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After a year (plus) of pared-down guest lists and socially distanced receptions, big celebrity weddings came roaring back in 2021 (Paris Hilton, thank you so much) and will no doubt continue into 2022.

From epic themed gatherings to faraway destination nuptials to those I do’s we only hear about because TMZ finds the certificate, A-listers find all kinds of ways to get hitched. Kourtney and Travis—a.k.a. Kravis—have already celebrated their nuptials three times, while Bennifer has said “I do” twice. 

And if you stumbled upon this page while looking for inspo for your own big day, first of all, congrats. And second, we hope you find it helpful! After all, despite their A-list guests and bloated budgets, at the end of the day celebrity weddings are just like normie weddings: a chance to drink champagne and eat cake in the name of love!

Here are the best celebrity weddings and marriages of 2022.

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After a year (plus) of pared-down guest

Idris Elba as Dr. Nate Samuels in ‘Beast,’ directed by Baltasar Kormákur.

Idris Elba is one of the best actors working today!

Not only does he have the new thriller ‘Beast‘ opening in theaters on August 19th, he will also be seen in director George Miller‘s ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing‘ opposite Tilda Swinton, which opens in theaters on August 26th.

In honor of the actor’s two upcoming movies, Moviefone looks back at the twenty best movies of Idris Elba ‘s career.

Without further ado, let’s begin!


Against his father Odin’s (Anthony Hopkins) will, The Mighty Thor (Chris Hemsworth) – a powerful but arrogant warrior god – recklessly reignites an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment. Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth. Based on the Marvel Comics characters, Elba plays all-hearing Asgardian sentry Heimdall.

Thor

“Two worlds. One hero.”

68

PG-131 hr 55 minMay 6th, 2011


Stranded after a tragic plane crash, two strangers (Elba and Kate Winslet) must forge a connection to survive the extreme elements of a remote snow covered mountain. When they realize help is not coming, they embark on a perilous journey across the wilderness.


A team of explorers (Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, and Elba) discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

Prometheus

“The Search for Our Beginning Could Lead to Our End.”

65

R2 hr 4 minJun 8th, 2012


Terri (Taraji P. Henson) is a devoted wife and mother of two, living an ideal suburban life in Atlanta when Colin (Elba), a charming but dangerous escaped convict, shows up at her door claiming car trouble. Terri offers her phone to help him but soon learns that no good deed goes unpunished as she finds herself fighting for survival when he invades her home and terrorizes her family.

No Good Deed

“First he gets into your house. Then he gets into your head.”

60

PG-131 hr 23 minSep 12th, 2014


Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures

Things couldn’t be better for Derek Charles (Elba). He’s just received a big promotion at work, and has a wonderful marriage with his beautiful wife, Sharon (Beyonce). However, into this idyllic world steps Lisa (Ali Larter), a temporary worker at Derek’s office. Lisa begins to stalk Derek, jeopardizing all he holds dear.

Obsessed

“Sharon and Derek have all they’ve ever wanted… but someone else wants it more.”

58

PG-131 hr 48 minApr 24th, 2009


A man-cub named Mowgli (Neel Sethi) fostered by wolves. After a threat from the tiger Shere Khan (Elba), Mowgli is forced to flee the jungle, by which he embarks on a journey of self discovery with the help of the panther, Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) and the free-spirited bear, Baloo (Bill Murray).

The Jungle Book

“The legend will never be the same.”

69

PG1 hr 46 minApr 15th, 2016


Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), a young skier and former Olympic hopeful becomes a successful entrepreneur (and a target of an FBI investigation) when she establishes a high-stakes, international poker game. With her reputation in ruins and future in jeopardy, she turns to attorney Charlie Jaffey (Elba) for legal help.


The USS Enterprise crew including Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Evans) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) explore the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a mysterious new enemy (Elba) who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test.


The world’s favorite blue hedgehog is back! After settling in Green Hills, Sonic (Ben Schwartz) is eager to prove he has what it takes to be a true hero. His test comes when Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) returns, this time with a new partner, Knuckles (Elba), in search for an emerald that has the power to destroy civilizations. Sonic teams up with his own sidekick, Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and together they embark on a globe-trotting journey to find the emerald before it falls into the wrong hands.


Following the death of his employer and mentor, Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams III), Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in the Harlem district of Manhattan after killing fellow gangster Tango (Elba). He begins buying heroin directly from the source in South East Asia and comes up with a unique way of importing the drugs into the United States. At home, he crosses paths with a dirty cop (Josh Brolin), and a crusading detective (Russell Crowe).

American Gangster

American Gangster

“There are two sides to the American dream”

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NR2 hr 37 minNov 2nd, 2007


A seasoned team of bank robbers, including Gordon Cozier (Elba), John Rahway (Paul Walker), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), and brothers Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse Attica (Chris Brown) successfully complete their latest heist and lead a life of luxury while planning their next job. When Ghost (Tip “T.I.” Harris), a former member of their team, is released from prison he convinces the group to strike an armored car carrying $20 million. As the “Takers” carefully plot out their strategy and draw nearer to exacting the grand heist, a reckless police officer inches closer to apprehending the criminals.

Takers

“Who’s Taking Who?”

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PG-131 hr 47 minAug 26th, 2010


Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. Pictures

On a mission deep in the Bolivian jungle, a team of elite commandos led by Franklin Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and William Roque (Elba) finds itself on the receiving end of a lethal betrayal. Now presumed dead, the men join forces with a mysterious operative named Aisha (Zoe Saldana) to hunt down their enemy and even the score. Based on the DC Comics characters.

The Losers

The Losers

“Anyone Else Would Be Dead By Now.”

63

PG-131 hr 37 minApr 23rd, 2010


Directed by Guillermo del Toro, as war between humankind and monstrous sea creatures wages on, a former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and a trainee (Rinko Kikuchi) are paired up to drive a seemingly obsolete special weapon in a desperate effort to save the world. Elba plays commanding officer Marshal Stacker Pentecost.

Pacific Rim

“To fight monsters, we created monsters.”

69

PG-132 hr 11 minJul 12th, 2013


Determined to prove herself, Officer Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), the first bunny on Zootopia’s police force, jumps at the chance to crack her first case – even if it means partnering with scam-artist fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) to solve the mystery. Elba plays Chief Bogo, an African buffalo who is the police chief of the Zootopia Police Department’s 1st Precinct.

Zootopia

“Welcome to the urban jungle.”

77

PG1 hr 49 minMar 4th, 2016


Ever since US Diplomatic Security Service Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and lawless outcast Decker Shaw (Jason Statham) first faced off, they just have traded smack talk and body blows. But when cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist Brixton’s (Elba) ruthless actions threaten the future of humanity, they join forces to defeat him.


A chronicle of Nelson Mandela’s (Elba) life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.


Based on the experiences of Agu (Abraham Attah), a child fighting in the civil war of an unnamed, fictional West African country. Follows Agu’s journey as he’s forced to join a group of soldiers led by Elba’s Commandant. While he fears his commander and many of the men around him, his fledgling childhood has been brutally shattered by the war raging through his country, and he is at first torn between conflicting revulsion and fascination.

Beasts of No Nation

When fifteen-year-old Cole (Caleb McLaughlin) is expelled from school in Detroit, he is sent to North Philadelphia to live with Harp (Elba), his estranged father. Harp finds solace in rehabilitating horses for inner city cowboys at the Fletcher Street Stables, a real-life black urban horsemanship community that has provided a safe haven for the neighborhood residents for more than 100 years.

Torn between his growing respect for his father’s community and his reemerging friendship with troubled cousin Smush (Jharrel Jerome), Cole begins to reprioritize his life as the stables themselves are threatened by encroaching gentrification.


Gunning for revenge, outlaw Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) saddles up with his gang to take down enemy Rufus Buck (Elba), a ruthless crime boss who just got sprung from prison.


(L to R) David Dastmalchian, John Cena, Idris Elba and Daniela Melchior in 'The Suicide Squad.'

(L to R) David Dastmalchian, John Cena, Idris Elba and Daniela Melchior in ‘The Suicide Squad.’

Welcome to Belle Reve, the prison where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out, even join the super-secret Task Force X. Today’s  assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport (Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), King Shark (Sylvester Stallone), and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie).

Now arm them heavily and drop them on the enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) on the ground to make them behave, and Amanda Waller’s (Viola Davis) government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them all!

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Idris Elba as Dr. Nate Samuels in

“Stranger Things” music supervisor Nora Felder emerged victorious at Sunday’s Creative Arts Emmys, winning Outstanding Music Supervision for the season 4 episode “Dear Billy,” the one that made a nearly 40-year-old Kate Bush song a hit again. In her acceptance speech, Felder gave a special thanks to Bush (and Metallica, whose music also appeared in season 4).

The episode prominently features Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill (Make a Deal with God),” empowering the character Max (Sadie Sink) to fight back against evil. After the series’ fourth season dropped on Netflix in May, the track started charting around the world, propelled in no small part by chatter on social media. It reached No. 1 on iTunes and by July, the “Running Up That Hill” video had hit 100 million YouTube views. (As of this writing, it’s now up to 127 million.)

Felder chose the track because she felt the lyrics perfectly captured Max’s experience. As she told Variety, “In the face of Max’s painful isolation and alienation from others, a ‘deal with god’ could heart-wrenchingly reflect Max’s implicit belief that only a miracle of unlikely understanding and show of support could help her climb the hills of life before her. In Max’s situation, the need for a ‘deal with god’ can perhaps be metaphorically understood as a desperate cry for love — to manifest the extraordinary understanding and support Max needed while feeling so painfully alone.”

Securing the song was a huge coup for Felder, who previously had been nominated for her work on “Stranger Things” three times. Bush is famously protective of her music and rarely grants permission for its use in movies and television.

But it turned out that the musician has been a “Stranger Things” fan from the beginning, so when Felder’s request reached her, she approved. The decision ended up giving new life to the song, the first single off her 1985 album “Hounds of Love.” In an interview with BBC One in June, Bush said, “I thought that the track would get some attention. But I just never imagined that it would be anything like this. It’s so exciting. But it’s quite shocking really, isn’t it? I mean, the whole world’s gone mad.

“What’s really wonderful I think is that this is a whole new audience. In a lot of cases, they’ve never heard of me. And I love that. The thought of all these really young people hearing the song for the first time and discovering it is, well, I think it’s very special.

“I thought, what a lovely way for the song to be used in such a positive way,” she added. “You know, as a kind of talisman almost for Max. And yeah, I think it’s very touching, actually.”

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“Stranger Things” music supervisor Nora Felder emerged

Action Bronson made a surprise in-ring appearance during All Elite Wrestling’s All Out pay-per-view tonight in Chicago. He came to the aid of Hook, the young wrestler who walks out to Bronson’s song “The Chairman’s Intent.” Following Hook’s FTW Championship match with Angelo Parker, Bronson hit the ring to eject “Daddy Magic” Matt Menard from the ring and then literally throw Parker. Watch it happen below.

In an interview with Pitchfork last year when Bronson’s song debuted on AEW television, Hook and Bronson revealed that the two had trained in the ring together. “I got in the ring with Hook, did a couple moves—it was beautiful,” Bronson said. Both men were cagey about whether or not the rapper was a member of Hook’s former wrestling stable Team Taz. “Hey, listen, I can’t talk about that right now,” Bronson said. “That’s to be left in the air. You know where my affiliations lie and how deep they run. You can do the math.”

AEW has been licensing a good amount of popular music, recently replacing Orange Cassidy’s Pixies entrance with the wrestler’s music on the independent wrestling scene, “Jane” by Jefferson Starship. Tonight at All Out, the company licensed the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” for a mystery wrestler’s masked entrance.

Read Pitchfork’s interview with AEW wrestler Lee Moriarty, “What Professional Wrestling Prodigy Lee Moriarty Is Listening to Right Now.”

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Action Bronson made a surprise in-ring appearance

As parts of the country are beginning to lament the always-dreaded end of summer and students are starting to stream back into class for a new school year, across the pond, the 79th Venice Film Festival has just gotten underway. And with is, the unofficial start of awards season. Among this month’s Don’t-Miss Indies are two titles that will feature at the venerated cinephile fête, along with a whole new batch of awards contenders.

 

ORPHAN: FIRST KILL

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch: Theaters, VOD, Paramount+

Director: William Brent Bell

Cast: Isabella Fuhrman, Julia Stiles, Rossif Sutherland

Why We’re Excited: In William Brent Bell’s blood-curdling psychological thriller–a prequel to the 2009 cult hit Orphan–31-year-old Estonian psychiatric patient Leena (2022 Film Independent Spirit Award Best Female Lead nominee Isabella Fuhrman) suffers from the rare health disorder hypopituitarism, leading her to resemble a nine-year-old girl. Leena finagles a brilliant escape from her psychiatric facility and makes it all the way to America. Once in Connecticut, she starts impersonating Esther, the missing daughter of wealthy artist Allen (Sutherland) and wife Tricia (Stiles). Impressively, the 25-year-old Fuhrman–who first played the demented murderer at age 12–reprises her role here from Orphan, more than a decade later, looking every bit as young as she did in the first installment… without any digital tricks to de-age her onscreen visage.

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HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL.

When You Can Watch: September 2

Where You Can Watch: Theaters, Peacock

Director: Adamma Ebo

Cast: Regina Hall, Sterling K. Brown, Austin Crute, Nicole Beharie

Why We’re Excited: In 2019 Project Involve Fellow Adamma Ebo’s feature directorial debut, Support the Girls Spirit Awards alum Regina Hall’s Trinitie is the proud wife of Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Lee-Curtis (Brown, of NBC’s family melodrama This Is Us). But when their congregation of tens of thousands–”Wander to Greater Paths”–is shut down by a scandal, the couple must work through the fallout to mount the biggest faith-based comeback since Jesus rolled away the stone blocking his grave. Adapted from Ebo’s own 2018 short of the same title, this satirical comedy’s producing team includes Film Independent Member Carolina Groppa.

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PETER VON KANT

When You Can Watch: September 2

Where You Can Watch: Theaters (Limited)

Director: François Ozon

Cast: Denis Ménochet, Isabelle Adjani, Khalil Ben Gharbia, Hanna Schygulla, Stéfan Crépon

Why We’re Excited: Two decades ago, director Ozon’s feature adaptation of Ranier Werner Fassbinder’s 1972 stage play Tropfen auf heiße Steine gave us the sadomasochistic lesbian drama Water Drops on Burning Rocks. Now, he revisits another Fassbinder classic, putting a gender-flipped spin on the Sapphic melodrama The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, emerging with a French-language gay psychosexual drama. Middle-aged and famous, director Peter (Ménochet) lives in tense domesticity with his houseboy/assistant Karl (Crépon). While at lunch with his ex and former muse Sidonie (Camille Claudet’s Adjani), he’s introduced to aspiring actor Amir (Gharbia) and immediately becomes infatuated with the young man–soon inviting Amir to move in with him with promises to help him break into the movie business. Premiering at Berlin this spring to critical acclaim, the film is set in 1972 Cologne.

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HOLD ME TIGHT

When You Can Watch: September 9

Where You Can Watch: Theaters (Limited)

Director: Mathieu Amalric

Cast: Vicky Krieps, Arieh Worthalter, Anne-Sophie Bowen-Chatet

Why We’re Excited: “He’ll think I left for a week, then six months, and then he’ll drop it.” So says young mother Camille (Krieps, of Phantom Thread and Bergman Island) to a friend as we see her embark on a road trip, eager to get away (possibly forever) from her family: husband Marc (Belgian actor Arieh Worthalter), daughter Lucie and son Paul. Adapted from a 2003 stage play by Claudine Galea, Amalric´s sixth feature as a director takes its time cutting back and forth between Camille’s state of mind and the aftermath of her abandonment back at home, as Marc struggles with the children until the mystery surrounding the separation is finally revealed. English-speaking audiences will probably recognize the actor-director Amalric most from his turn as a receipt-obsessed Bond villain in 2008’s Quantum of Solace.

 

BLONDE

When You Can Watch: September 16

Where You Can Watch: Theaters (limited), Netflix (September 28)

Director: Andrew Dominik

Cast: Ana de Armas, Lucy DeVito, Garret Dillahunt

Why We’re Excited: Slated to premiere this month at the 79th Venice Film Festival prior to its streaming release on Netflix, this work of historical fiction is based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel of the same name. Shot mostly in black and white, writer-director Dominik’s (Chopper, Killing Them Softly) spin on one of Hollywood’s more enthralling icons–Norma Jeane Mortenson, otherwise known as Marilyn Monroe–has faced some backlash for casting Cuban-Spanish actress de Armas (Knives Out, No Time to Die) in the iconic part. For her part, de Armas reportedly worked with a dialect coach for nine months for the role to prepare, though she retains part of her native Cuban accent in the performance. Not a traditional biopic by any means, the film has already proved divisive among critics. Producers include Film Independent Members Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner.

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LOS ESPOOKYS, SEASON TWO

When You Can Watch: September 16

Where You Can Watch: HBO (Season 2)

Creators: Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, Julio Torres

Cast: Cassandra Ciangherotti, Ana Fabrega, Julio Torres, Bernardo Velasco

Why We’re Excited: Three years after it first debuted, HBO’s bilingual English/Spanish dark comedy finally returns for its sophomore season after multi-year pandemic-imposed production delays. Featuring a mostly Latinx cast, friends and fellow gore enthusiasts in an unnamed Latin American country have figured out a way to leverage their love of horror flicks for profit: by recreating scenarios out of scary movies in order to trick their clients into believing everything is happening for real! In Season Two, the leader of the Espookys, Renaldo (Velasco), finds himself haunted by the spirit of a beauty queen while best friend Andrés (series creator Torres) has some tough work ahead fighting–quite literally!–his own demons. This season’s impressive lineup of guest stars includes Isabella Rosellini (Blue Velvet, Enemy) and Yalitza Aparicio from 2019’s Roma.

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DON’T WORRY DARLING

When You Can Watch: September 23

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Olivia Wilde

Cast: Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Olivia Wilde, Gemma Chan, Chris Pine

Why We’re Excited: Another upcoming Venice premiere, actor-director Olivia Wilde’s (a 2020 Spirit Award winner for her directorial debut, Booksmart) psychological thriller is based on the 2019 Black List spec script by brothers Carey and Shane Van Dyke. Shot during the pandemic in Los Angeles, the film follows a young and happy couple, Alice and Jack (Pugh and Styles), living in an apparently utopic 1950s experimental community in the company town of Victory, California. But pretty soon, Alice begins to suspect Jack’s work on the organization’s secret “Victory Project” and uncovers disturbing secrets behind their seemingly benign suburban facade. The producing team includes EP Catherine Hardwicke, previously nominated for two Spirit Awards for her directorial debut, 2003’s teen drama Thirteen.

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SIDNEY

When You Can Watch: September 23

Where You Can Watch: Apple TV+

Director: Reginald Hudlin

Why We’re Excited: “From the time I got off the boat, America began to say to me, You’re not who you think you are. There was a habit in Hollywood of utilizing Blacks in the most disrespectful ways. I said, I cannot play that.” A Spirit Award nominee for the 1990 comedy House Party, director Reginald Hudlin’s latest project is a documentary deep-dive into one of the most endearing icons of American cinema: the late Bahamian-American Oscar-winner Sidney Poitier (To Sir with Love, Lilies of the Field, In the Heat of the Night). Poitier was born in Miami but lived in the Bahamas until he returned to the U.S. at the age of 15, eventually making his way to Hollywood as a unlikely (for the times) leading man in films including To Sir with Love, Lilies of the Field, In the Heat of the Night, The Defiant Ones and more. Featuring interviews with some of Hollywood’s biggest names–Denzel Washington, Robert Redford, Spike Lee–the film goes beyond the legend’s acting career to show us another side of Poitier: the Civil Rights leader and activist. Producers Oprah Winfrey and Derik Murray worked closely with the Poitier family to illuminate the actor’s storied life.

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CARMEN

When You Can Watch: September 23

Where You Can Watch: Theaters (Limited), VOD

Director: Valerie Bulhagiar

Cast: Natascha McElhone, Steven Love, Michaela Farrugia

Why We’re Excited: Partly inspired by her own aunt’s life, Maltese-Canadian director Bulhagiar’s drama follows the titular Carmen–a woman in her 50s who has finally emerged into the real world after a life of servitude in the name of the Church. Played by British actress McElhone (Ronin, Solaris and more recently as the fictional First Lady in TV series Designated Survivor), Carmen lives in a small village in Malta, where it is tradition to have a younger sister devote herself to the Church whenever her older brother becomes a priest. That’s how Carmen ended up living a repressed and severely deprived life from 16-50, until her brother’s death finally releases her from this cruel custom, allowing her to re-enter the wider world hungry for all it has to offer.

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*PROGRAMMERS’ PICK* THE SILENT TWINS

When You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents (September 13), September 16

Where You Can Watch: Theaters (Limited), VOD

Director: Valerie Bulhagiar

Cast: Letitia Wright, Tamara Lawrance, Jack Bandeira, Michael Smiley

Why We’re Excited: From Jenn Wilson, Film Independent Senior Programmer: “Director Agnieszka Smoczynska–who previously stunned audiences with her incredibly inventive film The Lure (2015)–makes another brilliantly creative film with The Silent Twins, the true story of twin sisters who refused to communicate with anyone but each other. Letitia Wright (June) and Tamara Lawrance (Jennifer) deliver astounding performances as the twins who refuse to speak with anyone but each other.  Cutting themselves off from the outside world, June and Jennifer build an elaborate internal world that feels safe for them, but unfortunately society intrudes on them by deciding that the two are bad for one another and that both need to be institutionalized and separated.  The two are extremely misunderstood until a woman discovers a book that June publishes, and decides to try to help get them released. The beautiful animated and fantasy sequences that represent June and Jennifer’s internal lives are a wonder to behold. That visual creativity coupled with the terrific performances from Lawrance and Wright make this a movie not to be missed!”

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KEY

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Film Independent Fellow or Member

Film Independent Presents Screening, Q&A

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Filmmaker or Lead Characters of Color

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Film Independent Spirit Award Winner or Nominee

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Female Filmmaker

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First-time Filmmaker

(Header: Honk If You Love Jesus. Save Your Soul.)

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Wish sewer here? British tourist wakes up in a room flooded with ankle-deep ‘RAW SEWAGE’ as entire Cape Verde resort is swamped

  • Jamie Robert from Manchester was visiting the Tui resort on Cape Verde
  • He awoke in the night to find sewage flooding his room after rainfall
  • He claims the hotel only offered him towels and he lost half of his possessions 

A British tourist was horrified to wake up in a room flooded with ankle-deep sewage while on a luxury holiday in Cape Verde.

Jamie Robert saw faeces flowing from the shower after heavy rainfall at the Tui resort in Riu Touareg Boa Vista in Cape Verde yesterday.

A shocking video shows Jamie’s room completely overflowing with a brown murky water.

A British tourist was horrified to wake up in a room flooded with ankle-deep sewage while on a luxury holiday in Cape Verde

A British tourist was horrified to wake up in a room flooded with ankle-deep sewage while on a luxury holiday in Cape Verde

Jamie Robert saw faeces flowing from the shower after heavy rainfall at the Tui resort in Riu Touareg Boa Vista in Cape Verde yesterday

Jamie Robert saw faeces flowing from the shower after heavy rainfall at the Tui resort in Riu Touareg Boa Vista in Cape Verde yesterday

Jamie Robert saw faeces flowing from the shower after heavy rainfall at the Tui resort in Riu Touareg Boa Vista in Cape Verde yesterday

Mr Robert, from Manchester, claims staff at the hotel didn't take the incident seriously (bedroom pictured before the flood)

Mr Robert, from Manchester, claims staff at the hotel didn’t take the incident seriously (bedroom pictured before the flood)

The holidaymaker tried to salvage some of his belongings by piling his suitcase and clothing on top of the bed.

In the clip he can be seen wading through the rooms corridor as filthy water fills the room and up against the walls.

Mr Robert, from Manchester, claims staff at the hotel didn’t take the incident seriously and only offered him towels for his room following the incident.

He said he lost half of his possessions from the flooding which rose to his knees.

Jamie took to Twitter yesterday (THUR) in a bid to get help from his TUI reps, writing: ‘@TUIUK hello we need urgent assistance please RE Touareg Boa Vista.

A shocking video shows Jamie's room completely overflowing with a brown murky water

A shocking video shows Jamie’s room completely overflowing with a brown murky water

Mr Robert said staff at the resort (pictured) only offered him towels for his room following the incident

Mr Robert said staff at the resort (pictured) only offered him towels for his room following the incident

‘The entire resort is underwater and rooms are flooded out with raw sewage.

