Latest news with #WildatHeart
Daily Mirror
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Gerald the giraffe brutally killed film-maker with horrifying headbutt
Carlos Carvalho, 47, was tragically killed after being hit by a giraffe while filming at a safari lodge in South Africa, with a colleague saying the attack came 'out of nowhere' In a tragic turn of events, an award-winning 47 year old film director was fatally injured by a single headbutt from a giraffe while on location at a South African safari lodge. During the shoot, as Carlos Carvalho attempted to get close-up footage of Gerald the giraffe, the animal unexpectedly lashed out with its neck, catapulting the director through the air and onto the ground. Carvalho tragically passed away from his injuries that night after being flown to a Johannesburg hospital, as reported by CallaCrew, a film agency. The incident occurred at Glen Afric farm in Broederstroom, a site famed for featuring in the British series Wild at Heart. Richard Brooker, whose family owns the lodge, insisted that Gerald, the male giraffe involved, would not face euthanasia since he wasn't considered a threat. "When Carlos was standing in front of the giraffe, the animal spread its legs, bent its neck and swung its head at Carlos," said Brooker. "Gerald will remain at the lodge. He did nothing wrong," he told The Telegraph, reports the Irish Star. A Glen Afric spokesperson implied that Carlos had ignored safety protocols by moving away from the group and getting too close to the animals. Drikus Van Der Merwe, who was present during the May 2, 2018 incident, recounted: "The giraffe started chasing the boom swinger who joined our unit." He recounted to the Sun: "We didn't feel threatened because he just seemed to be inquisitive." Nonetheless, the situation took a grave turn in an instant, culminating in the tragic death of the filmmaker mere hours later. "We started shooting closeups of its body and its feet. Then while Carlos was looking through the camera eyepiece Gerald swung his neck and hit him against his head. "It came out of nowhere and Carlos didn't even see it coming. He wasn't aware of the danger. Even after witnessing such an intense and frightening set of events, Drikus optimistically believed that Carlos would pull through, not foreseeing the grievous outcome. He admitted: "I knew he had a severe head trauma. But I never thought he would die." Carlos had earned acclaim for his craft, winning a Cannes Lion award in 2003 for a South African Childline public service announcement, and served as director of photography on 'The Forgotten Kingdom', the pioneering feature film made in Lesotho. Emotional tributes poured in on Facebook for the Johannesburg father-of-two, with heartfelt remembrances hailing him as a "wonderful human being". His colleague Chris Roland lamented: "Deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Carlos Carvalho, a very nice guy and talented DOP [director of photography] I had the honour of working with twice. A great loss to the industry. Farewell Carlos!". Props master Thabiso Mohapi also expressed his grief: "RIP my brother! Meeting and greeting you that morning at breakfast shooting the first scenes of the morning didn't know it was our last time together."
Irish Daily Mirror
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
Film director, 47, killed by giraffe after being headbutted on safari
A 47-year-old acclaimed film director tragically lost his life after being headbutted by a giraffe while filming at a safari lodge in South Africa. Carlos Carvalho was capturing close-up shots of Gerald the giraffe when the animal unexpectedly swung its neck, catapulting Carlos through the air and causing him to crash to the ground. Sadly, Carlos succumbed to his injuries later that night after being airlifted to a hospital in Johannesburg, as reported by CallaCrew, a film agency. He had been shooting scenes at Glen Afric farm in Broederstroom, a location famed for its appearances in the British TV series Wild at Heart. Richard Brooker, whose family owns the lodge, confirmed that Gerald, the bull giraffe, would not be put down as he was not considered dangerous. "When Carlos was standing in front of the giraffe, the animal spread its legs, bent its neck and swung its head at Carlos," Brooker detailed. "Gerald will remain at the lodge. He did nothing wrong," Brooker informed The Telegraph, reports the Irish Star. A spokesperson from Glen Afric suggested that Carlos had strayed from the group and ignored safety instructions not to approach the animals. Drikus Van Der Merwe, a member of the film crew who was standing next to Carlos during the incident on May 2, 2018, said: "The giraffe started chasing the boom swinger who joined our unit." He told to the Sun: "We didn't feel threatened because he just seemed to be inquisitive." Yet, in a tragic twist of fate, the filmmaker met his end mere hours later. Drikus said: "We started shooting closeups of its body and its feet. Then while Carlos was looking through the camera eyepiece Gerald swung his neck and hit him against his head. It came out of nowhere and Carlos didn't even see it coming. He wasn't aware of the danger." Despite witnessing such a sudden and violent incident, Drikus held onto hope that his colleague would pull through, admitting: "I knew he had a severe head trauma. But I never thought he would die." Carlos was celebrated for winning a Cannes Lion award for a South African Childline public service announcement in 2003 and served as the director of photography for The Forgotten Kingdom, the first feature film produced in Lesotho. The Johannesburg father-of-two was honoured on Facebook as a "wonderful human being". Chris Roland said: "Deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Carlos Carvalho, a very nice guy and talented DOP [director of photography] I had the honour of working with twice. A great loss to the industry. Farewell Carlos!". Props master Thabiso Mohapi said: "RIP my brother! Meeting and greeting you that morning at breakfast shooting the first scenes of the morning didn't know it was our last time together."
