#zainab creates movies!

[doeroneforall]

 Heartwrenching and Timeless, 'Gadar: Ek Prem Katha' Chronicles a Love Defying Partition

In the annals of Indian cinema, there exists a masterpiece that doesn't just entertain but also encapsulates the tumultuous pages of history. This cinematic gem is none other than "Gadar: Ek Prem Katha," a poignant narrative that unfolds amidst the heartbreaking chaos of India's Partition. At its core, "Gadar: 

Ek Prem Katha" is a tale of love that defies the boundaries of time, religion, and geography. The central characters, Boota Singh and Zainab, embody a love that is tested to the limits by the historic turmoil that surrounds them. Boota, portrayed brilliantly by Sunny Deol, is a courageous, hardworking Sikh man, deeply rooted in his principles and love for his country. 

Zainab, played with grace by Ameesha Patel, is a strong-willed Muslim woman who captures Boota's heart with her beauty, spirit, and compassion. The backdrop of India's Partition in 1947 adds layers of complexity to their love story. As the nation is torn apart by communal violence and political upheaval, Boota and Zainab find themselves caught in the crosscurrents of history. Families are torn apart, friendships shattered, and communities disintegrate as the subcontinent witnesses one of the most painful chapters in its history. Amidst this turmoil, their love blossoms, serving as a glimmer of hope in a sea of darkness. 

The film doesn't shy away from depicting the harsh realities of that era. The brutality of the Partition, the pain of separation, and the emotional scars it leaves behind are portrayed with a raw intensity that leaves a deep impact on the audience. It's a painful reminder of the human cost of political decisions and the resilience of those who survive the chaos. What makes "Gadar: Ek Prem Katha" truly special is its ability to transcend the boundaries of time. It's not just a period piece; it's a timeless love story that resonates with audiences even today. 

The powerful performances, soulful music, and the heart-wrenching emotions captured on screen create an experience that lingers long after the credits roll. The film's title, "Gadar," meaning rebellion or turmoil, is a fitting representation of the emotional journey it takes its viewers on. It's a love story that rebels against the harshness of reality, a tale of individuals who navigate through the storms of history to hold on to their love, no matter the odds. "Gadar: Ek Prem Katha" is not just a cinematic gem; it's a testament to the enduring power of love, the resilience of the human spirit, and a reminder of the importance of remembering our shared history. 

It serves as a bridge that connects us to the past, urging us to learn from the mistakes of the past and to cherish the bonds that bring us together. As we revisit this remarkable film, we're reminded of the strength that lies within love, the hope that can emerge from the darkest of times, and the importance of compassion and unity in the face of adversity. "Gadar: Ek Prem Katha" is not just a movie; it's a heart-wrenching journey through history, a tribute to the enduring power of love, and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, all set against the backdrop of India's Partition turmoil.

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[firstelevens]

Could I please have: Gemma Chan, Dev Patel, Jason Momoa, Judi Dench, and John Cho please?

song: “Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961)” by The Weakerthans

Say, do you have a ship and a dozen able men That maybe you could lend me?

synopsis:

There are probably better ways that Olivia (Chan) could have used her PhD in Ancient Civilizations. She could have gone into museum curation, or become a professor, or become the BBC’s go-to talking head for documentaries on Byzantium. She could have written books or consulted for (and been ignored by) the writers of historical prestige dramas. But Olivia chose to forgo a life of cushy offices and morning commutes in favor of a far more lucrative career:  treasure hunting.

Okay, technically, she’s an ‘Artifact Acquisitions Specialist’. But treasure hunter has a better ring to it, and it’s what everyone else calls her anyway. Museums will contract her to hunt down and obtain antiquities from ancient ruins or less-than-safe jungles (and once a tundra), but her caveat -- along with her fee -- is that they be displayed for the public. An enterprising curator once tried to fence a piece she’d obtained and found the next day that his payout had been made a donation to the museum and the piece had been donated to a local university.

When Olivia’s old mentor, Dr. Hewitt (Dench) asks to see her between jobs, Olivia thinks it’s one of their normal catch-up sessions: Dr. Hewitt will complain about her new doctoral students, Olivia will tell stories about her latest acquisitions, and if time permits they’ll end with some light fencing for old times’ sake. Instead, Dr. Hewitt introduces her to Nick (Patel), a researcher at the university who was working with Olivia’s ex Victor (Momoa) when he disappeared on what was ostensibly a research trip. 

Nick and Dr. Hewitt explain that Victor was hunting up an artifact for a private client when he went missing, and no one’s heard from him in two weeks. The job sounds far too straightforward to have been dangerous, especially for someone of Victor’s experience, and Olivia’s curiosity gets the better of her. She agrees to find him, and then is convinced by Dr. Hewitt to bring along a guilt-ridden Nick, who’s convinced that he missed something in the research that could have led to Victor coming home safely.

With all of Victor’s notes and an anxious but admittedly cute researcher in tow, Olivia sets off for Morocco to meet up with her old friend and sometimes-partner Ben (Cho), who’ll be rounding out their search party. As the three of them follow Victor’s path from Fez to Crete to Istanbul and beyond, they discover that Victor’s client almost certainly wasn’t who they said they were, and the treasure that Victor was sent to dig up might be better off staying buried.

#yes I am still working through these! #it's just very slow going #anyway happy Dev Patel's birthday everyone #here's an offering from the DPCU (Dev Patel Cinematic Universe) #camillavirgil #Zainab creates movies! #I wrote this synopsis SO TRIUMPHANTLY and then I just realized this is basically just Delilah Dirk? or a genderflipped The Mummy situation?? #i'm not mad at it tbh; let Gemma and Dev smooch on a sand dune at sunset after almost dying

[letterboxd]

Third Language.

With her debut film Farewell Amor out now following a successful journey on the festival circuit, Tanzanian-American writer and director Ekwa Msangi tells Selome Hailu about the third language of music, growing up on knockoffs of the Rambo franchise, and her favorite African filmmakers.

