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Kuwait Times
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Kuwait Times
Julia Roberts, Jude Law to feature at star-packed Venice Film Festival
US megastar Julia Roberts is to make her debut at the Venice Film Festival this year, which will also feature Jude Law playing Russian leader Vladimir Putin and a hard-hitting film about Gaza. Roberts is one of many A-listers set to appear at the increasingly influential Venice film extravaganza from late August for the premiere of her latest movie, the Amazon-produced 'After the Hunt'. Directed by Italy's Luca Guadagnino, a Venice regular, it tells the story of a sexual assault case at a prestigious American university and will run outside the main film competition, according to festival director Alberto Barbera. 'It is the first time that Julia Roberts will walk the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival so we're very happy to have her,' Barbera told reporters in a presentation of the August 27-September 9 line up. The main competition category, where 21 features will vie for the prestigious Golden Lion for best film, includes a host of star-packed productions including 'The Wizard of the Kremlin' by Olivier Assayas. The movie is an adaptation by French director Assayas of a best-selling book about Putin's rise to power, featuring British actor Law as the Kremlin strongman. Law told Deadline in January that the role was 'an Everest to climb', adding that he was 'looking up thinking, 'Oh Christ'.' Other high-profile, in-competition movies selected by the festival include the latest thriller from American Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow titled 'A House of Dynamite' and 'Father Mother Sister Brother' by Jim Jarmusch, starring Adam Driver and Cate Blanchett. Benny Safdie's film about a wrestling champion 'The Smashing Machine' has Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in the lead role alongside Emily Blunt, who delivers a 'memorable performance' as his wife, according to Barbera. A much-discussed new interpretation of 'Frankenstein' by Guillermo del Toro will also be in the running for prizes, with Barbera saying that producer Netflix 'has not skimped on the means made available to del Toro's imagination'. American director Noah Baumbach returns with 'Jay Kelly', a comedy co-written with his wife Greta Gerwig, featuring an A-list cast that includes George Clooney playing an actor with an identity crisis. Feature on Gaza Alongside five Italian films, a handful of arthouse productions as well as the Hollywood blockbusters, festival organizers have also selected a feature about the war in Gaza in what is the most overtly political offering in the main competition. 'The Voice of Hind Rajab', by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, reconstructs the death of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed last year by the Zionist forces. She and several relatives were fleeing a Zionist offensive in Gaza City in January 2024 when their car came under attack. In a case that led to international outrage, Rajab could be heard pleading for help in a desperate phone call to rescuers from the Red Crescent after she was left as the sole survivor in the badly damaged vehicle. She and two Red Crescent workers who went to find her were later found dead. Barbera said it was one of the films that 'will have the biggest impact on audiences and critics, and I hope there will be no controversies'. 'I'm moved when I think of the movie,' he said, adding that Ben Hania had reproduced Rajab's phone calls in her film. Around 370 actors and directors signed an open letter during the Cannes film festival in May saying they were 'ashamed' of their industry's 'passivity' about the war in Gaza, including Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche. Other highlights in Venice will include the return of American director Gus Van Sant who is set to show his first movie since 2018, 'Dead Man's Wire', out of competition. Among the documentaries, German director Werner Herzog will project his latest film, 'Ghost Elephants', about 'a mysterious herd of ghost elephants in the jungles of Angola,' according to Barbera. Herzog will be presented with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the festival.—AFP Sofia Coppola will premiere a documentary about her friend and fashion designer Marc Jacobs, while fellow American directors Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus have persuaded veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh to collaborate for a film about him called 'Cover Up'. The head of the jury for the main competition at the 82nd edition of the festival will be US film director Alexander Payne who is best known for films such as 'Sideways', 'The Descendants' and 'About Schmidt'.--AFP
Business Insider
16-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Amazon launched 30 years ago with one product. Now it's an empire that sells everything.
The biggest name in e-commerce got its start 30 years ago Wednesday. Amazon launched on July 16, 1995. Back then, there was no Whole Foods, AWS, Prime Day, or most of the other things that the company has become famous for. Instead, Amazon sold one thing: Books. Early visitors to its website were greeted with "Welcome to Books!" and the promise of being able to order from "one million titles," according to a screenshot. Customers could also sign up for email notifications of new book releases or peruse a daily selection of recommended books, according to the screenshot. There was also a listing of job opportunities at the startup. "If you're interested in the new juxtaposition of retailing and computers, please investigate the opportunities!" the website read. Today, Amazon shoppers are likely to see an ad for an Amazon-produced show, customized product recommendations, and a nudge to join its Prime membership within a few seconds of being on the company's homepage. At the time, then-CEO Jeff Bezos ran the company with his now ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, and seven other early Amazon employees. At the end of 2024, by contrast, the company had about 1.5 million full- and part-time employees. Bezos got the idea for selling books while working in finance in New York City in the early 1990s. After making a list of about 20 items that he could sell online, Bezos picked books because there were more varieties of books than any other type of product, he said in a 1997 interview. At the time, Bezos estimated there were about 3 million books in print, about half of which were in English — far more than any brick-and-mortar store could carry. "When you have that many items, you could literally build a store online that couldn't exist any other way," Bezos said. Since then, Amazon has expanded its empire into businesses into groceries, web services, and entertainment. The company now has a more than $2 trillion market cap. Amazon debuted its first movie downloading service in 2006 under the name Amazon Unbox. The service has since evolved and survived many names. It became Amazon Instant Video in 2008, Prime Instant Video in 2011, and eventually Prime Video, now a streaming library accessible for Prime members. Following the movie venture, Amazon also released its first mobile shopping app for the iPhone and iPod touch in 2008, making it one of the first companies to make shopping available on touchscreen devices. In June 2017, Amazon bought Whole Foods Market for about $13.7 billion in an all-cash deal, marking its most significant acquisition to date. The e-commerce giant announced back then in a press release that the integration would lower prices and bring Prime benefits to Whole Foods stores. Amazon's major leadership transition came in 2021, when the then-CEO, Bezos, transitioned to Executive Chair in the third quarter of the year. Andy Jassy, previously CEO of Amazon Web Services, succeeded Bezos and has remained CEO since. Amazon recently announced a further push into AI, with a $100 billion initiative to build data center clusters powered by custom Trainium 2 chips, named Project Rainier. These facilities are under expansion in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
