's the only thing we can't control. It's the one thing we can't have back."

- LGBTQ actors -

Styles has been praised by some for normalizing gender fluidity and speaking out for LGBTQ rights, and famously stoked speculation about his sexuality by telling a concert audience, "We're all a little bit gay, aren't we?"

But his position has drawn criticism from prominent LGBTQ figures such as actor-singer Billy Porter, who has accused Styles of "just doing it because it's the thing to do."

The topic of actors who do not openly identify as LGTBQ playing gay roles was raised and even ridiculed earlier at the Toronto festival with the world premiere of "Bros" -- billed as the first gay rom-com from a major Hollywood studio.

"The entire cast is openly LGBTQ actors, even in the straight roles in the movie, which is rare," star Eichner told AFP on the red carpet.

The movie itself contains several quips about allegedly Oscars-hungry straight actors taking on gay roles in films, such as "Brokeback Mountain" and last year's "The Power of the Dog" starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

"I mean it's absurd and kind of infuriating that it took this long, that we haven't had more of these movies; there should be tons of these movies by now," said Eichner, about "Bros."

"But still, I'm very grateful that Universal finally decided that it was time."

Director Nicholas Stoller added that he hoped the film about a commitment-phobic gay New York podcaster reluctantly seeking love will resonate with "not just an LGBTQ audience, but a straight audience."

- 'I see you' -

Ahead of the festival, the event's CEO Cameron Bailey told AFP there had been a "breakthrough this year" for films packed with "LGBTQ stories being told in maybe places that they haven't been before, and in a much more mainstream way.

"The biggest companies that make films have often been the most cautious, shall we say, when it comes to this kind of representation," he said.

"That seems to be changing."

Among those was "The Inspection" from writer-director Elegance Bratton, who drew on his own experiences as a Black gay man who joined the US Marines to escape homelessness and was forced to endure at-times brutal homophobia.

Jeremy Pope, who plays Bratton's alter ego Ellis and is openly gay, told Deadline that his performance came "from a place of truth and honesty."

"It ended up being something very beautiful and -- for me and for him -- very healing, to be able to look across the room at my writer and director, that was Black and queer, and say 'I see you.'"

TIFF runs until September 18.

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