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Meghan Markle's Often-Worn Pendant Carries a Hidden Meaning, Jewelry Designer Says
Like her sister-in-law Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle often wears jewelry loaded with symbolism. Such is the case for a pendant by Sophie Lis that the Duchess of Sussex has worn on numerous occasions, including to the Invictus Games in 2022 and on season 1 of Netflix's With Love, Meghan. In a new interview, Lis speaks more about Meghan's relationship with the brand, including poignant earrings Meghan wore on her last day as a working royal in March it comes to Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, endless stories are told through their accessories—from earrings to bracelets to necklaces. Such was the case when Meghan chose Sophie Lis' Love Pendant—a piece she first wore in 2020 and has worn several times since, including while arranging flowers on Netflix's With Love, Meghan and at the Invictus Games in 2022. Speaking to Page Six, Lis said the pendant symbolizes 'ever-growing love': 'It was particularly special when Meghan first got photographed wearing that piece, as we gave 10 percent from each sale to a dog charity I support called Wild at Heart, based in Notting Hill,' said Lis, who is based in London. (Meghan would no doubt approve—she's a well-known dog lover herself.) The diamond and ruby pendant was inspired by 19th century French poet Rosemonde Gérard's 'The Eternal Song' and reads '+ qu'hier' and '— que demain,' meaning, 'I love you more today than yesterday but less than tomorrow.' Meghan has worn other pieces from Lis' collection, including wearing a pair of her hoop earrings for her final day as a working royal in March 2020. 'Meghan was a fan of us right from the beginning,' Lis said. 'She became aware of our brand just before she moved to the U.S., but there was no gifting—she definitely bought her pieces.' Lis added that the Duchess of Sussex has 'always been a great supporter, and I'm very grateful for her raising awareness of the brand, especially as the storytelling behind each piece is meaningful.' Of the Fallen Star Earrings Meghan chose to wear on her last day as a working royal five years ago, Lis said that the set is 'meant to offer guidance and direction. It's such a nice thought to follow the star.' Page Six reported that royal cousin Princess Eugenie also owns a pair of the hoop earrings, as does Meghan's longtime friend Abigail Spencer, who appeared on With Love, Meghan's first season. 'My jewelry has always been inspired by things beyond our understanding—the beauty of our world and infinite possibility of the unknown,' Lis said. Read the original article on InStyle
Sydney Morning Herald
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Nicolas Cage goes Down Under and way over the top in South West-set Ozploitation flick
When Lorcan Finnegan received a phone call from Nicolas Cage's agent with the news that the American Oscar winner had agreed to star in his beachside surrealist comedy/drama The Surfer, the Irish director admits that it filled as much with trepidation as exhilaration. The Dublin-based former graphic designer had secured the services of one of the most celebrated performers of our time (Wild at Heart, Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation, among many, many others) and one of the few actors whose presence in a movie guarantees attention, if not an audience. Yet Cage is famous for his method antics, such as eating cockroaches in Vampire's Kiss, having his own teeth pulled for Birdy and, more recently, staying in character as a chilling pale-faced serial killer during the whole time was on the set of Longlegs. While there's plenty of crazy on the screen in The Surfer, which is about an American businessman who returns to his hometown of Yallingup to buy the house in which he grew up and winds up in a Wake in Fright -ish stoush with the xenophobic local surfers, Finnigan reveals Cage went about his business with supreme professionalism. 'He was brilliant to work with,' says Finnegan, whose 2019 surrealist horror film Vivarium caught the eye of Cage and paved the way for their collaboration. 'Nic arrived on set incredibly prepared. 'He knew the script inside out. And he's had so much experience as an actor he's finely tuned. He can almost see what the camera sees. 'So if you want to make a tiny adjustment, and you're explaining what must be done, Nic would cut me off. 'Yeah, I got it,' he'd say, then launch into another take in which the blocking was perfect.' 