‘Staff at reception are not treating this seriously and we can’t get a response from anybody.

‘We woke up at 4am to our room ankle deep in wastewater.

‘We’d lost possessions and raw sewage was coming up from the shower drain.

‘No assistance from the hotel staff at all, I had to wake other rooms up to alert them. I am mortified.’

He later added: ‘I was repeatedly told by reception staff that the hotel manager would be unavailable for assistance until his shift started at 8am local time.

The holidaymaker tried to salvage some of his belongings by piling his suitcase and clothing on top of the bed

The holidaymaker tried to salvage some of his belongings by piling his suitcase and clothing on top of the bed

The tourist was initially told by reception staff that the hotel manager would be unavailable for assistance

The tourist was initially told by reception staff that the hotel manager would be unavailable for assistance

‘We went to reception at 4.30am and flooding had only worsened.

‘We’re wading through sewage to try and salvage what we can, this is horrendous.’

A TUI spokesperson replied: ‘Hi Jamie – Thank you for raising this issue to us and I’d like to apologise for what has happened.

‘I have raised this with our resort team and we will be in touch with you as soon as possible. Ashley.’

Jamie replied: ‘Thank you Ashley. This is the extent of the damage.

‘I understand you aren’t responsible for the weather but this was greatly mishandled by the hotel team and as a result we have lost half of our possessions.

‘Please get in touch when you know more information.’

TUI has been approached for comment.

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It’s widely expected that the Google Pixel 7 and the Google Pixel 7 Pro will get a full launch in October, after their existence was officially announced at Google IO 2022 in May, but more details about these phones continue to leak out.

Now we have a brief but interesting unboxing video of the Pixel 7 Pro to share with you. Posted by Gadgetfull BD (opens in new tab) (via 9to5Google (opens in new tab)), we see a brand new black version of the phone as it’s slid out of its box, with the packaging around it then unpeeled.

The 44-second video carries on so we can see the Google logo as the device boots up, and then the Pixel setup screen appears. The clip doesn’t go any further than that though, so we don’t get a look at the Android 13 software on board.

What we know so far

It’s an unboxing clip that Pixel fans are definitely going to want to check out, but it’s not particularly illuminating in telling us anything more about the phone that we didn’t know before – Google has already shown off the design of the phone, after all.

Being able to see the actual device in the real world makes a difference though. The Google Pixel 7 Pro is expected to closely match the Google Pixel 6 Pro in terms of physical size, with a 6.71-inch display on the front. Like its predecessor, the Pixel 7 Pro will also have a triple-lens rear camera setup.

There will be internal upgrades, with both the Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro being powered by the second-generation Tensor chipset developed by Google and Samsung. As for the other key specs, we’ll have to wait until the full unveiling for those.


Analysis: it’s Google vs Apple, again

There’s some debate over when exactly the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro will get a full and proper launch: previous Pixels have usually launched in October, but there have been rumors that Google is going to push the 2022 models out into the world in September instead.

That would of course put the Pixel 7 launch even closer to the iPhone 14 launch. We know that Apple is holding an event on September 7, and while there’s no official confirmation yet, it would be a huge surprise if new iPhones didn’t feature at that event.

It seems as though this year Apple is saving a lot of the key upgrades for the Pro models: they’ve been tipped to get faster processors and a few important design tweaks, as well as the usual extra camera capabilities. 

While we’d say that the Google Pixel series is catching up to the Apple iPhone in terms of hardware and software quality, it’s still got a way to go – and so it’s going to be intriguing to see what both companies have to show off over the next month or two.

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It's widely expected that the Google Pixel

The existential drift of Japan’s post-bubble “lost generation” gets the mystery thriller treatment in Kei Ishikawa’s Venice Horizons entry, A Man.

Based on the novel of the same name by Japanese author Keiichiro Hirano, A Man follows a troubled lawyer (Satoshi Tsumabuki) who is drawn into a web of mystery when a former client (played by a soulful Sakura Ando, star of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters) asks him to investigate the mysterious past of her deceased husband (a beguiling Masataka Kubota). The attorney encounters an array of colorful characters in his pursuit of the identify of this man who lived his life as a different person — but as he comes closer to the shocking truth, mixed feelings about the nature of his own place in the world steadily creep up on him.

“Shochiku came to me with the idea of making Hirano’s book into a film, so I read it and found that it’s a very pure sort of literary novel, but it’s also an engaging mystery,” says Ishikawa of A Man‘s genesis. “It’s very intellectually interesting and encapsulates a lot of the problems that my generation is facing, but it brings a lot of entertainment as well, which quite surprised me. So, I felt that as someone of the same generation as Hirano, who understands these sentiments, I had to make it.”

The sense of lostness and the dawning need for new beginnings that Jo‘s two lead characters — the enigmatic mystery husband and the troubled attorney who pursues him — eventually come to share, is reflective of many Japanese who came of age in the early 1990s, Ishikawa says.

“We grew up during Japan’s declining economy years, but we were surrounded by adults who knew the glory years of Japan’s economic miracle and who were trying to carry on as if that time was still with us. We knew that it was long gone, so my generation’s response was to look inward — to ask how can we live in a way that is more suitable to ourselves and more in tune with what we really want? But then we entered society at a time of economic downturn, fewer good jobs, rising suicide rates — and these are not the time and conditions for self-discovery. We have no leeway and we begin to wonder, what is the point to self-discovery in the first place?”

A Man reunites Ishikawa with Tsumabuki, star of his well-received directorial debut, Traces of Sin, which premiered in Horizons in 2017. Marquee handsome, the actor embodies a successful, happily married attorney who in many ways has a model life — but one who nonetheless finds elements of discord everywhere he turns, leaving him wondering what it might be like to step into a new life altogether, much like the man he is pursuing.

The film opens and closes with a shot of René Magritte’s classic surrealist painting, Not to Be Reproduced, which depicts a man standing in front of a mirror, but with a reflection that shows him from behind, rather than his face. The enigmatic image “encapsulates many of A Man‘s ideas about the elusiveness of identity,” Ishikawa says.Shochiku, has lined up a sizable theatrical release for the film in Japan on Nov. 18. The Japanese studio also is handling sales on the title for Asian territories, while German outfit The Match Factory is selling rights for the rest of the globe. Heading into Venice, the film sold to France (Art House Films), Taiwan (Pigeon Co.), and Hong Kong and Macau (Golden Scene).

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The existential drift of Japan’s post-bubble “lost

Last Updated: June 11, 2021, 10:28 IST

Sunflower
Cast: Sunil Grover, Mukul Chaddha, Ranvir Shorey, Saloni Patel
Director: Vikas Bahl

Web series Sunflower, also the name of the housing society it chooses to center its erratic murder mystery plot around, tries to blend elements of humour with drama that ends up being neither compelling nor enjoyable. Throughout the eight-episode run, the focus keeps shifting from one character to another without any interesting hook for the viewers to lean into. Sure, you may choose to call them quirky, but really, they are just uninteresting and an end result of half-hearted characterisation.

At the heart of Sunflower is a murder mystery that gets things rolling and brings the attention on a group of residents in a Mumbai co-operative society. Sonu (Sunil Grover) and Mr. Ahuja (Mukul Chaddha) become the top suspects and are under the police radar for their odd behaviour. But the buddy cop duo DG (Ranvir Shorey) and Chetan Thambe (Girish Kulkarni) keep chasing red herrings until the last 30-odd minutes or so of the runtime, making you question if the case is in capable hands or not. You’ll find yourself wanting to get to the bottom of the ‘who killed’ question more than the makers or the law enforcement.

Characters are forcibly introduced for the most part to stretch the plot further and further and cram in humour. This keeps leading the viewers into the walls. We are constantly served with Sunil Grover’s ill attempts at delivering outdated, cell phone jokes with very little sincerity. When he is on a break from that, he turns to slapstick, which is even more disappointing as the situations are just too bland. Looking back, there are fonder memories of his comic characters on TV. Here he is a terrible misfit, just as Sonu is in his surroundings.

For a mystery that should warrant unwavering attention, Sunflower is constantly distracting and sub-standard. You will not regret sitting this one out.

Rating: 1/5

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here.

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Last Updated: June 11, 2021, 10:28 ISTSunflowerCast:

Taylor Hawkins in January 2021

Taylor Hawkins in January 2021
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia

The surviving members of the Foo Fighters—joined by a huge number of other big-name musicians—assembled at Wembley Stadium in London earlier today for a concert. Said show was the first of two planned tribute concerts in honor of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died back in March. It was, to put not-too-fine a point on it, a massive and star-studded affair: In addition to Dave Grohl and the other members of the Foo Fighters—playing together publicly for the first time since Hawkins’ death—the setlist also included appearances from Dave Chappelle, Josh Homme, John Paul Jones, Liam Gallagher, Kesha, Nile Rodgers, The Pretenders, Krist Novoselic, Lars Ulrich, Roger Taylor, Brian May, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Brian Johnson, Stewart Copeland, Nandi Bushell, Paul McCartney, and more.

Although the whole event ran for six hours today—encompassing something like 50 songs in its setlist—we’ve picked out a few highlights from the day, which blended together heartfelt feeling with powerful musicianship, as many of Hawkins’ favorite performers came together with his bandmates to pay tribute.

For instance: Liam Gallagher, helping to open the show with a version of Oasis’ “Life Forever”.

Later on, Homme, Jones, and Grohl reunited their supergroup Them Crooked Vultures for their first time in 12 years:

Members of two of Hawkins’ biggest influences, Queen and Rush, also took the stage to pay tribute:

And here’s McCartney and Chrissie Hynde performing together for The Beatles’ “Oh Darling!”

The most emotional moments of the night, not surprisingly, came from the set by the Foo Fighters themselves, who brought in a rotating set of drummers to pay tribute to Hawkins. That included Josh Freese, Travis Barker, Rufus Taylor, and, yes, Bushell, who powered mightily through a version of the band’s “Learn To Fly.”

The final drummer of the evening was Hawkins’ 16-year-old son, Shane Hawkins, playing on the bands’ “My Hero.” Which, yeah: Hard to stay dry-eyed for that one.

Grohl finished the show with one final solo offering—for a definition of “solo” that includes an entire arena of people singing along—to the man he frequently referred to as his brother: An acoustic version of “Everlong”:

Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl solo) – Everlong [Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert]

The second Taylor Hawkins tribute concert is scheduled for September 27 in California.

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Taylor Hawkins in January 2021Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty

Starting today, a new bundle from Paramount+ combines the service’s collection of original series, hit programs, and blockbuster films with Showtime’s content, all within the Paramount+ app.

Bundle subscribers can now curate their watch list to include both Paramount+ and Showtime programming thanks to a quick in-app upgrade available across all platforms. Paramount+ and Showtime originals will also be available to bundle customers this fall, both new and returning.

U.S. subscribers can currently purchase the Paramount+ with Showtime bundle for a special, limited-time price of $7.99 per month for the Essential Plan and $12.99 per month for the Premium Plan.

“The Paramount+ with Showtime bundle offers consumers unprecedented value by providing one of the broadest content libraries in streaming at one of the lowest prices in the marketplace,” said Tom Ryan, president and chief executive officer of Paramount Global Streaming, in a statement. “This singular user experience streamlines sign-up and enhances discovery, and this lower price will allow more households to enjoy this exceptional combined entertainment offering.”

The bundle will cost $11.99 for the Essential tier or $14.99 for the ad-free Premium tier when the special promotional pricing expires on Oct. 2.

Showtime will still be offered individually for $10.99 as a standalone subscription and through other third-party distributors in addition to the Paramount+ with Showtime bundle.

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Starting today, a new bundle from Paramount+

If you’re used to getting your fill of Saturday Night Live and Law & Order on Hulu, all that’s going to change on September 19th. From then on, next-day premieres from NBC land on Peacock as part of the streaming service’s plan to consolidate NBC-branded content on its home platform.

Peacock terminated its content-sharing deal with Hulu back in March to prepare for its plans to exclusively secure more of its own content. This includes shows like One Chicago, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and The Voice.

The platform already streams next-day episodes from the NBC-owned Bravo, including The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Below Deck, Top Chef, and Southern Charm. NBC has also made one of its longest-running shows, Days Of Our Lives, a Peacock exclusive, but it has had trouble getting people to stay on the service for more than just the Olympic Games, the NFL, and The Office.

To help bolster its offerings, NBC signed off on a deal with Universal Pictures last year to get the studio’s films on Peacock 45 days after they premiere in theaters throughout 2022. Peacock also has the rights to the John Wick franchise and will debut a John Wick prequel in 2023.

On top of that, it has secured two versions of Jurassic World Dominion — the original movie and an extended version — which will be exclusively available starting September 2nd, and it will stream Halloween Ends starring Jamie Lee Curtis the same day it releases in theaters on October 14th.

In July, NBC’s parent company Comcast reported that Peacock’s subscriber count stayed flat at 13 million despite having what it says was “extraordinary programming” during the quarter. Peacock has only managed to add 4 million paid subscribers since the end of 2021.

Despite a lack of meaningful subscriber growth in the previous quarter, Peacock president Kelly Campbell remains optimistic about the two-year-old service’s future. “We are feeling really good about the trends that we’re seeing in our subscriber trajectory right now,” Campbell said in an interview with Deadline. “As we move towards bringing our content exclusively next day to Peacock, we’ll be putting some special subscription offers in the market to help ease that transition for consumers.”

Disclosure: Comcast is an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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The Beatles: Get Back and Adele: One Night Only won five awards apiece during the first of the two-night presentation of the Creative Arts Emmys on Saturday at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

The Beatles: Get Back delivered two Emmys to Peter Jackson, for directing and outstanding documentary. “Shout out to the Beatles,” enthused Jackson, who is also a three-time Oscar winner for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and is now halfway to EGOT.

Adele: One Night Only’s five awards included outstanding pre-recorded variety special. With the win, Adele is now just a Tony away from achieving EGOT status.

RuPaul won an Emmy for hosting his RuPaul’s Drag Race, extending his record as the most honored person of color in Emmy history, with a total of 12 wins and seven consecutive wins for outstanding host.

Chadwick Boseman received a posthumous Emmy for his voice performance as T’Challa in Disney+ series What If…? Boseman’s wife, Taylor Simone Ledward, accepted, saying, “What a beautifully aligned moment it really is that one of the last things he would work on would not only be revisiting a character that was so important to him and his career and to the world, but also that it be an exploration of something new, diving into a new potential future.”

Former President Barack Obama won his first Emmy, for narrating the Netflix docuseries Our Great National Parks. He is now halfway to EGOT, having previously won two Grammys.

Riot Games and Netflix’s animated series Arcane received four Emmys, including animated series and three juried awards. The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show was a big winner for three Emmys, while Netflix’s Love on the Spectrum also nabbed three.

Programs that won two Emmys include A Black Lady Sketch Show, Drag Race, Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Luci and Desi and the Love Death + Robots episode “Jibaro” (including one juried award).

All 2022 Creative Arts Emmy attendees were required to show proof of a negative COVID test. The second Creative Arts Emmys ceremony will be held on Sunday.

The list of winners and nominees follows.

Outstanding Animated Program
Arcane • When These Walls Come Tumbling Down • Netflix • A Riot Games and Fortiche Production for Netflix (WINNER)

Bob’s Burgers • Some Like It Bot Part 1: Eighth Grade Runner • FOX • 20th Television

Rick And Morty • Mort Dinner Rick Andre • Adult Swim • Rick and Morty LLC

The Simpsons • Pixelated And Afraid • FOX • A Gracie Films production in association with 20th Television Animation

What If…? • What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead Of His Hands? • Disney+ • Marvel Studios

Outstanding Casting For A Reality Program

Lizzo’s Watch Out For The Big Grrrls • Prime Video • Amazon Studios
Lynne Spillman, Casting by
Blair Kim, Casting by
Jazzy Collins, Casting by

Love On The Spectrum U.S. • Netflix • Northern Pictures for Netflix (WINNER)
Laura Ritchie, Casting by
Kat Elmore, Casting by
Jeffrey Marx, Casting by

Queer Eye • Netflix • Scout Productions Inc. and ITV Entertainment LLC for Netflix
Jessica Jorgensen, Casting by
Natalie Pino, Casting by
Quinn Fegan, Casting by

RuPaul’s Drag Race • VH1 • World of Wonder
Goloka Bolte, CSA, Casting by
Ethan Petersen, CSA, Casting by

Top Chef • Bravo • Magical Elves
Samantha Hanks, Casting by
Ron Mare, Casting by

Outstanding Character Voice-over Performance

Moon Knight • The Friendly Type • Disney+ • Marvel Studios
F. Murray Abraham as Khonshu

Bridgerton • Capital R Rake • Netflix • A Netflix Original Series in association with shondalandmedia
Julie Andrews as Lady Whistledown

What If…? • What If… T’Challa Became A Star-Lord? • Disney+ • Marvel Studios (WINNER)
Chadwick Boseman as Star Lord T’Challa

Big Mouth • A Very Big Mouth Christmas • Netflix • Netflix
Maya Rudolph as Connie The Hormone Monstress

Central Park • Central Dark • Apple TV+ • 20th Television Animation
Stanley Tucci as Bitsy

Archer • London Time • FX • FX Productions
Jessica Walter as Malory Archer

What If…? • What If… Ultron Won? • Disney+ • Marvel Studios
Jeffrey Wright as The Watcher

Outstanding Choreography For Variety Or Reality Programming

Annie Live! • Routines: Hard Knock Life / We Got Annie / NYC • NBC • Chloe Productions, The Green Room, Zadan/Meron Productions, Sony Pictures Television
Sergio Trujillo, Choreographer

Dancing With The Stars • Routines: I Got 5 On It / Dark Fantasy • ABC • BBC Studios Los Angeles Productions
Daniella Karagach, Choreographer

The Oscars • Routine: Be Alive • ABC • Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Fatima Robinson, Choreographer

Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 3 • Routine: Opening • Prime Video • Fenty Films & Endeavor Content (WINNER)
Parris Goebel, Choreographer

Step Into… The Movies With Derek And Julianne Hough • Routine: Moulin Rouge “Roxanne” • ABC • Done+Dusted in association with Walt Disney Television
Tessandra Chavez, Choreographer
Derek Hough, Choreographer

Outstanding Cinematography For A Nonfiction Program

The Andy Warhol Diaries • Collab: Andy & Basquiat • Netflix • Abstract Submarine for Netflix
Wolfgang Held, Director of Photography

McCartney 3, 2, 1 • These Things Bring You Together • Hulu • Hulu, Endeavor Content, A Tetragrammaton, Film 45, Kennedy/Marshall Company, MPL Communications
Stuart Winecoff, Director of Photography

100 Foot Wave • Chapter IV – Dancing With God • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with Topic Studios, Library Films, Amplify Pictures, React Films and Cinetic (WINNER)
Mike Prickett, Director of Photography
Laurent Pujol, Cinematography by

Our Great National Parks • Chilean Patagonia • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary Series / A Wild Space Production in association with Higher Ground Productions & Freeborne Media
Christiaan Muñoz-Salas, Cinematography by
Ignacio Walker, Cinematography by

Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy • Venice • CNN • CNN Original Series, RAW
Andrew Muggleton, Director of Photography

We Feed People • Disney+ • National Geographic Documentary Films Presents an Imagine Documentaries Production
Kris Kaczor, Director of Photography
Sebastian Lindstrom, Director of Photography
Alicia Sully, Director of Photography

Outstanding Cinematography for a Reality Program

The Amazing Race • Series Body Of Work • CBS • WorldRace Productions, Inc.
Josh Gitersonke, Director of Photography
Joshua Argue, Camera
Kathryn Barrows, Camera
Marc Bennett, Camera
Denise Borders, Camera
Petr Cikhart, Camera
Dave D’Angelo, Camera
Chris Ellison, Camera
Adam Haisinger, Camera
Kevin R. Johnson, Camera
Daniel Long, Camera
Jeff Philips, Camera

Deadliest Catch • Series Body Of Work • Discovery Channel • Original Productions, LLC for the Discovery Channel
David Reichert, Director of Photography
Bryan Miller, Director of Photography
Kelvon Agee, Director of Photography
Charlie Beck, Director of Photography
Todd Stanley, Director of Photography
Dave Arnold, Director of Photography
Nathan Garofalos, Director of Photography
Shane Moore, Director of Photography
Randy Lee, Director of Photography
Jacob Tawney, Director of Photography
Sam Henderson, Camera
Carson Doyle, Camera
Antonio Baca, Camera

Life Below Zero • Fire In The Sky • National Geographic • BBC Studios for National Geographic (WINNER)
Danny Day, Director of Photography
Michael Cheeseman, Director of Photography
Simeon Houtman, Director of Photography

Lizzo’s Watch Out For The Big Grrrls • HBCYou Band • Prime Video • Amazon Studios
Michael Jacob Kerber, Director of Photography

RuPaul’s Drag Race • Series Body Of Work • VH1 • World of Wonder
Michael Jacob Kerber, Director of Photography
Jay Mack Arnette II, Camera
Jason Cooley, Camera
Pauline Edwards, Camera
Mario Panagiotopoulos, Camera
Brett Smith, Camera
Jeremiah Smith, Camera
Justin Umphenour, Camera
Jon Schneider, Camera

Survivor • Series Body Of Work • CBS • MGM Television
Scott Duncan, Director of Photography
Peter Wery, Director of Photography
Russ Fill, Director of Photography
Christopher Barker, Director of Photography
Granger Scholtz, Director of Photography
Josh Bartel, Camera
Marc Bennett, Camera
Paulo Castillo, Camera
Rodney Chauvin, Camera
Chris Ellison, Camera
Glenn Louis Evans, Camera
David J. Frederick, Camera
Ben Gamble, Camera
Kevin B. Garrison, Camera
Nixon George, Camera
Matthias Hoffmann, Camera
Toby Hogan, Camera
Efrain “Mofi” Laguna, Camera
Jeff Phillips, Camera
Louis Powell, Camera
Erick G. Sarmiento, Camera
Dirk Steyn, Camera
John Tattersall, Camera
Holly Tompson, Camera
Paulo Velozo, Camera
Ryan Hermosura, Camera
Cullum Andrews, Camera

Outstanding Commercial

Detectives – Apple iPhone 13 Pro O Positive, Production Company Apple, Ad Agency

Everyone But Jon Hamm – Apple TV+ Hungry Man Productions, Production Company Media Arts Lab, Ad Agency

The Lost Class – Change The Ref
Hungry Man Productions, Production Company Leo Burnett Chicago, Ad Agency

Skate Nation Ghana – Meta Love Song, Production Company Droga5, Ad Agency

Teenage Dream – Sandy Hook Promise (WINNER)
BBDO New York, Ad Agency Smuggler, Production Company

Walter The Cat – Chevy Silverado Commonwealth//McCann, Ad Agency O Positive, Production Company

Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program

The Andy Warhol Diaries • Shadows: Andy & Jed • Netflix • Abstract Submarine for Netflix
Andrew Rossi, Directed by

The Beatles: Get Back • Part 3: Days 17-22 • Disney+ • Apple Corps Limited and WingNut Films Productions Limited (WINNER)
Peter Jackson, Directed by

George Carlin’s American Dream • HBO/HBO Max • HBO Documentary Films presents an Apatow/Rise Films Production in association with Pulse Films
Judd Apatow, Directed by
Michael Bonfiglio, Directed by

Lucy And Desi • Prime Video • Amazon Studios, Imagine Documentaries, White Horse Pictures in association with Paper Kite Productions and Diamond Docs
Amy Poehler, Directed by

Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy • Venice • CNN • CNN Original Series, RAW
Ian Denyer, Directed by

We Need To Talk About Cosby • Part 1 • Showtime • SHOWTIME Documentary Films presents a Boardwalk Pictures production in association with WKB Industries
W. Kamau Bell, Directed by

Outstanding Directing For A Reality Program

Cheer • Daytona Pt. 2: If The Judges Disagree • Netflix • One Potato Productions, Boardwalk Pictures and Caviar for Netflix
Greg Whiteley, Directed by

Lizzo’s Watch Out For The Big Grrrls • Naked • Prime Video • Amazon Studios (WINNER)
Nneka Onuorah, Directed by

Queer Eye • Angel Gets Her Wings • Netflix • Scout Productions Inc. and ITV Entertainment LLC for Netflix
Aaron Krummel, Directed by

RuPaul’s Drag Race • Moulin Ru: The Rusical • VH1 • World of Wonder
Nick Murray, Directed by

