Latest news with #Tolkienesque
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump White House says ‘no final decisions' on foreign film tariffs
The White House said on Monday that no final decisions have been made about imposing tariffs on foreign films, just a day after Donald Trump declared a 100% tariff on all movies produced outside the United States – an announcement that sparked widespread alarm across the global film industry. 'Although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump's directive to safeguard our country's national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again,' White House spokesperson Kush Desai said. The US president had announced the tariffs on his Truth Social platform, claiming he had authorized 'the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands'. Related: US media stocks slide on Wall Street after Trump threatens movie tariffs In his Sunday post, Trump offered few details on how such a trade penalty would work, but warned that the US film industry was 'DYING a very fast death' and said that there was a 'concerted effort' by other countries to offer 'all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States' – which he said was a 'national security threat'. Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick responded on X on Sunday evening, writing: 'We're on it.' The announcement sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry. On Monday, shares in US streaming platforms and production companies dropped as uncertainty loomed, especially because Trump's post did not say whether the tariffs would apply to films distributed on streaming platforms. Netflix shares were down 1.7% by early afternoon, while Amazon dipped 1.5%. Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount dropped 1.1% and 1% respectively. In Australia and New Zealand, which serve as major production hubs for global franchises such as the Lord of the Rings series, its Tolkienesque cousin The Hobbit, and various Marvel films, lawmakers in those countries responded that they would advocate for their respective film industries. Australia's home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said that he had spoken with the head of the government body Screen Australia about the proposed tariffs and that 'nobody should be under any doubt that we will be standing up unequivocally for the rights of the Australian screen industry.' And New Zealand's prime minister, Christopher Luxon, said: 'We'll have to see the detail of what actually ultimately emerges. But we'll be obviously a great advocate, great champion of that sector in that industry.' In the UK, a parliamentarian also warned that such tariffs were 'not in the interests of American businesses' and the UK media union Bectu urged the UK government to protect the country's 'vital' film sector, warning tens of thousands of freelance jobs could be at risk. The announcement on Sunday follows Trump's earlier pledges to revitalize the US film industry. But early on Monday afternoon, the White House began walking back Trump's announcement, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Just before taking office, Trump appointed actors Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson as 'special ambassadors' to Hollywood tasked with bringing the industry back 'bigger, better, and stronger than ever before'. The Associated Press reported that it is common for major blockbusters and smaller productions to film scenes in the US as well as internationally. Big-budget projects often span multiple countries. Related: Trump's movie tariffs are designed to destroy the international film industry For years, according to the AP, incentive programs have influenced where films are made, increasingly driving film production away from California to states and countries offering more favorable tax incentives, such as Canada and the UK. According to FilmLA, a non-profit that tracks production in the Los Angeles area, film and television production in LA has dropped by nearly 40% over the past decade. Trump's announcement on Sunday comes after he triggered a trade war with China, and imposed global tariffs, unsettling global markets and sparking fears of a potential US recession. In April, China, which is currently the world's second-largest film market after the US, responded to Trump's tariffs on Chinese products by reducing the quota of American movies allowed into the country.
