LONDON: Actress Vanessa Redgrave made her directing debut in London on Tuesday with a film about refugees, featuring fellow stage stars Ralph Fiennes and Emma Thompson.
“Sea Sorrow” recounts life for refugees fleeing European war zones throughout the last century and aims to have an impact on viewers.
“We all get tired, we’ve got to be reminded of the deeper things that make it worthwhile to live and to help others, and that’s really why we made this film,” Redgrave, 79, told the Press Association. The Oscar-winning actress filmed “Sea Sorrow” in countries including France, Greece, Italy and Lebanon, beginning the project after an image of a Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach went viral.
“First and foremost it was my horror at the fact so many refugees were dying who should have been given safe passage, and could have been given safe passage,” she said.
“I thought of it before but when the little boy Alan Kurdi was found washed up, that was the moment that said ‘get going, get started’.”
Nearly 12,000 people have died or gone missing crossing the Mediterranean Sea since the start of 2014, according to figures from the UN refugee agency.
After a peak of more than one million sea arrivals in Europe in 2015, so far this year more than 350,000 people have made the crossing.
“Sea Sorrow” is produced by Redgrave and her son Carlo Nero, who said it had particular significance at Christmas.
“We have to remember that the Christmas celebration in the religious sense is about persecution and a family of refugees in the Middle East — that is the story and it is our story,” he said.
Drowned Syrian refugee inspires ‘Sea Sorrow’
Drowned Syrian refugee inspires ‘Sea Sorrow’
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
