“Strike, strike, strike, strike,” said Millennium Media President Jeffrey Greenstein, when asked about the lack of big projects and deals at this year’s American Film Market. Santa Monica’s annual indie movie showcase, which wraps up Sunday, has been quieter than usual, with no blockbuster sales and only a handful of new projects generating real buzz.
A24’s Civil War, Alex Garland’s new sci-fi film starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Cailee Spaeny, was the rare finished film at AFM that everyone was talking about that appears to have triggered a bidding war. The near-future thriller —”an intellectual action film,” is how one buyer described it — is set in a United States on the brink of total collapse.
But much of the independent film industry remains in a holding pattern, awaiting a final deal between SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to end the actors strike and allow filmmakers to cast their new projects and sales agents to package and present them to buyers international and domestic.
SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP continued negotiations on Thursday and appear to be close to a final contract, if outstanding issues, like the use of AI, can be resolved. The moment a deal is done, many expect a flood of new projects and deals, a burst of business that could create its own problems with too many filmmakers chase too few actors and scheduling slots.
“We were in negotiations with an actor for a movie and had an April slot for next year when the strike happened, so it was pencils down,” said Greenstein. “When the strike ends, we’re going to have to see what else she has on her schedule and if there’ll be a bottleneck.”
The actors strike is only the most immediate crisis for the industry, however. Dealmakers at AFM were more concerned about the more fundamental disruption of the traditional business models that underpin indie film. The windowing system, where a film was licensed to be shown sequentially on different, exclusive exploitation platforms — first theatrical, then transactional or home entertainment, later on pay-TV, streaming and free TV — was smashed by the rise of the streamers, who often did global all rights deals for movies, meaning they were only shown on their platform and nowhere else.
“The different windowing system broke [with] all these windows shrinking or gone completely,” noted Lourdes Diaz, CCO, AGC Studios, “but all rights from the streamers are going away and everything is opening up again.”
Diaz said AGC’s big eight-figure deals with Netflix for Richard Linklater’s Hitman and Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman of the Hour, announced at TIFF, included exclusive theatrical windows. “These films work really well with an audience and so it was important to us, and to our filmmaker partners, to makes sure they could be seen with an audience,” she said.
“The value of the theatrical window is real,” added Maren Olson, EVP, Film at 30WEST. “For so long we’ve been selling to streamers and that ends up being one-stop shopping, whereas before we were trying to sell to literally everybody, and you’d want to get a fee for every single window that your film could possibly have.”
Apple moved into theatrical releasing with Martin Scorsese‘s Western drama Killers of the Flower Moon, which opened to a respectable $23.3 million in its big-screen debut. The tech giant’s next theatrical play will be Ridley Scott’s historic epic Napoleon, starring Joaquin Pheonix, which Apple and Sony will open Nov. 22. Earlier this year, Apple Original Films said it plans to spend $1 billion a year to produce movies intended for theatrical release.
Universal and Blumhouse hit a new theatrical high with the $80 million domestic opening for Emma Tammi’s horror video game adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s, despite Universal’s decision to debut the movie simultaneously on its sister streaming service Peacock. And Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour concert film, released through a direct deal with AMC Theatres, has grossed some $150 million domestically and more than $200 million worldwide.
“Five Nights at Freddy’s shows a simultaneous theatrical and streaming release can work if done right,” said Brian O’Shea, CEO of The Exchange. “But no one knows what works and what doesn’t or where the money is going to come from: Theatrical, transactional, pay-one? The models right now are all over the place.”
“What we are seeing is there is real opportunity in the distribution business,” said Olson. “At the moment in the U.S. there is definitely a need for more domestic buyers. But if we can have those additional theatrical successes, that will lure more distributors back into the business, give everybody more options, and will create a cycle that is positive for business both on the streamers and the theatrical front.”
The latest trailer for Godzilla Minus One dropped on Friday morning, and in the clip, we get a closer look at the awesome scale of the iconic kaiju that’s wreaking havoc in post-war Japan.
The 37th installment in Toho’s long-running monster franchise, the film, which was the closing film at the Tokyo International Film Festival, is a period piece and shows Godzilla appearing as Japan struggles to recover after WW2.
Godzilla Minus One is written and directed by noted CG animator and VFX artist Takashi Yamazaki (Lupin III: The First, The Great War of Archimedes). The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki.
The film is Yamazaki’s third on-screen depiction of Godzilla, following his previous use of the character with CG imagery in Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007) and Seibu-en’s Godzilla the Ride (2021).
Toho International will release the film in North America in November, with Anime Ltd releasing the film in the U.K. and Ireland.
Thanks to enthusiastic buyers at the 2000 American Film Market, Martin Scorsese was finally able to begin filming Gangs of New York, a project that had been germinating for nearly 30 years. Based on Herbert Asbury’s 1927 book The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld, the film, with its detailed re-creations of 19th century Manhattan, follows an Irish immigrant, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who confronts his father’s murderer, the ruthless gang leader Bill the Butcher, portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis.
With a screenplay by Time magazine film critic Jay Cocks — which would eventually be reworked by Steven Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan — the project was originally announced in 1977, but at the time Scorsese instead opted to direct 1980’s Raging Bull. Over the years, as budget estimates rose from $30 million to around $100 million, the project drifted from Universal to Disney. Unable to secure a green light, Scorsese also offered it to Warners, and other studios, which all turned it down. Finally, Miramax Films’ Harvey Weinstein stepped forward in 1999.
But Weinstein needed a financial partner, so he sold foreign rights to the film for $65 million to Graham King, chairman of overseas distribution company Initial Entertainment Group. Sales were brisk: For example, the Japan rights went for $18 million, while the price tag in Italy was $7 million, and IEG was reportedly in the black even before the movie was released. As King told the Los Angeles Times when 20 minutes of the film was previewed at the Cannes Film Festival, “For me to bring [these distributors] a Leonardo DiCaprio picture is huge, because Leo only goes through studios. For us, we wanted to be in the big boys’ game, and this was a way to start.” He added, “It was like a circus. … The Koreans, the Swedish, the Malaysians are coming over to me, ‘Do you really have Leo’?”
Gangs would mark the first of six films that DiCaprio would make with Scorsese, culminating in the current Killers of the Flower Moon. Having shot on elaborate sets built at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, the film finally opened after a yearlong delay in late December 2002, grossing $77.8 million domestically and $193.7 million worldwide.
Filmmaker incubator Stars Collective, launched in 2020 by the China-backed but Beverly Hills-based producer Peter Luo, unveiled two new Asia-led movie projects Wednesday at the American Film Market in Santa Monica. They include the first installment of a still-untitled new horror franchise starring popular Thai actress Kitty Chicha (Girl from Nowhere, The Serpent) and The Evil Sea, a crime thriller based on a real-life maritime incident, to be written and directed by debut feature filmmaker Frank Shang.
Stars Collective describes the new horror franchise as being based on female ghost stories inspired by Asian folklore. In the yet-to-be-titled first film, a bullied high school orphan (Chicha) must confront a twisted tale of love and revenge when she stumbles upon a mysterious katana haunted by a vengeful geisha spirit. Amid unexplained deaths among her bullies, she unravels the haunting’s truth.
