LONDON: Actresses Kate Winslet and Emma Watson joined around 200 British stars in demanding an end to sexual harassment and abuse, in an open letter published Sunday before the Bafta film awards.
Signatories including Emma Thompson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Keira Knightley and Saoirse Ronan, expressed solidarity with the Time’s Up movement in the United States and called for donations to a new “justice and equality fund” for victims.
The letter to The Observer newspaper is addressed to “dear sisters,” as was a similar statement by US actresses last month, and calls for an international movement to stamp out a culture of abuse exposed by the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
“In the very near past, we lived in a world where sexual harassment was an uncomfortable joke; an unavoidable, awkward part of being a girl or a woman. It was certainly not to be discussed, let alone addressed,” they say.
“In 2018, we seem to have woken up in a world ripe for change. If we truly embrace this moment, a line in the sand will turn to stone.”
The letter was published ahead of the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday night, when some stars are expected to repeat the protest staged at last month’s Golden Globes and wear black in a show of solidarity with victims.
“As we approach the Baftas, our industry’s time for celebration and acknowledgement, we hope we can celebrate this tremendous moment of solidarity and unity across borders by coming together and making this movement international,” the letter says.
It emphasizes that revelations about abuse in Hollywood have now spread across the world, saying the movement is about more than just the entertainment industry.
It highlights problems in Britain such as the gender pay gap and the changes to work that make it more insecure.
“This movement is intersectional, with conversations across race, class, community, ability and work environment, to talk about the imbalance of power,” the letter states.
Around 160 activists and academics have signed a sister letter pledging support for the new fund, which aims to make workplaces safe and support victims of abuse.
The signatories thank the high-profile stars for helping “push issues such as sexual harassment and rape into the public consciousness in an unprecedented way.”
“We believe that this is a moment in time when we can harness our collective energies to dismantle the wall of silence that surrounds violence against women and girls,” they say.
British female stars say ‘Time’s Up’ ahead of Baftas
British female stars say ‘Time’s Up’ ahead of Baftas
Lebanese filmmaker turns archival footage into a love letter to Beirut
LONDON: Lebanese filmmaker Lana Daher’s debut feature “Do You Love Me” is a love letter of sorts to Beirut, composed entirely of archival material spanning seven decades across film, television, home videos and photography.
The film premiered at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival in September and has since traveled to several regional and international festivals.
With minimal dialogue, the film relies heavily on image and sound to reconstruct Lebanon’s fragmented history.
“By resisting voiceover and autobiography, I feel like I had to trust the image and the shared emotional landscape of these archives to carry the meaning,” Daher said.
She explained that in a city like Beirut “where trauma is rarely private,” the socio-political context becomes the atmosphere of the film, with personal memory expanding into a collective experience — “a shared terrain of emotional history.”
Daher said: “By using the accumulated visual representations of Beirut, I was, in a way, rewriting my own representation of home through images that already existed."
Daher, with editor Qutaiba Barhamji, steered clear of long sequences, preferring individual shots that allowed them to “reassemble meaning” while maintaining the integrity of their own work and respecting the original material, she explained.
The film does not feature a voice-over, an intentional decision that influenced the use of sound, music, and silence.
“By resisting the urge to fill every space with dialogue or score, we created room for discomfort,” Daher said, adding that silence allows the audience to sit with the image and enter its emotional space rather than being guided too explicitly.
The film was a labor of love, challenging Daher personally and professionally.
“When you draw from personal memory, you’re not just directing scenes, you’re revisiting parts of yourself and your childhood,” she said. “There’s vulnerability in that.”