There’s a subtle musicality central to the way Ekwa Msangi carries herself. She finds melodies in her words: “You hum the ‘m’,” she says when asked how to pronounce her last name. “Mmm-sangi.” And perhaps to a more subconscious degree, she speaks with rhythm, too: “I do think, and I know, and I can see…” she trails off, ruminating on how much hope she feels for the future of Black filmmaking. Naturally, this musical quality meanders into her work.

Farewell Amor is a quiet film, except for when it isn’t. Three Angolan immigrants revolve around each other in an awkward orbit, each trying to make sense of their dynamic now that they’ve left their home behind. Kept apart for seventeen years by the bureaucratic intricacies of war and paperwork, Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) is finally joined by his wife Esther (Zainab Jah) and daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson—soon to be seen as Bella Reál in The Batman) in New York City. But they don’t know each other anymore and spend much of their time in silence, until music and dance burst forward as a chance at common ground.

Msangi’s screenplay never dwells on the technicalities of the family’s struggle against the American immigration system. Instead, it plunges into softer, more personal after-effects of dreams deferred. Walter’s walls bear a faded calendar with Barack Obama’s face on it, even though his empty apartment complicates the “hope” the president promised people like him. When his family arrives at long last, Esther wears a silver cross pendant, having made sense of these years as a married-yet-single mother by drawing closer—almost too close—to religion. Sylvia barely speaks at all, caught between a faith that isn’t hers and a home that isn’t either.

Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine and Nana Mensah in ‘Farewell Amor’. / Photo courtesy IFC Films

The film’s triptych structure emerged after Msangi spent months grappling with how to create a feature-length screenplay out of her original short film. “Having just come off of the short, I was focusing on Walter’s story. But [I] didn’t think that was the most original story I could tell,” she says. “And then, out of indecision between whether I should make it Walter’s or Sylvia’s story, I decided to just do both. Initially it was two perspectives that I was looking at. But I realized that Esther’s story was really the linchpin for both of their stories, and it wouldn’t make sense not to have hers.”

Giving Walter, Esther and Sylvia their own chapters makes Farewell Amor a stronger film than if it had followed a singular, traditional protagonist. Extreme conservatism in one chapter is revealed as a desire to avoid pain in another; one character’s cramped living room is another’s space to dance freely. Writing on Letterboxd, Tabby points out how the three-part narrative structure grants meaningful subjectivity to characters who deserve it: “It’s so easy for Westernized perspectives to steamroll over films that deal in cultural disparities and thematics, but Farewell Amor takes important steps in showing all sides of the story,” she writes. “It was refreshing to see [the characters] each given the space to exist.”

This layering of voices happens in the camerawork, too. Each section of the narrative is marked with a visual language of its own, complete with specific color palettes and cinematographic techniques. Msangi thinks fondly about the work she put in with cinematographer Bruce Francis Cole to make the chapters distinct. “For Walter’s, it’s sort of a slow cinema, where there’s a lot of still framing. It’s almost like he’s stuck, you know? Stuck in the frame between two surfaces, two hard surfaces, a window frame, a door frame. And in Sylvia’s, we wanted to have it reflect her livelihood, her restlessness. All handheld cameras, all movement. And then for Esther, she’s very observant. She’s been taking everything in, almost in an investigative style, but also a little bit romantic. She’s romanticized this setup, so a lot of close shots, a lot of soft lighting.”

Jayme Lawson as Sylvia in ‘Farewell Amor’. / Photo courtesy IFC Films

Music gives Farewell Amor a cohesion across the different storylines. “Music is, for these characters in particular, and for me, kind of a third language,” Msangi says. “It gives you a glimpse under the covers, what’s under the sheets.” The soundtrack underscores strong performances from Mwine, Jah and Lawson, lending depth to their quietude and vibrance to their movement. Msangi also notes how sound became a cornerstone of her collaboration with the actors: “As I was writing from different perspectives, in order to help me get into each character’s skin, I would listen to the music that they would be interested in.” She later shared these playlists with the actors, using the songs to communicate what words couldn’t.

Msangi has a good laugh as she tries to think about the major films that inspired her to become a filmmaker. “You know, I don’t have that. Well, I do have that, but not for the reasons that most of my film peers have,” she says. Growing up in East Africa in the ’80s and ’90s, little to none of the programming on television was local. What did kids watch instead? “We watched Rambo for probably ten years straight, and then Rambo knockoffs for another ten years after that. I decided to become a filmmaker because of horrible Rambo knockoff films.”

“I grew up surrounded by such colorful and delightful and interesting and funny people,” Msangi says. “And none of that was reflected anywhere in the media.” As she grew older, she sought out African films she couldn’t access in her youth. Now, they’re some of her highest recommendations. Ousmane Sembène is the first African director whose filmography she ever got the chance to dive into. Sembène’s 50-year career has garnered him the affectionate title of ‘Father of African film’ among many critics and scholars, who laud him for his dramas, including Black Girl and Camp de Thiaroye. Msangi, however, finds herself taken with his unique sense of humor. She has also been inspired by Safi Faye, another Senegalese director, who became the first sub-Saharan African woman to attain commercial distribution in 1975—and whose film Mossane portrays sexual intimacy with an openness Msangi hadn’t seen elsewhere.

Writer-director Ekwa Msangi. / Photo courtesy IFC Films

In Farewell Amor, Sylvia’s chapter reads like a compacted coming-of-age film. Msangi points to South African director Darrell James Roodt’s Sarafina! as an influence in that regard. “It was showing for two weeks in Nairobi, and I lined up for four hours to watch,” she says about the film, a drama about youth involvement in the 1976 Soweto uprising. “Even though it’s from a different part of the continent, I’d never seen young African teenagers on a screen before.” More recently, she has loved 2011 TIFF breakout and Oscar contender Death for Sale by Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaïdi, and Radha Blank’s The Forty-Year-Old Version is her favorite film of 2020. She’s hopeful about the future of Black American cinema: Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler are two of her favorite working directors.