The Evil Sea centers on an incident from 2011 involving the Chinese fishing vessel ‘M3792,’ in which a routine fishing expedition turned into a terrifying maritime ordeal. In the film, a rebellion stemming from unfair work contracts escalates into a deadly conflict, with parties turning on each other in a fight for survival.
Executive produced by Luo, the film stars Haoran Zhang, Chenyi Guo, Menghe Wuliji, and Fenggang Liu. Producers are Kevin Feng, John Wu, Wang Yi, Dawei Ma, Jerry Shang and Yong Pang.
“Partnering with talented creatives and providing new opportunities for them to showcase their work to audiences globally is a singular mission for Stars Collective,” says Luo in a statement. “We’re proud and excited to make Kitty Chicha the face of a new franchise that we’re eager to build. Working with Frank Shang on The Evil Sea reflects our desire to build a diverse slate of commercial films.”
The projects come on the heels of Stars Collective partnering with Hana Investment (China), the Chinese subsidiary of Hana Financial Group, to establish a $300 million fund to invest in a number of verticals including comics, films, games, collectibles, consumer goods, artificial intelligence and metaverse technology.
NEW YORK, November 2, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– Natuv Inc. is excited to once again attend SHOT Show.
Some of Natuv’s key personnel will be in attendance.
“For us, it’s always exciting, and we make the best connections at this event,” mentioned Ricky Brava, Chief International Officer, Natuv Inc.
“Natuv Inc. is looking to expand at a national and international level and SHOT Show is always a great way to do so,” says Andrew Zambrowski, Chief of Business Development, Natuv Inc.
“Wherever you go during SHOT Week, you’ll meet members of our industry ready to share ideas and connect,” says Frank Anthony, CVO, Natuv Inc.
SHOT Show is Jan. 23–26, 2024. Admission at the SHOT Show is open to businesses and government entities in the shooting, hunting and outdoor trade as well as commercial buyers and sellers of military, law enforcement and tactical products and services ONLY.
About Natuv Inc.
Our mission is to deliver optimization and advancement to federal, tribal, state, and local governments through reliable, quality, and innovative technology, defense and logistics solutions. Natuv Inc. is an FFL-10 and FEL certified vendor. We support law enforcement, federal government and other regulated institutions with effective defensive solutions, arms, ammunition, surveillance technology, protective gear, less lethal armament and training, and combat drone technology, to name a few.
For media and business development inquiries, contact Andrew Zambrowski, Chief Of Business Development, at andrew@natuv.email. For more information, visit https://www.natuv.com.
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Naomie Harris, Gwendoline Christie and Harry Potter star Mark Williams have joined the ensemble cast of family adventure film Robin and the Hood alongside rising star Darcey Ewart (Prancer: A Christmas Tale, To Olivia).
The film, which completed principal photography over the summer, comes from director Phil Hawkins (Prancer: A Christmas Tale) and was written by Stuart Benson and Paul Davidson, with the script first optioned by Silver Reel in 2021. It’s set to debut as a Sky Original in the U.K. and Ireland on Sky Cinema, with GFM Global Sales handling the film at the AFM following a deal inked prior to the market.
Robin and the Hood follows the tenacious 11-year-old Robin (Ewart) and her loyal band of friends, called “The Hoods,” for whom the patch of overgrown scrubland at the end of their cul-de-sac is a magical kingdom. Sticks and bin lids have become swords and shields, drones have become majestic eagles, and the hippy lady in the forest (Christie) is a terrifying witch. The only thing limiting their colorful imagination is the prospect of losing their kingdom forever. When the slippery property developer Clipboard (Harris, who played Arthur Weasley in the Potter films) turns up and dazzles the parents of the area with promises of health spas and day-care facilities, Robin and The Hoods’ world is faced with an existential threat. Despite the children’s best efforts, their protests fall on deaf ears. When their parents can’t see the wood for the trees, Robin and her friends take matters into their own hands to defend their kingdom.
The film is produced by Silver Reel’s Claudia Bluemhuber and Future Artists Entertainment’s Matt Williams. Alexander Jooss, Florian Dargel and Karol Griffiths (Silver Reel) and Julia Stuart, Andrew Orr (Sky) will executive produce.
“We were excited about Stuart and Paul’s script from the moment we encountered it – Robin and the Hood is a story with a big heart and plenty of laughter, which reminds us of the power and importance of imagination in a world that is swiftly losing it,” said Bluemhuber. “Landing the fantastic (quartet) of Naomie, Mark, Gwendoline and Darcey to lead our cast is a brilliant coup, and we’re thrilled that Sky, Future Artists and GFM are joining us on this adventure!”
When Summit Entertainment brought Christopher Nolan’s Mementoto the American Film Market in 2000, the British- born director was still a relative unknown. The screenplay he wrote for his second feature proved puzzling as it wove together two timelines, one in reverse chronological order, to tell the story of a man with short- term memory loss trying to piece together the truth behind his wife’s murder.
But producer Aaron Ryder, calling it “perhaps the most innovative script I had ever seen,” brought it to Newmarket Films, which agreed to finance the project on a budget that was variously reported as $4.5 million to $9 million. When Newmarket failed to interest an American distributor, the company decided to release it itself domestically, with Summit coming aboard to handle international sales.
After big-name stars like Brad Pitt passed, Australian actor Guy Pearce was cast in the mind-bending lead role, with Carrie-Anne Moss, fresh from The Matrix, and Joe Pantoliano in supporting roles. “The thing was that even though on some level it felt like gobbledegook as I was reading it, because you got the sense that things were all over the place, what was really clear was the emotional journey of the character,” Pearce later told GQ. “As the actor that’s the only thing I need to latch onto in order to do my job. … Once it all made sense to me, I then had to put it all away and let it all go and just treat every scene as its own little thing because I wasn’t supposed to remember what had happened before and obviously had no clue.”
When Memento debuted at the Venice International Film Festival later in 2000, an enthusiastic buzz began building, which continued through the film’s appearances at Deauville, Toronto and Sundance. When it opened theatrically, Memento went on to gross $25.5 million in North America and $40 million worldwide, serving notice that Nolan, who helmed this year’s Oppenheimer, was a rule-breaking director on the rise. Ryder, whose latest film, Dumb Money, just hit theaters, recently told THR, “I knew it was something special, but I don’t think anyone could truly predict the future that he would become one of the greatest and most successful filmmakers ever.”
For the international film industry, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the man nominated to take over as the next president of the Venice Biennale, the foundation that oversees the Venice Film Festival, is a bit of an unknown. Not so in Italy, where Buttafuoco is one of the most prominent voices of Italy’s new right-wing, which has seen political success in the election last year of Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Fratelli d’Italia party.
The 60-year writer and journalist was literally born into the Italian right — his uncle was the extreme-right politician Antonino Buttafuoco —and for decades, as a journalist, novelist and television commenter, has been one of the right-wing’s prime promoters. He wrote a glowing biography of late Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was obsessed with what he saw as the hegemony of “the communists” in Italian cultural institutions. In a recent radio broadcast, he said he says a prayer every morning for Meloni “that she will make it.”