Top Chef • Freedmen’s Town • Bravo • Magical Elves
Ari Boles, Directed by

Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series

A Black Lady Sketch Show • Save My Edges, I’m A Donor! • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with For Better or Words, Inc., Hoorae, 3 Arts Entertainment and Jax Media (WINNER)
Bridget Stokes, Directed by

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver • Union Busting • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with Sixteen String Jack Productions and Avalon Television
Paul Pennolino, Directed by
Christopher Werner, Directed by

Late Night With Seth Meyers • Episode 1252 • NBC • Universal Television and Broadway Video
Alexander J. Vietmeier, Directed by

Saturday Night Live • Host: Billie Eilish • NBC • SNL Studios in association with Universal Television and Broadway Video
Don Roy King, Directed by
Liz Patrick, Directed by

Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special

Adele: One Night Only • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited and Onward Productions in association with Harpo Productions
Paul Dugdale, Directed by (WINNER)

Dave Chappelle: The Closer • Netflix • Netflix | Lathan TV | Pilot Boy
Stan Lathan, Directed by

Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with Rotten Science
Bo Burnham, Directed by

Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special • Netflix • Irwin Entertainment for Netflix
Norm Macdonald, Directed by
Jeff Tomsic, Directed by

The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar And 50 Cent • NBC • Jesse Collins Entertainment, DPS and Roc Nation
Hamish Hamilton, Directed by

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series

The Andy Warhol Diaries • Netflix • Abstract Submarine for Netflix

The Beatles: Get Back • Disney+ • Apple Corps Limited and WingNut Films Productions Limited (WINNER)

jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary / A TIME Studios Production in association with Creative Control and Leah Natasha Productions

100 Foot Wave • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with Topic Studios, Library Films, Amplify Pictures, React Films and Cinetic

We Need To Talk About Cosby • Showtime • SHOWTIME Documentary Films presents a Boardwalk Pictures production in association with WKB Industries

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special

Controlling Britney Spears (New York Times Presents) • FX • The New York Times and Left/Right

George Carlin’s American Dream • HBO/HBO Max • HBO Documentary Films presents an Apatow/Rise Films Production in association with Pulse Films (WINNER)

Lucy And Desi • Prime Video • Amazon Studios, Imagine Documentaries, White Horse Pictures in association with Paper Kite Productions and Diamond Docs

The Tinder Swindler • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary / A Raw Production with Gaspin Media and AGC Studios in association with VG

We Feed People • Disney+ • National Geographic Documentary Films Presents an Imagine Documentaries Production

Outstanding Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking

Changing The Game • Hulu • Hulu, Superfilms Productions, Foton Pictures, Glanzrock Productions

Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches • HBO/HBO Max • HBO Documentary Films presents a McGee Media and Inkwell Media Production

When Claude Got Shot • PBS • 371 Productions, Inc., Independent Television Service and Black Public Media (WINNER)

Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program

Queer Eye • Netflix • Scout Productions Inc. and ITV Entertainment LLC for Netflix
Bobby Berk, Host Karamo Brown, Host Tan France, Host Antoni Porowski, Host
Jonathan Van Ness, Host

Nailed It! • Netflix • Magical Elves for Netflix
Nicole Byer, Host

Shark Tank • ABC • MGM Television in association with Sony Pictures Television
Mark Cuban, Host
Barbara Corcoran, Host
Lori Greiner, Host
Robert Herjavec, Host
Daymond John, Host
Kevin O’Leary, Host

Top Chef • Bravo • Magical Elves
Padma Lakshmi, Host

Making It • NBC • Universal Television Alternative Studio in association with Paper Kite Productions and 3 Arts Entertainment
Amy Poehler, Host
Nick Offerman, Host

RuPaul’s Drag Race • VH1 • World of Wonder (WINNER)
RuPaul, Host

Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special

My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman • Netflix • A Jax Media and Worldwide Pants Production for Netflix

The Problem With Jon Stewart • Apple TV+ • Busboy / EDEN in association with Apple

Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy • CNN • CNN Original Series, RAW (WINNER)

Vice • Showtime • SHOWTIME Presents, Vice Media LLC

The World According To Jeff Goldblum • Disney+ • Nutopia for National Geographic and Disney+

Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction For A Variety Series

America’s Got Talent • Finale Results • NBC • Fremantle and Syco Entertainment
Noah Mitz, Lighting Designer
Michael Berger, Lighting Director
William Gossett, Lighting Director
Ryan Tanker, Lighting Director
Matt Benson, Lighting Director
Patrick Brazil, Lighting Director
Scott Chmielewski, Lighting Director

American Song Contest • Semi-Final #1 • NBC • Propagate, Universal Television Alternative Studio, American Song Contest Inc.
Noah Mitz, Lighting Designer
William Gossett, Lighting Director
Patrick Brazil, Lighting Director
Rob Koenig, Lighting Director
Matt Benson, Lighting Director
Darien Koop, Lighting Director
Matthew Cotter, Lighting Director

Dancing With The Stars • Finale • ABC • BBC Studios Los Angeles Productions
Tom Sutherland, Lighting Designer
Joe Holdman, Lighting Director
Nate Files, Lighting Director
Matt McAdam, Lighting Director

The Masked Singer • Group A Semi-Final • FOX • FOX Alternative Entertainment and Smart Dog Media
Simon Miles, Lighting Designer
Cory Fournier, Lighting Director

The Voice • Live Finale • NBC • MGM Television and Warner Bros. Unscripted Television in association with Warner Horizon and ITV Studios The Voice USA, Inc. (WINNER)
Oscar Dominguez, Lighting Designer
Samuel Barker, Lighting Director
Ronald K. Wirsgalla, Lighting Director
Daniel K. Boland, Lighting Director
Erin Anderson, Lighting Director
Andrew Munie, Lighting Director

Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety Special

Adele: One Night Only • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited and Onward Productions in association with Harpo Productions (WINNER)
Noah Mitz, Lighting Designer
Bryan Klunder, Lighting Director
Patrick Boozer, Lighting Director
Patrick Brazil, Lighting Director
Matthew Cotter, Lighting Director
Christopher Landy, Lighting Director

Annie Live! • NBC • Chloe Productions, The Green Room, Zadan/Meron Productions, Sony Pictures Television
Robert Barnhart, Lighting Designer
Pete Radice, Lighting Director
Ben Green, Lighting Director
Madigan Stehly, Lighting Director
Robert Styles, Lighting Director

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited
Noah Mitz, Lighting Designer
Madigan Stehly, Lighting Director
Bryan Klunder, Lighting Director
Andy O’Reilly, Lighting Director
Patrick Boozer, Lighting Director
Ryan Tanker, Lighting Director
Erin Anderson, Lighting Director
Matthew Cotter, Lighting Director

One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga • CBS • Alex Coletti Productions
Leroy Bennett, Lighting Designer
Jason Baeri, Lighting Director

The Tony Awards Present: Broadway’s Back! • CBS • White Cherry Entertainment
Noah Mitz, Lighting Designer
Ed McCarthy, Lighting Director
Harry Sangmeister, Lighting Director
Richard Beck, Lighting Director
Jason Rudolph, Lighting Director

Outstanding Music Composition For A Documentary Series Or Special (Original Dramatic Score)

14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary produced by Noah Media Group in association with Little Monster Films
Nainita Desai, Composer

Lucy And Desi • Prime Video • Amazon Studios, Imagine Documentaries, White Horse Pictures in association with Paper Kite Productions and Diamond Docs (WINNER)
David Schwartz, Composer

Return To Space • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary / A Little Monster Films Production
Mychael Danna, Composer
Harry Gregson-Williams, Composer

They Call Me Magic • Earvin • Apple TV+ • New Slate Ventures / XTR / H.Wood Media / Delirio Films in association with Apple
Terence Blanchard, Composer

The Tinder Swindler • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary / A Raw Production with Gaspin Media and AGC Studios in association with VG
Jessica Jones, Composer

Outstanding Music Direction

43rd Annual Kennedy Center Honors • CBS • White Cherry Entertainment
Rickey Minor, Music Director

44th Annual Kennedy Center Honors • CBS • White Cherry Entertainment
Rickey Minor, Music Director

One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga • CBS • Alex Coletti Productions
Michael Bearden, Music Director
Lee Musiker, Music Director

The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar And 50 Cent • NBC • Jesse Collins Entertainment, DPS and Roc Nation (WINNER)
Adam Blackstone, Music Director

Saturday Night Live • Host: Jake Gyllenhaal • NBC • SNL Studios in association with Universal Television and Broadway Video
Lenny Pickett, Music Director
Leon Pendarvis, Music Director
Eli Brueggemann, Music Director

Outstanding Narrator

Black Patriots: Heroes Of The Civil War • HISTORY • Six West Media group for HISTORY Channel
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Narrator

The Mating Game • In Plain Sight • Discovery+ • A Silverback Films Production for BBC, Discovery and NHK co-produced with Bilibili and France Télévisions
David Attenborough, Narrator

We Need To Talk About Cosby • Part 1 • Showtime • SHOWTIME Documentary Films presents a Boardwalk Pictures production in association with WKB Industries
W. Kamau Bell, Narrator

Serengeti II • Intrigue • Discovery+ • Produced by XIX Entertainment and John Downer Productions for the BBC, the Discovery Channel and BBC Studios Distribution
Lupita Nyong’o, Narrator

Our Great National Parks • A World Of Wonder • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary Series / A Wild Space Production in association with Higher Ground Productions & Freeborne Media (WINNER)
Barack Obama, Narrator

Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program

The Beatles: Get Back • Part 3: Days 17-22 • Disney+ • Apple Corps Limited and WingNut Films Productions Limited (WINNER)
Jabez Olssen, Editor

George Carlin’s American Dream • HBO/HBO Max • HBO Documentary Films presents an Apatow/Rise Films Production in association with Pulse Films
Joseph Beshenkovsky, ACE, Editor

Lucy And Desi • Prime Video • Amazon Studios, Imagine Documentaries, White Horse Pictures in association with Paper Kite Productions and Diamond Docs
Robert A. Martinez, Editor Dan Reed, Additional Editor
Inaya Graciana Yusuf, Additional Editor

Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy • Venice • CNN • CNN Original Series, RAW
Hamit Shonpal, Editor

The Tinder Swindler • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary / A Raw Production with Gaspin Media and AGC Studios in association with VG
Julian Hart, Editor

We Need To Talk About Cosby • Part 1 • Showtime • SHOWTIME Documentary Films presents a Boardwalk Pictures production in association with WKB Industries
Meg Ramsay, Editor
Jennifer Brooks, Additional Editor
F. Michael Young, Additional Editor
Jeremy Lusk, Additional Editor

Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program

Lizzo’s Watch Out For The Big Grrrls • Naked • Prime Video • Amazon Studios (WINNER)
Deidre Panziera, Lead Editor
Hannah Carpenter, Editor
Brian Murphy, Editor
Jeanie Phillips, Editor

Queer Eye • Angel Gets Her Wings • Netflix • Scout Productions Inc. and ITV Entertainment LLC for Netflix
Nova Taylor, Lead Editor
Sean Gill, Editor

RuPaul’s Drag Race • Big Opening #1 • VH1 • World of Wonder
Jamie Martin, Lead Editor
Paul Cross, Editor
Ryan Mallick, Editor
Michael Roha, Editor

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars • Halftime Headliners • Paramount+ • World of Wonder
Michael Lynn Deis, Lead Editor
Mary DeChambres, ACE, Editor
Katherine Griffin, Editor
Laurel Mick Ostrander, Editor
Michael Roha, Editor

Top Chef • Restaurant Wars • Bravo • Magical Elves
Steve Lichtenstein, Lead Editor
Ericka Concha, Editor
Tim Daniel, Editor
George Dybas, Editor
Eric Lambert, Editor
Anthony Rivard, Editor
Jay Rogers, Editor
Sarah Goff, Additional Editor
Matt Reynolds, Additional Editor
Clark Vogeler, Additional Editor

Outstanding Picture Editing for an Unstructured Reality Program

Below Deck Mediterranean • A Yacht In Kneed • Bravo • 51 Minds
Cameron Teisher, Supervising Editor
Garrett Hohendorf, Lead Editor
Bil Yoelin, Lead Editor
Jonathan Anderson, Editor

Cheer • Daytona Pt. 2: If The Judges Disagree • Netflix • One Potato Productions, Boardwalk Pictures and Caviar for Netflix
Daniel George McDonald, Supervising Editor
Daniel J. Clark, Editor
Zachary Fuhrer, Editor
Stefanie Maridueña, Editor
Dana Martell, Editor
Jody McVeigh-Schultz, Editor
Sharon Weaver, Editor
David Zucker, Editor

Deadliest Catch • Five Souls On Board • Discovery Channel • Original Productions, LLC for the Discovery Channel
Rob Butler, ACE, Supervising Editor
Isaiah Camp, ACE, Supervising Editor
Alexandra Moore, ACE, Editor
Adrian Orozco, Additional Editor
Alexander Rubinow, ACE, Additional Editor
Hugh Elliott, Additional Editor
Chris Courtner, Additional Editor

Life Below Zero • Fire In The Sky • National Geographic • BBC Studios for National Geographic
Michael Swingler, Editor
Tony Diaz, Additional Editor
Matt Edwards, Additional Editor
Jennifer Nelson, ACE, Additional Editor

Love On The Spectrum U.S. • Episode 1 • Netflix • Northern Pictures for Netflix (WINNER)
Rachel Grierson-Johns, Editor
Simon Callow-Wright, Editor
John Rosser, Editor

Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming

A Black Lady Sketch Show • Save My Edges, I’m A Donor! • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with For Better or Words, Inc., Hoorae, 3 Arts Entertainment and Jax Media (WINNER)
Stephanie Filo, ACE, Editor
Bradinn French, Editor
Taylor Joy Mason, Editor
S. Robyn Wilson, Editor

Conan • Series Finale • TBS • Conaco LLC
Robert James Ashe, Lead Editor
Mike Api, Editor
Christopher P. Heller, Editor
Matthew Shaw, Editor

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah • Jordan Klepper Takes On “Wellness” Anti-Vaxxers + Fringewatching Rep. Lauren Boebert
Comedy Central • Central Productions, LLC
Storm Choi, Editor
Eric Davies, Editor
Tom Favilla, Editor
Lauren Beckett Jackson, Editor
Nikolai Johnson, Editor
Ryan Middleton, Editor
Mark Paone, Editor
Erin Shannon, Editor
Catherine Trasborg, Editor
Einar Westerlund, Editor

Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return To Hogwarts • HBO/HBO Max • Warner Bros. Unscripted Television in association with Warner Horizon, Casey Patterson Entertainment and Pulse Films
Simon Bryant, Editor
Jim Clark, Editor
James Collett, Editor
Bill DeRonde, Editor
Asaf Eisenberg, Editor
Will Gilby, Editor
Lior Linevitz–Matthews, Editor
Pablo Noe, Editor
Tim Perniciaro, Editor
Jacob Proctor, Editor

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver • The Confesstigators (segment) • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with Sixteen String Jack Productions and Avalon Television
Anthony Miale, ACE, Senior Editor

Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited
Julio Himede, Production Designer
Kristen Merlino, Art Director

Live In Front Of A Studio Audience: The Facts Of Life And Diff’rent Strokes • ABC • Sony Pictures Television, Act III Productions, Kimmelot, D’Arconville, Gary Sanchez Productions, Simpson Street
Stephan Olson, Production Designer
Raf Lydon, Art Director
Jerie Kelter, Set Decorator

The Oscars • ABC • Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
David Korins, Production Designer
Margaux Lapresle, Art Director

The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar And 50 Cent • NBC • Jesse Collins Entertainment, DPS and Roc Nation (WINNER)
Bruce Rodgers, Production Designer
Shelley Rodgers, Art Director
Maria Garcia, Art Director

Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 3 • Prime Video • Fenty Films & Endeavor Content
Willo Perron, Production Designer
Steve Morden, Art Director
Marc Manabat, Set Decorator

Outstanding Production Design for a Variety, Reality Or Competition Series

A Black Lady Sketch Show • Anybody Have Something I Can Flog Myself With? • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with For Better or Words, Inc., Hoorae, 3 Arts Entertainment and Jax Media
Cindy Chao, Production Designer
Michele Yu, Production Designer
Lizzie Boyle, Set Decorator

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert • Colbert’s “Lord Of The Rings” Rap Celebrates 20 Years Of The Greatest Trilogy In Movie History • CBS • CBS Studios
Jim Fenhagen, Production Designer
Larry Hartman, Production Designer
Brendan Hurley, Art Director
Riley Mellon, Art Director

Queer Eye • Angel Gets Her Wings • Netflix • Scout Productions Inc. and ITV Entertainment LLC for Netflix
Thomas Rouse, Production Designer
Josh Smith, Art Director

RuPaul’s Drag Race • Catwalk • VH1 • World of Wonder (WINNER)
Gianna Costa, Production Designer
Allison Spain, Art Director

Saturday Night Live • Host: Kim Kardashian • NBC • SNL Studios in association with Universal Television and Broadway Video
Eugene Lee, Production Designer
Akira Yoshimura, Production Designer
Keith Ian Raywood, Production Designer
N. Joseph DeTullio, Production Designer
Melissa Shakun, Art Director

Outstanding Short Form Animated Program

The Boys Presents: Diabolical • John And Sun-Hee • Prime Video • Amazon Studios, Sony Pictures Television Studios, Titmouse, Kripke Enterprises, Original Film, and Point Grey Pictures

Love, Death + Robots • Jibaro • Netflix • Blur Studio for Netflix (WINNER)

Robot Chicken • Happy Russian Deathdog Dolloween 2 U • Adult Swim • A Stoopid Buddy Stoodios production with Williams Street

Star Wars: Visions • The Duel • Disney+ • Kamikaze Douga and Lucasfilm Ltd.

When Billie Met Lisa • Disney+ • A Gracie Films production in association with 20th Television Animation

Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series

Carpool Karaoke: The Series • Apple TV+ • Apple presents a CBS Studios production in association with Fulwell 73 (WINNER)

I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson • Netflix • Netflix

Late Night With Seth Meyers CORRECTIONS • YouTube • Universal Television and Sethmaker Shoemeyers Productions

The Randy Rainbow Show • YouTube • 4 Irene Productions Inc.

Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out The News • Paramount+ • CBS Studios, Late Night Cartoons

Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series

Between The Scenes – The Daily Show • YouTube • Central Productions, LLC

Full Frontal With Samantha Bee Presents: Once Upon A Time In Late Night • TBS • TBS in association with Full Frontal Digital (WINNER)

RuPaul’s Drag Race Whatcha Packin’ With Michelle Visage • VH1 • VH1

Saturday Night Live Presents: Stories From The Show • NBC • SNL Studios in association with Universal Television and Broadway Video

Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen • Bravo • Magical Elves

Outstanding Sound Editing For A Nonfiction Or Reality Program (Single Or Multi-camera)

The Beatles: Get Back • Part 3: Days 17-22 • Disney+ • Apple Corps Limited and WingNut Films Productions Limited (WINNER)
Martin Kwok, Supervising Sound Editor / Dialogue Editor
Emile De La Rey, Sound Editor
Matt Stutter, Sound Editor
Michael Donaldson, Foley Editor
Stephen Gallagher, Music Editor
Tane Upjohn-Beatson, Music Editor
Simon Riley, Foley Artist

George Carlin’s American Dream • HBO/HBO Max • HBO Documentary Films presents an Apatow/Rise Films Production in association with Pulse Films
Bobby Mackston, Sound Supervisor
Miriam Cole, Dialogue Editor
Matt Temple, Sound Effects Editor
Joseph Beshenkovsky, Sound Effects Editor

Lucy And Desi • Prime Video • Amazon Studios, Imagine Documentaries, White Horse Pictures in association with Paper Kite Productions and Diamond Docs
Anthony Vanchure, Co-Supervising Sound Editor
Daniel Pagan, Co-Supervising Sound Editor
Mike James Gallagher, Sound Effects Editor
Jason Tregoe Newman, Music Editor
Bryant Furhman, Music Editor

McCartney 3, 2, 1 • The People We Loved Were Loving Us! • Hulu • Hulu, Endeavor Content, A Tetragrammaton, Film 45, Kennedy/Marshall Company, MPL Communications
Jonathan Greber, Sound Supervisor
Leff Lefferts, Sound Editor
Bjorn Ole Schroeder, Sound Editor
E. Larry Oatfield, Sound Editor
Kim Foscato, Sound Editor

The Tinder Swindler • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary / A Raw Production with Gaspin Media and AGC Studios in association with VG
Maria Kelly, Dialogue Editor
Chad Orororo, Sound Designer
Nirupama Rajendran, Sound Effects Editor

Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Nonfiction Or Reality Program (Single Or Multi-camera)

The Beatles: Get Back • Part 3: Days 17-22 • Disney+ • Apple Corps Limited and WingNut Films Productions Limited (WINNER)
Michael Hedges, Re-Recording Mixer
Brent Burge, Re-Recording Mixer
Alexis Feodoroff, Re-Recording Mixer
Giles Martin, Music Mixer

George Carlin’s American Dream • HBO/HBO Max • HBO Documentary Films presents an Apatow/Rise Films Production in association with Pulse Films
Earl Martin, Re-Recording Mixer
Jason Gaya, Re-Recording Mixer
Brad Bergbom, Production Mixer
Kevin Rosen Quan, Production Mixer

Lizzo’s Watch Out For The Big Grrrls • Becoming 100% That Bitch • Prime Video • Amazon Studios
Erik Brena, Re-Recording Mixer
Ross D’Alessandro, Production Mixer
Julianne Kane, Production Mixer
Deanna Decenario, Production Mixer

McCartney 3, 2, 1 • These Things Bring You Together • Hulu • Hulu, Endeavor Content, A Tetragrammaton, Film 45, Kennedy/Marshall Company, MPL Communications
Gary A. Rizzo, CAS, Re-Recording Mixer
Laura Cunningham, Production Mixer

RuPaul’s Drag Race • Big Opening #1 • VH1 • World of Wonder
Erik Valenzuela, Re-Recording Mixer
David Nolte, Production Mixer
Glenn Gaines, Production Mixer

Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy • Venice • CNN • CNN Original Series, RAW
Tom O’Pray, Re-Recording Mixer
Renato Ferrari, Production Mixer

Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Variety Series Or Special

Adele: One Night Only • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited and Onward Productions in association with Harpo Productions (WINNER)
Paul Wittman, Production Mixer
Tom Elmhirst, Music Mixer
Eric Schilling, Music Mixer
Josh Morton, Re-Recording Mixer
Kristian Pedregon, Re-Recording Mixer
Shane O’Connor, Re-Recording Mixer
Christian Schrader, Supplemental Audio Mixer

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited
Thomas Holmes, Production Mixer
John Harris, Music Mixer
Eric Schilling, Music Mixer
Christian Schrader, Supplemental Audio Mixer
Eric Johnston, Playback Mixer
Josh Morton, Package Mixer
Ron Reaves, FOH Music Mixer
Jeffrey Michael Peterson, FOH Production Mixer
Mike Parker, Monitor Mixer
Tom Pesa, Monitor Mixer
Juan Pablo Velasco, Pro Tools Playback Mixer
Aaron Walk, Pro Tools Playback Mixer

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert • First Show Back With An Audience, Dana Carvey As Joe Biden, Interview With Jon Stewart, And Jon Batiste Performs “Freedom” • CBS • CBS Studios
Pierre de Laforcade, Production Mixer
Harvey Goldberg, Broadcast Music Mixer
Alan Bonomo, Monitor Mixer
Tom Herrmann, Front of House Mixer

The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar And 50 Cent • NBC • Jesse Collins Entertainment, DPS and Roc Nation
Thomas Holmes, Production Mixer
Alex Guessard, FOH Production Mixer
Dave Natale, FOH Music Mixer
Tom Pesa, Monitor Mixer
Christian Schrader, Supplemental Audio Mixer
Pablo Munguia, Pro Tools Playback Mixer

Saturday Night Live • Host: John Mulaney • NBC • SNL Studios in association with Universal television and Broadway Video
Robert Palladino, CAS, Production Mixer
Ezra Matychak, Production Mixer
Bob Selitto, FOH Music Mixer
Frank J. Duca Jr., FOH/Foldback Mixer
Caroline Sanchez, FOH Production Mixer
Josiah Gluck, Music Mixer
Tyler McDiarmid, Playback Mixer
Douglas Nightwine, Monitor Mixer
William Taylor, Sound Effects Mixer
Devin Emke, Package Mixer
Eric Pfeifer, Package Mixer
Andrew Guastella, Package Mixer

