#Festival Visions 2016

[zef-zef]

Ingrid Laubrock Sextet - Vision Festival 20, Pt I (2016)

Ingrid Laubrock - tenor sax Craig Taborn - piano Miya Masaoka - koto Dan Peck - tuba Tyshawn Sorey - drums Sam Pluta - electronics

Part II

[lesbiancolumbo]

re: your last post about eastern european/turkish/etc films do you have any specific recommendations 👀

hell yes i do, i have a lot, and i'm gonna open this up to a wider net of countries in europe that i think just aren't getting enough attention when it comes to their cinema. i'm also keeping this limited to contemporary cinema.

romania: the films of cristian mungiu are all amazing, especially 4 months 3 weeks and 2 days and beyond the hills (i'm watching his latest effort and that's what inspired that post btw). i also recommend tuesday, after christmas, and the death of mr. lazarescu. i haven't seen this next title but it comes highly recommended and looks amazing: collective, a documentary that is high on my list.

bulgaria: viktoria. watch viktoria. it's on kanopy and i think it is a movie that is so beautiful and moving and challenging and it has just stuck with me since i saw it almost a decade ago. i miss maya vitkova so much, i want another film from her asap. another film i enjoyed was glory (2016), which i don't think anyone else i know has seen, but i saw it for a film festival i was working for at the time, and while we didn't program it, i vouched for it.

serbia: no one's child, which is a film i saw at a festival as screening duty for the same festival i was working for when i watched glory. i fell in love with this film's uncompromising vision and recommended it, we programmed it, and it actually won our jury prize that year. so maybe i have taste.

bosnia/herzegovina: watch quo vadis, aida? and never look back. best movie of 2020 (i got the year wrong in my last post, apologies)

hungary: i am probably most excited to see what hungarian cinema is gonna look like after the last few years. a film i really liked recently is preparations to be together for an unknown period of time. there was a sweet little film that was at last year's sundance that was called gentle, and another sundance watch, a documentary from 2017 called a woman captured that made me sob. there's also son of saul, which is A Brutal Watch, be warned and read the imdb summary before you go into that one. also a really exciting filmmaker coming out of hungary is Ildikó Enyedi and her film on body and soul is really interesting.

turkey: the film i mentioned in my other post was between two dawns, which is fascinating and heartbreaking. another one that i love is mustang (when i saw deniz's name on several episodes of perry mason i cheered lol).

lithuania: lastly i wanted to give two films a shoutout from lithuania - the summer of sangaille, a visually beautiful film about two girls falling in love, and one of the most interesting films i saw at this year's sundance, slow, which is a gorgeous and unique love story.

i will leave you all with these -- i realized in consulting my lists that i don't have anything contemporary from czechia, which is embarrassing because that's my people lol, but i digress. feel free to continue recommending stuff in the comments - let's spread some love for world cinema!

[brokehorrorfan]

Taxi Driver will be released on Steelbook 4K UHD (with Blu-ray and Digital) on June 25 via Sony. The influential 1976 neo-noir psychological thriller is directed by Martin Scorsese.

Robert De Niro stars with Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, and Cybill Shepherd. Paul Schrader (Raging Bull) wrote the script.

Taxi Driver has been restored in 4K from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision. Special features are listed below, where you can also see the full Steelbook art.

Disc 1 - 4K UHD:

Making Taxi Driver - 1999 documentary

Storyboard-to-film comparisons with Martin Scorsese introduction

Photo galleries

20th anniversary trailer

Disc 2 - Blu-ray:

Audio commentary by director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader

Audio commentary by writer Paul Schrader

Audio commentary by film historian Professor Robert Kolker

2016 Tribeca Film Festival Q&A with Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, and more

Commentary with Recorded by the Criterion Collection Commentaries by Writer Paul Schrader and by

Martin Scorsese on Taxi Driver

Influence and Appreciation: A Martin Scorsese Tribute

Producing Taxi Driver

God's Lonely Man

Taxi Driver Stories

Travis' New York

Travis' New York Locations

Theatrical trailer

A psychotic New York cabby is driven to violence in an attempt to rescue a teenage prostitute.

Pre-order Taxi Driver.

[moochilatv]

Ganja White Night and Tape B presents: Ganja Tape

It's electronic with drum & bass, and some EDM

Label: SubCarbon Records

Growing up in the small town of Mons, Belgium, the duo was in a way sheltered from the music industry of the United States, allowing them to create a unique sound of their own. With their musical roots ranging from early UK bass and reggae vibes, Ganja White Night has twisted together their influences and spit out something truly fresh and their own. After a decade-plus deep discography, Ganja White Night struck a chord with their 2016 Mr. Wobble LP release, cementing their iconic Wobble sound. Centered around the idea of creating their own mini animated universe, the duo teamed up with Ebo, a famous Belgian street artist, to bring their vision alive. With the debut of Wobble Master & LFO Requiem full animated music videos in 2016, the story of Mr. Wobble was born.

Subsequent albums – which continued to tell Mr. Wobble's adventurous tale through Ganja White Night's iconic Wobble sound – included The Origins, The One, Dark Wobble, and their most recent album, Unity. Their significant collaborations to date include bass-music powerhouses like Zeds Dead, Subtronics, Slander, Liquid Stranger, and long-time collaborator Boogie T. Drawing similarities to the visual aspect of the Gorillaz and their unique style of telling a story through their music, the duo plans to continue exploring their own universe.

