Latest news with #TheLastAmbassador
National Observer
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- National Observer
MOVIES: Surprise! There's a very good movie from Marvel this week
Documentaries are big generally these days and in Canada right now specifically as two big festivals overlap. Hot Docs in Toronto is close to winding up this year's run, while DOXA in Vancouver has just started. At Hot Docs you can still catch repeats of the films that were the most popular with the audience, including: Ai Weiwei's reworking of the opera Turandot, Marriage Cops who settle domestic disputes in India, The Last Ambassador who advocates for Afghani woman, Come See Me in the Good Light about one woman dealing with terminal cancer and How Deep Is Your Love (for your planet you might say) as scientists find and study new species in the oceans and worry about deep-sea mining. For DOXA you can see what's playing and when by going here: Bonjour Tristesse: 3 Nechako: 4 Mr. Nobody Against Putin: 3 ½ The Shrouds: 2 ½ THUNDERBOLTS*: That asterisk in the title actually means something. Stick around through the end credits for a clue and watch the entire film for a very enjoyable return to what Marvel movies used to be like. They've gotten repetitive over the years, understandably so because this is the 36 th of them. But this is fresh and breathes new life in several ways. There's a big focus on interpersonal relationships this time. A rag tag group of characters gathered from previous movies and TV off-shoots have to learn to ditch their differences and work together. Not unusual, but they do it with humor and struggle. Character building is deeper than usual. They have regrets over what they've done before, particularly Yelena who was trained as an assassin. She's played by Florence Pugh in a standout performance and even a grand bit of stunt work. That's really her in the opening scene dropping off the second-tallest building on earth. She survives and joins up with these Marvel characters: Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and her dad Red Guardian (David Harbour) because Valentina, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is trying to kill them all. They had worked for her at some point and she has to eliminate evidence to save her job as CIA director. Congress is trying to impeach her because of a secret research business she runs on the side. With her help she figures the characters will just kill each other, except for one extra who shows up ('I'm just Bob') and will turn out to be a key part of the story. He's played by Lewis Pullman and is the focus of a lot of humor as the others try to figure out who this nobody is and why he's there. The story moves along briskly under the direction of Jake Schreier who is a former musician and has directed music videos. There's action, as you'd expect, but not as frequent as before and the story gets room to develop. A couple of giant set pieces are thrilling though, notably a smash-and-crash street scene involving a hammerhead crane, a helicopter, trucks and cars and people running. As a film it's more credible than the usual at Marvel: some bad guy trying to destroy the world or even the universe. (In theaters) 4 out of 5 BONJOUR TRISTESSE: A popular French novel in 1954, a Hollywood movie in 1958, it's back, as evocative as ever but maybe gentler than you might expect. Growing up and coming of age stories are often edgier these days. This one plays relatively easily in the sun and beauty of the south of France while touching on some tough subjects, competition between women being one, alongside the main regard, the maturing of one young woman and her world view. Françoise Sagan was only 18 when she wrote the novel and her view of things struck a chord. Canadian director Durga Chew-Bose depicts it well without modernizing it to give it more edge. You may wish it were harder in tone, although Sagan's own son has endorsed it as true to her vision. Lily McInerny plays Cécile who comes to spend the summer with her father played by Claes Bang. He's a widower but hardly gloomy. His latest lover (Nailia Harzoune) is there with him and two things bring friction into this sunny life. First is the arrival of an old friend of his (Chloë Sevigny), a designer of stylish clothes and therefore a classy individual. She works to maneuver his lover aside but Cécile feels she's displacing her too. She takes up with a boy who lives nearby, who not only seduces her but has eyes on dad's lover too. Cécile acts out, through her mischievous nature and newly-recognized selfish streak. Quite a summer and a keen study of one young woman in this Canada/Germany co-production filmed in France. As one woman says of her 'She is imagining what she looks like to us as practice for when she wants to be seen.' (Select theaters) 3 out of 5 Two documentaries ... NECHAKO: IT WILL BE A BIG RIVER AGAIN: Here's another fine example of the films coming along these days about Indigenous issues here in Canada, by Indigenous filmmakers. Lyana Patrick is from the Stellat'en First Nation (which is about in the middle of British Columbia). She lives in Vancouver but went back to document the long fight that has gone on about the Nechako River. It has been her peoples' main source of food (salmon) but an aluminum smelter built over near the Pacific Coast harmed it immensely. Its flow was reversed in part to supply a power dam. 