LOS ANGELES: Hollywood spoke with one voice at the Golden Globes on Sunday to declare war on the film industry’s culture of sexual harassment and abuse.
The industry’s elite turned the red carpet black for the Globes, the glitzy launch of Tinseltown’s awards season, in a fashionable repudiation of disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein and others ensnared in allegations of misconduct.
Billed as the most raucous event in the showbiz calendar, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s annual prize-giving is a draw for filmmakers and actors looking to create some buzz ahead of the Oscars in March.
But this year’s ceremony, seen as the first big opportunity for the industry to unite and deliver a message about how Hollywood can move forward, struck a more serious tone.
“Speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have,” actress and media powerhouse Oprah Winfrey told the audience at the Beverly Hilton as she accepted a lifetime achievement award.
“For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up,” she added, earning a standing ovation.
Actors and actresses turned out in black in solidarity with victims of Weinstein and numerous other figures exposed by the harassment and abuse scandal, including Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner and Dustin Hoffman.
And the overall message was a call for continued change.
“People are aware now of a power imbalance. It’s led to abuse in our industry. (...) It’s everywhere,” Meryl Streep, who is vying for a Globe for her work in media drama “The Post,” told E! network on the red carpet.
Fellow Oscar winner Viola Davis added: “It’s all of these women just embracing their authentic voices and standing in solidarity with each other.”
Seth Meyers, making his debut as Globes host, opened the show with joke after joke about Hollywood’s post-Weinstein reckoning.
“It’s 2018, marijuana is finally allowed and sexual harassment finally isn’t. It’s going to be a good year,” the late night NBC funnyman said.
“For the male nominees in the room tonight, this is the first time in three months it won’t be terrifying to hear your name read out loud.”
The ceremony at the Beverly Hilton is not as reliable at predicting Oscars glory as the galas held by Hollywood’s acting, producing and directing unions.
But it remains one of the most high-profile and glamorous events of the awards calendar and tends to generate more headlines for tipsy tributes and wacky one-liners.
Leading the pack this year is Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy romance “The Shape of Water” with seven nominations, while “The Post” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” went into the night tied for second, with six each.
Overall, 25 awards are given out — 14 for movies and 11 for TV — and, as usual, the 90-member HFPA has sprung more than a few surprises in the nominations, placing horror satire “Get Out” in the best comedy-musical category.
But there were no nominations at all for female filmmakers despite huge successes in 2017 for Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird“), Patty Jenkins (“Wonder Woman“), Dee Rees (“Mudbound“), Kathryn Bigelow (“Detroit“) and Sofia Coppola (“The Beguiled“).
The first film award of the evening went to Sam Rockwell, who took home the best supporting actor in a film prize for crime drama “Three Billboards.”
He paid tribute to his “actor-friendly” director Martin McDonagh and co-star Frances McDormand, whom he described as “a force of nature.”
McDonagh also won for best screenplay. But Del Toro took the best director prize.
While many fields were wide open, James Franco (“The Disaster Artist“) was always a shoo-in to win best actor in a musical/comedy movie.
Franco — who also directed the film about Tommy Wiseau’s flop-turned-cult-hit “The Room” — gave a shoutout to his brother and co-star Dave, telling the gathered celebrities: “I love him more than anything. Thanks to my mother for giving him to me.”
On the small screen, HBO’s “Big Little Lies” scooped up a rare trio of acting awards for Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgard and Laura Dern.
“I hope we can elicit change through the stories we tell and the way we tell them,” said Kidman, who was named best actress in a limited series for her role as an abused wife in the show.
Dern urged Hollywood to support survivors of abuse and to promote restorative justice.
“May we teach our children that speaking out without the fear of retribution is our culture’s new north star,” she said.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” followed up its Emmys night glory, when it won four statuettes, by beating perennial awards juggernaut “Game of Thrones” to the Globe for best TV series.
Its star Elisabeth Moss also took home the prize for best actress in a drama, and thanked Margaret Atwood, who wrote the best-selling dystopian novel on which the Hulu series was based.
“Margaret Atwood, this is for you and the women who came before you and after you who were brave enough to speak out against intolerance and injustice and to fight for equality and freedom in this world,” Moss said.