In the Italian media, Buttafuoco’s Biennale appointment is seen as the latest move by Meloni and her Fratelli d’Italia party to exert control over Italy’s culture industry. The government pushed through a law outing the more left-wing management of the Centro Sperimentale, the country’s main film public school, and giving Italian ministries more power over appointing members to its advisory board. Meloni supporters backed the appointment of right-wing journalists Alessandro Giuli and Mauro Mazza to management positions at key cultural institutions. Giuli is the new director of Fondazione MAXXI, which manages Italy’s national museum for contemporary art and architecture. Mazza was named the “extraordinary commissioner” to lead the delegation to the 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair, where Italy will be the country of honor. The government is also looking to put its people in key positions at Rai, Italy’s public broadcaster.
Buttafuoco has cultural management experience —he is president of the Teatro Sabile in Abruzzo and used to run the Teatro Stabile in Catania—but Lido insiders worry he may try to use his new position at the Biennale to push the Venice Film Festival in a more right-wing friendly direction.
“Another glass ceiling has been broken,” said Raffaele Speranzon, deputy group leader of Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party, speaking to the La Stampa newspaper. “Often, the left has considered the Biennale Foundation its own personal fiefdom in which to place friends and acolytes. Buttafuoco, finally, affirms a change that the Meloni government wants to imprint in every cultural and social center of the nation: [Only appointing] people based on their depth, competence, and authority.”
Rachele Scarpa, a local center-left politician, said Speranzon’s comments were “a chilling vision of how the right conceives the cultural institutions of our country.” She added: “What is most alarming is that he calls into question the work of an institution, such as La Biennale, whose sole aim must be to take care of its exhibitions and certainly not to make the Fratelli d’Italia happy.”
La Stampa reported that Buttafuoco posted the phrase “Me Ne Frego,” (I don’t care), a popular slogan with Italian fascist groups, in his WhatsApp profile. He has had close connections with the neo-fascist group, having previously been a member of the central committee of the Italian Social Movement – National Right and the national assembly of the National Alliance, two far-right political groups.
But Buttafuoco’s precise politics are not so easy to pin down.
One of the most well-known facts about Buttafuoco is his decision to convert to Islam. In 2015 Meloni herself blocked Buttafuoco’s candidacy to become governor of Sicily, citing his conversion as the reason. “Everyone is free to practice the religion they want but I believe that in current times, Italy and Europe must claim their Greek, Roman and Christian origins in the face of those who would like to wipe them out,” she said.
Italian undersecretary of culture Vittorio Sgarbi, in contrast, has called Buttafuoco’s Muslim faith “a guarantee of originality” and dialog in his new job running the Biennale.
In 1999, when asked directly by Italian political philosopher Norberto Bobbio if he was a fascist, Buttafuoco’s replied: “I am not a fascist. I am something else.”
What that “something else” will mean for the Venice Film Festival remains an open question.
It’s been a long time coming, but anime veteran Masayuki Yoshihara finally helmed his first feature-length film with the 2023 release Komada — A Whisky Family.
Yoshihara is best known for his anime projects on television, with credits including Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Eden of the East and Dragon Ball Z. In 2013, he helmed the well-received anime series TheEccentricFamily for P.A. Works, based on the popular novel by Tomihiko Morimi. The Kyoto-set fantasy series ran for two seasons (25 episodes in total) and firmly established Yoshihara as a television director, the next step was to helm a fully-fledged anime movie.
The opportunity to direct a feature would come with Komada, which screened this week at the Tokyo International Film Festival and was also part of the competition selection at Annecy Festival, and the Anima’t section at Sitges Festival this year.
Set in the world of Japanese craft whisky production, and — unusually for an anime — based on an original idea, Komada tells the story of Rui, an aspiring artist who takes over the family distillery after the death of her father. The distillery is in a dire financial state following damage from an earthquake and interfamily disagreements on whether to stay independent or sell out to a rival distillery. Meanwhile, a young and seemingly lost journalist, Kotaro, is assigned to write stories about Rui’s attempts to save her family’s distillery and to relaunch Koma, the lost whisky that made the company’s name.
Komada is the latest project in a loose series P.A. Works has dubbed “the working series,” that is, film and TV projects featuring young people trying to navigate more traditional work environments. The other projects in the series include 2011’s Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow, which is set in a hot-spring inn; 2014’s Shirobako, set inside an anime studio; 2017’s Sakura Quest, a tourism-set feature; and 2021’s The Aquatope on White Sand, which takes place in an aquarium.
During the Tokyo Film Festival, Yoshihara, speaking via a translator, opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about directing his first feature, why whisky became the theme, the (welcome) research they undertook for the film, and he offers his take on the challenges facing the anime industry.
Komada — A Whisky Family is your feature directorial debut — was it a challenge to do a feature-length film because it’s something you haven’t done before?
With a feature film, it’s longer, so when I was editing, some new ideas would come up, so it was a little hard to, you know, sort out everything. I have the knowledge and experiences from [working so long in the industry] and not just in terms of technique. I can put my passion into this project. As a director, I need to take a balanced [approach] for the whole project. I need to see the conditions [we’re working with] and also navigate the team, so that was a little bit difficult.
Regarding the animation in Komada, some of the elements were incredible, particularly the scenes with whisky being poured into glasses. Was that difficult to do?
Like you said, pouring liquid into a glass — well that’s really hard to do in animation. We can do those types of scenes by hand drawing them, but even with masterful use of hand drawing you would still feel like you’ve seen it before. For this movie, I wanted to go one level beyond, so for those liquid scenes, we used 3D as a basis.
‘Komada — A Whisky Family’
Courtesy of the Tokyo International Film Festival
Komada is an original story, right? Does that give you more freedom to do what you want? Is there less pressure on the creative process with an original story? Or is there more pressure given you don’t have the IP to rely on to draw fans in?
I would say there’s a lot of pressure on my shoulders! First, I asked myself what did I want to make, and nothing really came into my mind. But for a long time, I’ve worked with and alongside young, aspirational people, and I wanted to put their feelings [and hopes and dreams] into this film. I wanted to show the before and after story of a group of young people, and the framework and story came afterward.
So Komada is part of P.A. Works’ “working series.” What’s the idea behind that?
The president of the company, [Kenji Horikawa], he planned this project that has now become a series. Komada wasn’t planned to be a part of the series, but during production, we realized it could be a good match for the theme [which is workplace dramas]. P.A. Works has a lot of projects that feature young people and their struggles with dealing with life. I also wanted to show the struggle that youth face, so I’m not surprised it matched the “working series” theme.
‘Komada — A Whisky Family’
Courtesy of the Tokyo International Film Festival
What made you set the story in the world of whisky production?
One of the reasons that we chose whisky, is that in the whisky industry it takes three years to mature the product before you get a tangible result. Sometimes they have to wait 10 years for the result. It’s a good way to depict the young people’s struggle [with time] and being patient.
Are you a whisky fan? How much outside help did you have with detailed whisky information in the film?
Actually, just near our company’s office, there is a whisky distillery [Wakatsuru Shuzo]. We always had a lot of outside help with the project.
Did you do a lot of research, in terms of drinking whisky?
(Laughs) Yes!
Is the theme of whisky also a good way of reaching a broader audience?
