Latest news with #Schlesinger
IOL News
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
REVIEW: Hollywood on the Veld, when movie mayhem gripped the City of Gold
Isidore Schlesinger, better known as 'IW', built a studio on a farm called Killarney, where he set out to challenge a place in America that was in its infancy: Hollywood. In 1913, an American millionaire living on the top floor of Johannesburg's Carlton Hotel had an extraordinary idea: to make films in Johannesburg. And not just any films, but the biggest in the world, grand spectacles with elaborate sets, thousands of extras, and epic storylines. Isidore Schlesinger arrived in South Africa with almost nothing. He set out to make his fortune selling American goods, telling his parents he'd return either a millionaire or a pauper. Known as 'IW', Schlesinger built a film studio on a farm called Killarney, with the ambitious goal of rivalling a place that was itself only just emerging—Hollywood, which at the time was still farmland outside Los Angeles, dotted with shacks and barns. Though movies were still in their infancy in 1913, and despite having no background in entertainment, Schlesinger quickly made his mark on the global film scene. He launched 'The African Mirror', a newsreel series, and sent crews as far as East Africa to document World War I. His production company was among the first to shoot on location outdoors, while Hollywood was still confining itself to studios and painted backdrops. Schlesinger's crews filmed across the bushveld, at historic battlefields, Victoria Falls, and the forests of Portuguese East Africa - well beyond the comfort zones of most of his contemporaries. He was deeply passionate about South Africa's landscapes and cinematic potential. The glamour and ambition of IW's Killarney studio mirrored the mood of early 20th-century Johannesburg, a city in the midst of a heady golden age.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ivy's First LP In 14 Years Has Adam Schlesinger On Every Song
Beloved New York-reared indie trio Ivy were inactive for the better part of eight years before group member Adam Schlesinger died of COVID-19 during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020. Since then, surviving husband-and-wife duo Dominque Durand and Andy Chase have paid tribute to Schlesinger in a moving video retrospective and overseen several back catalog reissues, but there was no new Ivy album on the horizon — until now. Durand, Chase and longtime multi-instrumentalist Bruce Driscoll have combed through their demo archives to surface the previously unreleased material on Traces of You, which will emerge Sept. 5 through Bar/None Records. Each of the 10 tracks offers contributions from Schlesinger, including lead single 'Say You Will,' which was built from a 2009 demo where he played bass and keyboard. R.E.M./Atoms for Peace drummer Joey Waronker plays on the finished version. More from Spin: Island Time: From Dance Floors to Yacht Rock, the Ting Tings Ride A New Wave The Head & The Heart Turn The Corner On 'Aperture' Tour Foo Fighters, Chappell Roan Head South For Corona Capital With occasional flashes of mainstream success but enduring fan appeal, Ivy are perhaps best known for their 1997 sophomore album Apartment Life, from which 'This Is the Day' popped up in the classic '90s comedy There's Something About Mary and the vibrant, moody 'The Best Thing' garnered modern rock airplay. The trio, who formed in 1994 but slowed down in the 2000s while Schlesinger devoted more time to Fountains of Wayne, last released an album in 2011 with After Hours. 'The songs here were all unused and abandoned ideas from the various albums and film scores we worked on,' the band members tell SPIN of the Traces of You material. 'We'd never released any parts of them.' The resulting music is amongst the most diverse Ivy have ever released, from the bass- and keyboard-driven 'Fragile People' and the wistful, undulating title track to 'The Great Unknown,' which has an almost Garbage-y, electro feel and the tender, acoustic guitar-led 'Hate That It's True.' Band members say album opener 'The Midnight Hour' was the most complete of the fragments, as 'the first verse and chorus were sung back when they were originally demoed. Adam's bass was there and Andy had played all the guitar and keys. The second verse, the bridge and the 'feel the rush' vocal hook were all new additions when we got together with Bruce. What's amazing is that Dominique's vocals between verse one and two are seamless, as if no time had passed.' Schlesinger's Fountains of Wayne cohorts Brian Young (drums) and Jody Porter (guitar) later added parts to the recording. Ivy found themselves slipping back into some old work habits during the process, but thankfully, with ear-pleasing results. 