Tape B, born Kemal Berk Alkanat, is a dynamic force in today's electronic music scene, merging the nostalgic vibes of old-school dubstep with contemporary bass music and hip-hop. Born in Turkey and raised in the US from the age of three, Tape B brings a distinctive sound that captivates with a blend of nostalgia and modernity, termed "Old School x New School." His musical journey began at the University of Central Florida, influenced by early 2000s hip-hop and electronic pioneers like UKF and The Glitch Mob. His career took a professional turn after a revelatory experience at the Lost Lands Music Festival in 2019. Tape B's rise to prominence was fueled by viral SoundCloud mixes and dynamic live performances, including his iconic "Yo, Tape B" tag, which has become a recognizable call throughout modern clubland and festivals. Achieving significant traction with remixes and original tracks, including the standout "Trippy Land" with Mersiv and Juicy J, Tape B has redefined expectations within bass music. As of 2024, Tape B achieved sellouts of every headline since December 2023, including rapid ticket sales at Denver's Mission Ballroom and New York's Great Hall.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ganja White Night (@ganjawhitenight)

His introduction of Tape B Block Parties in 2024, as recently showcased across Texas with two sold-out events, has brought classic and modern dubstep brilliance to the forefront, further cementing his influence in the scene. In August 2024, Tape B released a genre-blending collaboration with superstar producers John Summit and Subtronics. Tape B remains a vibrant and influential figure in electronic music. His commitment to innovation, community, and joy through music continues to drive his rapidly ascending career.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Tatiana Huezo

Director and screenwriter Tatiana Huezo was born in 1972 in San Salvador, El Salvador. Huezo first garnered international attention for her 2011 debut documentary film, The Tiniest Place, which was screened at over 80 film festivals globally and won the Grand Prix for Best Feature-length film at Visions du Reel. Her film Tempestad, which follows the stories of two women affected by human trafficking, won Best Documentary at the 2016 Fenix Awards, and four Ariel Awards. Huezo's first fictional feature, Prayers for the Stolen, received a Special Mention from the jury at Cannes.

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

La La Land (2016, Damien Chazelle)

08/11/2023

La La Land is a 2016 film written and directed by Damien Chazelle.

The film tells the love story between a jazz musician and an aspiring actress, played respectively by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, made a contemporary musical that pays homage to the classic musical films produced between the 1950s and 1960s. The film's title is both a reference to the city of Los Angeles and the meaning of being in the "dream world" or "out of reality". Chazelle wrote the screenplay in 2010, but couldn't find a studio willing to finance the project. Only after the success of his 2014 Whiplash did the project gain interest from production companies.

The film received universal acclaim from critics, who praised Damien Chazelle's direction, Stone's performance and the film's soundtrack, receiving top marks from many critics and proving to be one of the most popular films since its theatrical release.

It was the opening film of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival, where Stone won the Volpi Cup for Best Female Performance. It received 14 nominations for the 2017 Oscars, equaling the record of films such as All About Eve and Titanic, ultimately winning 6 statuettes. It won seven Golden Globes, out of seven nominations, the Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and many other international awards, becoming one of the most awarded and appreciated films of 2016.

On a hot and busy Los Angeles highway, the first meeting takes place between Mia, an aspiring actress who works as a barista at a café in the Warner Bros. Studios, and Sebastian, a jazz pianist who dreams of opening his own place. After yet another failed audition, Mia's roommates, seeing her down in the dumps, convince her to go to a sumptuous party in the Hollywood Hills, at the end of which, walking home, she is attracted by music and enters the club where it comes from.

A few months later, the two meet at a party where Sebastian is playing in an 80s cover band, and it is from that moment that they begin to see each other as friends, despite the strong chemistry between them, discussing their passions and their respective projects for the future. Sebastian invites Mia to the cinema to watch Rebel Without a Cause and she accepts, forgetting a previous commitment she made with her current boyfriend Greg. The two end the evening with a romantic dance at the Griffith Observatory.

Only a few people attend Mia's show. Disappointed and embittered by the negative criticism received and by the lack of Sebastian, Mia decides to leave Los Angeles and her aspirations to return to her parents in Boulder City, Nevada.

Being also a musician, Damien Chazelle has always had a strong predilection for musical films. His vision for the film was to "take an old-fashioned musical, but portray it in real life where things don't always work out", as well as paying homage to all the people who move to Los Angeles to pursue their dreams. Chazelle conceived the idea for the film when he was a student at Harvard University, along with his classmate, Justin Hurwitz. The two explored the concept in their senior thesis through a low-budget musical about a Boston jazz musician called Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench.

[bowieography]

Moonage Daydream will be released on triple vinyl on 31st March 2023.