Hollywood stars declare war on sexual misconduct at Globes
Hollywood stars declare war on sexual misconduct at Globes
Saudi Film ‘Hajjan’ wins 6 nominations at Critics Awards for Arab Films
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia-based film “Hajjan,” directed by Egyptian filmmaker Abu Bakr Shawky, is nominated for six categories at the eighth Critics Awards for Arab Films.
The movie is competing in the best feature film, best screenplay, best actor, best music, best cinematography and best editing categories.
“Hajjan” tells the story of Matar, a boy who embarks on a journey across the desert with his camel, Hofira.
The movie is a co-production between the Kingdom’s King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, or Ithra, and Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy’s Film Clinic.
The movie, which is written by Omar Shama from Egypt and the Kingdom’s Mufarrij Almajfel, stars Saudi actors Abdulmohsen Al-Nemer, Ibrahim Al-Hsawi, among others.
The awards ceremony, scheduled for May 18 on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival, is organized by the Arab Cinema Center in Cairo and assessed by a panel of 209 critics representing 72 countries.
Sudanese director Mohamed Kordofani’s inaugural feature film, “Goodbye Julia,” and Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated documentary, “Four Daughters,” scored nominations in seven categories.
Jordanian filmmaker Amjad Al-Rasheed’s “Inshallah A Boy” and Palestinian-British director Farah Nabulsi’s “The Teacher” have six nominations.
REVIEW: Sofia Boutella’s heroic efforts can’t save ‘Rebel Moon — Part Two’
DUBAI: “Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire” drew scathing reviews (our writer described it as perhaps “the most discombobulating collection of mismatched sci-fi tropes ever committed to film”). “Part Two: The Scargiver” simply adds to that legacy.
The story: Former Imperium soldier Kora and the surviving band of ragtag warriors she’s recruited return to the moon of Veldt — home to simple farming folk in danger of being blown to bits by the mighty Imperium for failing to supply the unreasonable grain quota demanded of them. With just a few days before the deadline, Kora and her band must train the villagers to fight (and harvest the grain in just three days to provide a bargaining chip). What Kora doesn’t know is that Admiral Noble, the bad guy she ‘killed,’ is still alive. And bent on vengeance.
Before the enemy arrives, the warriors tell their life stories in a trust-building exercise — one of the clunkiest pieces of exposition ever written. There are slow-mo shots of the harvest gathering and a brief interlude to show that Kora and farmer Gunnar are very much in love.
Then, thankfully, we’re into the battle(s). Here, at least, director Zack Snyder doesn’t disappoint, even giving an original twist to the ‘spaceship plummeting from the sky’ trope by staging a showdown between Kora, Gunnar and Admiral Noble on a floor that becomes increasingly vertical. Below them, the villagers fight heroically against odds very much stacked against them, even with the help of Nemesis and her two flaming definitely-not-lightsabers.
The well-constructed battle scenes, though, aren’t enough. Not even with a cast fighting as heroically as the villagers to salvage something. Sofia Boutella, as Kora, emerges with most credit, proving herself a convincing action hero who deserves better than this material to work with (spoiler alert: perhaps even material that allows the heroine to kill the bad guy herself, without the intervention of her boyfriend).
Yes, no one’s sitting down to watch an “epic space opera” in the expectation of thought-provoking dialogue, but “Rebel Moon” is like the result of forcing a seven-year-old to watch all things “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” in random order, then asking them to write down what happened. The best thing to say about “The Scargiver” is that it finishes — but even that comfort is tainted by Snyder’s cynical setting up of a potential part three. Possibly because that seven-year-old fell asleep before writing an actual ending.
Saudi Arabian history on display at Abu Dhabi Book Fair
- Selections from London-based rare-book dealer Peter Harrington’s offering at the UAE fair
‘Ibn Saud press photograph’
According to notes from rare books specialists from Peter Harrington’s team, this image from archives of The Times newspaper was taken in what was then called Hejaz, following a “critical and secretive meeting between (founder of Saudi Arabia) Ibn Saud (center) and the British representative Sir Gilbert Clayton (left) — one of a pivotal series of negotiations which led to the Treaty of Jeddah in May 1927.” The two discussed “various outstanding questions affecting the relations of the Kingdom of the Hejaz and Nejd with the neighboring states of Iraq and Transjordan” to help determine the northern borders of Saudi Arabia. “Discussions over the borders were protracted and complex, with the towns of Maʿan and Kaf the object of particularly intense debate,” the notes state.