Msangi’s selections are wide in range, but there’s still one thing holding them together: themes of vulnerability, community and celebration of identity, across different decades and genres. In fact, her approach to watching movies isn’t far off from the way she made her own—Farewell Amor maps concurrent experiences of disparate people, and Msangi’s tastes seem driven by the same balance of vastness and specificity.

“I’m a filmmaker who really abhors working on the same kind of story over and over again, the same genre, the same kinds of characters,” she says. “So I’m not going to make my career just telling stories about immigrants or about, you know, their wretched troubles,” she laughs. “I don’t want to do that.”

Msangi’s next project will be an African-American period piece; beyond that, she hopes to make films in several locations: the Caribbean, Europe and all over the African continent. “I really would like to just have a lot of fun with my career. You know? Because it’s a fun and magical industry that we work in! The work that we do in creating these stories and hopes and dreams—we create magic, so it should be fun.”

Related content

Adam Davie’s Black Life on Film list

Shachar’s 20 Films by Black Directors 2021 Challenge

Screenpaige’s list of Black Women in Film

Follow Selome on Letterboxd

‘Farewell Amor’ is out now in select theaters and on demand through IFC.

#ekwa msangi #jayme lawson #farewell amor #african cinema #black filmmaker #black director #directed by women #52 films by women #female director #black woman director #american film #drama #romance #dance film #angolan cinema #angola #letterboxd

[jj-lynn21]

https://www-hollywoodreporter-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/AW/s/www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SkarsgardWeavingRuhian.jpg

The Hollywood Reporter BOY KILLS WORL

Bill Skarsgård, Samara Weaving and Yayan Ruhian to Star in Action Thriller ‘Boy Kills World’ Sam Raimi and Roy Lee are producing the unique graphic novel-inspired fantasy from director Moritz Mohr.Borys Kit OCTOBER 7, 2021 8:26AM PDT 📷📷 GETTY Bill Skarsgard, Samara Weaving and Yayan RuhianBill Skarsgård, Samara Weaving and Yayan Ruhian will topline Boy Kills World, a revenge action fantasy film produced by Sam Raimi and Roy Lee.First-time feature director Moritz Mohr is helming the project, which is being financed by Simon Swart and Wayne Fitzjohn of Nthibah Pictures (Redeeming Love) and Alex Lebovici of Hammerstone Studios (Bill and Ted Face the Music).Per the producers, who announced the project Thursday, World is described as “a one-of-a-kind action spectacle set in a dystopian fever dream reality. Boy is a deaf-mute with a vibrant imagination. When his family is murdered, Boy escapes to the jungle and is trained by a mysterious shaman to repress his childish imagination and become an instrument of death.” Related Stories 📷📷 Movie NewsSam Raimi Nearly Turned Down 'Doctor Strange 2' Over Lingering Scars From 'Spider-Man 3' Skarsgård will play Boy, with Ruhian as the shaman who mentors him. Weaving will play an assassin named June 27. Popular on THR German-born Mohr attended UCLA’s film program before launching a commercial directing career. He created a Boy Kills World short in 2018 and made a previsualization reel for a feature version that caught the eye of Raimi and Lee.Mohr and Arend Remmers came up with the story, with Remmers and Tyler Burton Smith (Kung Fury: The Movie) penning the script.CAA Media Finance will represent domestic rights and also arranged financing. Zainab Azizi of Raimi Productions, Stuart Manashil of Novo, Dan Kagan and Andrew Childs of Vertigo Entertainment are producing in addition to Raimi and Lee.Production is due to take place in early 2022 in South Africa.“Boy Kills World is set in a distinct dystopian world, combining real-world themes with a stylized look that is fresh, cool and original, borrowing from the best of graphic novels,” said Nthibah Pictures CEO Simon Swart in a statement. “With a script that combines wild innovative action sequences, a sense of humor and a lot of crazy, this film has the potential to be a worldwide hit and potential franchise property.” Skarsgård is best known for his scare work as Pennywise in the It movies, on which Lee was a producer. He is coming off of working on John Wick 4.Weaving broke out with a starring turn in the horror movie Ready or Not and is currently shooting Damien Chazelle’s period drama Babylon with Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.Ruhian is the martial arts actor who broke out to American audiences with the bone-breaking The Raid movies and appeared in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.Skarsgård is repped by WME and Magnolia. Weaving is repped by WME, while Ruhian is repped by Management 360 and Intan Melvina. Mohr is repped by CAA and Novo.

Copyright © 2021 Penske Business Media. All rights reserved.

#Boy Kills World #bill skarsgard

[aikainkauna]

Fanfic trope meme

Apologies to those of you who see this for a third time, as I’ve crossposted it to both LJ and Pillowfort. Feel free to comment over on there (or my other posts) if you like. And of course, feel free to grab this one and do it yourself, if you like.

***

Grabbed this meme from a couple of people on LJ. It's... well, apparently about fanfic tropes. Some of them more terrifying than others.

I have written:

-Hurt/comfort (Yeah, baby! Most of my fic is this.)

-Body swapping (Sort of? Souls slipping into each other's bodies for a bit? Jaffar feeling what Yassamin feels? Sex swap, I've definitely done.)

-Soulmate identifying marks (tattoo, red thread of fate, etc) (I have! The Throne of Solomon. And maybe The Past Forgotten counts, in its way. I may have written more, but I forget.)

-Snowed-in cabin/isolated together for extended period of time (The Jaffar/Pwinzezz Cavefic!)

-Found families (I guess the Samarkand gang counts for poor old Fadl? Even if Jaffar *is* his brother, so technically it is his family. But he does have his religious congregation and Zainab, and is... well, he always does seem to be seeking something, so he's the kind of guy to go for this trope.)

-Fairy tale/mythology AU (And not just when I am  writing in *actual* fairytale/mythology fandoms. Which I am doing most of the time, what with Thief of Bagdad being a 1001 Nights fanfic anyway. So I'm writing fanfic about a fanfic of some age-old RPF (fantasy AU!) about historical figures from the late 700s/early 800s...)