Disc 1

Side A

“Time… one of the most complex expressions…”

Ian Fish U.K. Heir (Moonage Daydream Mix 1)

Hallo Spaceboy (Moonage Daydream Remix Edit)

Medley: Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud / All The Young Dudes / Oh! You Pretty Things (Live)

Life On Mars? (2016 Mix Moonage Daydream Edit)

Moonage Daydream (Live)

Side B

The Jean Genie / Love Me Do / The Jean Genie (Live) (featuring Jeff Beck)

The Light (Excerpt)*

Warszawa (Live Moonage Daydream Edit)

Quicksand (Early Version 2021 Mix)

Medley: Future Legend / Diamonds Dogs intro / Cracked Actor

Disc 2

Side A

Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me (Live in Buffalo 8th November 1974)

Aladdin Sane (Moonage Daydream Edit)

Subterraneans

Space Oddity (Moonage Daydream Mix)

V-2 Schneider

Side B

Sound And Vision (Moonage Daydream Mix)

A New Career In A New Town (Moonage Daydream Mix)

Word On A Wing (Moonage Daydream Excerpt)

“Heroes” (Live Moonage Daydream Edit)

D.J. (Moonage Daydream Mix)

Ashes To Ashes (Moonage Daydream Mix)

Move On (Moonage Daydream acappella Mix Edit)

Moss Garden (Moonage Daydream Edit)

Disc 3

Side A

Cygnet Committee/Lazarus (Moonage Daydream Mix)

Memory Of A Free Festival (Harmonium Edit)

Modern Love (Moonage Daydream Mix)

Let’s Dance (Live Moonage Daydream Edit)

The Mysteries (Moonage Daydream Mix)

Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide (Live Moonage Daydream Edit)

Ian Fish U.K. Heir (Moonage Daydream Mix 2)

Side B

Word On A Wing (Moonage Daydream Mix)

Hallo Spaceboy (live Moonage Daydream Mix)

I Have Not Been To Oxford Town (Moonage Daydream acappella Mix Edit)

“Heroes”: IV. Sons Of The Silent Age (Excerpt) *

★ (Moonage Daydream Mix Edit)

Ian Fish U.K. Heir (Moonage Daydream Mix Excerpt)

Memory Of A Free Festival (Moonage Daydream Mix Edit)

Starman

“You’re aware of a deeper existence…”

Changes

“Let me tell you one thing…”

“Well, you know what this has been an incredible pleasure…”

Pre-order it here

[steelbluehome]

The Wrap

The Apprentice’ Review: Donald Trump Movie Starring Sebastian Stan Plays Like a Tragic Frankenstein Tale (click for article)

Cannes 2024: With Stan as a young Trump and Jeremy Strong as lawyer Roy Cohn, the film is amusing at times and disturbing at others

STEVE POND May 20, 2024 @ 10:05 AM

There’s not much in Ali Abbasi’s filmography to make you think that he’d want to make a movie about a young Donald Trump and his mentor Roy Cohn. But there’s a lot in the Iranian-born, Copenhagen-based filmmaker’s work to suggest that if he did make such a movie, it could be both fascinating and terrifying.

And in a way, “The Apprentice,” which premiered in the Main Competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, is both of those things. It’s a true-life horror story in some ways, and Abbasi approaches it as a Frankenstein tale in which the mad doctor creates a monster and then loses control of it. But after years of Trump imitations (and the real thing), it also can’t help but feel a little cartoonish, and maybe not the best use of the director’s particular talents.

Abbasi’s feature debut was a 2016 horror film about surrogacy; his second was the 2018 Cannes sensation “Border,” which drew screams and squeals with its scene of troll sex; and his third was the visceral drama “Holy Spider,” about a real-life case in which an Iranian serial killer who preyed on sex workers and was applauded by many in the conservative society.

To put that skill set – an uncompromising, often dark vision, a taste for horror and an outsider’s perspective – in the service of a film about the young would-be mogul and the conniving lawyer who taught him how to win at all costs wasn’t a sure thing by any means, but it was awfully intriguing.

And to call that film “The Apprentice,” swiping that title from the TV show that helped give Trump the profile to run for president, suggested a sense of humor that might be necessary to survive this particular project.

There’s humor in the film, mostly in the knowing chuckles elicited when a key moment of the Trump bio clicks into place:

Here’s where Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) introduces Trump (Sebastian Stan) to Rupert Murdoch and says “he could really help you” … here’s a young Roger Stone showing Trump a Ronald Reagan campaign button that says, “Let’s Make American Great Again” … Here’s Cohn taking Trump clothes shopping and advising him on the kind of suits that will help hide his “big ass.”

These are the building blocks of the Trump we think we know, with the movie’s opening title card saying that the film is “based on real events” but also includes fictionalized elements. And make no mistake, if Trump and his supporters get any idea of what’s in “The Apprentice,” the cries of “fake news!” will be resounding, because this semi-biopic begins with mockery and ends with dread.

At the start of the film, which adopts a 1970s style for its shots of the New York City of that era, Trump is a guy who trudges door to door in a rundown apartment building (“Trump Village”) built by his father, collecting rent checks from struggling tenants who clearly don’t like him.

In New York City, meanwhile, Trump has been admitted to an exclusive private club, where he regales a date with descriptions of the powerful men who surround them. “Why are you so obsessed with these people?” she asks, and he offers a weak “I’m not obsessed, I’m just curious” defense that isn’t enough to keep her from heading to the powder room and then out the door.

From the next room in the club, an imperious lawyer Roy Cohn invites the poor guy to come sit at the table Cohn is sharing with a couple of mobster clients and some other people he deems unworthy of introduction. Everybody at the table laughs at Trump, with his timid manner and his order of ice water — but if the young Donald is essentially presented as a socially awkward, vaguely pathetic wannabe unable to get out from under a domineering father, Cohn sees something he likes in the little bit of empty bravado Trump can summon up.

“I like the kid,” he says at one point. “I feel sorry for him.”