Outstanding Structured Reality Program

Antiques Roadshow • PBS • GBH

Fixer Upper: Welcome Home • Magnolia Network • Blind Nil

Love Is Blind • Netflix • Kinetic Content for Netflix

Queer Eye • Netflix • Scout Productions Inc. and ITV Entertainment LLC for Netflix (WINNER)

Shark Tank • ABC • MGM Television in association with Sony Pictures Television

Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control For A Series

American Idol • Disney Night • ABC • Fremantle and 19 Entertainment
Charles Ciup, Technical Director
David Bernstein, Technical Director
Bettina Levesque, Camera
Bert Atkinson, Camera
Damien Tuffereau, Camera
Rob Palmer, Camera
Bruce Green, Camera
Daryl Studebaker, Camera
Mike Carr, Camera
Jofre Rosero, Camera
Nat Havholm, Camera
Easter Xua, Camera
Andrew Georgopoulos, Camera
Ed Horton, Camera
Brian Reason, Camera
Keith Dicker, Camera
Adam Margolis, Camera
Ron Lehman, Camera
Christopher Gray, Video Control
Luke Chantrell, Video Control

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah • Robert Glasper Performs “Heaven’s Here” • Comedy Central • Central Productions, LLC
Michael Williams, Technical Director
Matt Muro, Camera
Rich York, Camera
Tim Quigley, Camera
Phil Salanto, Camera
Ricardo Sarmiento, Camera
Joel Sadler, Camera

Dancing With The Stars • Horror Night • ABC • BBC Studios Los Angeles Productions
Charles Ciup, Technical Director
Christine Salomon, Technical Director
Brian Reason, Camera
Bettina Levesque, Camera
Daryl Studebaker, Camera
Cary Symmons, Camera
Bert Atkinson, Camera
Nat Havholm, Camera
Ron Lehman, Camera
Mike Carr, Camera
Adam Margolis, Camera
Damien Tuffereau, Camera
Easter Xua, Camera
Derek Pratt, Camera
Mark Koonce, Camera
John Gardner, Camera
Andrew Georgopoulos, Camera
Dylan Sanford, Camera
Luke Chantrell, Video Control
Ed Moore, Video Control

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver • Union Busting • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with Sixteen String Jack Productions and Avalon Television (WINNER)
Dave Saretsky, Technical Director
Dante Pagano, Camera
John Harrison, Camera
Rich Freedman, Camera
John Schwartz, Camera
Augie Yuson, Video Control

The Masked Singer • Masks Back — The Good, The Bad & The Cuddly — Round 1 • FOX • FOX Alternative Entertainment and Smart Dog Media
Christine Salomon, Technical Director
Nat Havholm, Camera
Mark Koonce, Camera
Brett Crutcher, Camera
Adam Margolis, Camera
Rob Palmer, Camera
Ron Lehman, Camera
Bert Atkinson, Camera
Bettina Levesque, Camera
Jeff Wheat, Camera
Kary D’Alessandro, Camera
Daryl Studebaker, Camera
John Goforth, Camera
Cary Symmons, Camera
Sean Flannery, Camera
Darin Gallacher, Video Control
Chris Hill, Video Control

The Voice • Live Top 10 Performances • NBC • MGM Television and Warner Bros. Unscripted Television in association with Warner Horizon and ITV Studios The Voice USA, Inc.
Allan Wells, Technical Director
Danny Bonilla, Camera
Mano Bonilla, Camera
Martin J. Brown Jr., Camera
Robert Burnette, Camera
Suzanne Ebner, Camera
Guido Frenzel, Camera
Alex Hernandez, Camera
Marc Hunter, Camera
Scott Hylton, Camera
Kathrine Iacofano, Camera
Scott Kaye, Camera
Steve Martynuk, Camera
Jofre Rosero, Camera
Steve Simmons, Camera
Terrance Ho, Video Control

Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Special

57th Academy Of Country Music Awards • Prime Video • MRC and Academy of Country Music
Eric Becker, Technical Director
Iqbal Hans, Technical Director
Danny Bonilla, Camera
Mano Bonilla, Camera
David Carline, Camera
Robert Del Russo, Camera
Suzanne Ebner, Camera
Darla Elledge, Camera
Freddy Frederick Jr., Camera
Pat Gleason, Camera
Ed Horton, Camera
Garrett Hurt, Camera
Kat Kallergis, Camera
Jay Kulick, Camera
Steve Martyniuk, Camera
Allen Merriweather, Camera
Lyn Nolad, Camera
Rob Palmer, Camera
John Perry, Camera
David Plakos, Camera
Easter Xua, Camera
Danny Webb, Camera
Matt Greene, Camera Cody
Alderman, Camera
Daniel Schade, Camera
Jeff Lee, Camera
Terrance Ho, Video Control
Guy Jones, Video Control
Kevin Faust, Video Control

Adele: One Night Only • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited and Onward Productions in association with Harpo Productions (WINNER)
Michael Anderson, Technical Director
Dan Winterburn, Technical Director
Danny Webb, Camera
Rob Palmer, Camera
David Eastwood, Camera
Vincent Foilett, Camera
Allen Merriweather, Camera
Bruce Green, Camera
Robert Del Russo, Camera
Brian Lataille, Camera
Keith Dicker, Camera

Patrick Gleason, Camera
Danny Bonilla, Camera
Rob Vuona, Camera
Dave Rudd, Camera
Keyan Safyari, Camera
Freddy Frederick, Camera
Gabriel De La Parra, Camera
Jofre Rosero, Camera
David Carline, Camera
Kosta Krstic, Camera
Terrance Ho, Video Control
Joey Lopez, Video Control

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited
Eric Becker, Technical Director
Ken Shapiro, Technical Director
Danny Bonilla, Camera
Michael Carr, Camera
Suzanne Ebner, Camera
Sean Flannery, Camera
Jeremy Freeman, Camera
Helena Jackson, Camera
Tore Livia, Camera
Steve Martyniuk, Camera
Allen Merriweather, Camera
Rob Palmer, Camera
John Perry, Camera
David Plakos, Camera
Jofre Rosero, Camera
Keyan Safyari, Camera
Chad Smith, Camera
Easter Xua, Camera
Guy Jones, Video Control
Kevin Faust, Video Control

2021 MTV Video Music Awards • MTV • MTV Entertainment Studios, Den Of Thieves
Eric Becker, Technical Director
Mike Williams, Technical Director
Shaun Harkins, Camera
John Lee, Camera
Rich York, Camera
David Trenkle, Camera
Nat Havholm, Camera
Robert Del Russo, Camera
Mark Renaudin, Camera
Tore Livia, Camera
Rob Balton, Camera
Jimmy O’Donnell, Camera
Marc Bloomgarden, Camera
Ray Hoover, Camera
Daniel Paulet, Camera
Kurt Decker, Camera
Jay Kulick, Camera
Jeff Latonero, Camera
Jofre Rosaro, Camera
J.M. Hurley, Video Control
Bob Benedetti, Video Control

One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga • CBS • Alex Coletti Productions
Lori Gallati, Technical Director
Rob Balton, Camera
Jerry Cancel, Camera
Eli Clarke, Camera
Robert Del Russo, Camera
Dave Driscoll, Camera
Jay Kulick, Camera
Jeff Latonero, Camera
Lyn Noland, Camera
Mark Renaudin, Camera
Carlos Rios, Camera
Jim Scurti, Camera
Tim Quigley, Camera
Dan Zadwarny, Camera
J.M. Hurley, Video Control

Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program

Below Deck Mediterranean • Bravo • 51 Minds

Cheer • Netflix • One Potato Productions, Boardwalk Pictures and Caviar for Netflix

Love On The Spectrum U.S. • Netflix • Northern Pictures for Netflix (WINNER)

RuPaul’s Drag Race Untucked • VH1 • World of Wonder

Selling Sunset • Netflix • Done and Done Productions and Lionsgate for Netflix

Outstanding Variety Special (Live)

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited

Live In Front Of A Studio Audience: The Facts Of Life And Diff’rent Strokes • ABC • Sony Pictures Television, Act III Productions, Kimmelot, D’Arconville, Gary Sanchez Productions, Simpson Street

The Oscars • ABC • Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar And 50 Cent • NBC • Jesse Collins Entertainment, DPS and Roc Nation (WINNER)

The Tony Awards Present: Broadway’s Back! • CBS • White Cherry Entertainment

Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-recorded)

Adele: One Night Only • CBS • Fulwell 73 UK Limited and Onward Productions in association with Harpo Productions (WINNER)

Dave Chappelle: The Closer • Netflix • Netflix | Lathan TV | Pilot Boy

Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return To Hogwarts • HBO/HBO Max • Warner Bros. Unscripted Television in association with Warner Horizon, Casey Patterson Entertainment and Pulse Films

Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special • Netflix • Irwin Entertainment for Netflix

One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga • CBS • Alex Coletti Productions

Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program

The Andy Warhol Diaries • Shadows: Andy & Jed • Netflix • Abstract Submarine for Netflix
Andrew Rossi, Written by

How To With John Wilson • How To Appreciate Wine • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with Atlantic Pictures, Johns Movies and Blow Out Productions
John Wilson, Written by
Michael Koman, Written by
Susan Orlean, Written by
Conner O’Malley, Written by

Lucy And Desi • Prime Video • Amazon Studios, Imagine Documentaries, White Horse Pictures in association with Paper Kite Productions and Diamond Docs (WINNER)
Mark Monroe, Written by

The Problem With Jon Stewart • The Economy • Apple TV+ • Busboy / EDEN in association with Apple
Chelsea Devantez, Head Writer
Jon Stewart, Writer
Kristen Acimovic, Writer

The Tinder Swindler • Netflix • A Netflix Documentary / A Raw Production with Gaspin Media and AGC Studios in association with VG
Felicity Morris, Written by

Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series

A Black Lady Sketch Show • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with For Better or Words, Inc., Hoorae, 3 Arts Entertainment and Jax Media
Tracey Ashley, Head Writer
Robin Thede, Writer
Alrinthea Carter, Writer
Michelle Davis, Writer
Sonia Denis, Writer
Jonterri Gadson, Writer
Chloé Hilliard, Writer
Shenovia Large, Writer
Natalie McGill, Writer

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah • Comedy Central • Central Productions, LLC
Dan Amira, Head Writer
Lauren Sarver Means, Senior Writer
Daniel Radosh, Senior Writer
David Angelo, Writer
Devin Delliquanti, Writer
Zach DiLanzo, Writer
Jennifer Flanz, Writer
Jason Gilbert, Writer
Josh Johnson, Writer
David Kibuuka, Writer
Matt Koff, Writer
Christiana Mbakwe, Writer
Trevor Noah, Writer
Joseph Opio, Writer
Randall Otis, Writer
Zhubin Parang, Writer
Kat Radley, Writer
Scott Sherman, Writer
Ashton Womack, Writer

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver • HBO/HBO Max • HBO in association with Sixteen String Jack Productions and Avalon Television (WINNER)
Daniel O’Brien, Senior Writer
Owen Parsons, Senior Writer
Charlie Redd, Senior Writer
Joanna Rothkopf, Senior Writer
Seena Vali, Senior Writer
Johnathan Appel, Writer
Ali Barthwell, Writer
Tim Carvell, Writer
Liz Hynes, Writer
Greg Iwinski, Writer
Ryan Ken, Writer
Mark Kramer, Writer
Sofía Manfredi, Writer

John Oliver, Writer
Taylor Kay Phillips, Writer
Chrissy Shackelford, Writer

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert • CBS • CBS Studios
Ariel Dumas, Head Writer
Jay Katsir, Head Writer
Delmonte Bent, Written by
Michael Brumm, Written by
Aaron Cohen, Written by
Stephen T. Colbert, Written by
Paul Dinello, Written by
Glenn Eichler, Written by
Gabe Gronli, Written by
Barry Julien, Written by
Michael Cruz Kayne, Written by
Eliana Kwartler, Written by
Matt Lappin, Written by
Caroline Lazar, Written by
Pratima Mani, Written by
Felipe Torres Medina, Written by
Opus Moreschi, Written by
Carley Moseley, Written by
Asher Perlman, Written by
Tom Purcell, Written by
Kate Sidley, Written by
Brian Stack, Written by
John Thibodeaux, Written by
Steve Waltien, Written by

Saturday Night Live • NBC • SNL Studios in association with Universal Television and Broadway Video
Michael Che, Head Writer
Alison Gates, Head Writer
Streeter Seidell, Head Writer
Colin Jost, Head Writer
Kent Sublette, Head Writer
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The Beatles: Get Back and Adele: One

After hours of emceeing and playing various instruments for other acts, Dave Grohl closed out the Taylor Hawkins tribute in London with the surviving members of Foo Fighters and surprise guest Paul McCartney.

Though no one can replace Hawkins behind the kit, the Foos were joined by a number of drummers during their set, including Josh Freese on “Times Like These” and “All My Life,” Travis Barker on “The Pretender” and “Monkey Wrench,” Rufus Taylor on “These Days and “Best of You,” 12-year-old phenom Nandi Bushell on “Learn To Fly” and Hawkins’ 16-year-old son Shane, who was absolutely thunderous on “My Hero.”

“Pulling this whole thing together over the last three months, we met some really amazing people — people I’ve never met before,” Dave Grohl said after “Best of You.” “One of them, I got to stand on stage with tonight and play the bass: Miss Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders, who I happen to think is the baddest motherfucker in the world. She brought a friend tonight.”

That friend was none other than McCartney, who shocked the crowd by dusting off The Beatles’ “Oh, Darling.” “God bless Taylor,” said McCartney, who inducted the Foos into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021. “Me and Chrissie are gonna do a song here that I haven’t done since I recorded it 100 years ago. I’ve never done it as a duet, but we’re gonna do it tonight for the first time, for you.”

McCartney stuck around to sing lead on “Helter Skelter,” not before relating an anecdote about being asked to play drums, of all instruments, on the Foo Fighters song “Sunday Rain.” “This group has two of the best drummers in the world, and they wanted me to drum on it, so I did,” he said with a smile of the track, which appeared on the Foos’ 2017 album Concrete and Gold. “Quite a memory.”

The set continued with “Aurora,” which had earlier soundtracked an emotional pre-show photo montage of Hawkins and, like the two Beatles covers, featured Omar Hakim on drums. “I think this next song was Taylor’s favorite Foo Fighters song, so we knew we had to do it tonight,” Grohl said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone hit the drums as hard as this person,” Grohl told the audience when introducing Shane Hawkins after “Aurora.” “Beyond that, he’s a member of our family, and he needs to be here tonight with all of us.”

This was the first time the Foos have performed live without Hawkins, who passed away unexpectedly in March at the age of 50. Tonight’s concert was the first of two honoring the late drummer; the second is set for Sept. 27 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles with many of tonight’s performers, as well as Alanis Morissette, Miley Cyrus, P!nk, Gene Simmons, Joan Jett, Nikki Sixx, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and Rage Against the Machine’s Brad Wilk, among others.

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After hours of emceeing and playing various

Beyond classic musicals like “The Sound of Music” and “South Pacific,” writer Laurence Maslon breaks down the unparalleled career and influence of composer Richard Rodgers.


Among some notes for an unfinished novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously (or infamously) observed, “There are no second acts in American lives.” Using only 88 keys and a bottomless supply of genius, composer Richard Rodgers proved Fitzgerald dead wrong, living through a three act career and providing us with a fourth act in posterity.

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, 1936. Source: Library of Congress.

Rodgers’s first act as a theatrical composer began in 1919 as a collaboration with lyricist Lorenz Hart that lasted into World War II. Their witty songs and melancholy ballads made them the most popular and adventuresome songwriting team on Broadway and (briefly) in Hollywood. Among their three dozen projects were such triumphs as “Babes in Arms,” “The Boys from Syracuse” and “Pal Joey.” Rodgers and Hart also gave the world such immortal songs as “Where or When,” “My Funny Valentine,” “Falling in Love with Love” and “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.”

His second act was a partnership with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, who also wrote the complex and moving narratives (“books”) for their shows. Beginning in 1943, they wrote nine shows together (and one television score and one film score), full-throttled musical stories that captured the imagination of the American public in the post-war years. With shows such as “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel,” “South Pacific” and “The Sound of Music,” Rodgers and Hammerstein created not only record-breaking commercial successes, but resonant and enduring tales of character, moral values and emotional aspiration.

When Hammerstein died in 1960, Rodgers might have retired, but as he said, “Well, I’m on a new road—I have to move forward, whether it’s with Joe Blow or someone else.” He did so initially by writing his own lyrics and winning a Tony Award at the age of 60 for his score to “No Strings,” a 1962 hit. He worked either on his own or with other collaborators for two more decades. In December 1979, Broadway produced the first full-scale revival of “Oklahoma!”—Rodgers died 11 days later, 48 hours shy of the 1980s.

What follows are some observations about the magnitude of his artistry and their ongoing influence on American culture:

Making—and breaking—records

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Source: Library of Congress.

The 1949 original cast album of “South Pacific” was released at about the same time as record manufacturers and producers were trying to hook the public on a new technology: the 33 1/3 rpm Long Playing record. The Rodgers score and the new consumer product were made for each other and the Columbia Broadway cast album was number one for 63 weeks—an industry record at the time by a monumental margin. Only one other album in the next ten years came close to matching that—the 1958 movie soundtrack for “South Pacific;” the RCA recording was number one for 31 weeks.

The original cast album of “The Sound of Music” with Mary Martin was released in December of 1959 and hit sixteen weeks at number one—that is, “number one” of all popular music in America.  The cast album would stay on the charts for 276 weeks; from March of 1965 to November of that year, it overlapped with the movie soundtrack of “The Sound of Music.” That recording hit number one for two weeks in November 1965 and would remain on the charts for 233 weeks until late 1969. This means that, by one reckoning, the most popular and enduring music in America throughout the 1960s was the score to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music.”

Richard Rodgers had multiple key creative partners

Many people think that Rodgers wrote “Oklahoma!” with Oscar Hammerstein after Lorenz Hart died; far from it. When approached with the project in 1942, Hart was never interested in musicalizing the source material and gave Rodgers his blessing to work with Hammerstein instead. Hart even attended the opening night on April 1, 1943 and congratulated Rodgers enthusiastically. They took up one more project together in the hopes of keeping the collaboration going, a revised version of their 1927 hit, “A Connecticut Yankee.” It was playing on Broadway, on the other side of Eighth Avenue from “Oklahoma!” when Hart died on November 22, 1943.

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About the Master

Richard Rodgers • Composer • Jun 28, 1902 – Dec 31, 1979

The influence of “The Sound of Music” on jazz

In the middle of 1960, the famed jazz saxophonist John Coltrane had left the Miles Davis Quintet and formed his own quartet. Apparently, a song plugger—no one quite remembers who or where from—gave the sheet music from “The Sound of Music” to Coltrane. Thinking it was probably a good idea to render some popular standards, Coltrane included “My Favorite Things” on his third album for Atlantic, entitled “My Favorite Things,” released in March of 1961. Coltrane brilliantly rethought the melody as a nearly 14-minute hypnotic roundelay, performed on soprano sax in 6/8 time. Eventually cut down and released as a single, the song became Coltrane’s most requested number and he experimented with it relentlessly over the next six years of his tragically brief life. When asked in 2011 if the Quartet ever went to see the Broadway version of “The Sound of Music,” its pianist, McCoy Tyner, laughed and said, “That’s unimaginable.”

Dream ballets

The three greatest stage choreographers of the middle of the twentieth century were George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille and Jerome Robbins. Rodgers was the only composer to collaborate with each of them—dance was always central to Rodgers’s sense of musical narrative. By extension, one could also include Bob Fosse in the list—he performed on-stage in a 1962 New York revival of “Pal Joey” as the lead character, Joey Evans.

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About the Master

George Balanchine • Choreographer • Jan 22, 1904 – Apr 30, 1983

Side-by-side with Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim sitting on couch with a dog.

Stephen Sondheim, source: Library of Congress.

If one could readily accede that Rodgers was the most revered Broadway songwriter for the first half of the twentieth century, Stephen Sondheim equally qualifies for the second half. Before Rodgers would pass the baton on to Sondheim, they were briefly teammates on the same project: the musical “Do I Hear a Waltz?,” which ran for 220 performances during the 1964-65 season on Broadway. Rodgers had known Sondheim since the 1940s when Sondheim was a protégé (and neighbor) of Oscar Hammerstein’s. Hammerstein had asked Sondheim once he had passed away to consider working with Rodgers; likewise, Hammerstein suggested to Rodgers that he work with a younger lyricist—Sondheim, in fact.

The two men approached each other warily. Sondheim thought Rodgers could be old-fashioned and rude, while Rodgers thought Sondheim was cynical and disrespectful. However, although “Do I Hear a Waltz?” was not a major hit, the score possesses moments of surpassing beauty with Rodgers’s melodies and Sondheim’s words blended together far more harmoniously than the collaborators did in rehearsal. That show would be the last time Sondheim would write significant lyrics for another composer, and although Rodgers would occasionally disparage Sondheim’s melodic ideas, he also praised Sondheim’s own shows and even invested money in them.

Did I write a waltz?

Rodgers was so prolific and popular throughout most of the twentieth century that practically every pop singer from 1925 to 1975 sang at least a half-dozen of his songs. Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford and Doris Day—among many others—each had hit singles and popular albums singing his tunes. Ella Fitzgerald released a groundbreaking two-album Rodgers and Hart songbook on Verve, covering 34 of their tunes in 1952, and as late as 1967, Diana Ross and the Supremes also tried their hands at a two-LP set of Rodgers and Hart tunes for Motown.

Singer Peggy Lee had a big hit in 1952 with “Lover,” a song written twenty years earlier for the film “Love Me Tonight.” Her version hit number three in the pop charts, which must have made Rodgers happy, but the arranger transformed the song from a waltz tempo into a Latin version with bongo drums—which didn’t. Lee wrote in in her autobiography that Rodgers “was usually very strict about how his songs were to be performed. All of us respected him so highly that we were happy to follow his orders. A bit later on, when I did ‘Lover,’ apparently I forgot that.” Supposedly Rodgers made a lot of noise in public over his displeasure, even writing an article for a New York newspaper: “I must admit that when a tune is new and offered to the public for the first time, I am inclined to protect it with my heart, soul and body as if it were a new baby . . . I suppose this recording [of ‘Lover’] is about as far as you can go in the way of distortion and still have the nerve to use the title.” Although his precise direction over his tunes became legendary, he must have made up with Lee at some point; she subsequently appeared in several television tributes to his work.

Of course, Rodgers wrote songs for some of the most admired and monumental stars of the Broadway stage—Alfred Drake, Mary Martin, Gertrude Lawrence—but the list of other stars and personalities who originated Rodgers melodies on stage or screen is astonishing in its variety and scope: Al Jolson, Jeanette MacDonald, Jimmy Durante, George M, Cohan, Gene Kelly, Desi Arnaz, Dick Haymes, Yul Brynner, Eddie Albert, Ray Bolger, Julie Andrews, Diahann Carroll, Sergio Franchi, Danny Kaye, Madeline Kahn, Nöel Coward, Keye Luke, Glenn Close and Liv Ullmann.

Richard Rodgers’ songs have come to represent these places

The title number from “Oklahoma!” was adopted as the state song in 1953. “Edelweiss” from “The Sound of Music,” however, is neither an Austrian folk song nor the Austrian national anthem, although someone in the Reagan White House apparently didn’t get the memo: Rodgers’s tune was used to introduce the Austrian chancellor during a state function in 1984.

Live from New York

Richard Rodgers and Ed Sullivan, 1952. CBS Television

“The Ed Sullivan Show” was the leading variety show on television for four decades, commanding national audiences every Sunday night from 1948 to 1970. On his very first show, Sullivan hosted Rodgers and Hammerstein, who talked about their upcoming musical “South Pacific” (that episode, sadly lost to history, also featured performances by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis). Sullivan, who had also been a Broadway columnist, was an immense fan of Rodgers. Rodgers was asked to appear on the Sullivan show more times than any other non-performer—a total of 17 appearances, including four separate hour-long tributes.

A firebrand at branding

Although Irving Berlin had pioneered the way for songwriters to take control over the publishing rights to their material back in 1917, it was Rodgers, in partnership with Oscar Hammerstein, who had the visionary idea of maintaining complete creative control of his work. Creative control was important to Rodgers; when he made his Broadway debut—still in his teens!—with a show called “Poor Little Ritz Girl,” he attended opening night with his parents only to open his program and discover that while he was away from rehearsals (as a summer camp counselor, no less), half of his score had been replaced. “Fifty years later,” he wrote in his 1975 memoir, “I still feel the bitter disappointment and depression of that evening.”