'A lot of the time he was covered in glycerin to give the impression he was sweating and would be covered with flies. Nic took it all in his stride.' Lorcan Finnegan While Cage kept popping up on Instagram during the shooting of the film late in 2023 in Yallingup – a popular beachside tourist destination 256 kilometres south of Perth – he largely kept to himself, staying in the home of surf legend Taj Burrow and each day taking a short walk to the car park where the film is almost entirely set. 'He was completely devoted and dedicated to the film,' Finnigan says over video call from his home in Ireland. 'Nothing else mattered to him during his time in Australia but making the movie. And there was absolutely no arrogant movie-star behaviour you hear about all the time with actors of this level. 'Even between takes he wouldn't go back to his trailer. He would sit around in a deckchair in the car park with the rest of the crew. 'A lot of the time he was covered in glycerin to give the impression he was sweating and would be covered with flies. Nic took it all in his stride. He would just go into this zen-like space and wait for us to be ready for him.' Loading There are many reasons why Finnigan targeted Cage, but the strongest may well be the inspiration for the film, the 1968 surrealist drama The Swimmer, in which Burt Lancaster plays a Connecticut business executive who vows swim through a series of backyard swimming pools to his home (the film, based on a classic short story by John Cheever, is also an inspiration for Mad Men and the new John Hamm series Your Friends and Neighbors). Cage's surfer, in an amusing contrast, struggles to get to the water as the locals all seem to be in a group gaslighting conspiracy to make him think he is going out of his mind (or maybe he is). It's a Christmastime Kafka story on an Oz beach. 'Nic has the same charisma as Burt Lancaster. He exudes power and success,' Finnegan says. 'So when we come to realise that all is not well with his character it hits hard. It is a shock for the audience when in the course of a few days his life starts to unravel, and he goes on a Jungian journey in which he must lose everything in order to find himself. 'My goal was to make a film that was from the subjective point of view of this character. I wanted the audience to kind of go on the journey in which you experience what he experiences. 'If he becomes delirious, you feel delirious; if he's filled with rage, you're filled with rage; and if he's doing something disgusting, you think it's disgusting.' The Surfer 's high-brow literary origins may surprise, as ever since Finnegan's film was unveiled at in the Midnight Screenings section of last year's Cannes Film Festival it has been buzzed about as a nod to the Ozploitation movies of the 1970s, those down-and-dirty genre films beloved by Quentin Tarantino such as Stone, The Cars That Ate Paris and Mad Max. 'The Surfer has an Ozploitation vibe, but it is a serious examination of masculinity in crisis.' Lorcan Finnegan Finnigan says that he and the film's writer, fellow Dubliner Thomas Martin, forged a friendship over their mutual love for Australian cinema of the 1970s, particularly its more garish manifestation. 'Tom and I were drawn to these twisted tales in Australian movies because they're connected to our own dark stories,' he says. 'Irish storytelling is very black and weird, which is something you don't see much in our own cinema. We were seeing more of this reflected in the Australian New Wave in films such as Wake in Fright and Walkabout, which is why we were drawn to them.' Despite the Ozploitation style — Cage's full-blooded performance, the eye-popping expressionistic visuals, the beating sun inducing a feeling of madness, exhaustion and despair — the narrative is still tethered to Cheever and his examination of masculinity in crisis, with the surfer being sucked into the orbit of a very contemporary men's group headed by Julian McMahon' Scally. 'Cage's character is looking for belonging because it is linked to his identity,' says Finnegan, whose production was enabled by ScreenWest and relied heavily on WA talent such as production designer Emma Fletcher and costume designer Lien See Leong. Loading 'The home and the beach that he wants to return to is a part of his identity, although it is a warped nostalgic memory not based in reality. 'So he is drawn into a cult by this Jordan Peterson/Joe Rogan-ish figure who is attracting guys who are lost and looking for a father figure. 'The Surfer has an Ozploitation vibe, but it is a serious examination of masculinity in crisis.'