Or maybe he sees something he can mold in the clueless waif with family money. Cohn, who was instrumental in sending convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair in the 1950s, spouts “America first” speeches that are echoed in Trump’s stump rhetoric to this day. And he offers his three rules for winning: “attack attack attack,” “admit nothing, deny everything” and “no matter what happens, claim victory and never admit defeat.”

Strong nails a certain blank, slack-jawed, morally vacant look that Cohn had, even if he’s hardly a dead ringer for the vicious fixer who dropped homophobic slurs and insisted until the end that he was dying of liver cancer rather than AIDS. Stan has a tougher job of it — because despite the makeup and hair, it’s impossible to compete with the real thing that has dominated media for the past decade.

The movie essentially shows Trump learning to lie, ineptly wooing his first wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova), building the Commodore Hotel and Trump Tower, making an ill-advised foray into Atlantic City and gulping diet pills to keep himself going. It’s the construction of the Trump persona, with help from the slimy advisor who has the keys to “winning.”

And it’d play like a tragedy if we didn’t know what happened after the movie ends. The movie has the feel of a rise-and-fall saga, with Trump growing increasingly unhinged and out of control — and with Stan increasingly adopting the vocal and physical mannerisms we see on social media and the news today. It’s most horrifying — and most Abbasi-like — in an extended scene that cuts between a memorial service for Cohn and Trump on the operating table getting liposuction and a scalp reduction, all set to the strains of “My Country Tis of Thee.”

That sequence might be the one that makes the most of Abbasi’s uncompromising gifts, and suggests that the director’s heart might be in a truly wild movie not quite so tethered to biographical details. “The Apprentice” is amusing at times and disturbing at others, but it’s hard not to think that Ali Abbasi could have done something weirder, wilder and more satisfying if he’d found a way to bring in more magic and less MAGA.

[skylineheights-if]

Care to tell some facts about the ROs? (just to get to know the ROs)

Absolutely!

Harlowe

His cousin, Storm, is the only person in his adoptive family that he gets along with. Harlowe views her as a younger sister, and would do anything to keep her safe. That being said, he is not a fan of Storm's boyfriend, Dakota.

He lives in an old factory that is owned by his adoptive family. He fixed it up, and has converted the lower levels into training areas/hangout spots for him and the rest of the nephilim.

He loves winter. Like, almost too much. Gets super excited when the first snowfall of the year comes.

Unusually good night vision. Like, even for a nephilim he's really good at seeing in the dark.

Florence

She loves the beach. To the extent that if she could live on the beach for the rest of her life, she absolutely would. It's her comfort place.

She was supposed to be with her mom when the accident that killed her happened. They were supposed to go Christmas shopping together, but Florence had stayed up late studying for a test and slept past her alarm. Her mom didn't want to wake her because she knew she'd be tired. Florence beats herself up over this a lot, to this dad wondering if she could have somehow prevented her mom's death.

There is no solid reason as to why she dislikes Harlowe. If you ask her about it, she'll say that he just has one of "those faces."

Aena and Eden are two of her favorite people prior to meeting MC. She likes to hang out in the coffee shop while Eden is working, and goes out clubbing with Aena every Friday night.

Eden

Eden grew up in a little apartment above the library that his dad owns/runs. So he was always surrounded by books and began reading at an early age.

Eden's dad also has a few library cats that run loose around the library. Eden was the one who named all of them. His favorite is a black cat named Jinx that he found as a kitten on the side of the highway!

He's terrified of turtles because he got bit by one when he was younger.

Storm's boyfriend, Dakota, works at the cafe with him! Eden had a small crush on him for a while before he found out that he was already in a relationship.

Aena

She has two dogs! They're sisters that she rescued and named Flora and Fauna. They both look like some sort of hound/lab/golden retriever mix. They're practically twins, except Flora has a white marking on her chest.

She LOVES sour patch kids. When she was younger, her grandmother used to buy her a bag of sour patch kids whenever she went to visit.

Loves music festivals. She's attended multiple, but her favorite was Coachella in 2016. Really wants to attend Burning Man.

She's really bad about setting a healthy sleep schedule. Often is up until 4am and then has to stay up all day until it's a "normal" time to go to bed.

Alistaire

HATES having to learn new slang. He thinks it's important to keep up with lingo and slang, but hates having to learn it every few years. Hates it even more when a word switches meanings without him knowing. This has caused him issues in the past.

Fresh fruit is one of his favorite snacks. Cherries, strawberries, and grapes specifically. He likes being able to just pop the whole fruit in his mouth while he's working.

Tried growing a garden on the roof of his apartment building once. Spoiler: it did not work. He's a great teacher but horrible at keeping stuff alive.

Goes to the park a lot to feed the birds. Particularly loves the ravens and the pigeons.

[schlock-luster-video]

On November 10, 2016, The Zodiac Killer was screened at the Night Visions International Film Festival.

[mariacallous]

For many centrist supporters of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the prospect of Friedrich Merz leading her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was once considered a worst-case scenario. The hard-right Merz had rivaled Merkel for the CDU’s top post at the turn of the century and was gradually sidelined before he left politics for corporate law and finance in 2009. An indefatigable opponent of the liberal migration policy Merkel became known for, Merz returned to Berlin in an attempt to claim the conservative party’s mantle after Merkel announced her retirement in 2018.