The Guardian
05-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Trump White House says ‘no final decisions' on foreign film tariffs
The White House said on Monday that no final decisions have been made about imposing tariffs on foreign films, just a day after Donald Trump declared a 100% tariff on all movies produced outside the United States – an announcement that sparked widespread alarm across the global film industry. 'Although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump's directive to safeguard our country's national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again,' White House spokesman Kush Desai said. The US president had announced the tariffs on his Truth Social platform, claiming he had authorized 'the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.' In his Sunday post, Trump offered few details on how such a trade penalty would work, but warned that the US film industry was 'DYING a very fast death' and said that there was a 'concerted effort' by other countries to offer 'all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States' – which he said was a 'national security threat'. Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick responded on X on Sunday evening, writing: 'We're on it.' The announcement sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry. On Monday, shares in US streaming platforms and production companies dropped as uncertainty loomed, especially because Trump's post did not say whether the tariffs would apply to films distributed on streaming platforms. Netflix shares were down 1.7% by early afternoon, while Amazon dipped 1.5%. Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount dropped 1.1% and 1% respectively. In Australia and New Zealand, which serve as major production hubs for global franchises such as the Lord of the Rings series, its Tolkienesque cousin The Hobbit, and various Marvel films, lawmakers in those countries responded that they would advocate for their respective film industries. Australia's home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said that he had spoken with the head of the government body Screen Australia about the proposed tariffs and that 'nobody should be under any doubt that we will be standing up unequivocally for the rights of the Australian screen industry.' And New Zealand's prime minister, Christopher Luxon, said: 'We'll have to see the detail of what actually ultimately emerges. But we'll be obviously a great advocate, great champion of that sector in that industry.' In the UK, a parliamentarian also warned that such tariffs were 'not in the interests of American businesses' and the UK media union Bectu urged the UK government to protect the country's 'vital' film sector, warning tens of thousands of freelance jobs could be at risk. The announcement on Sunday follows Trump's earlier pledges to revitalize the US film industry. But early on Monday afternoon, the White House began walking back Trump's announcement, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Just before taking office, Trump appointed actors Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone, and Mel Gibson as 'special ambassadors' to Hollywood tasked with bringing the industry back 'bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.' The Associated Press reported that it is common for major blockbusters and smaller productions to film scenes in the US as well as internationally. Big-budget projects often span multiple countries. For years, according to the AP, incentive programs have influenced where films are made, increasingly driving film production away from California to states and countries offering more favorable tax incentives, like Canada and the UK. According to FilmLA, a non-profit that tracks production in the Los Angeles area, film and television production in LA has dropped by nearly 40% over the past decade. Trump's announcement on Sunday comes after he triggered a trade war with China, and imposed global tariffs, unsettling global markets and sparking fears of a potential US recession. In April, China, which is currently the world's second-largest film market after the US, responded to Trump's tariffs on Chinese products by reducing the quota of American movies allowed into the country.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
A luxury lighthouse stay in northern Spain: ‘Windows look east and west to sunrise and sunset'
I have always longed to be a lighthouse keeper and now, at last, I am one. If only for the weekend. Look at my chunky-knit jumper! Feel the waterproof weave of my Donegal tweed cap! Truth be told, I am way too toasty in this quasi-nautical ensemble, having hoped and dressed for ominous fog, murderous gales and oceanic rainstorms. Instead, it is bright, calm and warm on an early spring afternoon in the famously pretty fishing village of Cudillero in Asturias, where the Costa Verde of northern Spain drops away into the deep blue Bay of Biscay. Built in 1858, the local lighthouse – the Faro de Cudillero – stands on a shelf of rock just beyond the harbour, a short walk up stone steps and along a narrow cliff side service path. Its hexagonal beacon tower has been remodelled a few times over the years. The signal lamp inside was first fuelled by olive oil, then paraffin and petrol, before being electrified and eventually automated. With no further need for a human operator, its sturdy keeper's cottage was left derelict decades ago. It's sad to contemplate that absence, and the general