It’s interesting that there are a lot of whisky fans in Japan, and when they are fans of whisky, they are a little, I don’t know if it’s the right word in English, but they are like maniacs. Somewhat similar to those who like animation, the same level of passion.
Shifting topics a little, there’s been a huge boom in the Japanese animation industry recently, with lots of investment from the likes of Netflix and others. Has the working conditions for animators in Japan improved?
I would say there hasn’t been a big change, in terms of the animator’s position. But one big thing that I feel that these days is the shortage of animators is the problem. That situation has led to the quality of the output dropping.
How do they fix the shortage of animators issue?
Before in the Japanese animation world, we trained staff who applied to us, and that was why the quality was good. But now that we’re facing a shortage of people, we are having to go out to get people through social media, trying to find people who are interested. For those who want to join the industry, there are more opportunities. Before, if you wanted to join this industry, you had to find the door, now there are doors everywhere! The production side is always looking for more talent, so for sure there are more chances.
Japan’s Tetsuya Tomina is a director preoccupied with presence — a beguiling sense of place or striking actors simply existing on screen.
His second feature, Who Were We?, which premiered in competition this week at the Tokyo International Film Festival, is a metaphysical love story that follows a man and a woman — played by young stars Nana Komatsu and Ryuhei Matsuda — who find themselves on the premises of an ancient gold mine on Japan’s remote Sado Island with no memory of how they got there or who they are.
The premise for the film came to Tomina as he was finishing his debut feature Blue Wind Blows (2018), which was also shot on Sado Island (and later premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Generation Kplus section). Walking the island, the director was struck by the sight of a landform known as”Split Mountain” in Japanese, a towering cliff cleft in half centuries ago by the gold mining that took place beneath it for generations beginning in the 1500s.
Sado Island occupies a somewhat spooky place in the Japanese public consciousness. During the Edo period (1603-1868), the ruling Tokugawa shogunate shipped criminals and indigents to Sado Island and forced them to work the mines — often to their deaths. The island is also Japan’s closest landmass to North Korea and it is one of the sights where the Kim regime abducted Japanese citizens in the late 1970s and early 80s. But Tomina remains fixated on the place.
‘Who Were We?’
Courtesy of the Tokyo International Film Festival
“When I saw this cleft mountain, there was something about its presence that I was really drawn to,” he recalls. “During my research, I started to imagine the souls of those who worked in the mines and were buried in unmarked graves. But even though the island has a somewhat negative image, the local people are very kind, the food is delicious and the nature is so beautiful — so I really wanted to spend more time there.”
“I began to imagine the mountain as a place between this world and the next, where two characters who passed away might meet,” he explains.
Who Were We? is shot in rich, full-contrast color, framing its characters and landscapes in a retro 4:3 aspect ratio. With just a trace of plot, the film proceeds at a hypnotic pace, as the characters explore the mine and its surroundings, gradually coming to know one another. But their courtship arrives via innate chemistry since neither character has any recollection of who they were in their prior life.
“Since the story is a bit detached from reality and the characters have a kind of blank psychology, I needed actors who could convince the audience just by being present,” Tomina explains. “Matsuda and Komatsu were my first choice and I’m very grateful they said yes because this was a small production and they are big stars in Japan.”
Komatsu, also an in-demand fashion model, is best known internationally for her performance in Martin Scorsese’s Silence, while Matsuda has appeared in dozens of films but made his career breakthrough at the age of just 15 in Nagisa Ōshima’s Taboo (1999).
The director gave his two leads no background for their characters other than the vague hints of biography that are in the script.
“I don’t like for actors to draw from memory or psychology,” he says. “The way I like to shoot my films is to capture the actors simply as they are — to only capture their existence — and that’s the real reason I wrote this story of characters with no memory.”
After shooting his first two features on Sado Island, Tomina says he’s probably still not ready to let go of the place. Of the two projects he currently has in development, one is again set there.
As an adjunct faculty member at a Canadian university, Jassim has four teaching assistants to help him grade assignments and answer questions. He makes the equivalent of about $7,000 per course, per term. He has a multiyear contract and can typically pick the subjects that he teaches. He has an office, access to professional training and government-provided health insurance.
All of these things, he said, help him focus on the reason that he’s there: his students.
And few of these benefits, or that kind of pay, are available to his counterparts south of the border, in the United States.
The comparatively poor working situation of American adjuncts “is a sad story,” said Jassim, who teaches corporate finance, real estate investment and managerial and engineering economics at McGill University. “It breaks my heart.”
The Redpath Museum on the campus of McGill University in Montreal. Part-time faculty at McGill earn more, on average, and have more benefits than their counterparts south of the border in the United States. Credit: Allen McEachern for The Hechinger Report
Now there’s new scrutiny of how adjuncts’ pay and benefits affect not only them but also their students, who often go into debt to cover rising tuition.
U.S. adjuncts worry about their ability to engage with students and how well their students are learning, according to a new study that compares Canadian adjuncts with what it calls the “woefully under-supported and poorly compensated” American adjuncts.
“You’re almost like a starving artist.”
Antwan Daniels, an adjunct in Kansas City
“The people we’re relying on to teach our youth are dedicated and feel meaning in their jobs but are being relied upon without making a living wage,” said Candace Sue, executive director of Chegg’s Center for Digital Learning, a spin-off of the textbook and study help company that produces resources about technology and education and commissioned the study.
“It’s not fair to them — we know that. But it’s also not fair to the students who are relying on them to be focused on the classroom and to keep them going.”
American adjuncts earn a median of $3,700 per course, an amount that has declined significantly when adjusted for inflation, the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, says. The figure comes from 900 universities and colleges that provide employment data for about 370,000 full-time and 90,000 part-time faculty.
More than one in four adjuncts earn below the federal poverty level for a family of four, another new report, from the American Federation of Teachers, or AFT, finds. More than three-quarters are guaranteed employment for only one term or semester at a time. That information is based on a survey distributed to adjuncts who are AFT members and, through social media, to adjuncts who are not members of the union; 1,043 responded. The AFT represents 85,000 adjuncts who have unionized.
“If you’re cobbling together jobs at different universities to make ends meet, you don’t have the time to do the work you want to with your students,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten.
The arts building at McGill University in Montreal. Part-time faculty at McGill get perks including email accounts so that their students can reach out for recommendations and advice. Credit: Allen McEachern for The Hechinger Report
Fifty-seven percent of adjunct faculty, and almost all of the adjuncts at community colleges, get no medical benefits, the AAUP says. About one in five rely on Medicare or Medicaid, according to the AFT.
“You’re almost like a starving artist,” said Antwan Daniels, an adjunct in Kansas City and father of four who teaches chemistry at three different universities — one in person and two online — while also working on a doctorate in higher education administration.
Though much of the conversation around these salaries and benefits has centered on the toll it takes on adjunct faculty members themselves, researchers have turned to documenting how it is affecting students.
Forty-eight percent of university and college faculty are adjuncts, while fewer than a quarter are now full time and tenured.
“Like with everything, if a contingent faculty [member] doesn’t have security themselves, it’s really hard to do that million and one things to help their students,” said Josh Kim, a sociologist at Dartmouth and a senior fellow at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship at Georgetown University, who began his own career as an adjunct.
