#Screen Directors Guild
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Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, Barbara Parkins, Krzysztof Komeda, Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Lee Marvin, Bob Evans at a premiere of Rosemary’s baby at the Screen Directors Guild, June 1968.
#Roman Polanski#Sharon Tate#Rosemary's baby premiere#premiere of Rosemary's baby#Warren Beatty#Julie Christie#Barbara Parkins#Lee Marvin#Bob Evans#rosemary's baby#1969#Screen Directors Guild#Krzysztof Komeda
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Ok, so if anyone, like me, has been wondering when other contracts are up, here ya go:
In the tweet (Which QTs a shot of a large group of people from different unions in LA who's contracts are up soon that came together yesterday (I think)), Justine Bateman says these are the expiration dates:
SAG (Screen Actors Guild) June 30
DGA (Directors Guild of America) June 30
Local 11 (hotel, event, sports arenas, conventions workers) June 30
UPS (United Postal Service, not the same as USPS which is the government mail delivery service) July 31
So, yeah. I'm hoping the DGA woke up with that MAX bullshit about lumping in all writers and directors under the label of "creators". Apparently, that went against the WGA and DGA contracts which have explicit rules about crediting writers in directors (which I'm pretty sure it says in one or two of those tweets in the post I linked in the last sentence).
I fully anticipate with how active Local 11 has been walking with WGA, and other unions, that they are certainly prepared to strike too.
(link to first tweet) (link to second tweet)
And in the video in this tweet, and this tweet, you can see them flying two different flags of their union while marching with a whole of various union members. They are at least 20k members strong. That would do so much damage to the hotels there, and could effect actors, crew, and creative team members that come from out of town for work. Not to mention a whole lot of other people, of course.
Apparently, a hotel housekeeper has to work 17 hours a day to afford a two bedroom apartment in the city. Geezus.
Also, I would think UPS has been poised to strike for a while, considering how bad they have it on their trucks alone, from what I remember.
#oh look#i had spoons and understanding to link things and do some summary#this is rare#wga#sag#sag aftra#local 11#dga#ups#wga strike#wha strong#strike solidarity#writers guild of america#screen actors guild#directors guild of america
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#blitz bazawule#director#tuxedo#dress shoes#handsome#style#sexy#sharp#suave#men's fashion#phyne#attractive#fine#suit#the color purple#sag awards 2024#sag awards#screen actors guild awards
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The DGA ratified the proposed deal with the AMPTP, with 87% voting yes.
This means the DGA isn't going on strike.
I admit, I had hoped it would go differently, but I honestly didn't expect it to. The DGA has only ever gone on strike once, in 1983. That they didn't go in solidarity with the WGA and strike too doesn't surprise me sadly.
So, as I suspected, this is all going to come down to SAG. If SAG goes on strike it's not going to matter that the DGA deal got approved because the whole industry will shut down in five days anyway . . . that is, if the contract SAG has with the AMPTP isn't extended past June 30th so negotiations can continue, which is a possibility.
So for my fellow IWTV fans, the show might not stop filming in five days -- or it might. We likely won't know until the last possible minute, ie midnight on June 30th.
#DGA#WGA#Writer's Guild#writer's strike#writer's guild strike#Director's Guild#SAG#Screen Actor's Guild#entertainment industry#interview with the vampire#amc iwtv#iwtv#amc interview with the vampire
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Malcolm & Marie (2021, Sam Levinson)
08/03/2024
Malcolm & Marie is a 2021 film written and directed by Sam Levinson.
It was the first film to be completed after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After the preview screening of his latest film as director, Malcolm returns home with his girlfriend Marie; here the two begin to reveal facts to each other that will put their relationship to the test.
The film was shot in secret in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic between June 17 and July 2, 2020 in California, within a single thirty-three-acre property with the approval of the Writers Guild of America, Directors Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild unions.
The black and white film was shot on 35 millimeter film.
The first trailer of the film was released on January 8, 2021.