obsolescence of the role itself. But if I can't man the light, I can at least occupy the lighthouse. The keeper's cottage has been bought, converted and partitioned into two loft-style holiday apartments by the German company Floatel, which specialises in this kind of repurposing. Staying for a couple of nights with my girlfriend and our six-year-old daughter in the Farero suite, I find the interior much plusher and airier than whatever salty quarters I might have imagined. The interior is much plusher and airier than the salty quarters I might have imagined We've got heated floors, a wood-burning stove, a fitted kitchenette, a nice, high ceiling, and a Nordic timber whirlpool bath with bench seats, big enough for all of us. Our priorities in proper order, we begin hot-tubbing without delay, while pretending to be a 19th-century lighthouse family mystified by modern luxuries. Large flanking windows look east and west to sunrise and sunset and, as the latter approaches, we go out to watch the lamp come on. The sky dims to indigo, a faint moon floats up over the tower, and visibility fades along the shoreline, tripping the sensors and flipping the switch. I expected a search beam to shoot from the lantern room and sweep the bay in whooshing gyres, but this light is programmed for a sequence of static flashes known as 'occultations'. Put in Tolkienesque terms, it's like an eye that opens for one long stare followed by three short blinks, repeating in cycles of 16 seconds. Or dash-dot-dot-dot, to represent the letter 'B' in international morse code. It should really be 'C' for Cudillero, but that letter was already taken by Candás, another coastal beacon about 30 miles due east. I learn all this and more back inside by the fireplace, where the honesty bar is well stocked, and the bookshelves support a small library of lighthouse-related literature. Between novels by Virginia Woolf and Jules Verne are historical journals and photographic surveys that reference this site in particular. Progressing from tangy, cloudy Asturian cider to a decent mid-range Spanish red, I read how ancient mariners set signal fires more or less where I'm sitting, and may have lured a few ships in to wreck and plunder on these rocks. Since the lighthouse entered service, though, there's no record of a major disaster, no defining loss of local menfolk in the unforgiving Cantabrian Sea. An Italian cargo vessel called the Amelia C (en route from Newcastle upon Tyne to Venice) sank just offshore in 1877, though it seems the lighthouse keeper mobilised the village for a rescue effort, and all aboard were duly saved. This makes for a consoling bedtime story. I've always been a twitchy insomniac, but now I discover the sublime and fathomless comfort that comes of drifting off beside your family in the belly of such a refuge, between the winking lantern and the sighing sea. So here we are asleep and dreaming in 'lighthouse world', as Floatel co-founder Tim Wittenbecher described it when I spoke to him on the phone. 'A lighthouse is the most purely positive structure we can think of,' Wittenbecher told me. 'It has only good associations.' He discovered just how many people feel this way 20 years ago, when he and his wife turned a ruined beacon into a guest house on the Baltic Sea. Hundreds responded immediately to their first online ad, and their pet project became a business model. As Floatel, it has since entered public-private agreements to take over the empty lodgings of lighthouses in spots from Ischia in the Gulf of Naples to La Palma in the Canary Islands. 'They are always in super-attractive positions, in dramatic, romantic and mostly quite abandoned areas,' said Wittenbecher. All broadly true of the Faro de Cudillero, though it's not as far removed from civilisation as some others in his portfolio, and is close enough to the village that it once served double-duty as the local schoolhouse. Lighthouses only have good associations. They're always in dramatic, romantic areas It is also handy enough for the present housekeeper, Cristina, to bring us breakfast the next morning – a wicker basket full of pastries, yoghurt, juices, meats and cheeses. A single gull hovers at the window to watch us eat. 'Clear off, you varmint,' says our daughter, shaking a fist and quoting one of her own favourite books, The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch. After breakfast, we wander around Cudillero itself, which forms a kind of amphitheatre in the tight arc of the adjoining cove, with steep vertical staircases and narrow lateral lane-ways stitched between tiers of brightly painted houses. Some have strips of curadillo hung outside – dried sharkskin that's been a totem around here since the days when fishers used the rough flesh to polish their boats, and ate it when they couldn't catch much else. The seafood is still great in these parts. After walking near-deserted beaches at Playa del Silencio and Playa de San Pedro La Ribera, we ascend to lunch at the stone-built mountain inn Cabo Vidio, where the house special is a coastal variation on the region's renowned bean stew, fabada asturiana, made with salt cod hauled from the cold waters below. Cudillero fishmonger Manolo Fernández supplies every restaurant in the vicinity. 'The quality of the produce is the same in each place,' Fernández assures me at his shop beside the port, while cleaning and gutting a hake. 'The only difference is the chef.' He's quick to laugh but also prone to lamentation. 