As soon as he had the clout to do so, Rodgers produced or co-produced his own stage musicals—he and Hammerstein were even executive producers of the film versions of “Oklahoma!” and “South Pacific,” a level of creative control rarely, if ever, conceded to Broadway songwriters.

In 1944, following the success of “Oklahoma!’s” debut on Broadway, Rodgers and Hammerstein formed their own publishing firm, Williamson Music. The name was a rare bit of whimsy on Rodgers’s part—both he and Hammerstein had fathers named “William.” To this day, Williamson Music is a powerhouse; in addition to Rodgers and Hammerstein, it represents the music publishing rights to artists such as Stephen Schwartz and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

You still hear Richard Rodgers’ music everywhere you turn

In the last ten years alone, Rodgers’s music has been used in nearly 50 movies, television shows and commercials, including “Bridge of Spies,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Watchmen,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “The Simpsons.” In the 2021 film “Being the Ricardos,” an entire scene is recreated from the film version of his 1939 stage musical, “Too Many Girls,” written with Lorenz Hart and featuring Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz.

In 2022, there is a national touring company of an acclaimed revival of “Oklahoma!” as well as a West End revival of “The King and I.” A Broadway revival of “Pal Joey” is planned for 2023, as is a television series suggested by “Oklahoma!”

When asked about his place in posterity, Richard Rodgers said, “If someone wants to sing something of mine 30 years from now, no one will be happier than my dead body.”

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Beyond classic musicals like “The Sound of

Like any other Saskatchewan kid, Rocky Trainor loves getting outside and playing sports, but not every kid has gone through open heart surgery. Or thrown the first pitch at a Toronto Blue Jays game.

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Rocky was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which means he only has half a heart. It required three operations to recreate his heart before the age of four. Now the seven-year-old is able to play all kinds of sports.

His love of sport has taken him all the way to the big leagues. After applying to the Make a Wish Foundation, Rocky was taken to Toronto where he got to throw the first pitch and watch the game.

“It was kind of quiet until he got out there and raising his arms. The crowd just erupted…. it was really cool to see the power a seven-year-old can have over a crowd,” Rocky’s father Scott Trainor said.

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His parents say the way he has been able to continue playing sports amazes them every day.

“It’s never been a horrible experience because it’s family time,” said Rocky’s mother Stacey. “It’s where he pulls through. He fights through it. (After) all the surgeries, we have not had a bad experience.

While Rocky’s relationship with his parents is special, he also has a little brother who he has introduced many sports to.

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Five-year-old Russell said while he likes to play all the sports with his brother, there is one he enjoys more than others.

“My brother likes to play football with me and it’s very cool,” Russell said.

Rocky’s favourite sport has been baseball, but time with his brother may have changed that, as he now flips between football and baseball as his favourite.

The family said through it all, the hospital staff have always been there to help Rocky get to his shining moment at centre field.

“It’s because of the amazing surgeons in Edmonton who did his heart surgery and the cardiologists here in Saskatoon,” Scott said. “We always had a positive attitude and knew it was all going to turn out, and it has.”

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Like any other Saskatchewan kid, Rocky Trainor

If you’re a fan of a particular era of British rock ’n’ roll, this is the right year to be at the Telluride Film Festival. The festival’s opening day brought onetime photographer Anton Corbijn’s “Squaring the Circle,” which looked at the rock design company Hipgnosis through memories from Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Roger Waters, Noah Gallagher and many others. And it was followed the next afternoon by onetime photographer Mary McCartney’s “If These Walls Could Sing,” which looks at London’s Abbey Road recording studio through memories from, oh, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Roger Waters, Noah Gallagher and many others.

While “Squaring the Circle” comes from a photographer and video director who has made several other feature films in the past, including “Control” and “A Most Wanted Man,” “If These Walls Could Sing” is the directorial debut from McCartney, who nonetheless comes to the job with a real insider’s perspective: Her father is, of course, Paul McCartney, and she’s been coming to the studio made famous by her dad’s band since she was a baby.

In addition to McCartney, Page, Waters and Gallagher, the film also includes interviews with Elton John, Ringo Starr, Celeste, John Williams, Cliff Richard, George Lucas, Kanye West and Giles Martin, the last of whom meant that the daughter of Beatle Paul McCartney was interviewing and filming the son of Beatles producer George Martin.

With all the family connections, you’d expect “If These Walls Could Sing” to be affectionate, and it is. Mary McCartney celebrates Abbey Road studio to the point where a couple of sequences in the film feel as if they could have been lifted from a promotional video, and she largely avoids the rockier stretches when the studio changed hands and could have been torn down if it wasn’t protected by the British government with English Heritage Grade II status.

But few people would head to a doc about Abbey Road looking for grit or controversy. You go for stories about the Beatles recording “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (or, yeah, “Abbey Road,” the album whose cover turned the crosswalk in front of the building into a tourist attraction), or Pink Floyd creating “The Dark Side of the Moon,” or maybe for John Williams recording the score to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” or some of the “Star Wars” films, or Kanye West performing live there.

And all of those stories are in “If These Walls Could Sing,” which begins in 1931 with the transformation of a nine-bedroom townhouse in the St. John’s Wood area of London into a state-of the-art (such as that was in 1931) recording studio. There’s footage of British composer Edward Elgar recording one of his “Pomp and Circumstance Marches” there with the London Symphony Orchestra, before the movie jumps forward almost three decades to when Cliff Richard brought rock ’n’ roll to Abbey Road with “Move It.”

But Richard is just an appetizer to the big band, the Beatles, who recorded most of their albums there with George Martin partly because it was a good studio and partly because their record deal with EMI gave them unlimited studio time in a place the company owned. (Although everybody called the studio “Abbey Road” because that’s where it was located, its real name was EMI Studios; it was officially renamed after the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album – not immediately after, as the film implies, but six years later.)  

The movie jumps back and forth in time; sometimes it focuses on the studio itself, but sometimes the location is secondary to stories about the music that was made there. Classical artists Daniel Barenboim and Jacqueline du Pré get a segment, as do Cilla Black’s recording of Burt Bacharach’s “Alfie” and a young Elton John’s turn as a session pianist on the Hollies’ hit “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” John says he remembers “the smell of Abbey Road” – which he then admits that, in his case, was “the smell of fear” coming from a newcomer who was astonished to find himself in the same room with Paul McCartney at one point.

An early ’80s move to make the studio hospitable for recording film scores is presented as a key to making Abbey Road viable in that decade, and John Williams is as eloquent as anyone in the film in describing the virtues of the complex’s massive Studio A. Meanwhile, Noel and Liam Gallagher, the two frequently-warring brothers who headed the British band Oasis, are amusing as they predictably differ (in separate interviews) over whether Oasis was actually kicked out of Abbey Road for being too boisterous.  

While the individual stories can be amusing, they add up to a grab-bag of vignettes rather than a cohesive portrait, assuming such a thing is even possible for a place that played host to so many decades of music. “If These Walls Could Sing” (title courtesy of Mary McCartney’s dad) is often charming and never less than affectionate, but it’s also slight, a pleasing but scattershot love letter to a building, a crosswalk and an era.

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If you’re a fan of a particular

“The Simpsons,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “Queer Eye” and “Shark Tank” are just some of the programs up for statues at Saturday and Sunday’s two-night Creative Arts Emmys.

The 2022 Creative Arts Emmys, which are taking place at the Microsoft Theater in Downtown, Los Angeles (where it’s a scorching 105 degrees outside), honor outstanding artistic and technical achievement in various television program genres, guest performances and exceptional work in the animation, reality and documentary categories. 

It’s a two-night show affair this year, following the template set by 2021. The year prior, however, was spread out across five ceremonies/nights to honor the below-the-line workers in Hollywood.

TheWrap will be updating this list as the winners are announced throughout the night.

For those who want to watch this year’s Creative Arts Emmys, they’ll have to wait until next weekend. An edited version of the two shows will air Sept. 10 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FXX. The 74th annual Primetime Emmys air the following night at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on NBC. It will also stream live for the first time on Peacock.

Check out the complete list of 2022 Creative Arts Emmys winners below.

Outstanding Animated Program

Outstanding Casting for a Reality Program

Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance

Outstanding Choreography for Variety or Reality Programming

Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program

Outstanding Cinematography for a Reality Program

Outstanding Commercial

Outstanding Costumes for Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Programming

Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program

Outstanding Directing for a Reality Program

Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series

Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special

Outstanding Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking

Outstanding Hairstyling for a Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Program

Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program

Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special

Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation

Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety Series

Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety Special

Outstanding Makeup for a Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Program

Outstanding Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special (Original Dramatic Underscore)

Outstanding Music Direction

Outstanding Narrator

Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program

Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program

Outstanding Picture Editing for an Unstructured Reality Program

Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming

Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special

Outstanding Production Design for a Variety, Reality or Competition Series

Outstanding Short Form Animated Program

Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series

Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series

Outstanding Sound Editing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera)

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera)

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Variety Series or Special

Outstanding Structured Reality Program

Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Series

Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Special

Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program

Outstanding Variety Special (Live)

Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded)

Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program

Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series

The 2022 Creative Arts Emmy Awards will take place at the Microsoft Theater. An edited presentation will air Saturday, Sept. 10, at 8:00 PM EDT/PDT on FXX and is available for streaming on Hulu Sept. 11-27. Bob Bain Productions will produce all three shows.

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“The Simpsons,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “Queer Eye”

Anne Heche died following injuries sustained after a car crash into a home that resulted in a fire. A new report has revealed that the actor had been in the vehicle for about 45 minutes before lifesaving efforts began.

According to LA City Fire Department recordings obtained by NBC4, firefighters were unable to access the car Heche was in for about 20 minutes. Once at the scene, it took about another 20 minutes to remove the car from the burning house to rescue Heche.

Hollywood & Media Deaths 2022: A Photo Gallery

“I will say that that where the person was in the vehicle was not in the driver’s seat, but on the floorboard of the passenger seat,” Deputy Chief Fields said after Heche’s presence was confirmed inside the vehicle.

Heche would die 7 days later from “smoke inhalation and thermal injuries,” according to a report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner.

Read Deadline’s Obituary For Anne Heche

The actor was declared brain dead on August 11 but left on life support as Heche had wanted to donate her organs. Heche would be taken off life support on August 14.

“We have lost a bright light, a kind and most joyful soul, a loving mother, and a loyal friend,” Heche’s family said in a statement following her death. “Anne will be deeply missed but she lives on through her beautiful sons, her iconic body of work, and her passionate advocacy. Her bravery for always standing in her truth, spreading her message of love and acceptance, will continue to have a lasting impact.”

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Anne Heche died following injuries sustained after

Vijay Deverakonda starrer Pan-India film Liger has tanked at the box office. The film, which was released in theatres on August 25, has been both a major critical and commercial failure. With a reported budget of more than Rs 100 crore, Liger, which is almost ending its theatrical run, is far from recovering its cost. With Liger turning out to be a box office disaster, it is now being reported that Vijay Deverakonda has decided to support Charmme Kaur and other co-producers of Liger.

For More: Vijay Deverakonda Compensates Charmme Kaur After Liger Flops, Gives Up Rs 6 Crores from Salary?

On World Beard Day, today, Shehnaaz Gill took to Twitter and gave a thought to all the “hype” around men celebrating beard day. The Bigg Boss 13 star candidly expressed her views and wrote, “What’s all this hype around a beard it’s got its own day now! Shaving se kya problem hai (What’s the problem with shaving)?” Shehnaaz’s tweet also caught the attention of actor Abhishek Bachchan. He quickly took to the micro-blogging site to convey “It is not just a beard,” alongside a monochromatic poster by the Beardo company.

For More: Abhishek Bachchan Responds To Shehnaaz Gill’s Tweet On ‘Hype’ Around Beard: ‘It’s Not Just A Beard’

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On Friday evening, fans of Jr NTR met disappointment when the special Brahmastra event with the Telugu superstar as the chief guest was cancelled. The event was taking place in Hyderabad with Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Mouni Roy, Nagarjuna, and others flying down to the city to join Tarak. Now, a new report reveals the anticipated loss the makers could be facing because of the cancellation. According to ETimes, the special Brahmastra event’s cancellation has led to a massive loss of Rs 1.5 crore.

For More: Brahmastra Makers Lose Whopping Rs 1.50 Cr After Special Jr NTR Hyderabad Event Got Cancelled: Report

Raj Kundra shared a cryptic tweet on Saturday evening about perspectives. Shilpa Shetty’s husband emphasized different perspectives and also mentioned the words ‘media’ and ‘trial’ in the hashtag. The tweet comes almost a year after Raj was released on bail on September 20 in connection with a porn case. Sharing a video of Ganesh Virajan, taken from the top, Raj tweeted, “What you see depends not only on what you look AT, but also, on where you look FROM’ #perspective #media #trials #peace #patience #bappamorya #truth.”

For More: Raj Kundra Shares Cryptic Tweet About ‘Media’, ‘Trials’ Almost Year After He Got Bail In Porn Case

Hrithik Roshan has apparently turned down an offer to play a parallel lead in Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra Part 2. It was earlier reported that Hrithik was offered to play Dev in the second part of Brahmastra, which will be a trilogy. However, if a new report in Bollywood Hungama is anything to go by, Hrithik has rejected the offer due to scheduling conflict.”

For More: Hrithik Roshan Rejects Lead Role in Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt’s Brahmastra Part 2: Report

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Vijay Deverakonda starrer Pan-India film Liger has

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Venice Immersive back to the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio (Lido) with 43 projects from 19 countries

The selection of projects for Venice Immersive, the XR – Extended Reality section of the 79th Venice International Film Festival of La Biennale di Venezia, is now complete. The official selection will return to  the Venice Immersive Island (island of Lazzaretto Vecchio), a short distance from the Lido di Venezia, for the first time since 2019, on the following dates:

  • 30th August (afternoon): press preview
  • 31st August: open exclusively to Press and Industry accreditations
  • 1st – 10th September: open to the public and all accredited visitors

 

Venice Immersive, the new title of the Venice VR Expanded section, intends to acknowledge the growth of immersive media beyond the technologies of Virtual Reality and to include all means of creative expression in XR – Extended Reality: 360° videos and XR works of any length, including installations, live performances and virtual worlds.

The Venice Immersive section of the 79th Venice International Film Festival, following the success of its most recent online editions, will be held in person again this year, with the technical support of Meta and HTC Vive.

Venice Immersive will present 43 projects from 19 countries and 32 works in the Worlds Gallery section:

  • 30 projects in Competition
  • 10 projects Out of Competition – Best of Venice Immersive (international selection of the best XR works presented since the 2021 edition)
  • 3 projects developed during the Biennale College Cinema – VR: 1 project produced thanks to a grant from the sixth edition, 2 projects developed within the international workshop of the fourth edition
  • 30 worlds selected for the Worlds Gallery with 2 Special Events, presented in 7 Guided World Hops in 75’ presentations
  • 1 film  Special Event – Out of Competition

 

The Venice Immersive World on VRChat, designed with the technical support of VRrOOm, will present a virtual version of the Venice Immersive Island. Following the success of the 2021 edition, the Worlds Gallery section has been renewed and will feature a selection of 30 virtual worlds and 2 special events. Additionally, Venice Immersive will screen the documentary feature film, We Met in Virtual Reality, filmed in VRChat and createdby Joe Hunting.

The Venice International Film Festival was one of the first film festivals in the world to show an interest in Virtual Reality. The development of a VR Theatre in 2016 sparked enormous interest among the participants of the Venice Production Bridge. Starting in 2017, La Biennale di Venezia launched the first competition for works in Virtual Reality in an A-list festival, which was held for three editions, through 2019, on the island of Lazzaretto Vecchio on the Lido, judged by an International Jury. The online accessibility of Venice VR Expanded over the past two editions represented a new commitment and a new challenge to guarantee that the Venice International Film Festival would continue to offer the experience of this new art form, even in times of required social distancing.

Accredited visitors to the Venice Film Festival will have access to all the titles in the line-up. There will also be a special Venice Immersive subscription available for interested visitors who are not accredited at the Festival.

JURY AND AWARDS

 

The members of the international Jury of Venice Immersive are:

May Abdalla – president: (UK) born in 1983 in the UK, has made documentaries around the world for BBC, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera about housing, revolution and punk music. She is the co-founder of Anagram. Anagram is an award-winning creative studio specialising in thought-provoking interactive storytelling and immersive experience design. Created in 2013, the company won the Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes, participated in the Best of VR at the Venice International Film Festival in 2019 and won the Best Immersive Art award at the Sandbox Festival in China. In 2021, it won the Grand Jury Prize in Venice for the Best VR Work for Goliath: Playing with Reality.

David Adler (Denmark) was born in 1985 and accepted into the prestigious National Film School of Denmark after having attended the Visual Arts and Design program at the Vancouver Film School. Latest work is the companion piece Taste of Hunger VR (2020), co-produced with Zentropa and selected for completion at Venice Film Festival. He returned to Venice with End of Night, which won the Best VR Story Award in 2021.

Blanca Li (Spain) is a choreographer, film director, dancer and actress. In 1992, a young Spanish dancer landed in Paris from Madrid post movida and New York training. Soon, she founded her own contemporary dance company, which has set a successful, singular and independent position touring the whole world. With the glamour coming from her maturity and assumed artistic choices, crowned by her election to the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2019. In 2021, her VR work Le bal de Paris de Blanca Li won the Best VR Experience award in Venice.

 

The Venice Immersive Jury will award the following prizes:

  • Venice Immersive Best Experience
  • Venice Immersive Grand Jury Prize
  • Venice Immersive Special Jury Prize

VENICE IMMERSIVE MARKET

The first VIM – Venice Immersive Market (1 – 6 September), a part of the Venice Production Bridge, will take place on the Island of Lazzaretto Vecchio (Lido), in the Spazio Incontri Immersivo. There will be panel discussions and encounters dedicated to the world of XR – Extended Reality; also in attendance will be institutions, professionals, production, post-production and distribution companies, public and private funds linked to the Immersive world.

 

Finally, there will be a presentation of the Immersive projects selected for the Venice Gap-Financing Market (2 – 4 September):

16 IMMERSIVE STORY PROJECTS

16 Immersive Story Projects (11 from Europe and 5 from the rest of the world), The projects are both original stories and adaptations. All the projects have 30% of their budget guaranteed.

 

11 PROJECTS AT BIENNALE COLLEGE – IMMERSIVE STORY PROJECTS

11 projects developed during the Biennale College Cinema VR workshop, sixth edition, currently in various phases of development, from pre-production to post production.

 

About Mostra Internazionale d Arte Cinematografica Venice


Oldest festival in the world, MOSTRA is Non-specialised competitive event for features and shorts. Two competing sections and three Prizes: the Golden Lion, the Lion of the Year and the Lion of the Future to best director`s debut film.

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Creative talent behind programs such as NBC’s musical Annie Live!, Netflix’s video game-inspired animated series Arcane, and Tim Miller and David Fincher’s Love, Death + Robots anthology series are among this year’s juried Emmy winners. These honors were handed out during the Creative Arts Emmys on Sept. 3 and 4. An edited version of the presentations will air Sept. 10 on FXX, followed by a Hulu release.

Recipients of Emmys in the juried categories include writer-director Alberto Mielgo, who is honored for the character design of his animated “Jibaro” episode of Love, Death + Robots, which follows a siren who attempts to lure a knight with her dancing.

“This is some sort of toxic relationship between two predators, the golden woman and hero. It’s very open to interpretation, which is something that I like,” says the multi-Emmy winner, who earlier this year won an Oscar for his animated short The Windshield Wiper.

How would you describe your approach to the visual style of the episode?

I base my art mostly in impressionism. Even though it looks very rich, I tend to remove things that are not necessary and I put emphasis on things that are very important, like the eyes.

Tell us about your animation process.

We used key frame [hand] animation. I’m a purist and I really like animation and the art and the technique of animation itself. This is something that Disney has been doing since the ’40s and ’50s. For reference, they record actors, dancers — animators record themselves sometimes. As a director, I like to have strict control of the movements. It’s very important to do a first pass where I direct the actors and I explain to them what is happening in the scene. And basically, we just shoot the movie, and then we use this as a reference for animation. In the case of “Jibaro,” we were using choreography. I thought that dancing was the best way to communicate the feelings and the story, especially because this is a film that doesn’t actually have dialogue. I thought that dancing was a beautiful language to depict the feelings of these characters.

Can you describe the character design?

I wanted [the woman] to be a walking treasure, something that is so attractive and so full of jewelry and gems and colors that you almost forget that there is a human behind [the surface]. It was based also on folkloric ornaments. I was extremely happy to be able to depict so many [pieces of] jewelry and so many civilizations in just one single character. As for the other characters, we were getting a lot of [design] information from the armors of the Renaissance. I was extremely proud that we were able to bring these treasures to the screen.

Alberto Mielgo

Mike Coppola/Getty Images

What are your thoughts on the opportunities for shortform animation, and what are you working on next?

The concept of Love, Death + Robots is very sweet because they’re short films, and nowadays people seem to have less time. Based on the success of this show, I see a possibility of people needing more short format.

It’s a completely different format; the storytelling technique is quite different. You need to make a nice impact … and everything needs to happen in less than 15, 17, 20 minutes. It’s challenging, and it’s beautiful that the platforms are taking care of short films.

Even though I told you that I like [short films], my dream is to make a feature film in animation. Something that is impactful, something that is not family-friendly, something that is not necessarily about a hero. I would like to do something that has never been done in animation before. I’m working on several scripts because I want to do more than one feature film.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

This story first appeared in the Sept. 6 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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Creative talent behind programs such as NBC’s

It’s Labor Day weekend, which means plenty of folks will be linking up with friends and family to enjoy one more cookout or get-together before the summer ends. Chances are a number of these people may also settle in and enjoy a movie or TV show and, this weekend, there are plenty of options on the Netflix Top 10 lists. By the end of Friday, there were some pretty varied options, with the streamer’s originals dominating the top spots. With a new day, there have been a few changes in the standings and, as always, we’re going to discuss them. 

(Image credit: Netflix)

Top 10 Movies On Netflix In The U.S. – September 3, 2022

Love in the Villa, one of the newest Netflix movies, still sits in the No. 1 spot and is still followed directly by Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg’s Me Time, which has received some brutal reviews. Still in third place is Collateral, the acclaimed 2004 thriller starring Tom Cruise, Jada Pinkett Smith and Jamie Foxx, who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance. Judd Apatow’s This is 40 is now in fourth place, having moved up one spot since yesterday. With this, newly released flick I Came By has been bumped down one spot and is currently in the fifth spot. 

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It’s Labor Day weekend, which means plenty

The 2022 Creative Arts Emmy Awards are being handed out over two ceremonies starting at 5 p.m. PT Saturday and Sunday at the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Neither will be televised live nor livestreamed, but the highlights will be edited into a package set to air Saturday, September 10 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FXX.

Deadline will be covering both shows live in their entirety both days. See the list of which categories will be presented each day below, and check out all of the 2022 Emmy nominations here. The list of presenters set for the Creative Arts Emmys is here.

Game Shows Moving To Primetime Emmys Competition Under Television Academy

The crafts-heavy Creative Arts lead into the Primetime Emmy Awards on September 12 at Microsoft Theater, in a ceremony airing live on NBC at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET and hosted by Saturday Night Live stalwart Kenan Thompson.

In the meantime, here’s the rundown of Creative Arts categories presented by day:

Saturday, September 3

Outstanding Animated Program
Outstanding Casting for a Reality Program
Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance
Outstanding Choreography for Variety or Reality Programming
Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Cinematography for a Reality Program
Outstanding Commercial
Outstanding Costumes for Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Programming
Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Directing for a Reality Program
Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series
Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special
Outstanding Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking
Outstanding Hairstyling for a Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Program
Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program
Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation
Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety Series
Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety Special
Outstanding Makeup for a Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Program
Outstanding Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special (Original Dramatic Underscore)
Outstanding Music Direction
Outstanding Narrator
Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program
Outstanding Picture Editing for an Unstructured Reality Program
Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming
Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special
Outstanding Production Design for a Variety, Reality or Competition Series
Outstanding Short Form Animated Program
Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series
Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series
Outstanding Sound Editing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera)
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera)
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Variety Series or Special
Outstanding Structured Reality Program
Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Series
Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Special
Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program
Outstanding Variety Special (Live)
Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded)
Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series

Sunday, September 4

Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series
Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series
Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series
Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series
Outstanding Casting for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
Outstanding Choreography for Scripted Programming
Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Series
Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (Half-Hour)
Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (One Hour)
Outstanding Contemporary Costumes
Outstanding Contemporary Hairstyling
Outstanding Contemporary Makeup (Non-Prosthetic)
Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
Outstanding Main Title Design
Outstanding Motion Design
Outstanding Multi-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series
Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special (Original Dramatic Score)
Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score)
Outstanding Music Supervision
Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music
Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics
Outstanding Period and/or Character Hairstyling
Outstanding Period and/or Character Makeup (Non-Prosthetic)
Outstanding Period Costumes
Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program (One Hour or More)
Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Period or Fantasy Program (One Hour or More)
Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Program (Half-Hour)
Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup
Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series
Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series
Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) And Animation
Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour)
Outstanding Sound Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) And Animation
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour)
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Season or a Movie
Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode
Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Comedy Series or Variety Program
Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Drama Series, Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
Outstanding Stunt Performance
Outstanding Television Movie

Patrick Hipes contributed to this report.