The film was distributed starting from February 5, 2021 on the Netflix platform, which purchased the rights to the film for thirty million dollars.
On the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film receives 57% of positive professional reviews with an average rating of 6.3 out of 10 based based on 245 critics, while on Metacritic it obtains a score of 53 out of 100 based on 42 criticisms.
Charles Bramesco of Little White Lies gave the film a score of 1 out of 5, calling it a "clumsy, horribly over-the-top talkathon"; David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave it a C+; Empire touts the film as a "great sentimental drama"; for BBC.com "Levinson recalls many dramas about bad relationships, such as Scenes from a Marriage, Story of a Marriage and above all Who's Afraid of Virgilia Woolf?, giving a restyling to the genre thanks to the great performances, going as far as including new themes such as racism and Hollywood."
#malcolm and marie#film#2021#sam levinson#covid 19 pandemic#premiere#california#Acre#writers guild of america#directors guild of america#Screen Actors Guild#black and white#35 mm movie film#trailer#netflix#United States dollar#rotten tomatoes#metacritic#little white lies#indiewire#empire#bbc#scenes from a marriage#marriage story#who's afraid of virginia woolf?#26th Critics' Choice Awards#Critics' Choice Movie Awards#Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress#zendaya#2021 MTV Movie & TV Awards
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#movies#hollywood#musicindustry#filmtvcentral#imdbtop250#supernatural#memorabiliacollector#jesus#liveblogging#music is life#camera#director#favorite songs#radio country#outlaw country#radio rock#screenwriting#screen actors guild awards#the umbrella academy#hbo max#hbo#divination#pictures#starz#warner bros#paramore#the rings of power#scary#halloween#def leppard
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#golden globes#golden globes 2023#80th golden globes#screen actors guild#producers guild awards#directors guild awards#writers guild of america#writers guild awards#sag awards#pga awards#dga awards#wga awards#the banshees of inisherin#the menu#the last of us#the last of us premiere#the last of us series premeire#the banshees of inisherin review#the last of us review#the menu review
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Awards Season 2022-23: PGA/DGA/SAG Nominees
Awards Season 2022-23: PGA/DGA/SAG Nominees
The three biggest guilds announced their nominees over the past couple of days. With a week to go until the BAFTA nominations – the final precursor we’ll get before the Oscar nominations on the 24th – these will give us plenty to chew on as we assemble our predictions. We’ll start with the producers, who nominated: Avatar: The Way of Water The Banshees of Inisherin Black Panther: Wakanda…
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#2022 Films#2022 in Film#Awards Season 2022-23#Directors Guild Awards#Directors Guild of America#Film Awards#Producers Guild Awards#Producers Guild of America#Screen Actors Guild#Screen Actors Guild Awards
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SHE'S CRAZY WITH THE HEAT — 1946 ft. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm
In 1946, William D. Alexander began the production of a series of one-reel shorts, half-hour featurettes and feature films that would serve a dual purpose. These black cast subjects would be released to theaters that welcomed African American audiences; concurrently, the music segments would be excerpted from the films and released as Soundies. Ultimately, sixteen of Alexander’s musical shorts reached the Panoram screen, spotlighting the bands of Lucky Millinder, Billy Eckstine, Henri Woode and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. (Alexander actually produced four films with the Sweethearts, three ten-minute short subjects and one feature, although some of the performances turns up in more than one film; only three performances saw release as a Soundie.) The International Sweethearts of Rhythm grew out of a band formed in the 1930s at the Piney Woods Country Life School, an institution – in part an orphanage – for poor African American children. A member of the music department had apparently taken note of the success of Ina Ray Hutton’s Melodears and decided that an all-woman band composed of school members might lead to something special. While they performed locally, the ISR did not begin to hit its stride until it left Piney Woods and became a professional touring outfit in 1941. The band was certainly “international” in nature, and its ranks included African American, Latina, Chinese, Indian, White and Puerto Rican musicians. In 1941, Anna Mae Winburn joined the orchestra as front woman and featured