-Enemies  to friends to lovers (Yes, please! Aplenty. I'm surprised that  enemyslash/FoeYay/Hero(ine)/Villain(ess), whatever you want to call it,  isn't mentioned on this list.)

-Characters swap roles AU (Uh... I've written sexual switching in some isolated chapters? Like when Laura  briefly doms Torsten in The Fall of Angels, to help him get over some traumas?)

-Friends to lovers (With RPS, Veidtbone in particular, and Theta/Koschei. This also seems to happen whenever I write femslash.)

-Magical  connection (telepathy, etc) (Doctor/Master basically ruined me for all  my other ships what with their telepathic ability. So that now, it feels less interesting for me to write love/sex that *doesn't* have telepathy.)

-Fake dating/fake marriage accidentally turns into feelings (see next trope)

-Royals/political marriage turns into feelings (These last two are pretty much the same thing in ToB, as I've had Yassamin marry Jaffar a couple of times--like The Past Forgotten and The King's White Falcon, but without him laying a hand on her for up to a year, until she finally grows a brain and realises how loveworthy he is after all.)

-Seemingly unrequited pining (Emphasis on the "seemingly." Jaffar's unrequited   pining is painful enough in the movie, so there's no point in making him  suffer any more.)

-Accidentally fell in love with the mission target (Well, *kind of,* what with Torsten. Lars-Erik was definitely his mission target in the original film, and at the start of Because The World Belongs to the Devil, he made no bones about having wanted to kill Laura Erika [the teenage girl version of Lars-Erik in this AU, to those of you just joining in] when she was born.)

-They break up (but then they get back together) (With Jaffar/Fadl.  Fadl's stormed off in a huff at least twice in the past. And Doctor/Master is always the same old on-off car crash, isn't it? Although this is not a favourite trope of mine, as the setup would usually necessitate them being an existing couple in the first place,  and I tend to not write canon or "plausibly lovers" ships because   they're already happily together. What do Two and Jamie, Holmes and   Watson etc. need me for? They're already as good as married. Let them have their happiness.)

-Supernatural creature/human romance (Sort of. I've written Time Lords/humans, humans/djinn at least. And surely wizards count as supernatural romance, anyway?)

-Reincarnation/'25  Lives' AU (What's with the 25 lives? Is this some big fandom thing again? One of the darkest, most fucked-up fics I ever wrote was the Master killing the Doctor during sex and fucking him as he regenerated around him. As you do. And there's reincarnation in one of my Jaffar/Pwinzezz fics,  but I won't spoil it for the new readers by telling you which one it is.)

-Selfcest (possibly due to time travel) (I am scratching my head trying to remember when I wrote this and in which fandom, but I have the distinct feeling I've written it. I've certainly whacked off to  that World Of Simm!Masters clusterfuck what with the pink dress so many  times I... I think I broke two clit buzzers during that time. I've certainly drawn it. And drawn some Connies on Connies. And then there's, of course, Sarosh the Sexbot  who's a clone of Jaffar, looks-wise, but he is very distinctly just a robot, not a living character as such--not the sort with which you could  have a real, interpersonal dynamic. My problem with selfcest, in general, is that I like having that character dynamic--and that requires  the characters to be different from one another. If it's two characters  that are too similar--if they fulfill a similar role in the canons--it's hard to create a dynamic between them and to make it   interesting.)

-Polyamory (Swinging away ALL the bloody time with the Roses!Jaffar and Yassamin, and Torsten/Laura. Sometimes I miss the monogamous 'verses.)

-Amnesia (I've got a post-movie "Jaffar comes  back from the dead" WIP I'll probs never finish, because it doesn't seem to get off the ground. If I wrote this trope, I would have the characters gradually regain memory, though; complete mind-wipes are   horrid. I did have Handy lose the majority of his cognitive/motor/Timey skills in No More  and that was the main reason I had to... well, I'm not going to spoil it if someone hasn't read it yet, but it wasn't the cheeriest of fics. The Past Forgotten *sort of* has this, but I don't want to spoil as to how that happens.)

***

I could write:

-Daemons (Why the archaic spelling? I have written djinn, so I almost put this in the 'have written' section. I can't remember if I actually *have* written real demons, because I might have. Surely, Torsten counts...)

-'Everyone is evil'/mirrorverse AU (Well, mostly, if I want to explore "evil"   characters, I write about those types of characters in the first place, without having to turn anyone evil. Devilry is the 'verse for that. Hell, usually it's the other way around; I try to look for the human elements of the baddies, or at least explore their logic--what makes them tick, what makes them the way they are. So, IDK, I could've also   put this in the "unlikely to ever write" section.)

-And they were roommates! (This would be terrible and also hilarious, whatever characters ended up becoming my victims. Even if I'm more interested in those hurt/comfort plots, overall. And I have always found it *impossible* to live under the same roof with other people because I need peace and quiet and solitude too much. So this is almost a bit too much like the sorts of negative RL experiences I don't really want to get more of in fic.  But I *could* write it as a comedy for cheap lols, especially if the stress were resolved by hot bonking, ASAP.)

-'They  all work in an office' AU (Otherwise, I would've put this in the "just  no" category, but... the Barmakids were civil servants. So I *could*   write Jaffar and Fadl drowning in paperwork--"WHY DID WE EVER introduce paper into THIS EMPIRE?!?" and cursing their fates and Jaffar restraining Fadl from braining Harun al-Rashid with a paperweight. Same with Lina doing Zainab's books and trying to hold back The Fist of Death when Fadl carelessly drops a piece of his lunch over her perfectly calligraphied accounting.)

-'Falling for a coworker/teammate is a bad idea' except this is fiction so it works out (Maybe. Just maybe. But it'd also be in a medieval ToB context.)

***  

I will probably never write:

-'Groundhog  Day'/karmic time loop (I just never got the appeal of this. Sounds like the sort of thing experimental writers would like? The sorts who really  like filling in bingo cards and challenge lists?)