‘Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Mecca’ by Richard F. Burton
In this three-volume first edition, complete with illustrations, of “one of the most extraordinary travel narratives of the 19th century,” the British explorer, writer and polyglot Richard Francis Burton recounts his Hajj journey, made “in complete disguise as a Muslim native of the Middle East” at a time when fewer than half-a-dozen Europeans had made the pilgrimage — forbidden to non-Muslims. “It surpassed all preceding Western accounts of the holy cities of Islam, made Burton famous, and became a classic of travel literature, described by T. E. Lawrence as ‘a most remarkable work of the highest value,’” the team from Peter Harrington note. In Makkah, Burton performed all the rites of the pilgrimage and his subterfuge remained undiscovered.
‘Map and Overview Presenting the Hejaz Railway Route’
This map from 1903 depicts the route of the ambitious Hejaz Railway project. It “depicts a very broad area, extending from just north of Hama, Syria, all the way south a little way past Makkah, in the Hejaz; it covers most of Syria, all of Palestine, the Sinai Peninsula, the Suez Canal, and all the north-western Arabian Peninsula,” Peter Harrington’s rare book experts write. “It clearly delineates those parts of the railway that are in place and those under construction … with each station labelled. Additionally, it depicts the two alternative routes proposed for extending the line to Makkah, employing broken lines, while another line traces the proposed (but unrealized) route of a rail line from Makkah to Jeddah. The map also labels important roads and caravan routes.”
Four years after this map was published, the book seller’s notes state, the railway reached AlUla, which is not marked on this map, although Mada’in Salah (now Hegra) is, which today is the site of one of two museums dedicated to the Hejaz Railway.
By 1908, the railway had reached Madinah, where, the notes state, “for various political reasons, it had to be terminated.” Nevertheless, they continue, “until the outbreak of the First World War, it allowed hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to make the Hajj in safety and with relative ease.”
‘Material from the library of Peter O’Toole by T.E. Lawrence’
Billed by Peter Harrington as an “insightful archive, spanning Lawrence’s transformation from man of the moment to unwilling celebrity, from the library of Peter O’Toole, whose breakthrough portrayal in David Lean’s 1962 biopic still shapes perceptions of the famous Arabist. Autograph material from Lawrence is always highly prized, but rarely is its provenance so apposite.”
The centerpiece of the material is a photograph and an unpublished letter written by Lawrence (who became known as Lawrence of Arabia following his journeys across the Middle East, including modern-day Saudi Arabia), framed as a piece and gifted to the English actor who played Lawrence in the aforementioned biopic by his wife, Sian, and a friend not long before the premiere of the movie. The letter makes clear Lawrence’s difficult relationship with his celebrity, and is cutting about his own book, “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” saying that he did not own a copy himself (“No man yet has ever wanted to read his own book”) but that his mother and “little brother” did, “and that is plenty for the family. Nobody reads it: it is worth too much money. ... It is a rotten book, you know.”
‘Oil Region in the Desert of Saudi Arabia’
This 1950 image, “after a painting by the German artist Michael Mathias Kiefer,” is one of a series of geographical pictures intended for use in the curriculum of German schools. “The painting juxtaposes Arab figures in traditional garb with images of drilling rigs, a lorry, and oil storage tanks, creating a strikingly orientalist image,” Peter Harrington’s notes state. “In the middle of the composition, a pipeline bisects the image, a forceful reminder of the centrality of oil to the modern Saudi Arabian economy. In the foreground, members of a group of travelers, possibly intended to be Bedouins, rest on a carpet and let their camels drink from a water tank. Away in the background, before a distant oasis, more travelers arrive at a campsite, their camels heavily laden. Their destination is the oil infrastructure that crowds the right of the image.”
An enduring bond: A Jordanian photographer has turned his focus on two of the Arab world’s most beloved creatures
- Tariq Dajani’s first photographic exhibition of the horse and falcon series is on display at Ahlam Gallery in Al-Olaya, Riyadh
- Arabian horses have been the subject of songs and poetry praising their individual and physical qualities down through the ages
RIYADH: The Arabian horse and hunting falcon are important historical and cultural symbols for the Arab world, both ancient and modern.
Now a Riyadh gallery is highlighting this enduring bond with a series of portrait studies of both creatures by Tariq Dajani, a Jordanian photographer and printmaker.
Arabian horses have been the subject of songs and poetry praising their individual and physical qualities down through the ages.