vocalist. During the war years Maurice King joined the band as both arranger and band manager. Born Clarence King in 1911, King played reeds and later became a fine swing arranger. While here we recognize his composition and arrangement for the Sweethearts – he called this tune “She’s Crazy with the Heat ” – King is best known for his longtime association with Barry Gordy and Motown Records for which he served as director of artist development. He worked closely with vocal groups, teaching the singers how to voice and phrase together. “Maurice brought sophistication and class to Motown,” said session musician Johnny Trudell. By 1946, the Sweethearts was recognized as one of the finest African-American bands in jazz. They recorded for Guild and RCA Records, broadcast regularly for the Armed Forces Radio Service, and toured Europe entertaining the GIs. While much of the success was due to Maurice King’s arrangements, the band’s musicians were all strong, and a special nod must go to Viola Burnside, one of the most neglected tenor soloists of the 1940s. I chatted with my friend Roz Cron, a member of the Sweetheart’s reed section, shortly before her passing. When I thanked her for her contribution, she paused and said, “Yeah, we were one of the best, one of the very, very best.” (via Jazz on Film)
#classicfilmsource#femaledaily#filmedit#film#classicfilmedit#oldhollywoodedit#jazz#music#the international sweethearts of rhythm#she's crazy with the heat#1940s#mygifs*#soundies*
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SAG-AFTRA, Teamsters, IATSE, Writers Guild Issue Joint Statement in Solidarity with Directors Guild of America
May 31, 2023
Los Angeles, CA — As the Directors Guild of America’s negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) enter their final scheduled week, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the Teamsters, Hollywood Basic Crafts (Teamsters Local 399, IBEW Local 40, LiUNA! Local 724, OPCMIA Local 755 and UA Local 78), the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE), the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW), and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) stand alongside our sisters, brothers, and kin in the DGA in their pursuit of a fair contract.
We believe in a Hollywood where every worker is valued and their contributions recognized, whether their labor is on or off screen. A fair contract for directors does not benefit just a select few; it uplifts every worker in the film and television industry and acknowledges the interconnected nature of our work. We call on the AMPTP to immediately negotiate a fair agreement that addresses the Directors Guild of America’s unique priorities in good faith.
As eyes around the world again turn towards the negotiation table, we send a clear message to the AMPTP: Our solidarity is not to be underestimated. The Hollywood guilds and unions stand united, and we stand strong.
In solidarity,
Matthew D. Loeb International President, IATSE
Lindsay Dougherty Motion Picture Division Director & Western Region Vice President, Teamsters Hollywood Basic Crafts, Chairperson
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator, SAG-AFTRA
Michael Winship President, Writers Guild of America, East
Meredith Stiehm President, Writers Guild of America West
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Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, Lee Marvin, Michelle Triola at a premiere of Rosemary’s baby at the Screen Directors Guild, June 1968.
#roman polanski#sharon tate#lee marvin#michelle triola#rosemary's baby#premiere of rosemary's baby#screen directors guild
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When it comes to ending the world, Stephen King is a repeat offender. He has brought life as we know it to a brutal conclusion several times over the decades, usually highlighting the cruelty and desperation that erupts among the last to go. But his 2020 story “The Life of Chuck” uses doomsday to evoke some unlikely sentiments: Wistfulness. Gratitude. Even joy.
The idea of creating an apocalyptic version of It’s a Wonderful Life is what led filmmaker Mike Flanagan to call dibs on the rights to the novella more than four years ago. The breakdown of society, extinction-level natural disasters, and the disintegration of reality itself is explored through the lens of one relatively meek and mild accountant, played by Tom Hiddleston, whose memories and choices are mysteriously connected to these tribulations. Retirement posters congratulating him on “39 great years” pop up everywhere. But who is this guy? What job does he do (or did he used to do)? And why does it matter so much to the fate of the world? This apparent nobody named Chuck Krantz has lived larger than anyone thought possible.