'This used to be a real seafaring village,' says Fernández. 'I remember 230 boats out there; now we're down to about 30.' This shop has been in his family for three generations and almost a century, 'but me and my brother will be the last, I think'. As he cheerfully lists the reasons why – supermarkets, politics, overfishing, the climate crisis – it occurs to me that I'd forgotten all those worries while staying at the lighthouse. There it is above us, and ahead of us: salvation for sailors in trouble. We climb the path back to our perch, and watch our little girl sit cross-legged in a sunbeam on the windowsill, scanning the horizon for mermaids and orcas with the house binoculars. Some day, I'm thinking, this will be a bright spot in my memory – a signal light out of the distant past, flashing dash-dot-dot-dot. B for 'beautiful'. B for 'bygone'. Accommodation was provided by Floatel, which has two two-person apartments at the Cudillero Lighthouse from €190 or €290 a night B&B the entire lighthouse sleeps four and can be rented from €480 a night B&B (four nights for the price of three, seven nights for the price of five)
The Guardian
01-05-2025
- The Guardian
A luxury lighthouse stay in northern Spain: ‘Windows look east and west to sunrise and sunset'
I have always longed to be a lighthouse keeper and now, at last, I am one. If only for the weekend. Look at my chunky-knit jumper! Feel the waterproof weave of my Donegal tweed cap! Truth be told, I am way too toasty in this quasi-nautical ensemble, having hoped and dressed for ominous fog, murderous gales and oceanic rainstorms. Instead, it is bright, calm and warm on an early spring afternoon in the famously pretty fishing village of Cudillero in Asturias, where the Costa Verde of northern Spain drops away into the deep blue Bay of Biscay. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. Built in 1858, the local lighthouse – the Faro de Cudillero – stands on a shelf of rock just beyond the harbour, a short walk up stone steps and along a narrow cliff side service path. Its hexagonal beacon tower has been remodelled a few times over the years. The signal lamp inside was first fuelled by olive oil, then paraffin and petrol, before being electrified and eventually automated. With no further need for a human operator, its sturdy keeper's cottage was left derelict decades ago. It's sad to contemplate that absence, and the general obsolescence of the role itself. But if I can't man the light, I can at least occupy the lighthouse. The keeper's cottage has been bought, converted and partitioned into two loft-style holiday apartments by the German company Floatel, which specialises in this kind of repurposing. Staying for a couple of nights with my girlfriend and our six-year-old daughter in the Farero suite, I find the interior much plusher and airier than whatever salty quarters I might have imagined. We've got heated floors, a wood-burning stove, a fitted kitchenette, a nice, high ceiling, and a Nordic timber whirlpool bath with bench seats, big enough for all of us. Our priorities in proper order, we begin hot-tubbing without delay, while pretending to be a 19th-century lighthouse family mystified by modern luxuries. Large flanking windows look east and west to sunrise and sunset and, as the latter approaches, we go out to watch the lamp come on. The sky dims to indigo, a faint moon floats up over the tower, and visibility fades along the shoreline, tripping the sensors and flipping the switch. I expected a search beam to shoot from the lantern room and sweep the bay in whooshing gyres, but this light is programmed for a sequence of static flashes known as 'occultations'. Put in Tolkienesque terms, it's like an eye that opens for one long stare followed by three short blinks, repeating in cycles of 16 seconds. Or dash-dot-dot-dot, to represent the letter 'B' in international morse code. It should really be 'C' for Cudillero, but that letter was already taken by Candás, another coastal beacon about 30 miles due east. I learn all this and more back inside by the fireplace, where the honesty bar is well stocked, and the bookshelves support a small library of lighthouse-related literature. Between novels by Virginia Woolf and Jules Verne are historical journals and photographic surveys that reference this site in particular. Progressing from tangy, cloudy Asturian cider to a decent mid-range Spanish red, I read how ancient mariners set signal fires more or less where I'm sitting, and may have lured a few ships in to wreck and plunder on these rocks. Since the lighthouse entered service, though, there's no record of a major disaster, no defining loss of local menfolk in the unforgiving Cantabrian Sea. An Italian cargo vessel called the Amelia C (en route from Newcastle upon Tyne to Venice) sank just offshore in 1877, though it seems the lighthouse keeper mobilised the village for a rescue effort, and all aboard were duly saved. This makes for a consoling bedtime story. I've always been a twitchy insomniac, but now I discover the sublime and fathomless comfort that comes of drifting off beside your family in the belly of such a refuge, between the winking lantern and the sighing sea. So here we are asleep and dreaming in 'lighthouse world', as Floatel co-founder Tim Wittenbecher described it when I spoke to him on the phone. 'A lighthouse is the most purely positive structure we can think of,' Wittenbecher told me. 