The Age
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Nicolas Cage goes Down Under and way over the top in South West-set Ozploitation flick
When Lorcan Finnegan received a phone call from Nicolas Cage's agent with the news that the American Oscar winner had agreed to star in his beachside surrealist comedy/drama The Surfer, the Irish director admits that it filled as much with trepidation as exhilaration. The Dublin-based former graphic designer had secured the services of one of the most celebrated performers of our time (Wild at Heart, Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation, among many, many others) and one of the few actors whose presence in a movie guarantees attention, if not an audience. Yet Cage is famous for his method antics, such as eating cockroaches in Vampire's Kiss, having his own teeth pulled for Birdy and, more recently, staying in character as a chilling pale-faced serial killer during the whole time was on the set of Longlegs. While there's plenty of crazy on the screen in The Surfer, which is about an American businessman who returns to his hometown of Yallingup to buy the house in which he grew up and winds up in a Wake in Fright -ish stoush with the xenophobic local surfers, Finnigan reveals Cage went about his business with supreme professionalism. 'He was brilliant to work with,' says Finnegan, whose 2019 surrealist horror film Vivarium caught the eye of Cage and paved the way for their collaboration. 'Nic arrived on set incredibly prepared. 'He knew the script inside out. And he's had so much experience as an actor he's finely tuned. He can almost see what the camera sees. 'So if you want to make a tiny adjustment, and you're explaining what must be done, Nic would cut me off. 'Yeah, I got it,' he'd say, then launch into another take in which the blocking was perfect.' 'A lot of the time he was covered in glycerin to give the impression he was sweating and would be covered with flies. Nic took it all in his stride.' Lorcan Finnegan While Cage kept popping up on Instagram during the shooting of the film late in 2023 in Yallingup – a popular beachside tourist destination 256 kilometres south of Perth – he largely kept to himself, staying in the home of surf legend Taj Burrow and each day taking a short walk to the car park where the film is almost entirely set. 'He was completely devoted and dedicated to the film,' Finnigan says over video call from his home in Ireland. 'Nothing else mattered to him during his time in Australia but making the movie. And there was absolutely no arrogant movie-star behaviour you hear about all the time with actors of this level. 'Even between takes he wouldn't go back to his trailer. He would sit around in a deckchair in the car park with the rest of the crew. 'A lot of the time he was covered in glycerin to give the impression he was sweating and would be covered with flies. Nic took it all in his stride. He would just go into this zen-like space and wait for us to be ready for him.' Loading There are many reasons why Finnigan targeted Cage, but the strongest may well be the inspiration for the film, the 1968 surrealist drama The Swimmer, in which Burt Lancaster plays a Connecticut business executive who vows swim through a series of backyard swimming pools to his home (the film, based on a classic short story by John Cheever, is also an inspiration for Mad Men and the new John Hamm series Your Friends and Neighbors). Cage's surfer, in an amusing contrast, struggles to get to the water as the locals all seem to be in a group gaslighting conspiracy to make him think he is going out of his mind (or maybe he is). It's a Christmastime Kafka story on an Oz beach. 'Nic has the same charisma as Burt Lancaster. He exudes power and success,' Finnegan says. 'So when we come to realise that all is not well with his character it hits hard. It is a shock for the audience when in the course of a few days his life starts to unravel, and he goes on a Jungian journey in which he must lose everything in order to find himself. 'My goal was to make a film that was from the subjective point of view of this character. I wanted the audience to kind of go on the journey in which you experience what he experiences. 'If he becomes delirious, you feel delirious; if he's filled with rage, you're filled with rage; and if he's doing something disgusting, you think it's disgusting.' The Surfer 's high-brow literary origins may surprise, as ever since Finnegan's film was unveiled at in the Midnight Screenings section of last year's Cannes Film Festival it has been buzzed about as a nod to the Ozploitation movies of the 1970s, those down-and-dirty genre films beloved by Quentin Tarantino such as Stone, The Cars That Ate Paris and Mad Max. 'The Surfer has an Ozploitation vibe, but it is a serious examination of masculinity in crisis.' Lorcan Finnegan Finnigan says that he and the film's writer, fellow Dubliner Thomas Martin, forged a friendship over their mutual love for Australian cinema of the 1970s, particularly its more garish manifestation. 'Tom and I were drawn to these twisted tales in Australian movies because they're connected to our own dark stories,' he says. 'Irish storytelling is very black and weird, which is something you don't see much in our own cinema. We were seeing more of this reflected in the Australian New Wave in films such as Wake in Fright and Walkabout, which is why we were drawn to them.' Despite the Ozploitation style — Cage's full-blooded performance, the eye-popping expressionistic visuals, the beating sun inducing a feeling of madness, exhaustion and despair — the narrative is still tethered to Cheever and his examination of masculinity in crisis, with the surfer being sucked into the orbit of a very contemporary men's group headed by Julian McMahon' Scally. 'Cage's character is looking for belonging because it is linked to his identity,' says Finnegan, whose production was enabled by ScreenWest and relied heavily on WA talent such as production designer Emma Fletcher and costume designer Lien See Leong. Loading 'The home and the beach that he wants to return to is a part of his identity, although it is a warped nostalgic memory not based in reality. 'So he is drawn into a cult by this Jordan Peterson/Joe Rogan-ish figure who is attracting guys who are lost and looking for a father figure. 'The Surfer has an Ozploitation vibe, but it is a serious examination of masculinity in crisis.'