More than a third of adjuncts in the Center for Digital Learning study, which was conducted by Hanover Research, said low pay and lack of benefits or job security affected their ability to engage with students and the learning students take with them from class.
Adjunct faculty are more likely than faculty in general to say they don’t have enough time to prepare their courses and don’t receive enough administrative support, according to a breakdown of a September faculty survey provided to The Hechinger Report by the educational publishing and technology company Cengage.
“Unless the school has a well-rounded support system for the adjunct faculty, you’re serving the students at probably 60 percent of your capacity,” Daniels said. “You’re having a rushed conversation. You’re trying to distill it down to, ‘What do you need at this moment?’ ” Students, he said, “are not served in the way they should be.”
Fewer than half of adjuncts say they’ve received the training they need to help students in crisis, the AFT survey found.
More than one in four adjuncts earn below the federal poverty level for a family of four. Fifty-seven percent get no medical benefits.
“We have a population of people that are being depended on to educate students that don’t have all the tools in their toolkit to do it in the way that we as a society expect them to be supported to do their jobs,” Sue said.
These new studies follow earlier findings by the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success showing that increased reliance on part-time and non-tenure track faculty resulted in higher dropout rates, lower grade-point averages and graduation rates and a reduced likelihood that community college students will continue on to four-year institutions for bachelor’s degrees, among other things.
“There are now two decades of research saying that having more exposure to part-time faculty who lack the most support leads to more dropouts, lower graduation rates, lower GPAs and difficulty finding a major,” said Adrianna Kezar, director of the Delphi Project and the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California, where it’s housed.
Last-minute hiring and lack of job security are among the biggest problems, Kezar said. But “it’s overwhelming and cumulative, the number of bad working conditions, so you can’t totally distill out one or two. There are so many of these things that add up.”
What’s bringing new attention to this issue, she said, is that “institutions are being held accountable more” for their success rates, “so they’re more worried about these connections.”
“There are now two decades of research saying that having more exposure to part-time faculty who lack the most support leads to more dropouts, lower graduation rates, lower GPAs and difficulty finding a major.”
Adrianna Kezar, director, Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success
Things appear brighter in Canada, the Center for Digital Learning study found in its comparison. Canadian adjuncts were almost three times less likely to be concerned about low salaries, and 87 percent of them get benefits.
“It does show that alternatives are available,” the report concluded.
While policies like that require financial investments by universities and colleges, Weingarten said it’s mostly a matter of these institutions’ priorities.
Jay Lister, who teaches part time at McGill University in Montreal. “I can’t fathom what I would do without the job security,” he says. Credit: Allen McEachern for The Hechinger Report
Instructional spending by universities, per student, goes down as the proportion of the faculty who are adjuncts goes up, a researcher from the Center for the Study of Academic Labor at Colorado State University found.
People think the cost of higher education is increasing “because there are more and more resources that are going into teaching and learning and it’s completely the opposite,” Weingarten said. “Where is the rising tuition going? Where’s the money going?”
Life as a Canadian adjunct isn’t perfect, said Jay Lister, who teaches education at McGill. But “I have guaranteed employment,” he said. “Even days when I’m just normal stressed, I worry about my students. I can’t fathom what I would do without the job security.”
At a coffee shop near the campus, wearing a union T-shirt, an Expos cap and a long beard tied with elastics, Lister said he also has enough to live on — though he said that might be different if he had kids.
Heather McPherson, a contingent lecturer at McGill, said her daughter — a doctoral candidate in anthropology at a university in California — has none of the relative job security she herself enjoys.
“She’s complained a lot,” McPherson said, outside the Faculty of Education Building on the slope of Mount Royal, which overlooks the city. “I don’t think her students suffer, but her stress level does.”
Adjuncts at McGill even get university email addresses for up to nine semesters after they teach a course, so students can reach out for recommendations or advice, said Jassim, who is president of the university’s Course Lecturers & Instructors Union.
Heather McPherson, a contingent lecturer at McGill University in Montreal. McPherson’s daughter also has part-time teaching duties — as a doctoral candidate in the United States — but with less job security. “She’s complained a lot,” McPherson says. Credit: Allen McEachern for The Hechinger Report
Back in the United States, Kim likened the plight of adjuncts to those of autoworkers and Hollywood writers and actors, who have or are now striking for improved conditions.
“We have this system where the people who actually do the work are getting the least benefits and the least security. I think this is all related,” he said.
“What an enormous resource,” Kim said. “We have these motivated people. Just a little more security and a little more recognition and a little more pay would make such a difference.”
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The mean streets of the Philippines become a testing ground for one young man caught between right and wrong, and life and death, in the coming-of-age crime thriller, The Gospel of the Beast. Written and directed by Sheron Dayoc (Women of the Weeping River), this gritty, despairing look at a country wracked by drugs, robbery and murder is less about the violence — of which there are a few gory examples — than about the limited choices available in a place where poverty seems to eclipse any morality. Premiering in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the well-made if sometimes generic feature should see additional festival play and pickups by streaming services.
Dayoc gives us a hint of what’s to come during a blood-soaked opening sequence set in a slaughterhouse, where 15-year-old Mateo (Jansen Pagpusao) dismembers pigs to help support his brother and sister. When he’s not knee-deep in animal parts, Mateo attends high school but is hardly able to pay attention in class. The fact that his father has mysteriously disappeared, putting the family in dire straits, does not make his life any easier.
The Gospel of the Beast
The Bottom Line
Tough and tender.
Venue: Tokyo International Film Festival (Competition) Cast: Jansen Pagpusao, Ronnie Lazaro, Nathan Sotto, John Renz Javier Director: Sheron Dayoc Screenwriters: Sheron Dayoc, Jeko Aguado
1 hour 25 minutes
After Mateo accidentally kills a rival during an afterschool fight, he has no choice but to flee town and seek protection in the arms of Uncle Berto (Ronnie Lazaro), a close companion of his missing father who leads a band of thieves and killers. Much of The Gospel of the Beast tracks Mateo’s slow initiation at Berto’s behest into Filipino thug life, charting how the irreverent but sweet-faced youth gradually transforms into a hard-nosed criminal.
He moves into an abandoned villa that Berto’s clan has converted into a combination college dorm/torture center, bringing victims back at the request of a wealthy mafioso who utilizes their services.
At first, Mateo is put off by all the dead bodies — which are very much treated like the slaughterhouse pigs — and he seems to be waiting for the right moment to get the hell out of there. But the gang also has its benefits: not only in terms of a livelihood, which is no small matter for the poverty-stricken teenager, but in terms of the camaraderie he’s never been able to find elsewhere.
If Dayoc’s film treads familiar ground, especially during the first act, it distinguishes itself afterwards by lucidly depicting how gangs can often function like surrogate families for kids with nowhere else to turn. Mateo not only gets the hang of being a bad guy, but starts to relish it, befriending another boy, Gudo (John Renz Javier), who moves into the villa. Their relationship is soon tested by the other members, as well as by Berto, forcing Mateo to decide where his allegiances lie: with his new family or himself.