Having explored King country before in 2017’s Gerald’s Game and 2019’s The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, Flanagan got involved after reading an early copy of “Chuck” before it was published in the collection If It Bleeds. The Haunting of Hill House and Fall of the House of Usher creator produced the film independently, believing it might be too offbeat for risk-averse studios to greenlight. He even secured a waiver from the striking Hollywood guilds last year to move forward with the shoot while the rest of the industry was stuck in the work stoppage. Now he and Hiddleston are ready to reveal the finished version of The Life of Chuck as it heads to the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival, where it will screen for potential distributors.
Among the skeptics about this adaptation was King himself, according to Flanagan. “His initial responses to me were a little like, ‘Oh, okay. Yeah. If you think that’s a movie…,’” he says. “He did say several times that he thought it would be a challenge to get it supported through traditional means.”
King has now seen the finished movie and no longer has doubts. He described it to Vanity Fair as “a happiness machine.”
“Well, he’s written something very tender and very wise,” Hiddleston says. “I think there is a great wisdom in the soul of the story, which is that it takes courage to hold on to what is good in a world that feels like it’s falling apart.”
Flanagan hopes others see it that way too, although the overpowering dread that begins the story may be more immediately relatable. “I’ve heard it said that every generation feels a little like the world is ending at some point, [but] I still feel like it’s different for us,” the 46-year-old filmmaker says with a mordant laugh. “Institutions we took for granted as propping up our society are failing left and right. Our politics have degraded spectacularly. The sense that it’s breaking down, that the world is moving on, has been increasingly palpable. When I talk to my parents or members of older generations who have been through their own turbulent times, the thing that strikes me is that they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this is really bad.’”
But…it’s not entirely bad. And that’s the underlying message of The Life of Chuck as its various mysteries play out. “There’s no sense of terror in the way that King drew it,” Flanagan says. “Even as the world feels as though it’s ending, people become introspective, they reach into their past for loves that have left their lives for one reason or another. Strangers engage in open and fearless communication.”
It’s an indie-film variation on the big-budget cataclysm story. “A disaster movie has people meeting the end while running from tidal waves, and this story has people sitting quietly holding hands looking at the stars,” Flanagan says.
The key to it all is Chuck himself, although he doesn’t turn up onscreen until the second segment of the three-act story, which plays out in reverse chronological order.
The beginning is actually the end, as the whole world circles the drain. Caught in this spiral is Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), a school teacher trying to apply logic to the planet’s troubles; Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy) is his ex, a hospital worker determined to save everyone she can; Matthew Lillard (Scream) is a construction worker neighbor who finds zen amid the chaos; and Carl Lumbly (Alias), plays a funeral director who has dedicated his life to easing people through death.
The end of the movie is actually the beginning, showing young Chuck (Benjamin Pajak) when he was a boy being raised by his grandparents (Mia Sara of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Mark Hamill). The insight of these two—coupled with the otherworldly revelations he finds in an eerie room tucked into the peak of their Victorian home—help him learn to seek out bright spots when life is marred by sorrow and darkness.
In elementary school, young Chuck discovers some important things about himself thanks to guidance from a brusque dance instructor (Samantha Sloyan), and a kindhearted English teacher, played by Kate Siegel, who gives the boy (not to mention the audience) some important information that serves as a code breaker for the story's more cosmic puzzles.
As for the middle of the film: It’s a dance number. That’s when Hiddleston steps in.
Compounding the peculiarity of The Life of Chuck is the question: Why is this song and dance sequence so important? The answer is for the movie to reveal, but it matters a lot. “The life of every human being is a constellation, as expressed in this film,” Hiddleston says. “There are certain moments which will burn most brightly as individual stars. Sometimes it feels like the world is going to hell in a handcart, and it’s full of pain and suffering, and it is—but there are moments of deep joy and deep connection.”
Hiddleston shows the audience this single moment in the life of a buttoned-up fellow who somehow controls the destiny of the world. It’s not necessarily the most important day in his life, but it’s a memorable one involving a street drummer (Taylor Gordon), a lovely stranger (played by Annalise Basso), and a fateful decision to cast aside caution and cut a rug. “It’s a reminder to do whatever it is that expresses whatever gives you that feeling of being alive,” Hiddleston says. “Whether it’s music or dancing or math or writing or creativity—do it. Do it now. Those moments are what you’ll remember.”