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The 2022 Creative Arts Emmy Awards are

Britney Spears doesn’t have any regrets when it comes to her presence on social media.

The pop superstar took to Instagram on Friday night (Sept. 2) to clarify that she’s “not sorry” for her online posts, which often includes censored nude images and videos of herself. The singer’s comments arrive in the wake of an interview her 15-year-old son Jayden gave to the Daily Mail about their strained relationship. Parts of the sit-down are slated to run in an ITV News documentary, which began Friday.

“I 100% think this can be fixed,” Jayden tells the Daily Mail of his relationship with his mother, adding that there is “no hate” in their family. “It’s just going to take a lot of time and effort. I just want her to get better mentally. When she gets better I really want to see her again,” The teen also shared a personal message to Brit: “I love you a lot, I hope for the best for you. Maybe one day we can sit down like this and talk again.”

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Spears’ new Instagram post, which features a video montage of her living room dance routines, begins with the singer expressing joy over her recent “Hold Me Closer” collaboration with Elton John. She then playfully brags that her musically talented son might give John a “run for his money” on the piano. In 2018, Spears shared a video of her “lil Mozart” son’s impressive piano skills, although it was unclear at the time whether the clip was of her elder son Preston (now 16) or Jayden.

“I have soooooooo much footage of him playing … yep my children are freaking geniuses !!! It’s kinda scary,” the singer captioned her latest IG post. “He stopped seeing me … I posted something of him, but he got really mad so unfortunately, I haven’t been able to post my loving family.”

Spears goes on to address her activity on social media. In early August, the pop star’s ex-husband Kevin Federline told the Daily Mail that the former couple’s sons had been avoiding their mother in recent months, and that they were having a difficult time dealing with her nude images on social media following the end of her 13-year conservatorship.

“Either way I’m so sorry children I continue to do social media,” Spears continues in her IG post. “I’m sorry you feel I do it for attention … I’m sorry for the way you feel … but guess what ???? I’ve got news for you … I’m a child of God as well we all are in God’s eyes … so NOPE I’m not sorry … I’ve learned to say SO !!!”

After wiping her Instagram account last week, the singer returned on Thursday (Sept. 1) with a pointed response to comments made by her Jayden regarding her parenting.

“I’ve tried my best at being the best person I can be,” Spears wrote in the note. “To be basically held hostage in homes under nurses and bulls–t I hope my kids one day understand my reasoning of my play in water revealing myself as any woman would being held under blankets and supervision under the conservatorship!!!”

See Spears’ latest post on Instagram here.

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Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy!

Sahar Driver and Sonya Childress, writing for Filmmaker Magazine, discuss the evolution of documentaries and their power to instigate real social change, citing filmmaker Chelsea Hernandez, one of IDA’s 2022 Logan Elevate grantees, of being successful in that. 

The documentary impact enterprise has always focused on the power of particular films to build understanding and shift audience perspectives as the foundational starting point for action, whether that involves changing peoples’ behaviors, the choices they make, the steps they take to change institutions or policies, or inspiring them to build community.

Successful impact campaigns can be discrete and focused, like the one accompanying Chelsea Hernandez’s Building the American Dream that aimed to educate audiences and key decision makers about the exploitation of construction workers in Texas and the need for rest breaks, and which contributed to the groundswell of coverage about the need for worker rights and protections. Among other shifts linked to increased presence and pressure, Texas Congressman Sylvia Garcia filed a federal bill to require rest breaks for all construction workers in July 2022.

Documentaries have a long history of being outcasted from European film festivals. But Addie Morfoot from Variety believes “Europe’s major film festivals are finally taking documentary seriously.” 

The growing number of high-profile nonfiction films in and out of competition at Venice suggests that major European film festivals have finally accepted documentaries as viable, cinematic art.

While docs at the Toronto International Film Festival and major US fests, including Sundance, Telluride, and South by Southwest, have long been the belles of the ball, the most prominent international festivals, including Venice, Cannes, and Berlin, have been slow to embrace nonfiction content, especially in competition.

Another conversation from Erik Luers of Filmmaker Magazine and Chapman and Maclain Way, brothers and co-producers of the Netflix docuseries Untold, who share their process of constructing sports documentaries that go beyond game recaps, and instead deal with depth and drama. 

Being that we’re more narrative-driven documentary filmmakers, we’re led by interesting subjects and characters, rather than the sport [the subject is connected to] or a big championship game that needs to be documented. We have a list of stories that have lots of twists and reveals, elements an audience can hopefully be [engaged by] and learn more than they previously knew. After that, it’s about finding the right athletes willing to be honest and open on camera so that it works [within our] storytelling. As audience members, those are the kinds of films that Mac and I have always gravitated toward. It doesn’t work if we’re featuring athletes with big PR teams who are looking to make a puff piece or something that promotes their brand. 

This next one can be an Essential Doc Read, or Listen, depending on what you’re in the mood for. Mallory Yu, Juana Summers, and Sarah Handel from NPR, speak with Edward Buckles, Jr. about his directorial debut of the HBO documentary Katrina Babies. 

I didn’t go into this film trying to find healing, honestly, because I didn’t know that it was possible. I didn’t know that simply having conversations and starting to tell our stories would be healing.… This film is not going to heal everybody. This film has not healed me. But it has opened up a door for me to figure out, “Okay, what does that journey to healing look like?” Because we are not just healing from Hurricane Katrina, we are healing from everything else that we have experienced before the storm and after the storm. And I just want us to know that we can start that journey.

Joseph Berger from The New York Times has a conversation with Ken Burns about his new PBS documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust, which airs on September 18. 

The filmmakers sought to emphasize the story’s ambiguities and complications, Burns said. For one thing, the U.S. let in more Jewish refugees than any other country‌ — roughly 200,000 between 1933 and 1945 — the result partly of efforts by rule-benders like the journalist Varian Fry and the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, whose clandestine dealings were financed by the War Refugee Board, under the direction of John W. Pehle.

The documentary, which was inspired by an exhibition on the same topic at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, also softens somewhat the unfavorable portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt drawn by many historians for having done little to rescue Jews and stop the slaughter.

Fall signals back-to-school sentiments for some of us, and an article from Politico’s weighs in on whether a university is universally needed. A conversation between Calder McHugh and Jelani Cobb, Dean of Columbia Journalism School—who never enrolled in a journalism school himself—assesses whether journalism school is necessary. A lot of these arguments are transferable to conversations around film schools.

An MS in journalism from Columbia—all told, a nine-and-a-half month program—costs an estimated $121,290. Depending on where you’re looking, a journalist with a master’s degree makes on average between $36,000 and $58,000 after graduating. Columbia can offer generous aid packages (73 percent of those who applied for scholarship aid received funding and the median award is approximately $40,000), but its students are also regularly drowning in debt. For many young people with journalistic aspirations, the training that Columbia provides is a luxury they literally cannot afford.

Cobb is all too aware of the problem. He told me that he regularly hears from students who have always dreamed of becoming journalists but now worry about how they’ll pay for school or how much of a burden their debt will be. “It’s not a novel idea that we need to find some other way for this to exist,” he says. “We just don’t know what that is right now.”

From the Archive: October 31, 2004: Teaching the D-Word in J-School: Columbia Graduate School of Journalism 

Approximately 15 students sign up for the documentary workshop each semester and are divided into three-person teams, each of which produces a 20- or 30-minute documentary. The school has three Sony DSR-250 DVCAM cameras and four Avid Express editing stations, offering students the possibility of doing professional level work. One of the main tasks of the faculty is to help students select projects that can be completed in a short time frame (five months) and to make them aware of problems that may arise when they go into a situation with a video camera. Students are encouraged to have stories play out in front of the camera instead of concentrating on sound bites and B-roll. Moreover, while digital video technology is not quite as inexpensive as a laptop, the gap between them is constantly shrinking.

IN THE NEWS

Netflix’s ‘Descendant’ to Open IDA Documentary Screening Series 

36 Must-See Films at the 2022 Venice, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals

Sundance Sets 2023 Dates for In-Person Festival, With Online Component 

Amy Stechler, Documentarian Who Helped Define a Style, Dies at 67 

Peacock to Launch Virtual ‘Docfest’ with Weekly Documentary Premieres 

ONA Announces 165 Finalists in the 2022 Online Journalism Awards 

European Film Academy Announces the 2022 European Film Awards Documentary Film Selection 

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DESPERATE Chinese residents brawled over food and stripped shelves as they tried to stock up on supplies before being plunged into the world’s strictest lockdown.

The city of Chengdu – home to 21 million people – has been locked down after just 157 new infections were recorded as Beijing continues to pursue its “zero-Covid” policy.

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Desperate Chinese residents clambering over each other to grab supplies in ChengduCredit: Twitter
Residents stuffed their cars with meat, vegetables and eggs

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Residents stuffed their cars with meat, vegetables and eggsCredit: Weibo
Locals swarmed stores, stripped shelves and braced for the worst as the city locked down

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Locals swarmed stores, stripped shelves and braced for the worst as the city locked downCredit: Weibo

Shocking images shared by What’s On Weibo showed panicked residents scrambling for supplies in supermarkets – with scuffles breaking out over the last scraps of meat and rice.

Cars were seen stuffed with meat, vegetables and eggs as locals swarmed stores, stripped shelves and braced for the worst.

One resident said “everyone was crazily stocking up on goods” because of what happened in Shanghai when it was hit by food shortages during its lockdown.

The 25-year-old said he had been “habitually stocking up” before Chengdu’s latest measures were announced.

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The city’s residents were ordered to stay at home from 6pm local time on Thursday – and everyone will be tested over the coming days.

Footage showed mile-long queues of millions of people lining up to be tested, with testing sites running 24 hours.

People have been banned from entering or leaving the city with one person from each household with a negative test allowed out each day to buy essentials.

According to state media, the start of schools’ autumn term has been halted and flights have been grounded.

It’s not clear when the draconian restrictions will be lifted.

“The current state of epidemic control is abnormal, complex and grim,” the local government said.

The authorities had initially played down talk of a looming lockdown – with cops arrested a man for “creating panic” after he warned the city could shut down.

Many users on the Twitter-like Weibo platform have criticised his arrested and branded him a “hero” for warning his fellow citizens.

China is the last major economy committed to a “zero-Covid policy”, stamping out small virus outbreaks with lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines.

Xining, the capital of western Qinghai province and home to 2.5 million people, has also ordered schools to conduct lessons online and rolled out a mass testing drive.

And China’s southern hub of Shenzhen said new restrictions would come into force from 6pm on Thursday in its Nanshan district – which hosts the headquarters of tech giants Tencent and ZTE.

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I’m really flat chested but catfish my boobs - people always ask me how

Last month, travellers in the southern island province of Hainan protested after more than 80,000 tourists were stranded in a resort because of a Covid outbreak.

Shocking footage of cops cracking down on anti-lockdown protesters in Wuhan has also been shared widely on social media, showing officers beating demonstrators with their batons.

Empty shelves in Chengdu after panicked residents swarmed stores

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Empty shelves in Chengdu after panicked residents swarmed storesCredit: Twitter
People line up for a Covid test in Chengdu

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People line up for a Covid test in ChengduCredit: EPA

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DESPERATE Chinese residents brawled over food and

“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is as big a TV show as TV shows have ever been, with a record-setting budget spent on recreating J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth during the Second Age, and a cast of nearly two dozen series regulars and dozens more featured players deployed to enact its sprawling tale of the rise of Sauron.

And yet one character sits undeniably at the show’s center: Galadriel. The ancient elf, so old she was born before the moon and the sun first graced Middle-earth, was a crucial character in Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” novels and Peter Jackson’s “Rings” trilogy, as played by Cate Blanchett. 

In “The Rings of Power,” set thousands of years before the events of “The Lord of the Rings,” a younger Galadriel is not yet the serene and wise co-ruler of the Elven kingdom of Lothlórien. Instead, she’s consumed by her hunt for the Dark Lord Sauron, the mysteriously absent master of evil responsible for the death of Galadriel’s brother. In “Rings of Power,” Galadriel is at once hardened by the millennia she’s already been alive, but not yet the stately (and formidable) woman of stature she becomes in the Third Age.

Somehow, Morfydd Clark (“Saint Maud”) manages to capture all of those dimensions of the character. In her review, Variety critic Caroline Framke praises Clark’s “arresting gravitas,” noting that “tasked with making Galadriel equal parts voice of reason and battling hero, Clark proves the series’ most reliable constant.”

A lifelong Tolkien fan thanks to her parents, Clark understands innately just how important Galadriel is. “My friends are all massive ‘Lord of the Rings’ fans, and I have to tell you, they describe her to me a lot,” she tells Variety. “She’s a living myth; a living legend.”

And yet, Clark explains that it wasn’t until she’d agreed to join “The Rings of Power” — and arrived in New Zealand in the fall of 2019 to shoot the first season — that she learned from showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay that she was, in fact, cast as Galadriel. Thanks to the pandemic, the experience became a nearly two year adventure, pushing the now 33-year-old well past what she believed to be her own limitations. She talked with Variety about training to perform Galadriel’s many stunts, how her Welsh heritage helped her with Tolkien’s Elvish language, what it was like to spend so much unexpected time in New Zealand and what she would say to Tolkien fans surprised to see Galadriel as a badass warrior.

Matt Grace / Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video

When in the audition process did you understand that you were in the running to play Galadriel?

I didn’t know that I was playing Galadriel when I arrived in New Zealand, even. I knew that I was playing some sort of elf. I knew it was in the Second Age. Me and my sister were reading through it all, and I was thinking I was Celebrían, her daughter, because I don’t think I could fathom that it would be Galadriel. So I went to New Zealand not knowing who I was playing, which now looking back, it’s quite, quite mad. Everybody in the cast did the same. We all kind of dived in to this madness all together and met each other all down there. It wasn’t until I arrived that I found out who I was playing, and I obviously had to recalibrate. I still can’t quite believe who I’m playing.

How much did you know about Galadriel’s full history before you learned that you were playing her?

I knew “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.” I hadn’t delved into “The Silmarillion” at all, really. I had no idea what she’d done. There’s a bit where Tolkien describes Galadriel as tying her hair up into a crown with a plait as she goes into battle. I was kind of like, wow this opens up so much, that this happened. And also, Tolkien changed his ideas about Galadriel, which makes her more interesting. I became obsessed with like, why did Tolkien need Galadriel to be that at that point? He kind of like fell more in love with her, I think, as he got older, and so there’s a fluidity to her character.

In the first two episodes alone, you’re climbing, you’re fighting, you’re swimming, you’re diving deep into the water. Did you have a sense your role would be so physical, at least? 

No. That was a big surprise. I’ve never seen myself as a natural with that stuff. I’m dyslexic. I had extra time in exams because I was very bad at writing. So I really thought that I couldn’t do all that stuff. The people that I had working with me were so wonderful to get me to do that. It’s a testament to them that I was doing all these things. The stunt department were just amazing, and not just in terms of what they physically taught us, but part of it is your mind blocking [that you can do it]. I really think that everyone would do well to be taught by the stunt teams in New Zealand. If school was like stunt school for us on this job, we’d all be much happier. 

What did you actually do to prepare? What was the process?

We’d start every morning with three hours of stunts, that would involve kind of general strength, flexibility, and then obviously, the swords would come in. And there were times at the beginning where, they’d be about 20 of us there, and we’d learn a sword fight all the same, and then perform it like a group of elves, which was really fun. We had an amazing personal trainer called Matt, who, at times, I did despise. But I think that’s part of being a good personal trainer. Did lots of climbing, which I love climbing anyway. It’s nice to have one thing that you’re learning that you’re already kind of good at. Otherwise, you could despair a bit. And then swimming. I actually thought I could swim, and after my first lesson, I realized I was mistaken and I should have never been in the sea. But now I can swim, thanks to Trent Bray.

How was it for you to incorporate the Elvish language into your performance?

Well, I went to Welsh-language school, and everything is taught in the medium of Welsh. Welsh is phonetic, so it’s much better for a dyslexic. I started learning English in year three, and was just like, “What is this?” Something that my Tolkien-obsessed mum was really proud of and passed down to us was that Tolkien was inspired by Welsh. So weirdly, his works have been a badge of honor for me, because the Welsh are obsessed with the Welsh and anything Welsh. It was really great to play a bilingual character. And yeah, I think it served me really well.

Benjamin Walker (as High King Gil-galad), Morfydd Clark (as Galadriel) and Robert Aramayo (as Elrond) in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”

Ben Rothstein / Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video

Some fans have a very specific image of Galadriel in their heads as this regal woman of the woods who is not physical in the way you are on the show. What would you say to fans who are sort of surprised by or skeptical of the interpretation of Galadriel in “The Rings of Power”?

I would say that her serenity is hard earned. I don’t think you get to that level of wisdom without going through things. She actually speaks about [how] with wisdom, there is a loss of innocence, which was a really good thing for me to find in the lore. Because, like, how young are you when you’re still thousands of years old? So it was thinking of what innocence she lost during this time. The elves by the Third Age have evolved to a certain degree. The elves in the First Age are really messy and screw each other over a lot, and fight and mock each other also. They are the history of Middle Earth, and so they are forever changing. It was really interesting for all of us playing canon characters to be exploring how these characters become what we know them to be.

The show is such a massive commitment — the showrunners have said that they’re planning a 50-episode series. All of my questions were prepared thinking that you knew more going into the show, so how much of that commitment was a factor for you in signing up to make “The Rings of Power”?

Yeah, I didn’t know. When you’re auditioning for something like this, you never fathom that you’re going to get it, and so you don’t really think about those things. I actually personally refuse to allow myself to imagine or daydream, because otherwise, you get so attached to everything you audition for. I think I’m still acclimatizing to what this means. The next few weeks are going to be huge in that, but also kind of a relief. You make things so they can be seen and enjoyed. It’s about time that that happens with this. But I think I’m gonna go through another acclimatizing period.

How long were you in New Zealand from start to finish?

It was meant to be nine months, and then ended up being in New Zealand from October 2019 to August 2021. Nearly two years.

So what did you do to pass the time?

There was not much time to pass, because we were quite busy. I was really lucky that I got to go around the South Island, which was just amazing. I mean, in New Zealand, you’re just in a constant state of the sublime, you really are. That was really important in terms of, the Elves are obsessed with nature. Beauty is such a huge part of their essence and what they kind of see as a reason to be alive. So that was really inspiring. I did lots of crafts. I also was very lucky to become really good friends with my neighbors, who kind of took me under their wing. You know, I didn’t expect when I went to New Zealand that I’d feel like I was moving away from home again when I came back. And that was — yeah. [Long pause.] I feel so lucky to have been welcomed into New Zealand like I was.

Finally, you mentioned earlier that you thought you’d been cast as Galadriel’s daughter. She does meet her husband and have a daughter in the Second Age — is that something that we might get hints of this season?

Galadriel’s family is a big part of who she is. There’s five seasons, and lots will be explored.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings

Serena Williams, considered by many to be the greatest women’s tennis player ever, is also the GOAT on Twitter among female athletes.

Williams was defeated by Ajla Tomlijanovic of Australia during their women’s singles third-round match Friday at the 2022 U.S. Open. The loss likely marks the end of Williams’ 27-year tennis career, as she earlier this month said she planned to retire after playing in the U.S. Open.

“It’s been the most incredible ride and journey I’ve ever been on in my life,” an emotional Williams said in an on-court interview after the match, which was broadcast on ESPN. She also expressed heartfelt gratitude to her team, her parents, her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and her sister Venus: “I wouldn’t be Serena if there wasn’t Venus.”

Following Williams’ exit from the U.S. Open, Twitter Sports announced that the 23-time Grand Slam champion was the most tweeted about female athlete ever on the social network. According to Twitter, 74% of those who tweeted about Serena in August and through Sept. 2 had not previously tweeted about her all year.

On the first day of the U.S. Open tournament, Twitter launched an exclusive GOAT emoji — with a tennis skirt and racket — to honor Williams’ final tournament and greatest-of-all-time-level career. The special emoji appears in tweets that include the following hashtags: #Serena, #SerenaWilliams and #ThankYouSerena. She is among an elite group of athletes whom Twitter has introduced a GOAT hashmoji alongside the likes of Tom Brady, Simone Biles, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

Williams’ last Grand Slam victory was at the Australia Open in 2017, when she was two months pregnant with her daughter Olympia. She has said she’s been trying to have another baby with Ohanian.

Here are some of the top tweets about Williams following her swan-song match Friday:

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Serena Williams, considered by many to be

In the fifth and last installment of Deadline’s boat tour with Venice Film Festival chief Alberto Barbera, he braves some choppy waters to regale Deadline readers with fond memories and strategies behind festivals past. You get a strong idea why the festival has flourished since he came back to preside over the festivities.

Venice Film Festival: Deadline’s Full Coverage

It is clear from the early premieres of auteur efforts like the long awaited film return of Alejandro G Inarritu with Bardo, and Todd Field’s Tar (with a staggeringly good performance from Cate Blanchett) that Venice is a unique place to unveil an awards season film. The crowd of people who camp out just to see the likes of Timothee Chalamet with Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde upcoming on Monday, gives a sense that Barbera and cohorts have given the festival back a sense of buzz in recent years.

Venice Film Festival 2022 Photos

A hearty thanks to Barbera for reminiscing and guiding the video tour of Venice.

Click here to watch all five episodes of the Merchant of Venice video series.

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In the fifth and last installment of

Venice Film Festival title “Music for Black Pigeons,” directed by Danish filmmakers Jørgen Leth, best known for “The Five Obstructions,” and “The Lost Leonardo” helmer Andreas Koefoed, has debuted its trailer with Variety.

The documentary, which premieres on Tuesday in Venice’s Out of Competition section, explores the lives and processes of some of the world’s most renowned and prolific jazz musicians, including Jakob Bro, Bill Frisell, Lee Konitz, Paul Motian and Midori Takada.

Leth, who has directed more than 40 films including landmark works such as “A Sunday in Hell” (1977) and the surrealist short “The Perfect Human” (1968), returns to Venice after his feature documentary “The Five Obstructions,” which he co-directed with Lars von Trier, screened on the Lido in 2003.

The footage in “Music for Black Pigeons” was shot over the course of 14 years, throughout North America, Europe and Japan. From the hours of recordings, Leth and Koefoed discovered intimate, improvised moments between pioneers of experimental music at recording spaces in New York, Copenhagen and Lugano.

Unpredictable live jams are interspersed with brief, illuminating portraits of those taking part, such as jazz saxophonist Mark Turner, double bassist Thomas Morgan, jazz drummers Joey Baron and Andrew Cyrille, trumpet player Palle Mikkelborg, the prolific founder of ECM Records, Manfred Eicher, and many more.

The film includes some of the final recorded performances of several musicians who died during the course of filming, including Lee Konitz, Jon Christensen and Paul Motian.

Leth said: “With this kind of music, you have to follow the natural development of ideas. That’s important. You have to capture these spontaneous moments and pay attention to the characters, to what they are saying to each other. It’s not something that’s fixed from the start. It takes shape while you are filming. The most important thing was to follow the process, I guess. That’s what we do in the film. We see how it develops, how it grows and takes shape. How single words start to form whole sentences and meanings.”

Koefoed, whose art thriller “The Lost Leonardo” premiered at Tribeca 2021, added: “We found out that when musicians had difficulties with putting music into words, the final result was always very interesting. It just proved that music is something that can’t be just boiled down to one simple formula. People who were able to immediately explain exactly what they were doing were also… a bit boring. When they had difficulties, it felt as if they were trying to approach something mythical that maybe shouldn’t be even approached.”

“Music for Black Pigeons” is produced by Emile Hertling Péronard for Ánorâk Film.

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Venice Film Festival title “Music for Black

Oh, bother.

Just when you thought 2022 couldn’t get weirder, the slasher movie “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” dropped its first blood-filled trailer Wednesday. Drop the mic, or the bloody sledgehammer.