Last January, Merz was finally tapped as CDU leader following the party’s historically poor performance in Germany’s September 2021 federal elections. By that point, the so-called “Merkel continuity” candidates who defeated Merz in 2018 and 2021 CDU leadership contests—Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Armin Laschet—had floundered. Laschet’s bid for chancellor that year proved particularly calamitous. The CDU lacked a clear policy platform and suffered from Laschet’s several public gaffes. The party bled masses of votes to the Greens and Social Democratic Party (SPD), which campaigned on climate and social policy and formed a coalition with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) under SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

In the 14 months since Merz was elected to the CDU’s top job, the party has—predictably—shifted to the right. But it has also revitalized itself. Merz has proved to be a more comfortable fit than many observers expected. Free from the compromises and policymaking of governing, he has thrived as a combative opposition leader against Scholz’s limping coalition.

The CDU has topped most national polls since last February, and currently leads the SPD by around 9 percent. The party scored a major victory in Berlin’s Feb. 12 elections, sweeping the city-state’s suburban belt and finishing first among a smattering of parties with 28.2 percent of the vote. The CDU has now begun negotiating with the SPD to lead a two-party governing coalition there. It would be the CDU’s first time leading a government in the capital in more than two decades.

The election in Berlin is an omen for Scholz’s federal coalition. The famously left-leaning city-state was previously governed by a disharmonious SPD-led coalition, yet the CDU managed a win by railing ceaselessly against what it perceives as failed integration in immigrant neighborhoods, overly zealous climate protection measures, and out-of-control criminality. These themes are now a mainstay of the CDU’s national platform as it appears to be sharpening its talons for a culture war Merkel largely avoided during her 16 years in the chancellery.

Since 2016, when the SPD ditched a coalition with the CDU to govern Berlin alongside the Greens and Left Party, German conservatives have propagated an apocalyptic vision of the city-state. In the lawless and ungovernable capital, conservatives claim, a referendum to expropriate corporate landlords threatens a return to communist East Germany, unruly migrants and anarchists terrorize police, and cars will soon be banned from the inner-city so yoga moms can ride their cargo bikes in peace.

This “Chaos Stadt” theory was given some credence by the fact that February’s election was the re-run of a botched vote in 2021, when a marathon scheduled the same day disrupted polling centers’ operations. This year’s New Year’s Eve celebrations—when, as always, the streets become a legal free-fire zone for pyrotechnics—didn’t help the city’s reputation.

Videos circulated online of paramedics being attacked with fireworks in the borough of Neukölln, known for its large Arab- and Turkish-origin populations. Although the number of attacks was in line with previous years’ festivities, unconfirmed and incorrect figures initially suggested they had risen dramatically. The smell of gunpowder had barely dissipated before the CDU began its election campaign in earnest.

“The group of perpetrators must be clearly named,” Kai Wegner, the CDU’s leader in Berlin, announced on Jan. 3. “They were young men with migration backgrounds, who have nothing but contempt for the state and its representatives.”

Berlin’s SPD and FDP leaders also called for criminal prosecutions, but balked when a CDU representative in Berlin’s parliament requested the police publish the first names of German citizens arrested on New Year’s—an apparent attempt to determine who among them was not white.

The move earned sharp rebukes from all other major parties, and some within the CDU (though not Wegner). Only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which pulled a similar stunt in the state of Saarland in 2019, approved of the CDU representative’s demand. On television, meanwhile, Merz blamed “young people from the Arab world” for the violence, and inveighed against how teachers could not discipline children with migrant backgrounds without their parents intervening on behalf of their “little pashas.”

The campaign continued with attacks on the Greens’ plans to introduce car-free zones in the city, and ended with the Berlin CDU’s general secretary tweeting about a potential “election steal” should the CDU finish first but not lead the next government. (This is a not-uncommon occurrence in Germany, where coalition talks are the ultimate determinant of a government’s structure.)

Although the tweet seemed to be a tacit admission that the CDU did not expect to enter Berlin’s next government, the SPD soon gifted it that opportunity. After the CDU’s election success, SPD incumbent Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey said she would no longer seek to continue leading her ruling coalition, which retained a majority—relegating the SPD to being junior partners of the CDU. (Giffey, who is to the right of her party’s mainstream, has never hidden her disdain for the Greens and Left.) This arrangement would also give the CDU a substantial blocking majority in the Bundesrat, Germany’s upper house of parliament, to which each of Germany’s 16 states sends a delegation reflective of its state government.

Soon after Giffey’s concession, Wegner began to backtrack on the first name scandal. “Mehmet belongs to Berlin just like Michael—that’s good, Berlin is a diverse city,” he tweeted. Suddenly faced with the prospect of power in a city where 54 percent of the electorate voted for left-of-center parties, the Berlin CDU dialed back its inflammatory rhetoric. Coalition negotiations will likely focus on more mundane issues, such as bolstering the police force, increasing private-sector home construction, and a transportation policy that accommodates car owners.

“On the federal level, you have to make your point and go for conflict, but on the state level, at least in some states, you have to cooperate,” Stefan Marschall, a political scientist at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, told Foreign Policy.

Low voter turnout, a worsening housing crisis, dysfunctional administrative services, and a fatigued SPD-led governing coalition all but guaranteed the CDU a strong performance in Berlin. But the party’s campaign focus on immigration and security also appeared to pay off. A survey cited by German broadcaster ARD found “security and order” to be Berlin voters’ top priority, and 83 percent of the CDU’s new voters said it was good that the party had “clearly named problems with immigration.”