Flanagan considered casting a relative unknown as Chuck to “give the audience the experience of ‘Who the hell is this person?’” as the peculiar retirement signs begin to appear in the midst of the apocalypse. But he felt the promise of the Loki star would build more curiosity as the world falls apart. “You grow an enormous amount of anticipation to finally spend time with an actor like Tom, who can be a literal god in one story, and then an everyman in another,” Flanagan says.
A TikTok video of Hiddleston getting his groove on sealed the deal. “He had a completely unfiltered joy on his face,” Flanagan says. “He was a good dancer, but that wasn’t what struck me. I wasn’t amazed by the technique so much as the degree of happiness that was radiating off of him. The look on his face made me smile the same way I smiled reading that particular portion of the book.”
The resulting scene was created in a month-long collaboration between Flanagan, Hiddleston, Basso, choreographer Mandy Moore (So You Think You Can Dance, and La La Land), and Gordon, a real-life percussionist who performs under the name the Pocket Queen. “Taylor was there for all of the dance choreography. She wrote that piece of music for that performance. They built it together,” Flanagan says.
Hiddleston rattles off the lists of influences: “I had to learn in six weeks the full regime of any dance training. We did jazz, swing, salsa, cha-cha, the Charleston, bossa nova, polka, quickstep, samba. We were trying to tip our hat to anything that might have influenced Chuck. It might’ve had a bit of Gene Kelly or Fred and Ginger. Certainly moonwalking—Stephen King is very specific about the moonwalk.”
Precision was not the goal, exuberance was what they sought. “We need to always bear in mind that this man is an accountant. We needed this to be an earnest, escalating explosion of joy, and a remembrance of who he was,” Flanagan says. “It’s a chance to step back into the skin of his younger self, not caring that his feet are going to kill him the next day, not caring that he’s going to wake up with a horribly stiff neck.”
A surprising thing happened while shooting the scene over the course of several sweltering afternoons in the deep South. “I burned holes in my shoes,” Hiddleston says. “I was dancing out on the asphalt in Alabama, and by the time we’d finished, you could see my socks through the soles.”
The sequence begins awkwardly: Chuck is self-conscious as he first hears the busker’s rhythm while walking back from a banking conference. That feeling quickly gets shaken off. “Tom was very committed,” Flanagan says. “He was like, ‘If I look silly, that’s fine. As long as I look happy.’”
Flanagan remembers being in a bad place when he first discovered “The Life of Chuck.” Then again, everybody was.
His copy of the manuscript arrived in March 2020. “That was just as the world shut down for COVID,” he says. “We had been a week away from starting principal photography on Midnight Mass in Vancouver and had fled across the border before it closed to make it back to the States. We were hunkered down in our homes and had no idea if this was going to last for two weeks or if this was going to last forever.”
With everything halted as the lockdown set in, Flanagan had plenty of time to do nothing but read. The new King book seemed like the perfect escape. Except…
“The first third of ‘The Life of Chuck’ just rattled me,” he recalls. “There’s no way he wrote this before the world ground to this bizarre halt—but he did. And the feeling of anxiety, and uncertainty, and that everything was falling apart came roaring out at me. I wasn’t sure I could finish it. It just felt too close to the anxiety I was feeling.” But he kept turning the pages. “By the end of it, I was in tears, and incredibly uplifted, and convinced I’d read maybe the best thing that he’d written in a decade. I just was floored by the thing,” Flanagan says. “So I fired off an email to him right away saying how much I loved the story, how incredible I thought it was, how meaningful, and important, and how it had really tattooed itself on my heart and said, ‘It’s the movie I want to make so that it’ll exist in the world for my kids.’”