The choice he winds up making speaks to the utter helplessness of his situation, and The Gospel of the Beast feels both realistic and determinedly fatalistic, offering little redemption for Mateo or others like him. Dayoc’s vision of his country’s youth is certainly a grim one, and yet the director never resorts to mere poverty porn, focusing instead on the upsides of communal gang life, including in a drunken singalong sequence filled with tenderness and warmth.
There’s warmth also in cinematographer Rommel Andreo Sales’ lensing, which is less despairing than the world it depicts, giving the locations a certain dreamlike quality. That aesthetic gibes well with the film’s coming-of-age narrative, in which a young boy turns into a man while learning a few life lessons in the process. The catch, though, is that this is the modern-day Philippines, and so what Mateo learns is not, as one would hope, to eventually do the right thing, but rather to harness the beast within.
Godzilla Minus One, the latest installment in Toho’s long-running mega-monster franchise and the Tokyo International Film Festival’s closing title, has locked down distribution in the U.K. and Ireland. Glasgow-based distributor Anime Ltd. has picked up the action movie for a Dec. 15 release.
Anime Ltd. plans to open the film at 200 to 250 locations, which makes it the company’s biggest live-action release to date. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Godzilla franchise and Godzilla Minus One is the first fully Japanese-made film in the series since 2016.
Godzilla Minus One is written and directed by noted CG animator and VFX artist Takashi Yamazaki (Lupin III: The First, The Great War of Archimedes). The film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki. The film is actually Yamazaki’s third on-screen depiction of Godzilla, following his previous use of the character with CG imagery in Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007) and Seibu-en’s Godzilla the Ride (2021). The new film is a period Godzilla pic, set in the early years after World War 2.
Toho’s official story summary for the film reads: “After the war, Japan’s economic state has been reduced to zero. Godzilla appears and plunges the country into a negative state.”
Godzilla Minus One held its world premiere in Japan on Oct.18 and will open theatrically in the country on Nov. 3. Toho International will also release the film in North America on Nov. 1. It is the 37th title in the Godzilla franchise.
Anime Ltd. is best known as a distributor of Japanese anime, having recently handled the U.K. and Ireland release of hit titles in the genre like One Piece Film: Red and The First Slam Dunk.
Steve McQueen bridges the past horrors of Nazi-era Amsterdam with a threatening present-day extremism in the trailer for Occupied City, a four-hour documentary from the 12 Years a Slave helmer inspired by a book by his wife, Dutch filmmaker Bianca Stigter.
The teaser trailer, which A24 dropped on Tuesday (below), remains tightly focused on modern-day Amsterdam as McQueen’s camera captures in his adopted city locals walking, jogging, skating, dancing, getting married and otherwise going about their everyday lives.
But those visuals are overlaid by narrator Melanie Hyam recalling the murders, suicides, resistance and betrayals that convulsed Amsterdam’s Jewish community in the early 1940s as the occupying German’s noose steadily closed around the neck of their embattled community.
That combination of McQueen’s elegant portrait of Amsterdam today and a matter-of-fact narration written by Stigter, author of the book Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945), which inspired the documentary, connects the 1940s and now as the Holocaust serves to foreshadow growing extremism today.
“In 1942, the deportations began,” the viewer hears Hyam recount at one point in the trailer as McQueen shows a young child running in front of the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, happily scattering a flock of seagulls on the ground.
McQueen’s fresh documentary approach to occupied Amsterdam during the first half of the 1940s has the narration never commenting directly on his visuals, but instead indirectly hinting at ghosts from the past.
The trailer at times features present-day police in Amsterdam moving on horseback, in helicopters or armored trucks to disperse crowds, including those protesting COVID-era crackdowns.
Occupied City, which bowed in Cannes and played at Telluride and the New York Film Festival, will open in theaters on Dec. 25.
Lee Sun-kyun, best known for his role in the Oscar-winning Korean film Parasite, will be removed from the new drama No Way Out, a black comedy surrounding the contract killing of a man who is just released from prison after serving 13 years. Lee was expected to play the role of a detective in the film, which started shooting last week.
On Monday, however, producer Studio X+U released a statement, saying it was reviewing various options to replace Lee after news broke that he was being investigated by the police over suspected drug use.
“Following an unfortunate incident last week with the actor Lee Sun-gyun, he expressed that it would take a considerable amount of time to sort out the current situation and that he will inevitably drop out” from shooting the project, the statement read. “The company reached an agreement with Lee’s agency and respects the actor’s position. Shooting will continue as scheduled, and there will be no further delay.”
Aside from No Way Out, two other films starring Lee are currently waiting for a theatrical release. Project Silence, director Kim Tae-gon’s disaster film about people stranded on a collapsing bridge amid heavy fog, was screened at Cannes in May and is waiting for a release next year. Land of Heaven, a film about a soldier caught up in a dramatic event in modern Korean history, is currently in post-production.
Last week, it was reported that the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency had launched a probe into eight suspects, including Lee, over allegations of drug use in local bars and their homes. There was also speculation that Lee had taken drugs together with the offspring of the head of an industrial conglomerate named by the police, but, on Monday, the actor’s attorney said through a local newswire that Lee does not know them.
The attorney, however, neither acknowledged nor denied Lee’s drug use, saying “it’s difficult to say” whether Lee had actually taken the drugs, adding that the star “will cooperate with the police investigation in a faithful manner.”
Hodu & U, Lee’s agency, put out a press release last week, apologizing for any concerns caused to the star’s fans. “We sincerely apologize for any distress caused by the reports regarding actor Lee Seon-gyun,” it said. “We are currently verifying facts around the allegations and will continue to work diligently with law enforcement agencies in any investigations that may be conducted.”
The 48-year-old actor starred in films, including All About My Wife (2012) and King Maker (2018). In 2020, he won a Screen Actors Guild Award with the film Parasite.
Korea has seen a spike in drug-related crimes recently, especially in the entertainment industry. Earlier this year, actor Yoo Ah-in was indicted for taking more than seven types of drugs for non-medical purposes including cocaine. The 37-year-old actor starred in 2018 film Burning and the hitNetflix drama series Hellbound. The release of his film The Match and series Goodbye Earth on Netflix have been postponed indefinitely.
Dining and dashing, but cranked up a notch? Over in Spain, a 50-year-old Lithuanian man locally known as the “gastrojeta” has been arrested and accused of faking heart attacks in an effort to get out of paying restaurant bills!
Restaurant Employees Called The Police After Picking Up On The Alleged Ruse
According to Spain’s EFE news agency, the situation unfolded last month in a touristy section of the city of Alicante.
Moisés Doménech — the manager of the establishment, El Buen Comer — says the man entered and casually requested a seafood dish and a couple of whiskeys.
However, an unnamed employee eventually noticed the customer was trying to dine-and-dash and confronted him. In turn, the 50-year-old reportedly said he was going to retrieve money from his hotel room, though the employee didn’t budge.
At that point, the man is accused of flopping onto the ground and dramatically feigning a heart attack. He allegedly requested that the establishment contact an ambulance for him, though they instead called the police.
Spanish Authorities Confirm The Man “Was Arrested Multiple Times” For His Antics
Once officers arrived at the scene, the man reportedly reiterated his ambulance request. However, he was swiftly recognized and taken into custody.
