VENICE: Back when he was 22 and she was 16, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz brought their movie “Jamon, Jamon” to the Venice International Film Festival.
Now, a quarter of a century and two children later, they were back with another project, “Loving Pablo,” their first film together as a real-life couple.
“It is interesting that we are back with a movie together exactly 25 years later and it feels like time has flown, there are so many things happened in between but it also feels like it was yesterday. Very strange,” said Cruz, who married Bardem in 2010.
“Loving Pablo” tells the story of notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar and his unlikely lover, TV journalist Virginia Vallejo. Despite the wealth, the glitz and the glamor, the affair becomes the undoing of Vallejo.
Cruz admitted that Bardem captured Escobar perhaps too well. “I felt like I could not wait for the last day of shooting when I do not have to hear him or see him as this character as it was starting to be really disturbing for me,” she said.
Bardem said it was a challenge not to take their characters home and “get back to our lives, which is way more important and more interesting than their lives.”
Working together on “Loving Pablo” seems to have gone well. Bardem and Cruz have already started shooting director Asghar Farhadi’s next film together.
Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem return to Venice festival
Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem return to Venice festival
Policewoman honored for soothing crying baby when her mother fell unconscious at Beirut airport
- ISF honors first adjutant for comforting and feeding baby-milk to scared infant whose mother was rushed to hospital
- Social media users praise policewoman for her ‘humane and empathetic’ act after photos went viral
BEIRUT: A Lebanese policewoman who comforted an infant and fed her milk while her mother was hospitalized after falling unconscious at Beirut airport was honored for what social media users dubbed a ‘humane and empathetic’ act.
First Adjutant Nadia Nasser was on duty when the unidentified baby’s mother suffered a sudden illness and fell unconscious at a checkpoint inside Beirut International Airport earlier this month.
Photos of Nasser holding the months-old baby in her arms, preparing a milk bottle and feeding her went viral across social media, where users described the policewomen’s act as ‘motherly, compassionate and humane’ behavior.
Brig. Gen. Moussa Karnib of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces honored Nasser on Friday for caring for the infant for almost two hours at the airport after her mother was rushed to a hospital.
A media statement said the first adjutant was honored upon the directives of ISF’s Director General Maj. Gen. Raed Abdullah, after she took personal initiative on Feb. 2 to comfort the infant.
Commenting on Nasser’s photos that went viral, a user called Sami said she should be promoted for her ‘selfless and empathetic’ act.
Another user, Joe, commented: “She should be rewarded.
“This is how loyalty and love for one’s job and country are built,” wrote a user called Youssef.
Media reports said that when the incident happened, the baby’s fear and cries prompted Nasser to take the initiative to comfort and remain beside her until her mother’s condition stabilized.
ISF’s statement did not clarify whether Nasser and the baby accompanied the mother in the ambulance or how they were reunited later.