'Dominique disliked the existing idea for 'Heartbreak,' which was Andy on guitar and keys and Adam on bass with the main part of the song you hear at the introduction,' they say. 'By the time we added the horn parts, the chorus chords and found depressing lyrics to offset the happy sound of the song, she came around.' Asked what fans will enjoy most about hearing Schlesinger's work on Traces of You, Ivy's members answer, 'on one song, you'll hear Adam on bass, the next on acoustic, the next on keys, the next he supplied a part of the melody with mumbled lyrics (which we deciphered and completed). His contributions were always gems and we never had to make them work with what we were doing. They were always essential to the idea, or we wouldn't work on the track.' The Midnight HourFragile PeopleMystery GirlTraces of YouThe Great UnknownSay You WillHeartbreakLose It AllWasting TimeHate That It's True To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
Los Angeles Times
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Young filmmakers celebrate a radical yet joyful approach to life with ‘Hummingbirds'
Silvia Del Carmen Castaños was a student in a Laredo, Texas, high school when the budding cineaste submitted a short piece to a community film festival. 'I wasn't allowed to go because I had bad grades at school,' says Castaños, who uses they/them pronouns. However, New York-based documentarian Jillian Schlesinger did attend and saw the film. 'It got third place, but it got first place in Jillian's heart,' Castaños adds. Schlesinger, along with partner Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, had been working with student filmmakers in a local magnet arts program, with hopes of finding young visionaries to support in a collaborative production. She was 'totally blown away by the voice and creativity and craft' of Castaños' work, Schlesinger says, and quickly got in touch with her via Facebook Messenger. 'My mom was like, 'You better not go meet this random lady,'' says Castaños, who went anyway. 'I still have my kidneys and, in fact, we made a beautiful film.' That film is 'Hummingbirds,' a lyrical, nonfiction portrait of best friends — Castaños, who was then 18, and Estefanía 'Beba' Contreras, then 21 — and their dreams, anxieties and misadventures as captured in 2019, months before the pandemic reordered the world. The artists and activists, Mexican immigrants in a border town on the Rio Grande, tilt at policies targeting not only their families and neighbors but their bodies — amid sequences of chaotic abandon and stargazing reverie. Broadcast on the PBS 'POV' showcase, 'Hummingbirds' won a grand jury prize at the 2023 Berlinale and also was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. 'We always knew we were going to be stars,' jokes Contreras, a gifted musician who directed the film with Castaños. The pair joined Schlesinger and Drake-McLaughlin — who formed a supporting production team of four co-directors with Ana Rodriguez-Falcó and Diane Ng — on a recent Zoom chat. 'It didn't feel like there was a lot of pressure to do something super extraordinary. It felt like we were doing a little school project with Silvia, and at the end, the credits [would be] all of our names, over and over and over and over,' Contreras says. While the film's celebration of feminist bonding and subversive antics shares an energy with movies like 'Ghost World' and the Czech classic 'Daisies,' the filmmakers credit Sean Baker as an inspiration. ''The Florida Project' is the rave,' says Castaños. Another more direct influence was the 2016 Polish film 'All These Sleepless Nights,' a so-called docufiction about a friendship between two young men on the Warsaw party scene. 'We didn't watch that many documentaries,' Schlesinger says, 'but we did steal a lot of production process stuff.' Besides stocking long-lasting camera batteries, the filmmakers sought ways to enhance the intimacy of each shoot. 'Not everyone who was behind the camera was also in front of the camera, but everyone who was in front of the camera was also behind the camera, if that makes sense.' Much of the film's easy, spontaneous flow arises naturally from the charismatic personalities of its subjects, already seasoned as storytellers of their own lives from an early age. 'Snapchat was the whole thing,' Castaños says. 'Social media really ruled the world when we were younger.' The filmmakers' instincts liberate the project from the canned, reality-television vibe that often compromises coming-of-age documentaries. 