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Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Everyone Loses': Trump's Movie Tariffs Plan Catches Hollywood Off Guard
Hollywood should have seen this coming. After starting trade wars over cars and steel, solar panels and washing machines, Donald Trump has added movies to the list. POTUS' announcement on Truth Social on May 5 that he plans to slap a 100 percent tariff on films 'coming into our country produced in foreign lands' has sent shockwaves through the global entertainment industry. More from The Hollywood Reporter Lady Gaga Responds to Thwarted Bomb Plot Allegedly Targeting Her Brazil Concert Brazilian Police Arrest 2 People Over Plot to Bomb Lady Gaga's Concert in Rio Far East Film Festival: Yihui Shao's Feminist Drama 'Her Story' Wins Top Prize The plan — if a 113-word post, much of it written in screaming all-caps and also walked back by a White House spokesperson, can be considered a plan — appears to be to try and force the studios to shoot more movies in America by imposing a levy on tentpoles that shoot abroad, in countries like Canada, the U.K., Spain and Australia, and take advantage of local tax incentives there. Even if such a tariff were legal — and there is some debate about whether Trump has the authority to impose such levies — industry experts are baffled as to how, in practice, a 'movie tariff' would work. 'What exactly does he want to put a tariff on: A film's production budget, the level of foreign tax incentive, its ticket receipts in the U.S.?' asks David Garrett of international film sales group Mister Smith Entertainment. Details, as so often with Trump, are vague. What precisely constitutes a 'foreign' production is unclear. Does a production need to be majority shot outside America — Warner Bros' A Minecraft Movie, say, which filmed in New Zealand and Canada, or Paramount's Gladiator II, shot in Morocco, Malta and the U.K. — to qualify as 'foreign' under the tariffs, or is it enough to have some foreign locations? Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts*, for example, had some location shooting in Malaysia but did the bulk of its production in the U.S, in Atlanta, New York and Utah. Does the nationality of its director, the actors, the screenwriter and the below-the-line talent play a role? Or is financing the key determiner? While tax incentives can greatly reduce production costs, most studio productions still get the majority of their funding from the U.S.. 'The only certainty right now is uncertainty,' notes Martin Moszkowicz, a producer for German mini-major Constantin, whose credits including Monster Hunter and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. 'That's not good for business.' The main force driving runway production is the bottom line. With national tax incentives, lower costs for local crews and, in some territories, direct production subsidies for co-productions, shooting a film in Vancouver, Queensland or in Sofia, Bulgaria can be 40 to 60 percent cheaper than making the same film in L.A. 'Once you've shot in these places — the Czech Republic, Malta, Australia, New Zealand — you realize the quality is good, it's actually quite cheap and the tax credits work really, really well,' says Simon Williams, a film financier with London-based group Ashland Hill Finance. A levy punishing runaway productions may make it more expensive to shoot abroad, but it won't make it any cheaper to shoot movies in the United States. For independent movies, notes one veteran producer, a 100 percent tariff 'means most of those films just won't get made.' The major studios, of course, have deeper pockets, but their financing plans and production schedules, particularly for international shoots, are often years in the making. James Cameron has spent the better part of two decades building up his bespoke production hub in New Zealand to make his Avatar movies — Disney and 20th Century will release Avatar: Fire and Ash on Dec. 13 — and is set to make at least two more down under, production planned to extend through 2031. Marvel Studios just began its London shoot for Avengers: Doomsday, on May 1, and will kick off on Sony co-production Spider-Man: Brand New Day in the British capital on July 31. A little more than a month after Warner Bros. Discovery's begins principal photography there, on June 26, on its rival comic book film Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. None are likely to drop everything and come back home, just on Trump's say-so. 'But what could happen is that the studios push the pause button and delay starting production on films they were planning to shoot outside the U.S.,' says Henning Molfenter, the former head of film and TV production at Germany's Studio Babelsberg, who has overseen the international shoots of the Russo Brothers' Captain America: Civil War and Lana Wachowski's The Matrix Resurrections. 'As we saw during corona and during the strikes, just pausing production can do a lot of harm to our business.' Damage could be compounded if national governments start to match the Trump tariffs tit-for-tat, putting international box office — around two thirds of Hollywood's revenue comes from outside the U.S. — at risk. 'Consistent with everything Trump does and says, this is an erratic, ill conceived and poorly considered action,' says Nicholas Tabarrok of Darius Films, a production house with offices in Los Angeles and Toronto. 'It will adversely affect everyone. U.S. studios, distributors, and filmmakers will suffer as much as international ones. Trump just doesn't seem to understand that international trade is good for both parties and tariffs not only penalize international companies but also raise prices for U.S. based companies and consumers. This is an 'everyone loses, no one gains' policy.' Etan Vlessing contributed to this report. Best of The Hollywood Reporter How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023 Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire
Boston Globe
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Revolución diamantina' luminous with the BSO
But those locals who want to hear a new orchestral piece with a pointed feminist message needn't leave town. Guerrero, who also had a hand in commissioning 'Her Story' as head of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and led it at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood in 2023, was returning to the BSO for the first time since then. The headlining piece this time was a concert performance of the harrowingly beautiful 'Revolución diamantina,' which was inspired by protests in Ortiz's native Mexico condemning violence against women. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Ortiz, though an established composer internationally, is a relative newcomer to the BSO stage; her orchestral piece 'Kauyumari' appeared on a Concert for the City in 2024, and a handful of her chamber pieces have been performed at Tanglewood. She is directing this year's Festival of Contemporary Music at the Tanglewood Music Center, so there will be plenty of opportunity in the near future to hear her work, but as a symphony-length piece (and recently the winner of three Grammy Awards; one for the piece itself, two for its namesake album with the Los Angeles Philharmonic), it's a powerful artist's statement. If you have already made up your mind that you don't like contemporary orchestral music, you probably won't like 'Revolución diamantina.' It offered no apologies for what it is; a demanding technical gauntlet for the orchestra and an emotional wringer for the audience. It's often gorgeous — one section swoons with ardor matching anything Rachmaninoff ever wrote — but given the context, never truly easy listening. The full ballet has never been staged, but the accompanying dramaturgy by Booker Prize-winner Cristina Rivera Garza was printed in the program book. Hopefully it won't be too long before a dance company takes on the task, but for concert performances like the BSO's, it would be helpful to have the titles of each 'scene' projected above the orchestra. Advertisement Though the singers were amplified, the score treated them more like a section of the orchestra — there primarily for texture, only occasionally for text, and they did an admirable job with both tasks. The percussion section especially was put through their paces for the piece's full 45 minutes, dashing between instruments in the back corner of the stage. (The full list of equipment took up nine full lines in the program book, included 'river stones,' an anvil, and the Mexican slit log drum called the teponatzli.) The final movement slowly gathered power into a heavens-storming chorale of hope, with most of the orchestra and chorus united in solid solemnity while flutist Lorna McGhee's soaring solo pierced the sky. Giancarlo Guerrero conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's "Francesca da Rimini" at Symphony Hall on Thursday. Robert Torres The second half of the concert contained two shorter pieces by Tchaikovsky, which combined into an odd follow-up to the emotional battering ram that was 'Revolución.' The final piece, the Dante-inspired 'Francesca da Rimini,' had a loose surface thematic connection — Ortiz's piece as a reaction to violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence, while Francesca, allegedly based on a real contemporary of Dante, was murdered by her own husband when he discovered her affair with his brother; the poet depicted her and Paolo in the second circle of hell, condemned to whirl about in an eternal gale. Advertisement However, 'Francesca' plausibly has more to do with its composer than its central character. Tchaikovsky was in a personal tempest of his own as he struggled with his own attraction to men and external pressure to marry a woman, which he did (disastrously) in 1877, the year after he wrote 'Francesca.' It's not hard to imagine he saw his own feelings of powerlessness reflected in Dante's damned souls. In the BSO's performance Thursday, the billowing chromatic gestures were powerful enough to sweep away any hopes of terra firma. Even as the tender central love theme took center stage, the timpani added an ominous undercurrent, signaling another barrage of brass and shrieking winds wasn't too far away. The other Tchaikovsky piece, 'Variations on a Rococo Theme,' featuring cellist Alban Gerhardt, was charming, technically astounding, and placing it between 'Revolucion' and 'Francesca' had an effect comparable to eating a Snickers bar between bites of pickle. The cello showpiece sounded unusually bland in its expression, and that was only confirmed when Gerhard returned to the stage for an encore, the widely beloved prelude from Bach's Suite No. 1; those two minutes contained more sensitivity and dimension than the previous 20. BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA At Symphony Hall Feb. 27. Repeats March 1. 617-266-1200, A.Z. Madonna can be reached at
Washington Post
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
At the Kennedy Center, the NSO offers a bracing history lesson
On Thursday night at the Kennedy Center, the National Symphony Orchestra gave the D.C. premiere of Julia Wolfe's masterfully crafted two-movement piece 'Her Story,' in a riveting performance led by Marin Alsop and enhanced by the 10 voices of the Grammy-nominated Lorelei Ensemble. An urgent, engrossing 30-minute oratorio on the fight for women's suffrage, 'Her Story' is the kind of provocative, inventive music that American orchestras — and American arts centers — should pursue and program (posthaste). If you can make the repeat on Saturday, you should.