'It has only good associations.' He discovered just how many people feel this way 20 years ago, when he and his wife turned a ruined beacon into a guest house on the Baltic Sea. Hundreds responded immediately to their first online ad, and their pet project became a business model. As Floatel, it has since entered public-private agreements to take over the empty lodgings of lighthouses in spots from Ischia in the Gulf of Naples to La Palma in the Canary Islands. 'They are always in super-attractive positions, in dramatic, romantic and mostly quite abandoned areas,' said Wittenbecher. All broadly true of the Faro de Cudillero, though it's not as far removed from civilisation as some others in his portfolio, and is close enough to the village that it once served double-duty as the local schoolhouse. It is also handy enough for the present housekeeper, Cristina, to bring us breakfast the next morning – a wicker basket full of pastries, yoghurt, juices, meats and cheeses. A single gull hovers at the window to watch us eat. 'Clear off, you varmint,' says our daughter, shaking a fist and quoting one of her own favourite books, The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch. After breakfast, we wander around Cudillero itself, which forms a kind of amphitheatre in the tight arc of the adjoining cove, with steep vertical staircases and narrow lateral lane-ways stitched between tiers of brightly painted houses. Some have strips of curadillo hung outside – dried sharkskin that's been a totem around here since the days when fishers used the rough flesh to polish their boats, and ate it when they couldn't catch much else. The seafood is still great in these parts. After walking near-deserted beaches at Playa del Silencio and Playa de San Pedro La Ribera, we ascend to lunch at the stone-built mountain inn Cabo Vidio, where the house special is a coastal variation on the region's renowned bean stew, fabada asturiana, made with salt cod hauled from the cold waters below. Cudillero fishmonger Manolo Fernández supplies every restaurant in the vicinity. 'The quality of the produce is the same in each place,' Fernández assures me at his shop beside the port, while cleaning and gutting a hake. 'The only difference is the chef.' He's quick to laugh but also prone to lamentation. 'This used to be a real seafaring village,' says Fernández. 'I remember 230 boats out there; now we're down to about 30.' This shop has been in his family for three generations and almost a century, 'but me and my brother will be the last, I think'. As he cheerfully lists the reasons why – supermarkets, politics, overfishing, the climate crisis – it occurs to me that I'd forgotten all those worries while staying at the lighthouse. There it is above us, and ahead of us: salvation for sailors in trouble. We climb the path back to our perch, and watch our little girl sit cross-legged in a sunbeam on the windowsill, scanning the horizon for mermaids and orcas with the house binoculars. Some day, I'm thinking, this will be a bright spot in my memory – a signal light out of the distant past, flashing dash-dot-dot-dot. B for 'beautiful'. B for 'bygone'. Accommodation was provided by Floatel, which has two two-person apartments at the Cudillero Lighthouse from €190 or €290 a night B&B the entire lighthouse sleeps four and can be rented from €480 a night B&B (four nights for the price of three, seven nights for the price of five)
Scoop
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Hobbiton Movie Set Wins Title Of Largest Film Set In Guinness World Records 2025® Book
Hobbiton Movie Set has proudly been named the Largest Film Set in the 70th Anniversary Edition of the Guinness World Records book. After Tolkienesque scrutiny and research of the many contenders, Guinness World Records determined that the Hobbiton Movie Set met the grade to claim the ultimate prize: not one ring to rule them all, but rather an official Guinness World Records certificate. Hobbiton Movie Set General Manager Tourism, Shayne Forrest says, 'It was very exciting to be contacted by the Guinness World Records team, confirming that Hobbiton Movie Set is indeed the Largest Film Set in the world. Visitors to Hobbiton Movie Set are often blown away by the scale of the Movie Set and the detail they kept in the gardens and Hobbit Holes nestled into the hillsides of The Shire, so to be recognized for this is fantastic'. The Movie Set that visitors travel from all over the world to see today was originally created over nine months in 1999 after Sir Peter Jackson's team of location scouts found a home for the Hobbits in the rolling green hills of the Waikato countryside through an aerial search a year earlier. Help was provided by the New Zealand Army, and soon 39 temporary Hobbit Holes were scattered across the plot used for the set. Filming for The Lord of the Rings trilogy commenced in December 1999, and it took around three months to get a wrap on The Shire. After an initial attempt at demolition, 17 bare plywood facades remained. In 2009, Sir Peter Jackson returned to film The Hobbit trilogy, and he left behind the beautiful Movie Set you'll see today: 44 permanently reconstructed Hobbit Holes, in the same fantastic detail seen in the movies. Hobbiton Movie Set has since grown, with the addition of The Green Dragon Inn in 2012, where visitors conclude their experience with a complimentary Southfarthing beverage. A long-held dream was reached in 2023, when two interior Hobbit Holes were welcomed to the Movie Set allowing visitors to venture beyond the door of a Hobbit's home for the very first time.