'We tried really hard to come up with something like fiction, but at the end of the day … it just started to become really important that we show just our normal, regular lives of being, and being silly, and what we were going through,' Contreras says. 'And there was no need for us to add anything extra.' Although shot nearly six years ago, in what now feels like another era, the political and social issues that underscore the story with such tension are even more present today. The movie is too relevant to be consigned to a time capsule. 'You don't really see it happen, but Beba and I went through a lot,' Castaños says. 'We had to board up windows and ICE raids were going on in every neighborhood, and it felt really scary. Having to teach your younger siblings not to trust figures of authority. That's very intense. Obviously, it's happening again right now. The issue is it's always happening, but it gets worse.' They cite the book 'Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times,' by Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery, as a useful touchstone. 'I talk a lot about how joy is rarely comfortable — but there is something radical about creating community and being joyful,' Castaños says. 'We're going to fly our kites. We're going to try and live our lives despite that fear. And I think that is very radical, right?'
The Citizen
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
Joburg's Forgotten Movie Empire
'When you look at what he achieved, it is astonishing.' Before Tom Cruise came to Mzansi to shoot his new Mission Impossible movie, before District 9 gave locally created alien tin cans a cult following, there was Killarney. Not the mall, not the office blocks or leafy streets. A hundred years ago it was more veld than suburb, a little off the beaten track. But for a brief period, it became our version of Hollywood. At the same time as the film and movie industry was starting to take shape as an industry in California, with Charlie Chaplin and others laying the foundations of what would become the movie capital of the world, Isidore William Schlesinger, better known as IW, was doing the same in South Africa. In 1913, after founding and successfully running everything from insurance companies to banking ventures, he moved into the top floor of the Carlton Hotel. It was already the city's most glamorous address, although only six storeys high at the time. From there, he set about building a movie empire the country had never seen before. Hollywood on the Highveld This is the historical spine of Hollywood on the Veld, the new book by author and journalist Ted Botha, also known for Apartheid in My Rucksack and Daisy de Melker. The book is extremely well-researched, and while it's not fiction, it reads like a novel. 'It was its own little Hollywood, right here in Joburg,' said Botha. 'There was glamour, gossip, intrigue and ambition. But no one remembers it.' Hollywood on the Veld was born out of a mystery. Botha said he stumbled across two black and white photos as a child, depicting a South African film set dated around 1917. It clashed with what he had always been told, that the country had no real film industry at the time. Over time, what began as curiosity became a full-blown investigation into a forgotten chapter of local history and the man behind it. Also Read: Chris Carter's 'Death Watcher': Unputdownable 'Schlesinger had a vision,' said Botha. 'But did not like publicity, so it was difficult finding information.' 'He bought the Killarney land, and people thought he was mad. It felt like the middle of nowhere back then.' What followed was a decade of movie-making that rivalled the scale of cinema's only other major centres at the time, Los Angeles and Rome. Joburg was dusting off the mining camps and becoming a city Johannesburg was a city on the up and up, dusting off its mining camp beginnings to become a major city. Showbusiness was emerging. Cinema, however, was not a money spinner at the time. But Schlesinger saw the potential. In 1913, he bought a failing movie theatre called Empire Theatre and turned it into African Consolidated Theatres, slowly building a nationwide film and variety show network. He founded South Africa's first film studio, African Film Productions, and launched the country's first newsreel, African Mirror. 'Schlesinger then built his own studio, ran production, distributed the films and showed them in his own theatres,' said Botha. 'It was a closed loop system. He did it all.' Epic films like The Symbol of Sacrifice and De Voortrekkers rivalled the biggest productions being made anywhere else at the time. 'When you look at what he achieved, it is astonishing.' 'Everything, be it radio or our movie industry, it all goes back to him,' said Botha. 