The horror film features a deranged version of the honey- and hug-loving Pooh Bear, along with best friend Piglet, the very-much-alive stuffed animals depicted in author A.A. Milne’s beloved children’s books.

Only in “Blood and Honey,” Pooh is silent, wielding knives and chloroform, while angrily seeking revenge against his onetime human BFF Christopher Robin (and some random woman in a hot tub, this being a cheesy slasher film, after all).

How is it even possible that this is happening to the silly old bear who famously said “A hug is always the right size”? And will Disney, which acquired the rights to the Pooh characters back in 1961, be out for blood?

What is ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’ based on?

The movie is (very) loosely based on Milne’s famous characters.

Director Rhys Waterfield, who also wrote and co-produced the film, told Variety in May that “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” is a horror film starring Pooh and Piglet as “the main villains going on a rampage” after being abandoned by a college-bound Christopher Robin. While Robin was away at school, the two once-lovable pals turned “feral” in their quest for food and survival. “It’s made Pooh and Piglet’s life quite difficult,” Waterfield said.

The film was shot in 10 days in England, not far from Ashdown Forest, the inspiration for Milne’s imaginary Hundred Acre Wood in the “Winnie the Pooh” stories.

A “Blood and Honey” poster issued last month carried the warning, “This ain’t no bedtime story.”

A release date for the film hasn’t been announced.

Is ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’ from Disney?

Disney isn’t involved; Jagged Edge Productions made the film and ITN Studios will distribute it.

So how, in the name of sweet honey, is this possible? Because Pooh and Piglet, introduced in 1926 book “Winnie-the-Pooh,” entered the public domain in 2022.

U.S. copyright law is usually limited to the life of the author, plus 70 years. The Copyright Term Extension Act, implemented in 1998, protects corporate authorship rights for 95 years from first publication or 120 years after its creation, whichever ends sooner.

Is Disney losing Winnie the Pooh?

No. Disney’s Pooh is still protected, but the company no longer has an exclusive right to Milne’s work.

The “Blood and Honey” producers had to be careful to not step too close to Disney’s version. While the movie character’s mask is clearly Disney Pooh, the bear has swapped his famed red shirt for a lumberjack shirt and Piglet dons all black.

How does Walt Disney feel about this?

The House of the Mouse has not commented on the film and bloody outcry.

But Winnie the Pooh is among the most valuable media franchises in the world, accumulating more than $80 billion through the years, putting it on par with Mickey Mouse, according to The Motley Fool. The investing advice company estimates that Pooh and friends generate $3 billion to $6 billion annually for Disney.

“Disney is going to lose millions and a valuable copyright that it’s been able to leverage on all sorts of merchandise. But it’s had protection for years and has been granted term extensions,” Donald P. Harris, associate dean for academic affairs at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, told the university’s website.

Is Tigger spared in this bloodbath?

Tigger, the rambunctious tiger who first appeared in Milne’s works in 1928, is still protected by copyright. So he won’t appear in “Blood and Honey.” But brace yourself: The trailer also features a crude, bloody grave for poor old Eeyore, a victim of this upside-down world.

Will the righteous outcry stop the release of ‘Blood and Honey’?

Not a chance. The film’s producers are reaping the benefits of a massive publicity windfall.

Waterfield told Variety that the filmmakers are rushing to cash in while the attention is there.

“Because of all the press and stuff, we’re just going to start expediting the edit and getting it through post-production as fast as we can,” he said, vowing to make “sure it’s still good. It’s gonna be a high priority.”

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Oh, bother.Just when you thought 2022 couldn’t

Warning: Very minor spoilers for the first two episodes of House of the Dragon ahead.

If you’re into House of the Dragon, then you’ve likely noticed the glorious costumes designed by Jany Temime — how could you not?!

Of course, the attention to detail means that there’s always a *ton* of stuff missed when watching the first time round. So, here are some cool things you might not have noticed while watching the first two House of the Dragon episodes:

1.

Let’s start easy: Colors! If you want to get an idea of how a character is leaning, take a look at what colors they’re wearing — namely red and black for Targaryen, while House Velaryon goes for blue and green.

This is especially relevant for the two young girls. Jany confirmed this, explaining, “In the beginning [Rhaenyra is] in light color — she’s in light yellow, she’s in beige, she’s just a young girl. She’s not yet dragged into the family. You will see little by little she’s going to start wearing the color of the family — and the same with Alicent.”

2.

House affinity can also be shown in the texture of the clothing. Velaryons channel their seahorse energy with fish-scales on their armor:

While dragon scales can be seen on Targaryen items of clothing:


3.

A highlight is undoubtedly Rhaenyra’s coronation outfit. The look is inspired by an ancient Moroccan bride.

4.

As for her chain, it includes the sigils of the great houses:


5.

Which mimics all the sigils you can see on the crown:


6.

Let’s play a game of spot that sigil! Many characters have their house motif embroidered onto their clothing:


7.

The sigils get pretty subtle — check out the teeny dragons used as fasteners on Viserys and Daemon’s cloaks:


8.

Another highlight of the show is Daemon’s armor. It’s actually made of a very light plastic — and was inspired by samurais.


“I found a Japanese samurai skirt and I put that on him, and he was turning and he loved how we could walk with it. And then from that, we started cutting his costume,” Jany explained.

9.

This one might be a bit of a stretch, but Daemon’s armor appears to have rubies on it. Rubies and the Targaryens have been linked before — notably when Robert Baratheon’s hammer knocked the rubies out of Rhaegar’s breastplate during the Battle of the Trident. Rubies can also be magic in the universe.

Wild theories aside, they might just be there to symbolize Daemon’s wealth — as Jany explained, “He’s very full of himself, so I thought the more prestigious the armor is, the more painful it is that he lost to a guy who has very cheap armor.”

10.

If this symbol in the opening credits looked familiar, it’s because it matches the necklace that Daemon gave Rhaenyra:

11.

Finally, it’s worth paying attention to when Rhaenyra wears the necklace. Like, she does wear it at the beginning of episode 2 – but, by the time Daemon steals the dragon egg, it’s gone. Hmm!

What have your fave House of the Dragon moments been? LMK in the comments!

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Succession star Matthew Macfadyen, who stole the rug from under the warring Roys by betraying wife Shiv last season, has got the seal of approval for his performance in upcoming drama Stonehouse from his real-life wife and co-star Keeley Hawes.

Macfadyen has earned plaudits worldwide and been twice Emmy nominated for his portrayal of seemingly spineless Tom Wambsgans in HBO’s award-winning comedy-drama. Next he will appear on screen playing another wriggly character, the 1970s-era British politician John Stonehouse, who famously faked his own death in Florida in 1974, leaving a pile of clothes on the beach in Miami, only to turn up in Melbourne, Australia, where he was spotted by police, arrested and shipped back to the UK.

Macfadyen will co-star with Hawes – one of the UK’s most recognisable actresses with roles in It’s A Sin, Bodyguard and The Durrells – as Stonehouse and his wife, and Hawes has revealed that acting alongside her husband was a delight.

“We just had far too nice a time,” Hawes told The Guardian this weekend. “There’s this feeling of: ‘They’re married, how’s this going to be?’ Ultimately, he’s an actor that I would have loved to work with anyway. So yes, it was a joy.”

The couple first met when they both appeared in BBC spy drama Spooks (titled MI-5 in the US) two decades ago. Since then, both have achieved great success, although Hawes has stressed that she had to start her own production company to ensure she continued creating roles for herself and other actresses her age.

She told The Guardian, “I thought, well, if I want to keep working, I’m going to have to be proactive about it. I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I can talk to writers and do what I’m doing, but it’s still about creating work for me and other women my age, and being as diverse as possible. Because we still need change in the industry.”

Hawes’s company has made her next project, a BBC drama Crossfire, which sees her cast as a mother on a family holiday forced to protect her children, after a sniper starts shooting at a luxurious holiday resort.

Stonehouse will be shown on ITV’s new streaming service ITVX, set to launch later this autumn and replace ITV’s current Hub. It will come to Britbox in the US.

 

 

 

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Succession star Matthew Macfadyen, who stole the

Over the past few weeks, Facebook has inundated me with clips from Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto. I don’t know how or why it singled that movie out specifically for my video feed, but such is life.

Anyways, I saw Apocalypto when it was first released back in 2006. I enjoyed it, but never had the urge to watch it again. There aren’t a lot of nights where I yearn to watch a jaguar bite the head of some poor soul, if you know what I mean. So, after viewing a majority of the clips on Facebook, I opted to hop on Amazon Prime for a return to Gibson’s violent Mesoamerican rainforest and … realized Apocalypto is pretty damned awesome. It’s also about as brutal as one would expect from the man who gave us The Passion of the Christ.

I’m certainly not the first to commend Gibson for his skill behind the camera. The man knows how to direct the hell out of a movie, and I appreciate the extra steps he takes to ensure audiences are completely swept up in his world. Aside from a few wonky special effects shots, you fully believe in this mesmerizing environment brought to stunning life by Dean Semler’s exceptional cinematography. The use of the Yucatec Mayan language also lends the pic an extra layer of authenticity, although I’m not sure how authentic the language is to this particular time period. Nor am I sure how true-to-life Gibson’s portrayal of Mayan culture is — depicted here as a violent, bloodthirsty society prone to decapitations and a number of gruesome deeds. (To be fair, Gibson himself has said this film shouldn’t be seen as a historical document.)

Still, the show must go on, as they say, and from an entertainment perspective, Apocalypto delivers. Mostly because, despite its attempts to convey something akin to reality, the film is essentially a 90-minute buildup to a 45-minute chase sequence. It’s glorious.

For those unaware, the story follows Jaguar Paw (played by the excellent Rudy Youngblood), a peaceful hunter who is kidnapped along with members of his tribe by soldiers from the Mayan kingdom. At one point, he manages to break free from his captors and retreats back to his homeland with his enemies in pursuit.

And that’s it. That’s the plot.

The first act sets up Jaguar Paw’s peaceful existence of hunting boar and picking on a newly married tribesman, Blunted (Jonathan Brewer), who is tricked into eating raw testicles and rubbing a painful powder on his genitals. We see the group as normal people just making their way through the wilderness and doing what they can to survive.

One of the best moments of the film arrives early on when Jaguar Paw senses danger in the forest. Gibson is a master at conveying human emotion through visuals alone, and his work here (coupled with James Horner’s eerie score) is extraordinary:

Considering Apocalypto’s lengthy 140-minute runtime, the pic moves at a remarkably brisk pace. After a sojourn in Jaguar Paw’s village, we’re introduced to a group of Mayan warriors who arrive and butcher most of the tribe and capture the survivors. Gibson doesn’t shy from the violence — we see the bad guys murdering women, children, and even babies without much thought — but doesn’t glorify the carnage either. The sequence is appropriately horrific and aptly sets the tone for the rest of the picture.



Gibson and writer Farhad Safinia also establish a subplot involving Jaguar Paw’s pregnant wife Seven (Dalia Hernandez), who ends up stuck in a hole with her young son. Her presence effectively gives our main protagonist something to live for, though I wonder if the film might have worked even better had we never cut back to the stranded woman and remained, instead, with Jaguar Paw: hoping for the best, even whilst preparing for the worst.

No matter, the side plot is still effective. Seven must endure her own hardships — monkeys, rain, birth(!) — which are enough to hold our attention any time we cut away from Jaguar Paw’s journey.

There’s also another interesting side story involving the leader of the Mayan soldiers, called Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo), and his son Cut Rock (Ricardo Diaz Mendoza). This might seem weird, but I actually really liked Zero Wolf. He’s a no-nonsense type who is just doing his job, no matter how horrific his actions. He shares a couple of great moments with his kid, who he genuinely seems to care for:

The film has an affinity for fathers imparting pearls of wisdom on their sons, as seen in the moment Jaguar Paw witnesses his own father’s gruesome death — but not before the old fella tells his offspring: “Don’t be afraid.”

Gibson uses the journey as a tool to show off advancements in civilization — though, ironically, the closer the group gets to modern society, the more violent the world becomes. At one point, Zero Wolf nearly gets squashed by a falling tree and he shouts at the Mayan “lumberjacks” “I’m walking here!” Later, the group bumps into a young girl with smallpox (a disease brought by Spanish explorers and traders), who seeks their help but is quickly pushed away. The moment turns dark when the girl suddenly issues a prophecy:

Creepy stuff.

Once in the great Mayan city, we get another amazing scene in which Blunted silently watches his mother-in-law after she is deemed worthless and set free following an auction. The two characters —who had never gotten along back in their village — engage in a silent series of looks that conveys so much with so little.

We finally arrive at the sacrifice scene, which is as wild as you’d expect. I have no idea if the Mayans used their vast temples for this sort of practice, but man … I can’t decide what’s more disturbing: the piles of bodies lingering alongside the temple, or the fact everyone behaves as if this just another Saturday in the Maya capital.



Okay, now we get to the really good stuff.

After his life is spared seemingly via divine means, Jaguar Paw and the other survivors are led to a clearing and told to run. If they reach the forest, they can go free. Fair enough, except Zero Wolf and his men hurl rocks, arrows and spears at them during their attempted escape. Despite the gratuitous violence on display, this sequence is thrilling. I love the acting, the tension, the music … it’s brilliant.

Now we come to the third act and the real reason (I suspect) Gibson wanted to make Apocalypto: the big chase. Jaguar Paw, wounded, escapes into the forest in a desperate attempt to reach his home. Zero Wolf, angered by his son’s untimely demise, is in hot pursuit. Again, note how Jaguar Paw gains strength the further back in time he traverses, while Zero Wolf’s men decrease in effectiveness as they move away from civilization.

During this extended finale, Jaguar Paw faces a series of tense scenarios he must somehow overcome. After evading his enemies by hiding in a tree, the young man finds himself face-to-face with a jaguar.

After running all through the night, Jaguar Paw arrives at a massive waterfall resulting in one of the most amazing shots of the entire film. It’s not digital, either. The camera starts over the actor’s shoulder and soars all the way to the bottom of the falls so that we get a true sense of the magnitude of Jaguar Paw’s situation.

Gibson has a little fun with the remaining scene, mostly by showing Jaguar Paw’s exasperated reactions to his pursuers’ determination. Even after one of them hits a rock after leaping from the top of the falls.

Jaguar Paw then falls into some quick sand, but manages to pull himself out, gather his energy and prepare for one final stand in my favorite moment from the film:

Chills, man. I get hyped just watching that brief clip!

Now on his home turf, approximately two hours into the film, having endured practically every form of suffering one could imagine, Jaguar Paw finally gets to take control.

To start, he chucks a live wasps’ hive at Zero Wolf’s group, then shoots one of them with poison darts (achieved by coating the tips of some thorns with poison from a toad).

Eventually, he comes face to face with Middle Eye (Gerardo Taracena) — the literal bane of Jaguar Paw’s existence. The villain delights in torture and murder and has established himself as “the one guy our hero must kill for audiences to walk away satisfied.” Similar to Braveheart, Gibson paints the villains of Apocalypto in a manner that makes audiences accept their grisly comeuppance — and whoa boy, does Middle Eye ever get his comeuppance!

Is Gibson’s approach to the material a bit cartoony? Sure. Effective? Absolutely. Apocalypto is essentially an artsier, greener version of Die Hard — another variation of the one-man army formula seen in the old 80s action pictures. It’s certainly not subtle, and obviously leans on Old Testament eye-for-an-eye ideology to deliver audience-pleasing vengeance, but that’s precisely what makes the pic stand out from others of its ilk.

By the film’s end, once Jaguar Paw has evaded all of his captors, saved his wife (who somehow gives birth whilst staying afloat in a hole slowly filling with water), and bumped into a few Spanish conquistadors, all we can do is breathe a sigh of relief for our battle-hardened warrior. Every path he takes from this point on likely leads to some form of death at the hands of an advanced race, which makes his victory more bittersweet than satisfying. At least, that’s how I viewed the finale.

Still, as they typically say, it’s about the journey. To that end, Apocalypto is one hell of an adventure.

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Over the past few weeks, Facebook has

Two more awards shows went gender neutral last week, fueling further speculation about the day when major awards shows — think Oscars, Emmys and (yes) Golden Globes — might follow suit and drop the distinction between “actor” and “actress” in their respective competitions.

Organizers behind the Spirit Awards and the Canadian Screen Awards are following the examples set by the Recording Academy, MTV and the Gotham Film & Media Institute. The announcements by Film Independent on Aug. 23 and the Canadian Academy on Aug. 25 follow the July decision by backers of the British Independent Film Awards to eliminate gendered categories with this year’s competition.

I’ve been writing about this trend for several years, including my 2019 column “It’s Time for the Emmys to Eliminate Gender-Specific Acting Categories,” which garnered the most attention of anything I wrote that year. I followed that up with a piece in 2020 (“The Emmys and Other Awards Should Eliminate Gender Divisions, and Here’s How to Do It“), which suggested ways it could be done.

The idea of non-gendered awards shows began to pick up steam when the MTV Movie & TV Awards dropped gender-specific categories in 2017, but organizers of the Grammy Awards did away with gendered categories even earlier, removing female pop vocal performance and male pop vocal performance distinctions more than a decade ago. And the Television Critics Assn. has always awarded “individual achievement” in comedy and drama.

Last year, the Gotham Awards converted to a gender-free approach after eight years of hand- ing out separate actor and actress trophies.

“It’s something we’ve been discussing for a while,” Film Independent president Josh Welsh says of the Spirit shift. “There was a lot of enthusiasm for it for a while, but there was also some apprehension about it. It’s a big change, and I think we really wanted to talk it through carefully and make sure that it was the right thing to do.”

He notes the majority of trophies are gender neutral. “Just to keep it on the Spirit Awards, for almost 40 years we honored writers, directors, producers, editors, cinematographers without reference to gender,” he says.

The switch is more accommodating for the nonbinary acting community. In 2017, “Billions” star Asia Kate Dillon, the first gender-nonbinary performer to play a nonbinary character on a major TV show, asked the TV Academy to clarify its gender distinctions. Ultimately, Dillon asked to be entered into the “supporting actor” category at the Emmys; they later asked the SAG Awards to also drop gendered awards.

“There are lots of great performers, and I think we’ll see more who don’t identify as male or female,” Welsh says. “For award shows to be in the position of telling one of those performers, ‘If you get nominated, you have to choose male or female’ — that’s just not a good approach.”

Merging the acting fields raises the question of how many performers will be honored: The Spirit Awards expanded its nomination field among performers to 10 (up from five each for actor and actress), adding a supporting performer category in TV — which means there will at least still be multiple honorees.

Moving forward, there are potential unintended consequences — including gender imbalance. But Welsh says that Film Independent will keep an eye on such issues. “That’s a real, legitimate concern,” he says. “But I feel like the issue is not award shows; the issue is the industry. It’s not a level playing field in film and television for female creators. It’s the decisions that are made all year long.”

He notes that Film Independent voters are far from monolithic, skewing female and with a high percentage of both people of color and those that identify as LGBTQ. “If there were ever an awards body that has a strong, diverse voting body that can handle this approach to voting, I think it’s Film Independent.”

[Photo: Taylour Paige won this year’s Spirit female lead award in film for her performance in “Zola.”]

VIP+ Analysis: Awards Ratings Are Up. But Are They Really?

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Two more awards shows went gender neutral

September 2, 2022 · 1:31 PM

Coming to HBO Max this Sunday, September 4:
PRIMERA

Director:
Vee Bravo

World Premiere:
Tribeca 2021

Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, OneWorld, SANFIC, Valparaiso

About:
An exploration of how a rising resistance movement—led by student protesters, activists, street artists, and community leaders—fought back against the Chilean government’s oppressive policies and militaristic implementation of force.

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September 2, 2022 · 1:31 PM Coming to

Vladimir Putin showed further signs of his allegedly failing health as his legs twitched manically while giving a brainwashing history lesson to Russian children yesterday.

The Russian leader squirmed in his chair and looked ill at ease as he gripped an armrest with one hand before gesticulating with a tightly clenched fist, while the other hand clutched firm to the microphone. 

Such are his health fears, Putin had ordered each of the high-achieving children to quarantine from Covid for two weeks before the meeting in Kaliningrad.

The president has been plagued with rumours of his ill health and has been regularly seen uncontrollably shaking, limping and tightly holding on to furniture for support. 

During the gathering, Putin stressed to the young children the importance of teaching a Kremlin-approved version of history and referred to Ukraine as an ‘anti-Russian enclave’.

Vladimir Putin showed further signs of his allegedly failing health as his legs twitched manically while giving a brainwashing history lesson to Russian children 

The strongman's foot kept on tapping while he clung on to the chair as he addressed the group of schoolchildren in Kaliningrad

The strongman’s foot kept on tapping while he clung on to the chair as he addressed the group of schoolchildren in Kaliningrad

The Russian leader squirmed in his chair and looked ill at ease as he tightly gripped an armrest with one hand

The Russian leader squirmed in his chair and looked ill at ease as he tightly gripped an armrest with one hand

One of his hands was almost always holding on to the armrest for stability while he gave the brainwashing lesson to the pupils

One of his hands was almost always holding on to the armrest for stability while he gave the brainwashing lesson to the pupils

What’s wrong with Putin?

Rumours have been circling for years that Vladimir Putin is suffering from health problems, and they have intensified since he launched his brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Critics and Kremlin sources have indicated he may be suffering from cancer of Parkinson’s, supported by footage showing the leader shaking uncontrollably and gripping a table for support.

He has also disappeared from the public eye for weeks at a time, with suggestions he is undergoing surgery.

Valery Solovey, professor at Moscow State Institute of Foreign Affairs first hinted at Putin’s health problems, said in 2020 that Putin had undergone surgery for cancer.

Another unnamed source suggested the operation was on Putin’s abdomen. 

He said: ‘One is of a psycho-neurological nature, the other is a cancer problem.

‘If anyone is interested in the exact diagnosis, I’m not a doctor, and I have no ethical right to reveal these problems.

‘The second diagnosis is a lot, lot more dangerous than the first named diagnosis as Parkinson’s does not threaten physical state, but just limits public appearances.

‘Based on this information people will be able to make a conclusion about his life horizon, which wouldn’t even require specialist medical education.’

The Kremlin has consistently denied that there is anything wrong with Putin’s health. 

Others have previously noted his ‘gunslinger’s gait’ – a clearly reduced right arm swing compared to his left, giving him a lilting swagger.

An asymmetrically reduced arm swing is a classic feature of Parkinson’s and can manifest in ‘clinically intact subjects with a predisposition to later develop’ the disease, according to the British Medical Journal.

In February, Putin was seen with a shaking hand as he firmly gripped the side of his chair for support.

The clip, which was taken on February 18, just before the onset of his invasion of Ukraine, shows him welcoming fellow strongman Alexander Lukashenko at the Kremlin.

He pulls his trembling hand into his body in an attempt to quell the shakes, but then he almost stumbles as he unsteadily walks towards Lukashenko.

Later, Putin sits on a chair but is unable to remain still, constantly fidgeting and tapping his feet while he grips onto the arm for support.

In a meeting with defence minister Sergei Shoigu, Putin’s poor posture and his apparently bloated face and neck fuelled the speculation.

Video showed Putin speaking to Shoigu whilst gripping the edge of the table with his right hand – so hard that it appears white – and tapping his foot consistently. 

He has since been seen limping and shaking his hands and legs, further bolstering the rumours.

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Questions about Putin’s health have been circulating for some time in Russia with some suggesting he has cancer or Parkinson’s and he has regularly disappeared for days at a time amid claims he is undergoing surgery.

But the rumours have grown stronger since he launched his barbaric invasion of Ukraine, with the leader often appearing to be not in full control of his limbs.

In recent months, he has been seen hobbling off a plane in Iran with a limp arm and twisting his foot in a meeting with Belarus dictator Lukashenko in May.

Yesterday, as well as giving the selected high IQ children a skewed history lesson suggesting Ukraine and Russia should be one country, Putin lectured them on the importance of discipline and baffled the children with a joke about a ‘rubber bum’.

He told the high-flying students aged nine to 12: ‘You need to be motivated to reach your goal.

‘And, of course, hard work. All this together is very important.

‘Working hard is a talent in itself. It’s not just, excuse me, a rubber bum.

‘It is a talent to force oneself to work, and to be able to do it productively.’

A video shows how he found the ‘rubber bum’ funny, laughing as he uttered the words during the session supposedly dedicated to ‘important’ themes for children.

But his bemused young audience remained silent and his words led to puzzlement online.

Journalist Elena Rykovtseva said: ‘God forbid – is this what he’s flogging to school kids at the ‘Speak about the Important’ session in Kaliningrad? What kind of mess is in his head? Somebody cure this president!’