-Vampires/werewolves  AU (I'm not that big on either. Super-unpopular opinion coming up: I prefer sex to the sublimation of it that vampires are often all about; bloodsucking in lieu of sex, and/or being seen as way better than sex just always feel to me like a cheap cop-out from writers who are disappointed in sex, or afraid of it. I've never grokked it any more   than that stupid, stupid "chocolate is better than sex" quip from women who don't know what masturbation is--yes, it fucking well is sex, TYVM! I much prefer to make partnered sex better than it is IRL by adding supernatural stuff like telepathy to *that*. Immortality alone is interesting to explore, as are Gothic themes, but all the usual themes that vampires *specifically* usually represent just... either hold little interest for me, or then, I can explore them in other ways.)

-'Pride  and Prejudice' AU (I don't hate Jane Austen, but it's not my fandom. That kind of society stuff and being witty over teacups in bonnets has never really been my thing--if anything, I usually have my characters exist in their own bubble, isolated from society and its restrictive mores and social stresses.)

***

JUST NO!

-Coffee  house AU/food service AU (AUGH! Please, no coffeeshop AUs for me; the world is full of them already. Maybe I could write it as some terrible, short parody? Or doodle it? But no more than that.)

-Hogwarts AU (Haven't read HP. Young Adult isn't really my genre. I know, I know; I've just lost all my WLW cred.)

-High  school/university AU (I've done Time Lord Academy-era stuff with Doctor/Master, but I expect this means a sort of American high school/university AU with jocks and cheerleaders and shit. Hell, no. Again, the exact sort of horrid society stuff I would rather have my characters escape from.)

-Adopting/raising a baby (Erm, not unless you count Jaffar/Yassamin adopting a cheetah? They do have kids in some 'verses but there's none of that everyday baby stuff that this question/trope probably implies. I'm squicked by   babies, sorry.)

-Unusually specific occupation AU, like, the Author clearly has the same job (It worries me that this is, by virtue of its inclusion here, apparently seen as normal and acceptable..? When it's crap fanfic, inserting yourself into something that should be about the *established* characters instead. Jesus, I don't want to go in expecting a fanfic, and then find out it’s your diary instead! Unless you're Anaïs Nin. And even if you really *do* want to write about yourself, then just... write original fic? An autobiography? A blog? Write an OC that has your job. Don't do this false advertising where you insist it's fanfic when it's not. That's a dick move towards your readers.)

-Loyalty kink (see next trope)

-Alpha/beta/omega (Too creepy. I can write about piss, shit, incest, necrophilia and cannibalism, but not these last two. Any more than I can glorify the Nazis I've written about; I either take the piss out of them, as with Strasser, or just step outside of their politics and bring them into the land of happy sexings like with von Kolb, with the aim of dragging him out of that madness and leaving it behind.)

-Hot single parent(s) (Please. Rundvik: "You love children." Torsten: "I loooooathe themm.")

-Unrequited pining (Too much of an emotional squick. Has to be requited. I write fanfic to fix things, to avenge wrongs, to set things right. I don't write them to make the characters more miserable than they already are. Unless it's for temporary, character-development purposes, that is.)

#writing #meta #personal #meme #and no #idk what's up with the extra spaces in the formatting either

[timespakistan]

Time tunnels | Art & Culture | thenews.com.pk Ume Laila ‘Alienation’. For today’s Western population, museums have replaced the places of worship. Ordinary citizens visit art museums on Saturdays and Sundays in their best attire, and with family, instead of going to a synagogue or church. The ritual resonates a religious atmosphere: high walls, silence, sermon on the works on display through headphone commentary, a guide’s explanation about the mysteries of pictures. ‘Communion’ food at the end is consumed in a cafeteria not different from a refectory. To some extent, the COMO Museum of Art is providing this pleasure at home. Its latest exhibition is showcasing one-minute videos by 10 artists, playing one after the other on every Saturday and Sunday. Food is offered by a café at the museum’s premises. So, a visitor sits in the dark, in awe, and in front of a large wall on which videos are seamlessly projected. There is hardly a sound (except what comes from some videos), and then he/she can step into the backyard area to enjoy delicious dishes. All this, while we are still suspended between the real and the virtual and between the physical and the intangible in the age of pandemic. Despite limitations of material exchange, art has survived the period of social distance and isolation. Art galleries, museums and artists’ organisations have found ways to engage with public, without offering something tactile. This restriction turned into a blessing, because now the horizon of viewers for an art exhibition/event is not limited to one location or visitors from one city, it is shared – equally – by audience across the globe. This shift in accessing art has also changed the making of it. Remote is the new real; witnessed in the current exhibition, 1MIN/100 YRS, at the COMO Museum of Art, Lahore. Brief, brisk and basic, short videos address life in its complexity (usually reduced to a room, a city, a few human beings). The participating artists have illustrated the present situation through their works; all, of the same duration, but strangely seem varied due to what enfolds in each video projection. Some appear longer, a few delayed, others quick or instantaneous. However, each is strictly of one-minute length (a relieving attempt in relation to art videos that can go on for two to three hours and are seldom viewed in their entirety). In the present exhibition, a video many visitors could identify with is Alienation by Ume Laila. A man and woman sitting in a room are in front of (an unseen) screen that emanates light. This reminds us of the lockdown days in which the only way to venture into the outside world was through TV, computer and mobile phone. Windows to escape – prophetically described by Mohsin Hamid (long before Covid-19) in his novel Exit West, in which both protagonists leave their surroundings by (an Alice in Wonderland act) passing through the screen of their cellular devices. An interesting element of Laila’s video is its fixed camera shot, not static since the ceiling fan is rotating; which alludes to the stillness of life. The ordinariness of the setting, unassumingness of the characters and selection of the view make the work, an unusual piece of art. A person perched on the bench at COMO Museum becomes the mirror image of two individuals on the screen. Hence a complex and convoluted link between the viewer and the viewed. The participating artists have illustrated the present situation through their works. Despite similar time-frames, each video projection is different. Some appear longer, a few delayed and others quick or instantaneous. Zahra Ehsan in her Perfect Isn’t it? creates a phantasmagorical scenario in which the scale shifts and roles are reversed. A girl, wearing bangles and nail polish, offers tea and sweets behind the small model of a house. The movement of hands and the subtitles suggest that it is a tea ceremony during a marriage proposal. The choice of colour, movement and the tone of text indicate something banal, yet crucial: pleasant but problematic. Larger than life images, add to the aggression of the activity, despite the bright shades introduced in the work (reminiscent of Zahra Ehsan’s painterly ability, shown during her BFA at the National College of Arts, Lahore, as well as her residency at Vermont Studio, New York). Other works portray the mundaneness and repetitiveness of life. Rida Zainab for the ‘entire’ span of one minute has focused on a brick roof with a stick resting against the wall. Another work that represents the sensibility of the moment is Does Distance Really Matter? by Afreen Fatima. Against a backdrop of sunset (without the hint of a specific city), a conversation is constructed that like our normal messaging, partly English, partly Urdu in Roman letters. The human interaction is evident in exchange of crucial concerns such as: “if the world is one, why cannot time be the same everywhere?”, without disclosing their distant locations. One minute in Fatima’s video/conversation was both long and short, but certainly not 60 seconds. The other videos such as Don’t Put Baby in the Registry by Aisha Raees, and Chaltey Raho by Mahnoor Khawaja also suggest a leap in time. Raees’s “video poem delves into the Muslim experience in an American landscape”. She documents – on an old TV set prejudices projected by the media (vis-à-vis government/state), with images rendered in a neutral and graphic tone. Yet the composite narrative illustrates the content of the artist. In Khawaja’s video, a ride on Karachi’s Seaview is recorded, so a viewer – is unintentionally transported inside the open vehicle moving on sands of Karachi beach, and passing folks enjoying their day off. Women in burqa, kids playing, couples riding on a bike, are part of a routine indulgence, away from their normal time and place. Umberto Eco in his Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (Charles Eliot Norten Lectures, 1992-93) talks about the disjunction between real time and the movie time. What takes place in 60 minutes of our life can be represented in 7 minutes, or in 7 hours, 7 months, 7 years in a film: all believable. Following Professor Eco’s observation, watching these one-minute videos, one feels unsure about their duration: Time has expanded in memory. A true success of works, which transcend one reality for another reality. The writer is an art critic based in Lahore https://timespakistan.com/time-tunnels-art-culture-thenews-com-pk/9590/