However, Dajani, an owner of Arabians, chose to reflect his love of these creatures through photography and artworks.
Over the years he spent many sessions photographing horses in his native Jordan, as well as the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Later, toward the end of the project, he added the hunting falcon, another symbol of cultural heritage and pride among Arabs.
Dajani’s first photographic exhibition of the horse and falcon series is on display at Ahlam Gallery in Al-Olaya, Riyadh.
Entitled “Drinkers of the Wind,” the exhibition is the result of 16 years’ work creating portraits of these magnificent creatures.
Dajani told Arab News that he is delighted to be able to display his work in Saudi Arabia, “a country that is deeply connected to the horse and the falcon.”
Ahlam Gallery is the perfect place to showcase these artworks, he added.
Dajani’s treatment of his subjects is not in the usual natural or romantic manner. Instead, and this is partly what sets his art apart, he uses a studio portrait approach, where he takes his studio to the stables or falcon sheds, and spends time carefully working on portrait studies of the creatures.
“My aim is to find a connection of sorts with the horse or the birds,” he said. “I am not interested in documenting the creature; I try to go deeper, to express something emotionally if I can.
“I was living in Sweden when I decided to photograph the Arabian horse. So I had to return to the Middle East, and I started with Jordan, my home country.
“The way I approach the work is to present the horse on a backdrop where all my focus — and thus the viewers of the final picture — will be on the animal itself and not on the environment that it is in.”
While photographing in Jordan, Dajani met Princess Alia Al-Hussein, eldest daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan. He presented some of his work to her, and received her enthusiastic approval.
Princess Alia gave him permission to photograph the horses of the Royal Jordanian Stud, and has continued to support his work over the years, opening his first two exhibitions in Jordan.
“I had access to some of the most beautiful horses in Jordan when I first started my project. My first exhibition solely of Jordanian Arabians was a great success,” Dajani said.
“Encouraged by the reception, and by now totally absorbed in this project, I went to Dubai, then Abu Dhabi, then Saudi Arabia, where I was presented with some of the most magnificent Arabian horses to photograph. Along the way, I introduced portrait studies of the hunting falcon. They, too, are strikingly beautiful and have a special place in Arab culture and heritage.
“I will always remain very grateful to Princess Alia for her initial support, and to many others for encouraging the work and opening doors for me along the way.”
One of his most striking photographs shows two mares bringing their heads together in a gentle greeting.
“This incredible and totally unanticipated greeting happened while I was photographing at the King Abdulaziz Arabian Horse Center in Dirab, south of Riyadh. The two mares were led out onto my backdrop studio space from opposite sides, and when they approached each other, they gently and courteously touched their heads as if to say hello,” he said.
“It was so special. No one had ever witnessed this before. We all held our breath as we watched in amazement. I frequently think that it would be nice if these sensitive, clever creatures could teach us humans a little bit of gentleness and respect.”
Dajani’s exhibition features high-quality photographic color prints, and a smaller collection of photogravure prints, produced by manually pulling an inked metal plate, engraved with the photographic image, through a traditional printing press — a slow and difficult process that produces prints with a special feel and texture.
Moroccan director Asmae El-Moudir joins Cannes’ Un Certain Regard jury
DUBAI: The Cannes Film Festival announced on Thursday that Moroccan director, screenwriter and producer Asmae El-Moudir will be part of the Un Certain Regard jury at the 77th edition of the event, set to take place from May 14-25.
She will be joined by French Senegalese screenwriter and director Maïmouna Doucouré, German Luxembourg actress Vicky Krieps and American film critic, director, and writer Todd McCarthy.
Xavier Dolan will be the president of the Un Certain Regard jury.
The team will oversee the awarding of prizes for the Un Certain Regard section, which highlights art and discovery films by emerging auteurs, from a selection of 18 works, including eight debut films.
El-Moudir is the director of the critically acclaimed film “The Mother of All Lies.”
The movie took the honors in the Un Certain Regard section, as well as winning the prestigious L’oeil d’Or prize for best documentary at the festival in 2023. The film explores El-Moudir’s personal journey, unraveling the mysteries of her family’s history against the backdrop of the 1981 bread riots in Casablanca.
El-Moudir is not the only Arab joining the Cannes team.
Moroccan Belgian actress Lubna Azabal this week was appointed the president of the Short Film and La Cinef Jury of the festival. The La Cinef prizes are the festival’s selection dedicated to film schools.