King’s response: Not so fast. Flanagan and his producing partner, Trevor Macy, had at that point secured the rights to King’s fantasy saga The Dark Tower through their company, Intrepid Pictures. The eight-book series is threaded throughout King’s other works, and adapting it was a massive undertaking that Flanagan is still working to make happen. Other filmmakers had either abandoned the project, were canceled midway through, or bombed miserably. The author didn’t want him to be distracted. “He doesn’t like to give the same filmmaker more than one thing, because it typically means one thing is not advancing at all,” Flanagan says. “He said, ‘Well, let’s focus on The Tower and I’ll try to keep this one available for you for later.’”
The quest to The Dark Tower remains a priority for Flanagan, but a number of disruptions to that epic undertaking led him to reapproach King last year about��Chuck. Intrepid’s deal with Netflix, where they had created Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and other shows, had come to a close, and Intrepid signed a new development agreement with Amazon. That meant starting over on The Dark Tower. Meanwhile, the threat of a double-barreled strike by writers and actors was on the horizon, stalling nearly every major new project. The industry plunged into another production-halting lockdown, this time over contract impasses rather than a virus.
Since The Dark Tower was suddenly further off on the horizon, Flanagan saw a chance to make The Life of Chuck happen in the short term. “It’s so rare that I get to approach any project that just has not an ounce of cynicism to it. I just really believed in this thing,” he says. “But it was also clear that we would have an incredibly uphill battle bringing the story to any major studio. They would try to make it as familiar as possible, instead of leaning into what makes it so different.”
King gave Flanagan his blessing to proceed. “I was off like a shot,” the filmmaker says. “I think I turned in the draft to him before he got around to sending the formal agreement.”
For everyone involved, The Life of Chuck became a bright spot in an otherwise dismal time, which matches the theme of the film. “There is a profound optimism in this story,” Hiddleston says. “As the world is spinning off its axis, there are moments of magic.”
#the life of chuck#tom hiddleston#mark hamill#karen gillan#chiwetel ejiofor#jacob tremblay#kate siegel#mike flanagan#carl lumbly
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Following prolonged negotiations with many of the biggest companies in video games, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has called for a video game performer and voice actor strike, beginning on July 26. Try as they might, the two sides have been unable to see eye to eye on the issue of AI. “The video game industry generates billions of dollars in profit annually," said SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland in a statement to Aftermath. "The driving force behind that success is the creative people who design and create those games. That includes the SAG-AFTRA members who bring memorable and beloved game characters to life, and they deserve and demand the same fundamental protections as performers in film, television, streaming, and music: fair compensation and the right of informed consent for the AI use of their faces, voices, and bodies. Frankly, it’s stunning that these video game studios haven’t learned anything from the lessons of last year - that our members can and will stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment with respect to AI, and the public supports us in that." Workers can now strike at ten companies: Activision, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, EA, Epic, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Take-Two, VoiceWorks, and WB Games.
July 25, 2024
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#cord jefferson#director#tuxedo#bow tie#formal#dress shoes#handsome#style#sexy#sharp#suave#men's fashion#phyne#attractive#fine#suit#american fiction#sag awards#sag awards 2024#screen actors guild awards
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EMILY CAREY and OLIVIA COOKE photographed by Ramona Rosales for HBO's "House of the Dragon" FYC Screening at Directors Guild Of America on March 07, 2023 in Los Angeles, California
#hotdedit#ecareyedit#ocookeedit#emily carey#olivia cooke#oliviacookeedit#hotdcastedit#cast#edit#ours#liz#tusergabriela#tuserbea#userelenagilbert#userananda#thronescastdaily
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To Our Guild Leadership and Staff: We are proud rank-and-file union and trade association members from every corner of our industry — working on screen, stage, set, and in the field — united in solidarity with the global call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a just, lasting peace. As artists and storytellers, we cannot stand idly by as our industry refuses to tell the story of Palestinian humanity. Following SAG-AFTRA’s statement in sympathy with Israel regarding October 7, many SAG-AFTRA and sister guild members have watched in horror as the Israeli government wages a war of collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza — killing over 40,000 Palestinians, injuring over 90,000 more, forcibly displacing 2 million people, and openly targeting members of the press and their families. As the IDF continues its assault on “safe zones,” schools, and hospitals, and as civilians in Gaza die from starvation, dehydration, and lack of medical supplies and fuel, major human rights groups have labeled these acts as war crimes, human rights atrocities, and even genocide. The UN has described Gaza as a “graveyard for children” — and estimate that by mid-July “half of the population — more than a million people — could face death and starvation.” As of now, there is no end in sight — only escalation, death, and destruction.