'Wasteland' was turned 'into an industrial empire' says a newsreel clip. The people saw it differently. Water was severely reduced where the salmon bred and their numbers plummeted. Land elsewhere flooded, roads were built and other industries moved in. One person in the film described the 'cumulative effect of all this progress' as 'heaping evil on top of evil.' But they couldn't go to court to fight the company, Rio Tinto Aluminium, now Rio Tinto Alcan. In the 1950s it was illegal for them to hire a lawyer and sue. Recently they did get to court. They argued how important the river is to them. As one person in the film says 'Our people were the healthiest, the strongest the most resilient.' They wanted the water restored because as we can see in the film a lot of the salmon grounds are now dry and wildlife trails have been broken up. The court said don't blame the company; two levels of government let them do it. That was appealed and there's a tense scene as people wait to hear the result. In their mind, the case is still not over. We hear much about their pride and resolve. 'We survive everything and come back home,' says one in this very well-made film. (DOXA Film Festival) 4 out of 5 MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN: Here's a nervy but also very informative look inside Russia and tangentially at the effects there of Mr. Putin's war on Ukraine. Officially it's a 'special military operation' remember. Schools were ordered to refer it that way and to indoctrinate the children with official information about it. That Ukraine is run by radicals, nationalists and neo-Nazis. That Crimea 'joined' Russia willingly. And so on. Teachers were ordered in a 'New Federal Patriotic Education Policy' to have the children sing songs, write poems and send letters to support the war. 'Commanders don't win wars,' we see Putin say. 'Teachers win wars.' Not so, says Pasha, a teacher in the industrially-scarred city of Karabash. It's been named as one of the most toxic places on earth but that's not the key thing here: it's Pasha's need to fight back against the intrusion on his freedom to teach. He starts photographing all on his cell phone, including cute children reciting propaganda, marching patriotically and singing loudly. Then when more young men are called up, their training and even hair cuts. And his own thoughts spoken right into the camera: that Putin's war is not for Communism but for his own power. And to the young recruits he recalls national heroes and says 'maybe one day you can be a dead soldier too.' We get his passion, a good view of how the regime exerts power and how Pasha's material got out. It's a Danish-Czech co-production directed by David Borenstein and won a big award at the Sundance Film Festival. Here, it's at both DOXA and Hot Docs. 3½ out of 5 THE SHROUDS: Here's a very odd take on the subject of grief. It's from David Cronenberg, one of our most celebrated filmmakers, and was apparently driven by his grief over the loss of his wife. But what a weird response it is. A businessman played by Vincent Cassel invents a video system that allows a person to look inside a grave and still feel close to a lost loved one. You check in now and then and see the stages of the body's decomposition. The cemetery has terminals across its whole area. Cassell's wife is played by Diane Kruger and thankfully we see much more of her alive in flashbacks than decaying in her grave. Still the idea is creepy. It reminds of a similar technology imagined by Cronenberg in his early film Videodrome but here he holds back the body horror excess he's known for and concentrates on grief. Kruger also plays a sister and Guy Pearce plays a computer hacker. The film drifts off-topic into conspiracy and ecology matters thereby creating a jumbled narrative. It plays very slowly and lets your mind wander. To him it's personal. Not, I imagine, to a lot of people. (In theaters, for a week already) 2 ½ out of 5
The Independent
19-04-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Meet the last female Afghan ambassador as she leads the resistance against the Taliban
Manizha Bakhtari is on a mission to show that resisting the Taliban doesn't mean 'wanting a war' again in her home country. As the last serving female ambassador from Afghanistan anywhere in the world, she is at the forefront of efforts to deny the Islamist group the international recognition it badly craves. The UN still refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the Taliban regime in Kabul, in place since Nato forces withdrew from the country and the last democratically-elected government collapsed in August 2021. Individual countries are following the UN's lead, but many now host Afghan diplomatic missions led by Taliban appointees, often out of practicality rather than ideology. Austria, where Bakhtari leads the Afghan embassy, has held firm. And from there, Bakhtari is trying to spread the message across Europe that it would be a mistake to recognise or deal with a Taliban regime that fosters extremism and denies women many of the most fundamental rights. Her story has started gaining attention, and is now the subject of an 80-minute documentary entitled The Last Ambassador that received a standing ovation at last month's Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. It follows her journey from first being appointed as envoy to Austria from the previous Ashraf Ghani-led administration to her present status as head of a mission disowned by Kabul. It also shows her activities running secret classes for Afghan girls banned by the Taliban from attending school. In an interview with The Independent at a conference on Afghanistan's future hosted by Madrid earlier this year, Bakhtari explains what resistance means for her. 