“The CDU in central office will learn lessons from this success, which indeed is a reward for a rather controversial and negative campaign strategy,” Marschall said. How far right the CDU can fan the flames of a culture war before it alienates its centrist voters—or potential coalition partners—remains to be seen.

The CDU’s new strategy is not limited to Berlin. In January, the party’s secretary-general, Mario Czaja, honed in on the issue of integration in education. “It’s not acceptable that other languages than German are spoken in schoolyards,” he said. “Otherwise, parallel societies will already form in schools.”

In Hamburg, another city-state where the CDU finds itself in opposition to the larger SPD and Greens, the party is gathering signatures for a ballot initiative to end the use of gender-inclusive language in public institutions. In German, such language extends not only to pronoun usage but also gendered nouns for groups of people and professions, and its sudden ubiquity is polarizing. By dwelling on these new linguistic conventions, the CDU and conservative press have found a proxy to agitate those who feel excluded by progressive social change more broadly. In the state of Thuringia, the CDU passed an opposition motion against using gender-inclusive language last November, with support from the AfD.

The CDU has also flexed its muscles in the Bundesrat, watering down a new welfare reform last November. Taking the Berlin mayoralty would increase the party’s ability to counter the Scholz government’s agenda on divisive issues such as citizenship reform, which the CDU has long opposed.

Among other measures, Scholz’s coalition intends to reduce the number of years before a resident is eligible for naturalization and to lift a near-total ban on dual citizenship. This could open citizenship to millions of long-term residents of Germany, including many within its sizable Turkish-origin community. The CDU launched an inflammatory campaign in the late 1990s to oppose the last major citizenship reforms under SPD then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Merz carried this mantle into the 2000s by propagating the notion of a “leading culture” that implied immigrants should abandon their own customs in favor of Germany’s.

“We are seeing a certain polarization and charging of the discourse here,” Julia Reuschenbach, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin, told Foreign Policy. “We are already familiar with this development from the United States in recent years and it now seems to be gaining ground in Germany as well.”

The CDU is broadly in line with the SPD-led federal government on Ukraine, however, and has urged quicker and more substantial weapons deliveries to the country. Still, there have been missteps: Though Merz was the first major German politician to visit Kyiv last May, he described some Ukrainian refugees in Germany as welfare tourists a few months later. (He later apologized for his comments.)

On climate, the CDU opposes the European Union’s 2035 combustion engine ban, which has now also been stalled by FDP Transport Minister Volker Wissing, to much consternation from other EU member states. Disruptive climate protests by the group Letzte Generation, or Last Generation, have found little support among any major party, but the CDU—traditionally the party of law and order—has been particularly sharp in its criticism. This week, the deputy chairman of the CDU’s parliamentary group compared the group to Islamists.

As with Wegner in Berlin, such rhetoric is not guaranteed to transfer into government or policy. The CDU is currently consulting with its members and regional chapters to produce a national policy platform for next year. The final draft will be a measure of how much influence the party’s moderate faction—led by figures such as Laschet and North Rhine-Westphalia Minister-President Hendrik Wüst—still have, Reuschenbach said. A permanent shift to the right is by no means certain. Merz must navigate a Germany that is significantly more socially liberal than during his early career, a trend that Merkel recognized and capitalized on.

Merz is not averse to bending toward the center, as seen in his backing of gender quotas within his party and expulsion of CDU member Hans-Georg Maaßen, the former spy chief accused of anti-Semitism. Merz’s pledge to uphold the firewall between his party and the AfD will also be a major challenge ahead of elections in Saxony and Thuringia next year, where CDU officials have already worked with the AfD or depended on its support.

Even as the CDU tops the polls, Merz’s personal ratings remain poor. A recent poll found that only around 20 percent of the German public regarded him as a suitable candidate for chancellor. A clear majority favor another candidate, such as the bombastic and opportunistic Bavarian leader Markus Söder or the ambitious Wüst, who has staked out a position on the party’s left by calling for more support for refugees and a quicker transition to green energy.

“At the federal level, I think we can see that the party is benefiting primarily from displeasure with the [Scholz] government,” Reuschenbach said, “and … less because of its own program or people.”

[alittleamoeba]

The Precise Purpose of Being Broken: Review

Plastic bottles rain down from above, pagan prophets curse the land, prayers prove ineffectual. This is hell — a strange, riveting hell conjured by Koh Wan Ling in The Precise Purpose of Being Broken. 

It seems especially apposite that the Esplanade Annexe Studio should house this show. Built on the site of former nightclubs, the theatre is a cavernous, two-storey structure. Unfortunately, the performance does not take full advantage of these unique dimensions. The multiple exits and entrances are put to use, but the action is plotted in a traditional end stage. Maps are distributed at the start, and theaudience is invited to pen their memories of the space, but this personal history never becomes part of the production.

A degree of formal experimentation and thematic audacity is expected, since this work is part of the M1 Fringe Festival, but audiences need not fear leaving alienated. If the prelude to the show is a little gimmicky, the play itself is saved from being too clever by its deeply emotional centre. Koh reaches for the novel only to highlight the tenuous nature of relationships, with surprising, comic and heartfelt results. 