[upshotre]

Funmi Iyanda’s Waking With Shadows for BFI London premiere

Media executive, Funmi Iyanda, has announced that Walking With Shadows, a film she produced, is scheduled for a world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival in October. Funmi announced the movie’s scheduled premiere in a post on social media on Thursday. The popular talk show host and TV producer also disclosed that this was the first of many movies she was going to be working on. “This is the first in a slate of films my team and l will be making. My determination is to expand my work from bringing information and knowledge through news and current affairs to one of bringing understanding through art, literature, film, fashion and culture,” she said. Directed by Aoife O'Kelly, Walking With Shadows stars Funlola Aofiyebi-Raimi, Ozzy Agu, Zainab Balogun and Funsho Adeolu among others. It will be screened at Curzons Soho and Vue West End, London on October 9 and 10. “My purpose remains the same, to help make sense of our time here and hopefully make it more fun and kind, however messy it gets. “Whilst doing so, l hope, as always, to create spaces for a new generation of true stars and talents as well as reposition old ones in their proper light,” Funmi added. Walking With Shadows is a screen adaptation of a Jude Dibia novel published in 2005. It follows Adrian Ebele Njoko, a married executive whose sexuality is exposed by a disgruntled colleague causing an impact on his family. The BFI London Film Festival was founded in 1953 and holds in the United Kingdom annually with cooperation from the British Film Institute.     Read the full article

[firstelevens]

Second cast: Santiago Cabrera, Julie Walters

song: “I Wanna Get Better” by Bleachers

And I miss the days of a life still permanentMourn the years before I got carried away

title: Caped

synopsis:

Max (Cabrera) has spent the better part of the last two decades trying to save the world under the mantle of the superhero The Comet. He’s pretty good at it, actually, good enough that for the past five years or so, he’s been the public face of the British League of Superheroes. His job, which once involved patrolling to keep the streets safe, has now mostly devolved into photo opportunities and public speaking. Listless and irritated at being boxed in, Max becomes a vigilante, hoping to help the people of his city anonymously and without the pressure of The Comet’s costume. 

Unfortunately for him, he is immediately found out by the League and -- because the current head of the League hates his guts -- demoted as far as humanly (or superhumanly) possible. They make him the Retired Superhero Liaison, a job that absolutely nobody wants because it chiefly involves geriatric superheroes telling boring and sometimes lightly racist stories of their glory days. His first assignment as Liaison is to recruit Aggie Mason (Walters), who was once a trailblazing superhero and is now an embittered old woman living in a cottage by the sea. It’s said that superhero brass forced her into retirement, but now the League wants to trot her out for their fiftieth anniversary celebrations as their oldest surviving (and not-evil) ex member, and she’s rejected every envoy who they’ve sent her. 

Max gets to Aggie’s cottage in Cornwall and finds that she’s even more crotchety than advertised, and she’s especially opposed to the entire concept of Max, the “magazine cover superhero who doesn’t do any real good”. Luckily for both of them, Max is equally opposed to that version of himself, and as he starts to win Aggie over by matching her grumpiness with his own, she begins to tell him the story of her time in the League and why she’s so hesitant to go back. As the anniversary celebration gets closer and the head of the League is pestering Max for updates, Max finds himself with a much more complex and upsetting picture of the League than he’s ever had, and a laundry list of wrongs to be righted before they can go any further.