'Resisting the Taliban doesn't mean that I want war in Afghanistan,' she says. 'That is how many politicians treat us in this world, believe me – they see [the word] resistance and they're like 'you are warlords and you want another war in your country'. It is very painful, you know, because resistance does not mean to take arms again. It means to stand against injustice.' The Taliban has done its best to get rid of critical voices from the previous administration, and like in many countries it issued a diktat firing Bakhtari shortly after capturing Kabul. But Austria still recognises her accreditation, and so she continues to represent the interests of Afghan nationals in the country. 'I am not taking orders from them – Taliban men,' she says. 'My legitimacy is not coming from the Taliban approval. Whatever they say, whatever their rule, it is their problem. Not mine. I don't have to accept their words because they have not been recognised within and outside of Afghanistan. They do not even have legitimacy among our own people.' Over the past four years Taliban representatives have steadily taken over more and more missions around the world, with Norway the latest European nation to accept an appointee from the group last month. India held out until the tenure of the last Afghan ambassador reached its time limit, and then quietly ushered in an official agreeable to the Taliban in late 2023. And the Afghan embassy in the UK was closed in September 2024, at the request of the British government, after the Taliban sacked all its staff. Asked whether it is inevitable that foreign governments will be forced to deal with the Taliban as Afghanistan's de facto rulers, Bakhtari is adamant. 'Let's forget the fact that the Taliban have been a terrorist group and put it aside, because right now the international community wants everyone to forget this,' she says, 'What about their policies today? Not 20 years back – let's concentrate on the past four years – forgetting their suicide attacks and atrocities. What have the Taliban done for the prosperity and welfare of Afghans? Jobs? Respected basic human rights? Forget about girls' education for a second. What about boys' education? What are our boys studying?' the ambassador asks. 'They do not have proper education or educated teachers. The Taliban has long altered the curriculum and is teaching regressive subjects to millions of Afghan boys who earlier studied under working Afghan women. So yeah, I am not taking orders from them who are yet to be recognised by even one authority,' she says. Though Bakhtari is the only female Afghan ambassador still standing, she is not alone as a woman working through diplomatic channels for the interests of the old Afghan republic. At the Herat Security Dialogue in Madrid, The Independent also met Nigara Mirdad, deputy head of mission at the now shut-down embassy of Afghanistan in Poland. Mirdad was in hospital in September last year with her 11-year-old daughter, who has diabetes and needed insulin, when the ambassador informed her that their Warsaw mission was being closed. She says she tried to fight back but in vain, and without any funds coming in from Kabul, she appealed to the diplomatic missions in Canada, Germany and the UK to help her pay for gas in the bitter sub-zero Polish winter. She recalls how it felt when she watched TV coverage of the Taliban sweeping Kabul in 2021. 'I didn't eat for days and the tears wouldn't stop rolling down my face,' she says. Both Mirdad and Bakhtari knew what was coming for Afghan women under Taliban rule – the same horror they endured as young women in their early 20s. In 1996 when she was just 12 years old, Mirdad recalls, Taliban militants entered the Panjshir valley and her neighbourhood prepared to fight. 'People said girls and women should be killed and thrown in the rivers to prevent the Taliban from touching them and the Afghan men should go and fight the Taliban. And from that time, it stayed in my mind – if the Taliban comes closer, me and the women of my family will be killed and thrown in the river,' she says. Like Bakhtari, she has received threats from the Taliban in recent years. 'I received many messages from the Taliban supporters and even the spokesperson of the Taliban's interior affairs ministry after they came to power. He said: 'Okay, you wait when we take the all the embassies in Europe, we will see you',' she says. Bakhtari says women like them are seen by the Taliban as a 'threat to their control'. 'They hate women. [They] fear that educated and empowered women will confront them and the structures of oppression they have built. With education, with empowerment and with the ruling society, women will question them,' she says. She says women cannot afford to give up their country, or the idea that things can change. 'We cannot afford to lose hope,' she says. 'That is the only thing keeping millions in Afghanistan alive.'