Despite these clear violations of human rights and Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land and lives, our union leadership has remained silent. Thus, they have made conditional which atrocities we choose to condemn and which innocent lives we choose to acknowledge and mourn. Moreover, SAG-AFTRA and nearly all our sister guilds have remained silent in the face of flagrant and unprecedented attacks on freedom of the press, including the deliberate targeting and murder of Palestinian journalists and their families by the IDF. The Committee to Protect Journalists has declared the war on Gaza “the deadliest period for journalists covering conflict since CPJ began tracking in 1992.” Some of those journalists were members of news organizations whose domestic affiliates are represented under SAG-AFTRA contracts. While SAG-AFTRA issued a public statement at the outset of the Ukraine war demanding that “journalists of all nations working in the war zone are kept safe,” its words now ring hollow if they only apply to some journalists of certain identities.
On December 13, 2023, Israeli forces attacked The Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp and kidnapped several of its members — fellow actors and directors, who have called for solidarity from theatre workers worldwide. Palestinian trade unions have called for international labor solidarity, reminding us that “the struggle for Palestinian justice and liberation is a lever for the liberation of all dispossessed and exploited people of the world.” Worldwide labor has heeded that call, including major Australian, British, Belgian, Indian, and American unions. On Nov 15, our British peer union, Equity UK, called for an immediate and lasting ceasefire, stating: “We send our solidarity to Palestinian artists suffering in the horrendous conditions created by Israeli bombing, occupation, and apartheid.” Since then, UAW International has called for a ceasefire and announced the formation of a Divestment and Just Transition working group; The Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839) became the first Hollywood union to call for a ceasefire in Gaza; five of the 10 largest American labor unions and federations have officially called for a ceasefire including the NEA (National Education Association), SEIU (Service Employees International Union), and the AFL-CIO; and unions collectively representing a majority of organized workers in the US formed The National Labor Network for Ceasefire. In July, 7 major unions representing over 6 million workers published a letter to President Biden demanding an arms embargo on Israel.
The global call for a ceasefire — from organized labor, artists and fellow SAG-AFTRA members, human rights groups, world leaders, and the majority of the American public — grows louder every day. And yet, our government continues to sponsor the Israeli forces’ assault on Palestinian civilians, and our industry union leadership still refuses to speak out. We reject this silence. Our calling as artists, news reporters, and storytellers is to bring truth to the world. To fight the erasure of life and culture. To unite for justice in the name of the most vulnerable among us. It’s exactly what we did during our historic strike in 2023.
We are the labor that built and sustains this business. When our leaders can’t stand up publicly for peace and justice, then we must do what we always do: organize, fight for change, and win. Our guild leadership must join the largest and most diverse peace movement in a generation — the integrity of our legacy demands nothing less. When confronted with genocide, oppression, and injustice, let us ring the bell for humanity and liberation. An injury to one is an injury to all. We, the undersigned members of SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, WGA, Teamsters, DGA, AEA, AFM, Hollywood Basic Crafts, CSA, PGA, and more, demand our leadership issue a public statement calling for a permanent ceasefire, release of all hostages — both Palestinian and Israeli, and immediate funding and delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid; to speak out against the targeting and killing of innocent Palestinian civilians, health workers, and our journalist colleagues; to condemn our industry’s McCarthyist repression of members who acknowledge Palestinian suffering; and to eliminate any doubt of our solidarity with workers, artists, and oppressed people worldwide.
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