#knocking out our obligatory superhero movie early folks #lbr there'll be another i'm nothing if not predictable #santiago and julie buddy comedy WHEN tbh #zainab creates movies! #philtstone

[spicynbachili1]

A Thousand Girls Like Me: An Afghan Woman’s Fight Against Rape | Afghanistan

“Each girl on this nation has 100 homeowners. It’s at all times been like that. Fathers, brothers, uncles, neighbours. All of them consider they’ve the appropriate to talk on our behalf and make selections for us. That is why our tales are by no means heard however buried with us underground.” – Sahra Mani Mosawi, filmmaker

However what if the tales of Afghan ladies had been heard? What in the event that they succeeded in preventing the cultural, familial and authorized forces that attempt to maintain them silent? And what if the phrases they spoke had been a requirement for justice?

Twenty-three-year-old Khatera finds out when she goes on nationwide tv to accuse her father of bodily and sexually abusing her.

For 13 years, he’d raped her, leading to quite a few pregnancies. Most of them had ended abruptly when he compelled her to abort, however two had been carried to time period.

Khatera fears for the way forward for her daughter Zainab [Al Jazeera]

He took one of many infants into the desert, the place he left it to die.

Khatera’s three-year-old daughter, Zainab, was spared that destiny. However, as soon as once more pregnant by her father, she fears for the way forward for her daughter and unborn youngster if she can’t persuade the authorities to press fees in opposition to him.

It is not the primary time she has tried. The tv present is a determined try that she is aware of might have extreme penalties in a rustic the place the judicial system typically incriminates the very ladies searching for its safety.

However being prosecuted for “ethical crimes” is not the one danger she faces in talking out.

Khatera’s uncles consider she has introduced disgrace upon the household and that the answer lies in her loss of life and the loss of life of her daughter.

Within the award-winning A Thousand Ladies like Me, Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani Mosawi follows Khatera as she lives in hiding, shifting from home to accommodate at any time when she fears her identification might need been uncovered or that her uncles may be closing in on her.

However, regardless of the worry, the hazard and the uncertainty, she is decided to convey her father to justice, to guard herself and her youngsters and to set an instance for all different ladies like her.

FILMMAKER’S VIEW

By Sahra Mani Mosawi

I’m a part of a society that has the very best charges of home violence and gender inequality on this planet. I can see it. I can really feel it. And I can expose it in a means that others cannot.

What’s vital to me is to not solely concentrate on the struggling however on how that struggling generally is a rallying cry; how we, as ladies, are preventing for change.

I make movies to offer hope to the ladies of my nation and to offer steerage to those that wish to know my nation higher. I make movies to assist construct a secure society for the following technology and to document our journey to that time.

Practically on daily basis in Afghanistan there are tales concerning the rape and homicide of ladies. Some instances are lined by the media however many stay unknown.

A Thousand Ladies like Me highlights the necessity to make the “unknown” instances identified.

Khatera lives along with her mom and children in secure homes [Al Jazeera]

The Afghan authorized system immediately is advanced, complicated and corrupt. The formal state justice system remains to be below development and operates solely in these city areas the place there may be much less instability and higher safety – however there are fewer and fewer of these.

For 3 years, I used to be given unreserved entry to probably the most personal elements of Khatera’s life and that of her household – for as much as three days per week, typically till late at evening. The one means I might obtain this was by capturing and recording sound myself.

On the one hand, Kathera and her mom doing family chores reveals their dedication, for the sake of the youngsters and in addition themselves, to maintain issues as regular as they will. However, on the opposite, we will hear via their voices the extraordinary – the monstrosity of the crime that binds them collectively.

Sahra Mani Mosawi, filmmaker

Regularly, Khatera, her mom and her daughter began to neglect that I used to be even there. By means of their on a regular basis talks, their extra intimate conversations and even their silences, we get an perception into the advanced bond between the three of them.

Being always there allowed me to only allow them to be. I did not ask questions. I did not stage actuality. My “cinema direct” let the narrative energy of actual life take its personal path. I shot lengthy takes, in medium photographs, which allowed me to maintain my characters’ environment as a relentless reference within the body, in order to always remember how deeply rooted in Afghan society these ladies are.

By “erasing” my presence and eliminating all the standard capturing methods, I had one: specializing in crucial factor – the phrases of those ladies and the message they convey, thus making it even stronger.

There have been dangers in capturing this documentary – for Khatera, for her mom, for her youngsters and in addition for my crew and me. Hazard might lurk anyplace – from inside Khatera’s household but additionally from others who view ladies like Khatera because the satan incarnate.

Capturing in public locations, due to this fact, needed to be carried out with an ideal sense of urgency. This helped the movie, by permitting us to point out simply how crucial it’s that Khatera will get justice and the way decided she is, regardless of the hazard to her life.

“Each girl on this nation has 100 homeowners. It is at all times been like that. Fathers, brothers, uncles, neighbours,” says Sahra Mani Mosawi, filmmaker [Al Jazeera]

I used to be granted distinctive permission to document sound in the course of the trial of Khatera’s father, Halim, which allowed us to listen to his voice. However the movie is concerning the penalties of his deeds, so I did not wish to present his picture. He’s a personality within the background, a shadow over my story. Aside from his voice, his portrait is drawn from the testimony of the three feminine characters.

The scenes shot in public locations provide a startling visible but additionally a symbolic distinction with these shot within the privateness of Khatera’s residence.

The chaos of an overcrowded Kabul, the media consideration generated by the trial, the malevolent stares of males watching one girl movie one other girl, the invisible however fixed risk of household retaliation that forces Khatera to relocate with utter discretion – all these sequences that had been shot with the required velocity give solution to the seeming quietness of Khatera’s residence, the place time passes extra slowly. In these moments, my photographs had been longer and extra composed.

Having the ability to shoot their day by day routines revealed one other distinction – between the conventional and the irregular.

On the one hand, Kathera and her mom doing family chores reveals their dedication, for the sake of the youngsters and in addition themselves, to maintain issues as regular as they will. However, on the opposite, we will hear via their voices the extraordinary – the monstrosity of the crime that binds them collectively.