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
UTA Signs Jack Edwards, Lewis Goodall, Madame Joyce to Growing Creator Division (Exclusive)
Global talent, entertainment, sports and advisory company UTA has signed popular U.K. creators Jack Edwards, Madame Joyce, and Lewis Goodall for global representation in all areas. The deals fit into UTA's expansion of its U.K. Creator division which is part of its international growth strategy. UTA is looking to provide digital, gaming/e-sports, and audio talent and groups access to a wider network across unscripted and scripted TV, audio, live touring, publishing, news, and broadcasting. More from The Hollywood Reporter How New Documentary 'October 8' Is a Touchstone for People Worried About Antisemitism Afghanistan's Female Emissary to Austria Defies the Taliban in Doc 'The Last Ambassador' (Trailer) Filmart: PCCW Media Unveils 'White Lotus'-like Asian Drama Series 'The Season' The three new signings have a combined audience reach of more than 5 million people across their social channels and broadcast platforms. Madame Joyce is a podcaster, presenter, and media personality with a combined audience of more than 2 million people whose podcast Cocktails & Takeaways delves into celebrity news, gossip, and discussions over drinks. Jack Edwards is considered the world's most influential BookTuber with an audience of more than 3 million across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. And journalist, presenter, broadcaster, and writer Lewis Goodall has emerged as a new voice in U.K. news and politics, since 2022 hosting The News Agents, which became the UK's biggest daily news podcast. He is a UTA Creator unit co-signing with the agency's literary arm Curtis Brown. Led by London-based agents Shelby Schenkman and Beth Heard, UTA's burgeoning U.K. Creator division has brought in a broad array of talent, including Madeline Argy, Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo, Lissie Mackintosh, and Grace Campbell. Its practice also represents such clients as Dave Portnoy/Barstool, Mr. Ballen/Ballen Studios, Emma Chamberlain, Alix & Ashtin Earle, Charli D'Amelio, Jake Shane, Kai Cenat, and Alex Cooper. UTA opened its creator practice in 2006 and says it became the first agency to have its own audio and digital talent division. It also led the way in launching a dedicated gaming and e-sports unit. Shelby Schenkman Beth Heard A recent Statista forecast predicted that U.K. advertising spending in the influencer space would reach $1.31 billion this year. Marketing agency Digital Voices sees the global creator economy reach $480 billion in value by 2027. 'Our U.K. Creator offering is an extension of the premium services we provide in the U.S, offering clients access to a vast global network, helping them scale their careers beyond local markets,' Ali Berman, partner & head of digital at UTA, tells THR. 'The media and entertainment landscape is rapidly evolving, and UTA remains the go-to resource for connecting top talent with media and brand partners to navigate these shifts and continue building upward in the growing creator economy,' adds Oren Rosenbaum, partner & head of Audio, UTA. 'Our global approach allows us to unlock opportunities that ensure long-term success for our clients.' Ali Berman Oren Rosenbaum Madame Joyce is set to embark on a U.K.-wide live tour in the coming months. She has struck collaborations with such brands as Sony Music, Cadbury, Spotify, Amazon and JD. Edwards has collaborated with such brands as Valentino, Audible, and the BBC. Goodall is a former senior political journalist and presenter at the BBC and Sky News, and a former policy editor at BBC Newsnight, the public broadcaster's flagship political and current affairs show. 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
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Afghanistan's Female Emissary to Austria Defies the Taliban in Doc ‘The Last Ambassador' (Trailer)
'What do you do as an ambassador for Afghanistan when the Taliban takes power and you are a feminist?' asks the page on the website of CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, dedicated to a new doc directed by Natalie Halla, The Last Ambassador. The Copenhagen fest page also tells us that the country's ambassador in Austria, Manizha Bakhtari, the the country's only female ambassador since the Taliban's takeover, decided to fight back. When the Taliban took power in 2021, she found herself in the bizarre situation of representing, on paper at least, a country whose government she does not support and which is not internationally recognized. More from The Hollywood Reporter Cheers to Hong Kong: 5 Bars to Sample During Filmart Japanese Anime 'Hypnosis Mic' Proves an Interactive Movie Can Be a Box-Office Hit A Food Lover's Paradise: 7 Must-Visit Places to Eat in Hong Kong During Filmart The doc, world premiering at Copenhagen on Saturday, tells her story as an ambassador, as a woman, and as a wife and mother. 'In difficult economic and personal circumstances, Bakhtari decides to stand up to the Taliban and continue her courageous fight for the rights of Afghan women and girls,' a synopsis of The Last Ambassador highlights. 'Through her Daughters program, she provides Afghan schoolgirls with the opportunity to educate themselves in secret, while also organizing political resistance against the Taliban on the international stage as an ambassador. In increasingly difficult circumstances, she became one of the most important international spokespersons for Afghan women, true to her motto: 'Peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice'.' THR can exclusively debut the trailer for The Last Ambassador, which shows off some of this woman's energy, dilemmas, and convictions that the film expands on over its 75-minute running time. 'There's no government, no president,' the ambassador is seen saying in the trailer, for example. 'So what's the point of an embassy?' The teaser for the movie from production company Golden Girls Film, for which The Party just signed on to handle sales, also shows Bakhtari's defiant reaction to an order sent to her from her homeland. Watch the trailer for The Last Ambassador below. Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked 20 Times the Oscars Got It Wrong The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time