In a statement to Insider, a spokesperson for the Alicante National Police confirmed the “gastrojeta” was a repeat offender. It’s also noted that the city has had twenty instances of the ruse going down in the past year.
“He was arrested multiple times in the city of Alicante. The modus operandi was the same.”
Additionally, we should add that one responding offer claimed to have arrested the man on four prior occasions, with the first incident occurring in November 2022.
Insider reports that, while the Alicante National Police spokesperson confirms the man was jailed, the specifics remain unclear.
After a thrilling debut season, Heavenly Delusion– the captivating anime that made its debut in the Spring 2023, has left fans wondering if a Season 2 will be in the works. With its unique storyline based on Masakazu Ishiguro’s manga, the first season of Heavenly Delusion took viewers on a thrilling journey filled with mysteries and intrigue. With 13 gripping episodes, Heavenly Delusion wrapped up its initial run this Spring, leaving fans eagerly waiting for news of a potential second season. The final episode of the season left audiences with even more unanswered questions, teasing the possibility of future episodes to come.
As fans anxiously speculate about the fate of Heavenly Delusion, it’s now a waiting game to see if the anime will indeed return for a new season. With its ability to captivate viewers through its intricate plot and compelling characters, there is no doubt that the demand for a Season 2 is high.
There hasn’t been much talk or speculation surrounding the possibility of a second season for the hit anime series, Heavenly Delusion. However, given the immense popularity of the first season, there is a chance that fans might be treated to another installment of this captivating show.
For those who want to catch up on all the thrilling events that have unfolded so far, you’ll be delighted to know that Heavenly Delusion is now available for streaming on Disney+ in international territories. In the United States, you can find it on Hulu under its original Japanese title, “Tengoku Daimakyo.”
Now, let’s dive into what this season has in store for this mesmerizing anime series. Denpa, the company behind Heavenly Delusion, has officially licensed the manga adaptation for an English release. In their teasing description of Heavenly Delusion, they pose an intriguing premise, saying, “Within the safety of the walls, youths are raised in a nursery-style setting by robots. In many ways, it is like a slice of heaven. The outside world, however, has transformed into a nightmarish hell-scape. It is almost entirely devoid of anything mechanical and is now inhabited by bizarre, yet powerful supernatural beings. Maru, accompanied by Kiruko, embarks on a perilous journey across what was once Tokyo, in search of heaven.”
This description sets the stage for what promises to be an enthralling continuation of Heavenly Delusion’s story. As the characters navigate through a post-apocalyptic world filled with otherworldly creatures, viewers can expect a thrilling blend of action, mystery, and thought-provoking themes. The contrast between the utopian sanctuary within the walls and the dystopian wasteland outside creates a captivating dichotomy that will undoubtedly keep fans on the edge of their seats.
The story follows Maru, Tokio, Kiruko, and Minihime as they embark on a quest to find the mythical utopia known as ‘Heaven’. Along their journey, they find themselves in a post-apocalyptic world teeming with formidable supernatural beings. As the plot unravels, the characters delve deep into understanding the true essence of life and the importance of their individual roles within it.
With the manga adaptation being licensed and made available to English-speaking audiences, fans can look forward to immersing themselves even further into the intricacies of Heavenly Delusion’s narrative. The manga will provide a deeper exploration of the characters’ motivations, histories, and relationships, enhancing the overall viewing experience for both longtime fans and newcomers alike.
As we eagerly await news of the second season’s release, it’s clear that Heavenly Delusion has made a lasting impact on anime enthusiasts worldwide. Its unique blend of captivating storytelling, stunning visuals, and compelling characters has garnered a dedicated fanbase that eagerly anticipates the next chapter in this extraordinary series.
Whether you’re a devoted follower of Heavenly Delusion or someone who’s yet to experience its wonders, make sure to keep an eye out for updates on the second season. As the journey continues, we can expect to be taken on an unforgettable adventure through the remnants of Tokyo, where the line between heaven and hell blurs and the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
MONTREAL, December 6, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– The Passport Index has published its latest update today, showing that global mobility is rising, despite the eruption of conflict in Europe and growing tensions over borders. Though the world continues to feel the aftershocks of the pandemic, surprisingly, traveling has never been easier, with steady growth in passport power, a trend that is predicted to continue into 2023. Across these findings, what stands out, in particular, is that the passport of almost every single country around the world became more powerful this year.
Table 1: Top 10 changes in mobility score
Table 2: Bottom 10 changes in mobility score
This may be surprising given the ongoing war in Ukraine in combination with systemic pressures on international supply chains. However, the latest data from the Passport Index indicates strong mobility growth. Whilst the removal of Covid-19 restrictions has certainly played a role, countries around the world have also been keen to reap the economic benefits offered by enabling easy movement around the world. Passport power around the world has increased by an average of 16 points this year, with just one country, Vanuatu, seeing its mobility score fall. This was due to the suspension of their visa waiver scheme with the European Union. The fact the power of their passport has fallen by just seven points despite this indicates strong growth elsewhere.
Table 3: 10 most powerful passports (2022)
Not only are passports becoming more powerful, but countries are becoming increasingly open to visa-free arrivals. Prior to the pandemic, the average growth of the World Openness Score was 3.6% a year. After the impact of the pandemic, the score experienced a decline of 65%, falling from 21,360 to 12,944. Since then, growth has rebounded spectacularly, with an average growth rate of 18.8%. At the end of 2022, this score now stands at 21,695; the highest it’s ever been.
The finding of general growth in global mobility does, however, obscure some of the winners and losers this year. The UK falls into this latter category: though it has seen its global mobility score rise again, its year-on-year gains have stagnated relative to other European states, such as France. This trend appears set to continue as the UK struggles to strike the visa agreements achieved by states within the EU. This is largely attributable to the consequences of leaving the common market.
Alongside the rise in passport power around the world, countries, in general, have become more welcoming, with a greater number of countries accepting more passports visa-free, with visa on arrival, or with electronic travel agreement. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Africa, where many countries, especially those in Central and West Africa, have continued to create a travel environment that is accessible to all, no matter the nationality on your passport. The Passport Index’s Welcoming Countries Rank shows that 15 of the 23 most welcoming countries in the world are found in Africa, welcoming 198 countries out of 199.
Hrant Boghossian, Co-founder of the Passport Index, commented that “the rise in passport power that we have seen this year brings great cause for optimism. The world has surpassed the benchmark of ‘openness’ set prior to the pandemic, and there are strong indicators that this upward trend is here to stay. It is particularly encouraging to see such growth at a time of heightened geopolitical tension and economic turmoil, indicating that countries agree that a world with fewer borders has the potential to address some of the defining challenges of the 21st century.”
NEW DELHI — Israel’s envoy to India on Tuesday denounced a filmmaker from his country after he called a blockbuster Bollywood film on disputed Kashmir a “propaganda” and “vulgar movie” at a film festival, stoking a debate about recent history that fuels the ongoing conflict.