Captions float above our heads, a reminder of the rich textuality grounding this performance. Haresh Sharma’s writing, with its generous scope and aching lyricism, lends itself to endless reconfigurations. This piece follows closely on the heels of Natalie Hennedige’s Being Haresh Sharma from 2016, but is far less concerned with celebrating the playwright than expressing the poetic precision of his scripts. 

Koh’s keen vision, supported by an evocative soundscape, gives the Sharma canon a surreal edge. The extracts she has chosen differ in theme and tone, but still manage to cohere. It is a testimony to the careful direction and synergistic acting that we can move fluidly from the Japanese Occupation to a chat between two stewardesses during a smoke break. 

Each time, we are drawn directly into the heart of a conflict. We are sent prowling, drowning, spinning through a fractured wasteland. The threat of war, environmental degradation, our own mortality, is always lurking. And yet, these vulnerable, broken humans continue to reach out to one another. A mother and son speak for the last time, as he awaits execution. Two friends run up and down, seeking the other, their cries echoing and wrapping us in the intimate web of their friendship.

The earnestness of this young, all-female cast does not escape you. Wendi Wee Hian brings precocity and petulance to the part of a child. Chelsea Crothers breaks off into anguished barking, perfectly reminiscent of a small, hurt dog. Grace Kalaiselvi invests her lines with maturity and dignity, even in a language she does not speak. Together, they roll themselves in plastic sheets and form a kind of seal-mermaid hybrid, tails flapping in unison.

Towards the end, however, some momentum is lost and the performance fails to sustain our attention. A tedious monologue about a boatman is delivered mechanically while the other actresses are relegated to the background, even though they perform best as an ensemble.

Some fine-tuning is called for, but this latest staging of a work-in-progress is mostly confident and purposeful. At its best, this show moves along briskly, offering humour and hope amidst the desolation. 

This may be hell, but here is no shortage of delight. 

[byneddiedingo]

Yu-Wen Wang, Chien-Lien Wu, and Kuei-Mei Yang in Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee, 1994)

Cast: Sihung Lung, Yu-Wen Wang, Chien-Lien Wu, Kuei-Mei Yang, Sylvia Chang, Winston Chao, Chao-jung Chen, Chit-Man Chan, Yu Chen, Ah-Lei Gua. Screenplay: Ang Lee, James Schamus, Hui-Ling Wang. Cinematography: Jong Lin. Production design: Fu-Hsiung Lee. Film editing: Tim Squyres. Music: Mader.

Ang Lee's Oscars for directing Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Life of Pi (2012) suggest something of his versatility. But then, Lee's filmography is all over the map: Since he returned to the United States after starting his directing career in Taiwan, he has made a Jane Austen adaptation, Sense and Sensibility (1995); a story of family dysfunction in Connecticut, The Ice Storm (1997); a Civil War-era Western, Ride With the Devil (1999); a martial arts epic, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000); a comic-book movie, Hulk (2003); an erotic thriller, Lust, Caution (2007); a story set at the fabled 1969 rock festival, Taking Woodstock (2009); and an experiment using radically new film technology, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016). If it's possible to discern in that almost random collection of films the kind of personal vision that auteur theorists believe is essential to the greatness of a director, I don't see it. He began with a personal vision, however, in the films he made in Taiwan after receiving his MFA in film at NYU: a focus on the conflict between the traditional and the new in Asian culture. Eat Drink Man Woman is the third of these, after Pushing Hands (1992) and The Wedding Banquet (1993), in what has been called Lee's "Father Knows Best" trilogy. Sihung Lung, who played similar roles in the other two films, is Chu, master chef at a large hotel restaurant, a widower with three unmarried daughters. The oldest, Jia-Jien (Kuei-Mei Yang), is a schoolteacher who converted to Christianity after a failed love affair; the middle daughter, Jia-Chien (Chien-Lien Wu), is a workaholic airline executive in line for a promotion that will get her transferred to Amsterdam; the youngest, Jia-Ning (Yu-Wen Wang), is still in school and works part-time at a Wendy's, where she commiserates with a co-worker whose boyfriend is inattentive -- largely because he's fallen for Jia-Ning. They all gather regularly for a Sunday dinner prepared by their father in a bravura opening sequence that details the skill and technique with which the chef creates his classic dishes. But the dinner is something of an ordeal for the daughters, each of whom is preoccupied with her own love life, as well as being concerned about the health and future of their aging parent. It's a well-plotted film, written by Lee with Hui-Ling Wang and James Schamus, whom Lee met at film school and who became his frequent producer and co-writer. Tim Squyres is the film editor whose work shines in the opening food-preparation sequence and in the intercutting of the daughters' several stories, and the cinematography by Jong Lin gives us an effective traveling shot through the crowded kitchens of the hotel restaurant. But the movie stays on a superficial level when it comes to examining the lives of the Chu family, especially when you compare it to another family drama by a Taiwanese director, Edward Yang's Yi Yi (2000), whose characters have a depth lacking in Lee's film. With his versatility and technical prowess, Lee reminds me most of a classical Hollywood director like William Wyler, who gave us brightly polished entertainments as varied in tone and genre as Roman Holiday (1953), Ben-Hur (1959), and Funny Girl (1968), but without showing us anything of himself as an artist.

[malaysiankpopfans]

Catch NCT DREAM, WayV, KARD and ALICE live at SEEN FESTIVAL in Kuala Lumpur 2023

KUALA LUMPUR, 31st December 2022 ⁠— K-pop fans, rejoice! Get ready to see and be seen by your favourite idols at the ultimate K-pop experience this January!