I used to be given the chance to observe German director Helen Simon’s documentary No Lullaby (Nirgendland). This movie additionally tells the tragic story of repeated incestuous rapes via two generations of ladies. I really feel a robust reference to the director’s method to the difficulty. The emotion created by Simon’s description of those harsh info is emphasised by her personal impartial stance and her use of day by day life sequences as soothing intermissions.

Supply: Al Jazeera

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/a-thousand-girls-like-me-an-afghan-womans-fight-against-rape-afghanistan/

[bountyofbeads]

‘I was so livid’: Disney heiress visits theme park undercover to see worker conditions

Rebecca Corey | Published July 15, 2019, 5:30 AM EDT | Yahoo News | Posted July 15, 2019 |

“Through Her Eyes” is a weekly show hosted by human rights activist Zainab Salbi that explores contemporary news issues from a female perspective. You can watch a full episode of “Through Her Eyes” every Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on Roku, or at the bottom of this article.

As an heiress of the Disney fortune, anything Abigail Disney says about the brand beloved by millions worldwide garners attention. And she’s calling out Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger for his nearly $66 million yearly salary, saying he isn’t doing enough to rectify the huge gap between his own earnings and that of other Disney workers.

“Bob needs to understand he's an employee, just the same as the people scrubbing gum off the sidewalk are employees,” Disney said during an interview with the Yahoo News show “Through Her Eyes.” “And they're entitled to all the same dignity and human rights that he is.”

Iger’s paycheck last year was more than 1,000 times what the median Disney employee made in 2018, according to Equilar.

To understand the grievances of Walt Disney Co. employees, Abigail Disney said she recently went undercover to Disneyland after receiving a Facebook message from a distressed worker.

She said what she found at “The Happiest Place on Earth” was a façade that was about to crack from the pressure of making ends meet.

“Every single one of these people I talked to were saying, ‘I don't know how I can maintain this face of joy and warmth when I have to go home and forage for food in other people's garbage,’” she recalled, adding that this was not the work environment her grandfather Roy O. Disney sought out to create.

“I was so livid when I came out of there because, you know, my grandfather taught me to revere these people that take your tickets, that pour your soda,” she continued.

“Those people are much of the recipe for success.”

Disney says her efforts are part of preserving a work culture of respect that originated with her grandfather and that she says has gradually declined at the Walt Disney Co. “When my grandfather worked there, he hired people there to have a job for life,” she said.

The company has also been accused of sexist pay practices. Earlier this month, four new women joined a major pay-gap case against it, according to the Guardian. They are part of a larger class-action lawsuit, filed in April, alleging that the company systematically underpays its female employees. Disney denied the allegations.

A filmmaker and philanthropist, Abigail Disney does not have an active role in the company her grandfather co-founded. But she says she recently wrote to Iger expressing her concerns.

“I wrote Bob Iger a very long email, and one of the things I said to him was, ‘You know, you're a great CEO by any measure, perhaps even the greatest CEO in the country right now. You

know, your legacy is that you're a great manager. And if I were you, I would want something better than that. I would want to be known as the guy who led to a better place, because that is what you have the power to do.’”

But Disney said that in response to her email, she got “nothing.”

“There was no answer,” she said.

According to the Financial Times, Iger referred Disney to the company’s human resources department, “who cited initiatives such as its $150m funding for employee education,” motivating her to reach out to Iger again. She told the outlet: “That never got an answer, so I had my answer.”

When asked about the pay disparity between Iger and his staff, a Walt Disney Co. spokesperson touted its education initiative, Disney Aspire, which covers 100 percent of all tuition costs, books and fees. The spokesperson said more than 40 percent of Disney’s 88,000-plus hourly employees have signed up to participate so far.

“Disney is at the forefront of providing workforce education, which is widely recognized as the best way to create economic opportunity for employees and empower upward mobility,” the spokesperson said.

The company added: “American workers need meaningful change; they deserve smart policies and practical programs, like Disney Aspire, that empower them to achieve their goals and ensure they are part of the most competitive workforce in the world.”

This isn’t the first time Abigail Disney has called out Iger for his income. She wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post in April, criticizing the “naked indecency” of his salary. And in May, she spoke on Capitol Hill, imploring members of the House Financial Services Committee to rethink the system that allows CEOs to make so much more than other workers.

“The system is the problem, and the people inside of the system who are perfectly comfortable with the system are the problem,” Disney told “Through Her Eyes.” “I don't think any president of the United States has as much power as some CEOs in this country.”

To help jump-start change, Disney says she wants to be taxed more. She and more than a dozen other wealthy Americans recently penned an open letter to 2020 presidential candidates calling for a raise in federal wealth taxes to “substantially fund” things like clean energy, infrastructure and universal childcare.

“I have more than enough,” Disney told “Through Her Eyes.” “And if you've got $1 billion, there's not a thing on this earth you can't afford.”

Disney has gained a lot from her famous grandfather and the fairy-tale world he helped create, but she says she is also cognizant of her family’s darker legacies and how they have hurt people, too. Her great-uncle, Walt Disney, has been accused of anti-Semitism, sexism and racism.

“Sadly, it happens to be the case that there are very nice people who are also racists,” Abigail Disney recalled.

She cited movies like “Song of the South” and characters like Jim Crow in the 1941 film “Dumbo” as examples of her great-uncle Walt’s racist history. Although these films were created before the civil rights movement, Disney says time is no excuse for bigotry.

“We cannot simply say, ‘Oh, everybody was a racist back then,’” she explained. “Many people chose to not be what everyone else was. It takes courage. It takes integrity. It's a very hard thing to do.”

“But if you decide to be a person who creates culture, then you have to take on all the responsibility of that.”

Listen to the full episode of the “Through Her Eyes” podcast, and listen to past interviews with Queen Latifah, Aly Raisman and more from Season 1.

#u.s. news #politics and government #us: news #international news #must reads #world news #disney #Democrats #humanrights #human rights #human trafficking #workers rights