Political scientist Fyodor Krashennikov dubbed Putin simply: ‘Mr. Rubber Bum.’

Another said: ‘What was it for? What did he mean by that? What does the rubber bum have to do with the subject under discussion? Someone please explain.’

One theory is that he muddled his Soviet history, and was alluding to a nickname given to notorious Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, a Bolshevik monster who personally signed off more mass execution lists than Stalin.

During Stalin times, he was known as ‘Stone Arse’ for his ability to work at his desk for 20 hours non stop.

But Molotov pedantically corrected comrades saying Soviet founder Lenin had in fact dubbed him ‘Iron A**e’.

In the session, Putin admitted about himself: ‘I can’t say I am the most disciplined.

‘It’s clear I’ve got to work on myself. Discipline is important to succeed. But discipline alone isn’t enough.’

Elsewhere in the indoctrination session, Putin broadened the scope of the war and said he wanted to reclaim the territories he saw as traditionally Russian.

He referred to the Donbas as Russia’s ‘historical territories’, adding: ‘They started creating an anti-Russian enclave on the territory of today’s Ukraine that is threatening out country. 

‘So our guys who are fighting there are defending both the residents of Donbas, and defending Russia itself.’

In an hour-long question-and-answer session, Putin said he had been shocked to discover that children in east Ukraine did not know their country had been part of the Soviet Union with Russia and that correcting the record was a vital task.

He said that Russian Minister of Education Sergey Sergeyevich Kravtsov told him that children in the Russian-occupied Donbas ‘don’t know that the bridge to Crimea exists’ and ‘didn’t even know that Ukraine and Russia were part of a united country.’

APRIL 21: Putin is seen gripping his desk with his right hand while meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in the early stages of the war. The footage from the meeting raised questions about Putin's health

APRIL 21: Putin is seen gripping his desk with his right hand while meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in the early stages of the war. The footage from the meeting raised questions about Putin’s health

JULY 26: Putin, left, listens to Yuri Borisov, the CEO of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, while he grips his desk with his right hand

JULY 26: Putin, left, listens to Yuri Borisov, the CEO of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, while he grips his desk with his right hand

AUGUST 25: Vladimir Putin is seen gripping the same desk with his right hand during a meeting with Head of the Federal Taxation Service Daniil Yegorov

AUGUST 25: Vladimir Putin is seen gripping the same desk with his right hand during a meeting with Head of the Federal Taxation Service Daniil Yegorov

Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen hobbling from his presidential plane during the welcoming ceremony in Tehran earlier this week

Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen hobbling from his presidential plane during the welcoming ceremony in Tehran earlier this week

Putin lectured them on the importance of discipline and baffled the children with a joke about a 'rubber bum'

Putin lectured them on the importance of discipline and baffled the children with a joke about a ‘rubber bum’

The Russian leader stressed the importance of teaching a Kremlin-approved version of history to the selected high IQ pupils

The Russian leader stressed the importance of teaching a Kremlin-approved version of history to the selected high IQ pupils

Vladimir Putin’s five medically-related disappearances  

November 2012: Business trips and long-distance flights of the president are canceled, some of Putin’s meetings shown by the Kremlin turn out to be ‘canned food’

March 5 – 15, 2015: Putin does not appear in public, all meetings are ‘canned’ – in other words pre-recorded events were shown with the pretense they were in real time

August 9-16, 2017: The President, with journalists, visits Abkhazia and Sochi, and then for a week the Kremlin publishes only ‘canned food’

February 2018: In the midst of an election campaign, the president cancels public events. Peskov admits that the head of state ‘had a cold’

September 13-29, 2021: Putin goes into ‘self-isolation’, all events are held via video link

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Putin called the wave of protests that forced Ukraine’s pro-Russian president from office in 2014 a ‘coup’.

‘Everybody thinks that some kind of aggression is coming from the Russian side today,’ Putin said, in a televised session that verged on the awkward as a succession of children asked to shake his hand.

‘But nobody understands, nobody knows that, after the coup in 2014, the residents of Donetsk, a large part of Luhansk and Crimea did not want to recognise the coup,’ Putin said. ‘A war was started against them – and it was waged for eight years.’

He added: ‘On the territory of today’s Ukraine, they began to create an anti-Russian enclave that threatens our country. 

‘Therefore, our lads, who are fighting there, are protecting both the residents of the Donbas region, and defending Russia itself.

‘Of course, this deserves full support from society – this is very important. From young people. The lads fighting there risk their life to do so. 

‘Many (of them) die. So, they must understand what they are giving their life for – and this is an extremely important thing: for Russia and for the people who live in the Donbas region.’

Shortly after President Viktor Yanukovych fled Kyiv, Russia seized and annexed Crimea, and backed rebels who succeeded in taking control of parts of Luhansk and Donetsk in east Ukraine.

Kyiv and its allies dismiss the idea that Russian-speakers had been persecuted as a baseless pretext for Moscow to try to seize more of Ukraine and topple President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Putin poses for pictures with participants of an open lesson titled 'Talking of What Matters'

Putin poses for pictures with participants of an open lesson titled ‘Talking of What Matters’

'Everybody thinks that some kind of aggression is coming from the Russian side today,' Putin said, in a televised session that verged on the awkward as a succession of children asked to shake his hand

‘Everybody thinks that some kind of aggression is coming from the Russian side today,’ Putin said, in a televised session that verged on the awkward as a succession of children asked to shake his hand 

Putin said it was important that schools in Russia and Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine teach the Moscow-approved curriculum – which largely disavows Ukraine’s sovereignty and history as an independent nation since 1991.

Since invading Ukraine, the Kremlin has pushed schools to be more patriotic: from Thursday, all pupils start the week with a flag-raising ceremony and the playing of the national anthem.

Putin also chaired a board meeting of a new government-created youth group drawing on the traditions of the Soviet-era Komsomol and Pioneers – youth wings of the Communist Party.

The still-unnamed group is the latest iteration of attempts to forge a nationwide pro-Kremlin youth movement. 

Previous versions include the now-defunct ‘Nashi’ (‘Our People’), which had more than 100,000 members at its height in the 2000s.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Moldova on Thursday that threatening the security of Russian troops in the breakaway region of Transdniestria risked triggering military confrontation with Moscow.

Russia has stationed peacekeeping troops in Transdniestria since the early 1990s, when an armed conflict saw pro-Russian separatists wrest most of the region from Moldovan control.

The government in Chisinau, stressing it was committed to peaceful dialogue over the future of the region, said it would summon the acting Russian ambassador to make clear its position.

Russia says its army is there to maintain peace and stability, but Moldova wants Moscow to withdraw its forces.

‘Everyone should understand that any action that would threaten the security of our troops (in Transdniestria) would be considered under international law as an attack on Russia, as was the case in South Ossetia when our peacekeepers were attacked by (former Georgian President Mikheil) Saakashvili,’ Lavrov said.

That incident, in 2008, resulted in a five-day war in which Russian forces seized several Georgian cities. Shortly afterwards, Moscow recognised South Ossetia and another Georgian breakaway territory, Abkhazia, as independent.

Transdniestria, which relies heavily on Moscow for support, reported a series of sporadic attacks in April, further raising tensions that were already high following Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, which borders Moldova.

Daniel Voda, a spokesman for the Moldovan foreign ministry, said the rights of all minorities – including Russian-speakers – were guaranteed.

‘Chisinau remains fully committed to a peaceful dialogue in (Transdniestria) and in calling Russia to withdraw troops stationed illegally on our territory. Any suggestion of a different approach is unfounded,’ he tweeted.

In order to ‘clarify the above,’ he said, Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu had ordered that the acting Russia ambassador be called in.

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Vladimir Putin showed further signs of his

Emily Maitlis, whose notorious interview with Prince Andrew forced the disgraced royal to announce his departure from public life, has revealed she believes the prince “had behaved rather well.”

The former BBC presenter, who interviewed the prince for its flagship Newsnight programme, told The Times that the duke’s behaviour compared favourably with most politicians.

She said, “I felt he’d behaved rather well. He had given us this hour in the palace and was willing to talk about stuff. Most politicians now won’t even talk about their own policies. So at least he had guts.”

And she shared her sentiment that the prince had also enjoyed the interview, unaware of the grief it would bring him. She said, “He spent a long time afterwards chatting to us and allowing us to take shots going along the corridors. He even gave me this guided tour, saying, ‘Her Majesty is just up these stairs. When you next come back I’ll have to show you more. And do you know what’s behind that door?’”

It was clear neither the prince, his people nor the wider palace firmament predicted the backlash to the interview, which saw him fail to show any regret for his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, fail to show any sympathy for Epstein’s victims, and also saw him bizarrely explain how he couldn’t have been spotted dancing, looking “sweaty” in a nightclub as detailed by his alleged victim Virginia Guiffre, as he had a condition which meant he was unable to sweat.

Maitlis told The Times, “The palace told us it was ‘firm but fair.’ I don’t think they realised how the public or press would react. They certainly weren’t expecting the furore.”

There are now two TV dramas being produced about the interview, one based on the book Scoops, written by Maitlis’s then producer Sam McAllister, and one by Blueprint Productions, which previously brought the scandals of British politician Jeremy Thorpe and the Duchess of Argyll to screen with, respectively, A Very English Scandal and A Very British Scandal. Maitlis is working with the latter company.

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Emily Maitlis, whose notorious interview with Prince

Music publishers and the top streaming services have reached an agreement on royalty rates for song owners, effectively avoiding another lengthy and messy legal battle between the parties until at least 2027.

Under the agreement, announced Wednesday by the National Music Publishers’ Association, the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and the Digital Media Association — the latter of which represents Amazon Music, Apple Music, YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify — song owners in the U.S. will receive a headline royalty rate of 15.35 percent. The new rate, which will be phased in over the next five years, represents a .25 percent increase from the previous rate, 15.1 percent, which was reached incrementally between 2018 to 2022.

Streamers and publishers also agreed to increases to per-subscriber minimums and “total content costs” calculations, which are reflected in the specific rates that the music streaming services pay to record labels. The agreement also changes the way the parties approach streaming bundles and “updates how services can offer incentives to attract new subscribers into the music ecosystem,” according to Wednesday’s announcement.

The proposal will now be submitted to the Copyright Royalty Board for review.

“Instead of going to trial and continuing years of conflict, we instead move forward in collaboration with the highest rates ever, guaranteed,” NMPA President and CEO David Israelite said in a statement. “We thank the digital services for coming to the table and treating creators as business partners.”

Streamers like Spotify, Amazon Music and Google’s YouTube last waged a legal battle with music publishers over royalty rates for the 2018–2022 period, when the CRB — a three-judge panel — determined that digital streamers should pay song owners 15.1 percent of their revenue for royalties. The streamers fought back and initially won an appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the CRB ultimately upheld its decision to set the royalty rate for the 2018-2022 period at 15.1 percent.

Heading into the next negotiation period for the 2023-2027 rates, the NMPA previously signaled it would advocate for a 20 percent royalty rate, but it appears the music publishers and streamers landed on a much smaller increase in an effort to avoid another legal battle and lock in the rate.

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Music publishers and the top streaming services

Shia LaBeouf is making headlines, Taylor Swift surprises fans with the announcement of a new album and Britney Spears releases a raw message about her conservatorship.

On the heels of Olivia Wilde’s Variety cover in which the “Don’t Worry Darling” director discussed LaBeouf’s departure from her film, LaBeouf sent emails and texts to Variety, insisting he quit Wilde’s film and wasn’t fired. Following that, news broke that LaBeouf was cast in Francis Ford Coppola’s $100 million epic “Megalopolis,” just as he hits the Venice Film Festival for another movie, “Padre Pio.” After the actor was essentially blacklisted from Hollywood after his ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs filed a sexual battery suit in 2020, is he attempting a comeback?

The VMAs got an exciting announcement for Swifties: the artist is dropping a new album, titled “Midnight,” in October. Swift made the reveal as only she can do, after taking the stage to collect the biggest award of the night.

Spears didn’t attend the VMAs, but the pop star managed to make headlines during the award show, posting a 22-minute audio message to YouTube in which she detailed the horrors she says she experienced during her conservatorship. It’s been a big week for Spears, whose new song with Elton John, “Hold Me Closer,” is topping music charts.

This week’s episode of “The Take” welcomes a special guest host, Variety senior entertainment editor Angelique Jackson, who joins co-host Elizabeth Wagmeister, Variety‘s chief correspondent, to discuss the big stories of the week.

Regularly hosted by Wagmeister and senior awards editor Clayton Davis, Variety‘s “The Take,” presented by Apple TV+, is a weekly series that navigates the week’s top stories from entertainment, pop culture and media, while providing expert analysis and exclusive insight on what’s buzzing in Hollywood. Filmed in Variety‘s state-of-the-art studio in Los Angeles, new episodes are released on Fridays on Variety.com, YouTube and social media.

Make sure to let us know … what’s your take?

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Shia LaBeouf is making headlines, Taylor Swift

A year after an excessively long Primetime Emmy Award acceptance speech by The Queen’s Gambit’s Scott Frank was slammed on social media, the TV Academy is encouraging this year’s nominees to take advantage of a new method of shortening an acceptance speech to spare everyone embarrassment.

The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned that people nominated for awards that will be presented at the Primetime Emmys on Sept. 12, and their representatives, received a communication on Friday from the TV Academy notifying them that they can pre-submit thank-you names and messages — up to 350 characters — to appear on the screen if they win.

“We want to make sure you can speak from the heart and not feel pressure to remember to say all those important names when you are in the spotlight giving your acceptance speech,” the missive reads, in part. “So… this year, we are doing something different. During your speech, we will graphically list the names of your significants, executives, agents, etc. All you need to do is type your thank yous in the link below and hit send.”

Nominees are under no obligation to take advantage of this alternative method of offering thanks, and it seems likely that many will still opt to verbally express their appreciation to family, friends and colleagues.

The full text of the TV Academy’s communication appears below.

Congratulations on your nomination for the 74th Emmys. How incredible!

If you win (fingers crossed), we want to make sure you can speak from the heart and not feel pressure to remember to say all those important names when you are in the spotlight giving your acceptance speech.

So… this year, we are doing something different. During your speech, we will graphically list the names of your significants, executives, agents, etc. All you need to do is type your thank yous in the link below and hit send. By the way, if you are receiving your award as a group, please combine your thanks and only submit once. If you are nominated for more than one category, please submit to the link per category.

You have 350 characters to do with as you wish (PG, obviously). You are welcome to personalize it… “If you’re awake Tommy and Sukie, Daddy WON!… You can have a puppy!”

There’s a mock-up of how it will look below, and you will see the words on a monitor in front of you while you speak; so you can be assured your thanks will be broadcast!

Just a reminder: If you win, you have 45 seconds for your speech. There will be a countdown clock — also displayed on the monitor — to help you judge the time you have left. As you know, we only have a finite amount of time in the show. If you go long, it means that your fellow winners won’t have time to make their speeches. So out of respect to your peers, PLEASE stay to time. Believe us, we HATE playing people off, just as much as you hate being played off.

The deadline for submitting your words is Wednesday, Sept. 7. If you have not submitted by then, we will assume you don’t want your thanks displayed.

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A year after an excessively long Primetime

Looking for a new TV show to binge or a movie to watch for a film night? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Here are 50 of the best TV shows and movies coming to the UK this month.

9.

Cobra Kai – Season Five

13.

The Great British Bake Off

14.

Fate: The Winx Saga – Season Two

16.

Strictly Come Dancing

19.

The Kardashians – Season Two

20.

Drag Race UK – Season Four

24.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever

26.

Bloodlands – Season Two

27.

Never Mind The Buzzcocks – Season Two

29.

Three Thousand Years of Longing

43.

Catherine Called Birdy

47.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism

48.

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris

Which of these are you looking forward to? Let us know in the comments below!

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After revisiting Prince Akeem Joffer in Coming 2 America, Eddie Murphy is set to reprise one of his most iconic characters — Axel Foley. Production on Beverly Hills Cop 4 recently began, and a few set photos have emerged showcasing Murphy in a Detroit Lions letterman jacket with his arm in a sling.

The Beverly Hills Cop 4 photos also include a look at Taylour Paige, who was recently announced to be joining the sequel alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The official title for the sequel is Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley. Paul Reiser is also expected to reprise his role as Detective Jeffrey Friedman from the first two movies.

Eddie Murphy first played Axel Foley in 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop, which found the street-wise Detroit cop travelling to California to track down the killers of his friend. Even though it was out of his jurisdiction, Foley teamed up with two reluctant detectives from the Beverly Hills Police Department. The film was a major success and spawned two sequels, Beverly Hills Cop 2 and Beverly Hills Cop 3, although neither film did as well as the first.

Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were once expected to direct Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley but wound up departing to focus on Batgirl. I think we all know how that went. Mark Molloy has stepped in to direct from a screenplay by Will Beall. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley doesn’t have an official release date yet, but it will be released on Netflix when all is said and done.

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After revisiting Prince Akeem Joffer in Coming

Netflix and the European Producers Club (EPC) have revealed the winners of a pitch contest for fictional series at the ongoing Venice Film Festival.

The pitch contest is a joint initiative by EPC and Netflix to help create new opportunities for European women producers. It was launched at Series Mania in March, and open to EPC producers working for women-owned companies. Following a selection process by an independent jury, composed of Cia Edstrom, Francine Raveney and Olivier Kohn, the competition finalists pitched their projects to the Netflix content team.

Anna Mannion of Tri Moon Films, Ireland, won the first prize of €50,000 ($49,762), while Ada Solomon of Microfilm, Romania, won the second prize of €20,000.

Mariela Besuievsky, Tornasol Media (Spain), Martichka Bozhilova, Agitprop (Bulgaria), Gabriele M. Walther, Caligari (Germany) and Olena Yershova, Tato Film (Ukraine/Turkey), each won the third prize of €5,000.

The initiative is funded by the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity, which aims to build opportunities for underrepresented communities within the entertainment industry.

Gudny Hummelvoll, president, European Producers Club, said: “In the framework of the launch of the EPC Gender Charter, we established this scheme dedicated to women producers with Netflix’s Fund for Creative Equity. Women producers are more scarce in the general landscape. We felt the need to open new opportunities and improve their accessibility to the market. We are excited that the outcome of the scheme gives high visibility to women producers from a broad range of countries – from Romania and Bulgaria to Ireland, Germany and Spain and many others.”

Chris Mack, director, Grow Creative at Netflix, added: “It was exciting to see pitches from women producers from across Europe and it’s been great to partner with the European Producers Club to empower women. We know how important representation behind the camera is for representation on screen, which is why we support initiatives like this one with Netflix’s Fund for Creative Equity.”

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Netflix and the European Producers Club (EPC)

Mindy Kaling’s Never Have I Ever premiered its penultimate season on Netflix and has become a staple in modern teen comedies for its positive representation of South Asian young girls and its ability to deal with grief appropriately. With it being a coming-of-age story, Devi often creates havoc for the people around her but often learns from her mistakes and grows as a person.

Regardless, the show is inundated with humorous and moving moments that together illuminate a broader understanding of what it means to be in high school now. The hilarious writing and characters make for a number of memes that showcase the show’s true essence and its relatable nature to everyone of all ages.

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Devi’s Consistent Questionable Decisions

One of the reasons Never Have I Ever is a different teenage coming-of-age series is that it follows its main character Devi, as she makes some of the most misguided and morally ambiguous decisions. From being unable to choose between Paxton and Ben, lying to her friends, and constant self-sabotage, Devi explores herself without the writers holding her up to a pedestal.

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Since the show’s beginning and especially in season 3, Devi has started to evolve and become more cognizant of her actions towards her friends, her family, and herself, illustrating her immense growth after audiences have seen her make some very questionable decisions.

Paxton’s Arc

Throughout the series, Paxton Hall-Yoshida has one of the best arcs in Never Have I Ever season 3, evolving from the school’s promiscuous heartthrob to a more thoughtful and intentional character. In “…Had My Own Troll,” Devi confronts Paxton about his old best friend whom he ghosted after hooking up.

Paxton, who has developed and grown to take accountability for his actions, redeems himself by apologizing to every girl that he has wronged. Hilariously enough, the list included almost every girl in the school, but Paxton did not permit his pride to deter him from earnestly apologizing to every girl he hurt. Paxton has learned from Devi and his sister to treat the people around him with respect and sincerity.

Emotional Season Finales

Every season of Never Have I Ever deals with Devi growing as a person and learning to love herself as well as the people around her. As she sometimes alienates herself from her friends, she often reaches a point of breakthrough and finds comfort in emotional scenes with her mother Nalini, who is considered the best character in Never Have I Ever.

At the end of season 1, Devi is able to process the grief from the loss of her dad with her mother. In season 2, Devi and Nalini talk about missing their dad but moving forward. And in the newest season, Nalini comforts Devi when she expresses her feelings of unworthiness. These scenes close out Devi’s season arcs as well as emphasize the kind and supportive mother that Nalini is.

Devi’s Love-Triangle

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While the show centers on Devi’s personal growth through high school, one of the most important and divisive parts of the show is the continuous love triangle between Devi, Ben, and Paxton. Despite feeling unattainable, Ben and Paxton have feelings for her, and she is forced to choose between the two of them unless sometimes she chooses both of them.

Whether Team Paxton or Team Ben, fans can tell that the writers have creatively given each boy redeemable qualities that make them viable options for Devi. Ben uncharacteristically genuinely cares for her and knows her from their several years as enemies. Paxton listens to Devi and chooses to grow alongside her as well as help her grow as well. With the show concluding on its fourth season, Never Have I Ever fans have questions about who Devi will ultimately end up with, if any.

Fabiola and Eleanor Try To Support Devi As Much As They Can

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Devi might make contentious choices, but she does not go through it alone. She usually talks to her best friends, Fabiola and Eleanor, about the situation. Devi tends not to listen to their advice which leads to more problems ultimately. Regardless, Fabiola and Eleanor tend to stick by Devi’s side as she learns her lesson, and they provide her with the best support when necessary.

RELATED: Never Have I Ever Characters Ranked From Most to Least Likely To Survive A Horror Movie

When Devi told them about her plan to be in relationships with both Ben and Paxton, Fabiola and Eleanor reminded Devi of what she was doing, but in the end, it was Devi who had to learn the lesson on her own.

Hilarious Supporting Characters

One of the most hilarious characters in the show is Trent, Paxton’s long-time best friend, and Eleanor’s boyfriend in season 3. He is characterized to be very aloof and is very straightforward with the characters, often calling Devi “Crazy Devi” to her face. Despite his comments sometimes about Ben’s acne, he is direct and never intends to cause harm.


In season 3, Trent develops as a more multidimensional character who holds fears for the future and what it means to him. He learns to express his love for Eleanor, making their relationship the cutest in the show. As the funniest character on Never Have I Ever, he quickly became a fan favorite this season who always said what he felt and confronted his emotions head-on.

Mohan’s Emotional Impact

Fans praised the show for its ability to adequately process Devi’s grief from her father, Mohan, who passed away a little before the show started. Over the span of the show, Mohan appears in both flashbacks and the present day, speaking to Devi through her memories.

RELATED: One Quote From the Main Characters in Never Have I Ever That Goes Against Their Personality

Mohan’s gracious and kind character still rings true even after his passing, providing emotional support to his daughter even she feels the rest of the world is against her. It can be guaranteed that any scene with Mohan in it is going to leave some audiences reaching for a tissue.

Focus On Supporting Characters

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While most of the show focuses on Devi’s journey narrated by famous tennis player John McEnroe, Paxton and Ben each get their own character-centric episodes that reveal more layers to the characters than just part of Devi’s love triangle. Ben’s episodes are narrated by Andy Samberg while Paxton’s episodes are narrated by Gigi Hadid.

These episodes explore their personal lives that Devi typically does not see, such as their relationships with their families and the relationship they have with themselves. These episodes allow viewers to gain new understanding of these characters and have become a fan-favorite marker for every season.

Friends Who Support Each Other

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Particularly in the newest season, Paxton’s growth was marked by profound moments with most characters, excluding Aneesa as the meme suggests. Paxton helped Fabiola ask Aneesa out on a date and was there for Ben when he had to go to the hospital and go through emergency surgery. He even continued to root for Devi even after their break-up.


More than just Paxton, the characters are all friends who support each other, such as Ben revealing to Devi the truth about Nirdesh’s mom and Eleanor helping Paxton talk to Trent about going off to college. While Devi can make horrible decisions and sometimes hurt the people she loves, every character remembers to lean on each other. Hopefully, the last season gives Aneesa her moment with Paxton.

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Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever premiered