Organised by CM Live, SEEN FESTIVAL in Kuala Lumpur 2023 will see a star-studded lineup featuring NCT DREAM, WayV, KARD and ALICE taking the stage at Axiata Arena, Bukit Jalil on Saturday, 28 January 2023 from 6:00pm onwards.

Dreams are coming true for fans of NCT DREAM as the boy group is set to perform at the festival. Made up of Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Chenle and Jisung, they debuted under SM Entertainment in 2016 with the digital single Chewing Gum and turned heads with My First and Last and other hits. NCT DREAM made K-pop history when they became the youngest group to achieve million-seller status with their first full-length album Hot Sauce.

Joining the festival lineup is WayV, which stands for “We Are Your Vision”, a boy group formed by SM Entertainment. They debuted in 2019 with the digital single album The Vision and bagged the Best New Asian Artist Award at the Mnet Asian Music Awards that same year. Following their appearance at SMTOWN Live 2022 in August this year, they made a comeback with their fourth mini album Phantom in December.

Four-member co-ed group KARD, an abbreviation of different "cards" assigned to each member – BM with the “King” card, J.seph the “Ace”, Somin the “Black Joker” and Jiwoo the “Colour Joker”, debuted in late 2016 with the single Oh NaNa and subsequently made waves with Don't Recall which gained huge popularity not only across Asia but also the Western world, denoting their star power across borders.

Also performing at the festival is the 7-member girl group ALICE which consists of Do-A, Yeonje, Yukyung, Sohee, Karin, EJ and Chaejeong who symbolise heart, wind, water, sky, forest, star and moon, respectively. ALICE made their debut in 2017 with the release of their first mini album WE, first and is known for their range of hits including Pow Pow, Summer Dream, JACKPOT, Power Of Love and DANCE ON.

With the power of eye contact as the focal point, SEEN FESTIVAL in Kuala Lumpur 2023 will have a special SEEN ZONE for fans to feel the exhilarating moment when their eyes meet the eyes of their idols. Stay tuned as ticketing and other information will be announced soon.

[agnipapadelirossetou]

Agni Papadeli Rossetou (GR) is a dancer and choreographer and lives in Athens. In her work the body is the main protagonist, since it takes whatever forms it wants, drawn from its memory or imagination, just as a child would do. 

She graduated from the State School of Dance and she obtained a BA from the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Athens. During 2004–2008 she lived in Brussels, where she continued her education in dance and dance improvisation. She returned to Athens in 2008 in order to collaborate with Dimitris Papaioannou in Medea 2.

As a performer she has collaborated with important choreographers and directors, including Kendell Geers, Yiannis Skourletis/Bijoux de Kant, Vitoria Kotsalou, Konstantinos Michos, Vasiliki Tsagkari, Ermira Goro, Matthias Fritsch, Jeroen Bogaert, Stefania Milona, Chrysanthi Siemou, Konstantina Polichronopoulou etc.

She has also collaborated as a choreographer with theatrical directors such as Nikaiti Kontouri, Thanassis Chalkias, Dimitris Pleionis, Yiannis Karachisaridis, etc, as well as Maria Gyparaki for Dimitris Maragopoulos’ opera Visions and Miracles.

During 2009–2014 she collaborated with Iro Apostolelli, and they founded the dance company “Carnation”. Together they created three dance pieces. 

In 2015 she began her solo career as a choreographer. She has choreographed The garden (Assosiation of Greek Archaeologists, grant from the Ministry of Culture 2021-22), A very Pacicific ocean (MIRfestival 2021 & grant from the Ministry of Culture 2020-21 & NEON Organization for Culture and Development), Rooms(Athens Festival 2018, grant from the Ministry of Culture 2017-18), Look and the Beast (MIRfestival 2016) and Blossom (Athens Festival 2015). 

For the 2021-22 period she also worked on a research project titled The Representation of Trauma: the experiential imprint on the body and the inclusion of the real body in the art of dance (grant from the Ministry of Culture 2021-22).

[directedbywomen]

I appreciate that Le Cinéma Club featured Project X (2016) directed by Laura Poitras and Henrik Moltke this week. I took a few minutes out of my day to watch the short and I am keeping an eye out for the chance to see her new film. "Laura Poitras’s latest film, All the Beauty and All the Bloodshed (2022)—winner of the top prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival—portrays the life, art, and activism of photographer Nan Goldin. To celebrate its release, we present an earlier short from the acclaimed documentarian, a modern spy story, taking place not in opera houses and ballrooms but in rental cars and black sites. In the wake of the Snowden leak, Rami Malek and Michelle Williams narrate scenes from an NSA handbook, and a windowless fortress looms darkly over New York City, always listening.

Presented in collaboration with Field of Vision."

It's a great reminder to visit Field of Vision's website to watch some of the work they are supporting, read filmmaker interviews, etc.

Here's a link to a 2016 INTERVIEW WITH HENRIK MOLTKE AND LAURA POITRAS, DIRECTORS OF PROJECT X.

"In this far-ranging conversation, Poitras and Moltke talk about the origins and nature of their collaboration, the process by which primary source texts become dramatically compelling cinema, working with actors to subtly characterize official documents, and the challenges of filming a building that somehow manages to be hidden in plain sight."