Naor Gilon, Israel’s ambassador to India, said he was “extremely hurt” by comments made by filmmaker Nadav Lapid in which he said the movie “The Kashmir Files” was unworthy of being screened at the highly acclaimed International Film Festival of India. The event, organized by the Indian government in western Goa state, ended Monday.
“The Kashmir Files” was released in March to a roaring success and is largely set in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when attacks and threats by militants led to the migration of most Kashmiri Hindus from the Muslim-majority disputed region. Many film critics and Kashmiri Muslims have called the film hateful propaganda, while its fans and proponents, including India’s many federal government ministers, see it as essential viewing of the plight of Kashmiri Hindus, locally called Pandits.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the territory in full. In 1989, tens of thousands of mostly Kashmiri Muslims rose up against Indian rule, leading to a protracted armed conflict in the region.
On Tuesday, Gilon tweeted at Lapid, saying: “YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED.”
“I’m no film expert but I do know that it’s insensitive and presumptuous to speak about historic events before deeply studying them and which are an open wound in India because many of the involved are still around and still paying a price,” Gilon tweeted. He also accused Lapid of inflicting damage on the growing relationship between India and Israel.
The festival jury has distanced itself from Lapid’s remarks and called them his “personal opinion.” An internationally acclaimed director, Lapid’s movies “Synonyms” and “Ahad’s Knee” have won awards at major festivals.
At the time of its release, “The Kashmir Files” was endorsed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and promoted by his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party by offering it tax breaks in some states governed by it.
The film, however, set off heated debates. Its supporters praised it for speaking the truth about Kashmiri Hindus, while critics said the film was aimed to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments at a time when calls for violence against India’s minority Muslims have increased.
Nonetheless, the film was a blockbuster. Made on a budget of $2 million, it has earned more than $43 million so far, making it one of India’s highest-grossing films this year.
The filmmakers of “The Kashmir Files” have repeatedly said it exposes what they call the “genocide” inflicted on the region’s Hindus and likened it to Hollywood’s ″Schindler’s List″ that tells the story of the Holocaust. But many critics, including some of Bollywood’s top directors, have called it divisive, full of factual inaccuracies and provocative.
Hindus lived mostly peacefully alongside Muslims for centuries across the Himalayan region of Kashmir. In the late 1980s, when Kashmir turned into a battleground, attacks and threats by militants led to the departure of most Kashmiri Hindus, who identified with India’s rule, Many believed that the rebellion was also aimed at wiping them out. It reduced the Hindus from an estimated 200,000 to a tiny minority of about 5,000 in the Kashmir Valley.
Most of the region’s Muslims, long resentful of Indian rule, deny that Hindus were systematically targeted, and say India helped them to move out in order to cast Kashmir’s freedom struggle as Islamic extremism.
According to official data, over 200 Kashmiri Hindus were killed in the last three decades of the region’s conflict. Some Hindu groups put the number much higher.
Tensions in Kashmir returned in 2019, when India’s Hindu nationalist government stripped the region’s semi-autonomy, split it into two federal territories administered by New Delhi and imposed a clampdown on free speech accompanied by widespread arrests. Kashmir has since witnessed a spate of targeted killings, including that of Hindus. Police blame anti-India rebels for the killings.
On Tuesday, “The Kashmir Files” actor Anupam Kher, who plays a protagonist, called the criticism of the film “preplanned.”
“If the Holocaust is right, then the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits is also right,” Kher said in a video posted on Twitter.
“The Kashmir Files” is directed by Vivek Agnihotri, whose previous film “The Tashkent Files” alleged a conspiracy in the death of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. The film was heavily criticized for presenting unproven conspiracy theories as facts.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a major disruptor of American colleges’ international-education efforts, yet college leaders surveyed by the American Council on Education remain optimistic about the future of higher education’s global engagement.
Sixty percent of colleges said that their level of institutional internationalization during the pandemic was low or very low, according to a new report, “Mapping Internationalization on U.S. Campuses,” released today. By contrast, 47 percent of institutions said their international activities had been accelerating in the years prior to the pandemic, 2016 to 2020.
Still, academic leaders took a positive view of future internationalization efforts, with two-thirds predicting that their institution’s overall level of international engagement would increase in the next five years.
Despite that hopeful outlook, the report, the fifth in a series of surveys the council has conducted since 2006, shows that the shift away from international education as a campus priority actually began before the pandemic. For instance, in 2016, 72 percent of colleges reported their internationalization efforts were accelerating, compared with only about half of institutions in the years immediately preceding the Covid outbreak.
The number of colleges that include international or global education in their mission statements or strategic plans has also declined over the years. In the 2012 report, 51 percent of respondents said internationalization was part of their institutional mission. By 2017, the share had fallen to 49 percent. In this latest survey, 43 percent answered in the affirmative.
Likewise, the share of colleges reporting that international education is among the top five priorities in their strategic plan has decreased over time: 52 percent in 2012, 47 percent in 2017, and just 36 percent in the most recent report.
The report’s authors don’t delve into the reasons for this shift, but as The Chronicle has previously reported, the factors may include a continuing budget squeeze following the 2009 recession, a growing reckoning with the negative social and economic consequences of globalization, and, critically, a political and policy environment during the Trump administration that put global mobility and international academic partnerships in the cross hairs.
There are also questions about whether colleges truly institutionalized their commitment to international engagement. Indeed, in the latest report, only 18 percent of respondents said they had a formal strategy for striking partnerships with universities around the globe. Just 28 percent said they had assessed the impact of their international engagement in the past three years.
Taken together, the findings paint a troubling picture of American colleges de-emphasizing international education at a time that global interconnectedness and collaboration is more crucial than ever — as underscored by the pandemic itself.
But at the same time, college leaders’ sense of confidence about the future of internationalization suggests a possible, more optimistic scenario, one in which the pandemic-enforced pause on many international activities could lead to stronger re-engagement. We may have to wait until the next survey to measure it definitively.
Meanwhile, here are some additional highlights from the newly released survey, which includes responses from 903 institutions:
College leaders’ experience with and views on global engagement differs by institutional type. Respondents at doctoral institutions, for example, were much more bullish about the future of international engagement, with 78 percent saying they expected their colleges’ level of internationalization to increase in the next five years. Among those at associate colleges, 56 percent had a similarly positive outlook.
Likewise, doctoral and baccalaureate institutions were much more likely to include international education in their mission statements than associate or special-focused colleges.
Colleges emphasize educational and diversity goals as key drivers for internationalization. Although tuition dollars from international students have become more critical to colleges’ bottom line, only a third of respondents said that “to generate revenue for the institution” was a primary reason for global engagement, making it a distant fourth choice.
The top two reasons were “improving student preparedness for a global era,” selected by 70 percent of respondents, and “diversifying students, faculty, and staff,” cited by 64 percent.
Colleges have increased the support they give international students, both in and out of the classroom. Three quarters of respondents reported having an orientation to their institution or to the American classroom for international students, up from 69 percent five years earlier. Two thirds of colleges said they provide individualized academic support services. And more than half said they offer mental-health services for international students, who were a particularly vulnerable group during the pandemic.
Institutions have increased professional-development opportunities for faculty members related to internationalization, such as workshops to help them integrate more international-learning outcomes into the curriculum and use technology to enhance the international dimensions of their courses.
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