South China Morning Post
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
China's gender conservations must go offline to empower everyone
Last week, a friend suggested something unexpected: 'Why not invite our husbands to see the Chinese feminist movie Her Story? ' Everyone agreed and we watched the film as a group. Afterwards, we discussed the movie as men and women sharing perspectives, in a way I had rarely experienced before. Throughout my 26 years in China, open discussions about gender that involve both men and women have been nearly nonexistent. The only other time I had a real conversation like this was, unexpectedly, with my father. One evening, as we walked along the river after dinner, my father hesitated before speaking. 'I raised you without gender expectations,' he began. 'But at a recent business dinner, someone said I should have taught you that family matters most for women. Now, I wonder if I did the right thing.' His vulnerability caught me off guard. For the first time, we discussed his fears, my dreams and my values. I deeply appreciated his non-biased way of raising me. Now, he proudly tells me how he challenges people who hold traditional gender values while advocating for diverse life choices. However, I couldn't help but wonder: why are these moments of connection so rare? While such moments of connection bring hope, the dominant conversation around gender plays out online – and in a much more divisive way. In 2020, the comedian Yang Li brought gender issues to the centre of China's public discourse with a controversial line: 'How can he look so average and still have so much confidence?' The show on which she made that joke garnered about 100 million views per episode on average. That single sentence caused an uproar on social media, sparking a 'gender war' that has only intensified since then. 02:07 China's new wave of young women stand-up comedians tackle stereotypes China's new wave of young women stand-up comedians tackle stereotypes
Jordan Times
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Jordan Times
Chinese lion dance troupe shrugs off patriarchal past
This photo taken on January 22 shows female lion dancers taking part in a practice session at an ancestral temple in Shantou, in southern China's Guangdong province (AFP photo) SHANTOU, China — Flinging her male teammate into the air, performer Lin Xinmeng practises China's world-famous lion dance with a troupe that is shrugging off centuries of patriarchal norms. Mixing acrobatics, martial arts and theatre, lion dancing is believed to bring prosperity and protection from evil spirits. Performed across China and around the world, at weddings or during business openings, it is a mainstay of Lunar New Year celebrations, which begin on Wednesday. "I discovered this dance one day by chance in the street. I found it super graceful," Lin, 18, told AFP in the courtyard of a temple in the southern Chinese city of Shantou, where her troupe trains. "The tenacity of the dancers, their ability to perform these movements, impressed me. I wanted to become like them," she said. Inside a costume consisting of a large, colourful lion head and a long, silky piece of fabric representing the body, dancers must work in tandem to bring the animal to life. It can be tough on dancers' bodies, with one performer often required to lift the other by the waist to simulate the beast jumping on its hind legs. That physical exertion, coupled with deep-rooted patriarchal attitudes, has long resulted in women being excluded from the tradition. But Lin Likun -- the troupe's 31-year-old coach -- said the presence of women made the lion dancing show more "enjoyable" and means more people can pass on "this intangible heritage". "We are constantly looking for ways to innovate, to breathe new vitality into lion dance," he said. "It also allows us to reflect women's aspirations," he added, even if some give up along the way because of the physical demands. Rejecting patriarchy The troupe, called Lingdong, counts about 80 members aged between 13 to 33, most of them school students. Around 20 of them are women. While the presence of young women in the troupe elicits "mostly positive" feedback, Lin acknowledges that there has been some "mockery" and "negative reactions". "Some old-timers think that women should stay at home and do housework. But our generation has a different view," he said. "We believe in equality between men and women." A growing number of Chinese women are rejecting the rigidity of traditional obligations imposed by their parents, who expect them to marry and have children young. The cultural shift has been accompanied by the stardom of tennis player Zheng Qinwen, a champion at last year's Paris Olympics, and the critical success of the Chinese film "Her Story", which addresses gender inequality in contemporary society. "Some say that a girl can't lead a lion. But it's my passion and it's up to me alone to take it on," said performer Lin Xinmeng. "I want to surpass myself, to show that girls are not necessarily less good than boys," she explained. 'Masculine strength, feminine grace' Lin goes jogging, squats and weight trains to prepare herself for the most physically demanding parts of the dance. She sees the participation of women and girls as a way "to combine masculine strength and feminine grace". Another girl in the troupe, Dong Zidan, has 45,000 followers on the social network Douyin, China's version of TikTok, where she regularly shares content about lion dancing. "I hope to encourage more girls to participate in our customs and pass on this intangible heritage," she said. Coach Lin's next project is to have as many girls as boys in his team. He will then try to create an all-women troupe -- a distant goal given the challenges that persist. "The facts will prove that girls can assert themselves just as much as men," he insisted. "Whether in lion dancing or in daily life."