'Even the Afrikaans film industry of the 1950s and 1960s. If you trace it, there is always someone who had a connection to Schlesinger.' He had big ideas for films about Shaka, Rhodes and Dingaan, and later turned to straight adventure stories, well before Hollywood made them a staple. Short-lived golden age But the Killarney based golden age did not last. 'The movies never really caught on locally,' said Botha. 'They did better overseas. But still, he kept going. Forty films in ten years. Then he lost interest and changed his focus to importing foreign films and growing his theatre business.' Naturally production declined. The studio eventually segued to industrial films, then to government commissioned propaganda. But African Mirror survived, becoming one of the world's longest running newsreels. After reading the book and speaking to Botha, it becomes clear that this is not just a story about old movies. It is about vision, ambition and follow through. 'I want people to get a great story,' said Botha. 'But also to walk away with the understanding that South Africa has always had the potential to compete on the world stage. We forget that. We underestimate ourselves. This book is a reminder.' Now Read: Muse in motion: Louisa Treger redefines the creative spark …
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Corning increased solar Michigan facility investment to $1.5B
This story was originally published on Manufacturing Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Manufacturing Dive newsletter. Corning Inc. announced plans on Tuesday to invest another $600 million in its upcoming solar component facility in Richland Township, Michigan, aiming to accelerate advanced manufacturing operations. The additional funds will create 400 more jobs, bringing the total to 1,500 roles. The money builds on its February 2024 announcement through a $900 million investment. Production at the now $1.5 billion factory, which will be operated under Corning's subsidiary Solar Technology, is expected to come online in the second half of the year, Chairman and CEO Wendell Weeks said in an earnings call Tuesday. The solar industry experienced unprecedented growth in domestic capacity in 2024, accounting for 66% of the energy-generating segment space — which includes wind, natural gas and coal — in the United States, according to a U.S. solar market insight report from Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association. The increase was due to investments in capacity that were driven by the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as more resilient supply chains and growing interest from utility and power companies, the report stated. Corning is experiencing increased demand for its solar products as well, which Weeks said makes the company's solar assets 'even more valuable.' Corning sold out its solar wafer capacity for the year, including from the Michigan facility under construction, EVP and CFO Edward Schlesinger said in the earnings call. Furthermore, the company sold 80% of its planned capacity for the next five years, Weeks said last month at the company's investor event. Corning also launched a new solar market access platform, which it expects to generate $2.5 billion in revenue by 2028, Weeks said last month at the company's investor event. The company expects to see a 'positive incremental impact' on its sales, profits and cash flow in the second half of the year, Schlesinger said in the earnings call. 'We are commercializing our new Made in America ingot and wafer products this year,' Schlesinger said. 'We have committed customers for 100% of our capacity available in 2025 and 80% of our capacity for the next five years.' While other companies and industries are adjusting their earnings forecasts for the year due to recent tariffs, the current levies are not significant for Corning due to stronger demand for their U.S.-made products, Weeks said. 'Our customers in optical communications, in solar, in mobile consumer electronics, and in life sciences are seeking to leverage our U.S. manufacturing footprint,' Weeks said. 'And we expect to close and potentially announce commercial agreements in the coming months.' Corning has taken further action to keep production in the U.S. and mitigate the impact of tariffs. Last month, the company announced a partnership with solar component manufacturers Suniva and Heliene to develop a U.S. supply chain, producing solar modules domestically made with polysilicon, wafers and cells. Corning will supply the wafers while Hemlock Semiconductor, its joint venture with Japan-based Shin-Etsu Handotai, will supply extremely pure polysilicon from its Hemlock, Michigan, facilities. Recommended Reading Corning, Suniva and Heliene form US solar supply chain Sign in to access your portfolio
