Category: Arts

It’s time again to celebrate Hollywood’s grandest ambitions and most daring risk takers.

No, I’m not talking about Jackass Forever.

On Tuesday morning, nominations for the 94th annual Academy Awards will be announced. Nominations are occurring a little later than usual. To make way for the Olympics, the Oscars are to be held March 27.

And for the second straight year, the Oscars will unfold during the pandemic. The industrial complex of parties, galas and little gold statuettes known as “awards season” has again gone largely virtual, sapping the season of some of its usual buzz. The Oscars’ typical opening act — the Golden Globes — were much reduced and untelevised this year.

But the Oscar nominations, which will be announced Tuesday beginning at 8:18 a.m. EST by presenters Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan, will try to again seize the spotlight after a year of profound change for the industry and a still-unfolding recovery for movie theaters. Nominations will be broadcast live on Oscar.com, Oscars.org, the academy’s social media accounts and on ABC’s Good Morning America.

But those are far from the only headwinds facing the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Last year’s Oscars, held in late April at an audience-less Union Station rather than the Oscars’ usual home, the Dolby Theatre, plummeted to an all-time low of 9.85 million viewers.

Can Tuesday’s slate of nominees stem the tide? Among the films expected to do well are Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune, Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical coming-of-age tale Belfast and Jane Campion’s gothic western The Power of the Dog. Alas, Jackass Forever, the current no. 1 movie at the box office, will have to wait until next year.

Here are five questions heading into nominations.

Just how much will streamers dominate?

Streaming services have for years made inroads into the Oscars, but they may overwhelm this year’s best-picture field. After academy rule changes, 10 films will be nominated for best picture, and it’s possible that only a few of them will have opened traditionally in theaters. Netflix, which is still pursuing its first best-picture trophy, has three contenders in The Power of the Dog, Adam McKay’s apocalyptic comedy Don’t Look Up and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical adaptation Tick, Tick … Boom!

Apple has the deaf family drama CODA and Joel Coen’s Shakespeare adaptation The Tragedy of Macbeth. Amazon is represented with Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos.

Two films that premiered simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max — Dune and the Will Smith-led King Richard — are in the hunt. That has made contenders like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (MGM, Focus Features) and Belfast (Focus) stand out as theater-first throwbacks.

Will the biggest box-office hits crash the party?

Given the waning audience for the Oscars and a tumultuous year for theaters, some would like to see as many crowd-pleasers represented Tuesday as possible. Could Spider-Man: No Way Home, the biggest hit of the pandemic with $749 million in domestic ticket sales and $1.77 billion globally, or Daniel Craig’s 007 swan song No Time to Die ($774 million worldwide) score a best picture nomination?

As much as the Oscars’ populism could use some pop, don’t count on either to join the 10 nominees. The segment of the academy most supportive of big-budget box-office success — producers — passed up the chance to do so in their highly predictive guild nominations. That

would likely leave Dune ($399 million worldwide) as the category’s biggest ticket seller. But there are also other metrics to measure today’s most popular movies. Don’t Look Up is Netflix’s second-most popular movie ever with some 359,790,000 hours watched, according to the company.

How international will the nominees be?

Two years after Bong Joon Ho’s Korean thriller Parasite won best picture, a group of acclaimed international films could vie in several top categories. While no film has the broad support that made Parasite the first non-English language film to win Hollywood’s top honor, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s masterful three-hour Japanese drama Drive My Car could squeeze into best picture, best director or best screenplay.

Other films with strong support outside of the academy’s best international film category including Pedro Almodovar’s Parallel Mothers (look for Penélope Cruz in the uber-competitive best actress category), Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God and Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated Flee.

In expanding and diversifying its membership in recent years, the academy has grown more international — and enlarged the sway of overseas voters.

Will Kristen Stewart get in?

Kristen Stewart had once been widely expected to land her first Oscar nomination for her performance as Princess Diana in Pablo Larrain’s Spencer. But that film has proved divisive among critics and moviegoers, and Stewart’s once sturdy Oscar bid now appears far from certain.

The 31-year-old actor was looked over by the Screen Actors Guild and the BAFTAs. She could mount a comeback with the academy, but best actress is brutal this year. Among the favorites: Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter), Lady Gaga (House of Gucci), Jennifer Hudson (Respect), Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos), Cruz, Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza).

If Stewart isn’t snubbed, someone — several someones — will be.

Will enough people watch?

This is probably the biggest question facing the Oscars this year, and it hovers over everything. Ratings for award shows all around have been declining for years, but the pandemic and the growth of streaming has accelerated the dismantling of Hollywood tradition.

This year, the academy has signaled that everything is on the table. Should Spider-Man star Tom Holland be called upon to emcee?

No details have yet been announced about the show, but the academy has said there will be a host for the first time since 2018.

Maybe Johnny Knoxville has a few tricks up his sleeve?

Source: Voice of America

The White House COVID-19 response team on Wednesday reminded Americans of the continued need to slow the omicron variant’s spread despite its decreased severity and announced new efforts to help keep schools open.

As the omicron variant sweeps across the U.S., Dr. Rochelle Walensky emphasized that wearing masks, getting vaccinated and undergoing COVID-19 testing when necessary are the best strategies to help lower cases of the virus.

Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the omicron variant accounted for 98% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. Earlier this week, the U.S. set a record for the number of daily infections at nearly 1.5 million, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

“All of us must do our part to protect our hospitals and our neighbors and reduce the further spread of this virus,” Walensky said.

The White House team also announced that the Biden administration would distribute 10 million tests to schools across the country each month to ensure they remain open, more than doubling the testing volume from last year.

Although the omicron variant is highly transmissible, it remains less severe than the delta variant, with a decreased risk of hospitalization and death.

Walensky, citing a recent study comparing the two variants, said omicron infections were associated with a 91% reduction in the risk of death and a 74% reduction in the risk of ICU admission.

She also said that infections with the variant had a 53% reduced risk of symptomatic hospitalization.

More hospitalizations

While the risk of hospitalization remains low, the “staggering rise in cases” has increased the country’s number of hospitalizations, according to Walensky.

Nonetheless, she said, patients infected with omicron are experiencing 71% shorter hospital stays than those infected with the delta variant.

On average, omicron patients are hospitalized for about 1.5 days and 90% are expected to be discharged in three days or less.

As the surge continues, Walensky reiterated that cases of the variant are expected to peak in the coming weeks. She also said deaths have increased, with more than 2,600 reported by John Hopkins on Wednesday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease expert, said the country would not be able to eliminate or eradicate COVID-19, but would “ultimately control it.” As the virus becomes endemic, it is likely that “virtually everybody is going to wind up getting exposed and likely get infected,” he said.

However, he added, this does not mean that vaccinations or preventative measures are ineffective or pointless. Fauci clarified that getting vaccinated and staying up to date with booster shots will prevent serious illness from the disease.

“If you’re vaccinated and if you’re boosted, the chances of your getting sick are very, very low,” Fauci said.

To help battle the current surge, the White House team stressed that mitigation efforts remain critical, including wearing a mask. While N95 masks have been shown to be the most effective in resisting airborne transmission of the virus, the CDC still recommends that, for the time being, people choose the mask that is right for them, and that wearing any well-fitting mask is better than no mask.

“We want to highlight that the best mask for you is the one that you can wear comfortably,” Walensky said.

Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, was asked about finding masks and said the administration is “strongly considering options to make more high-quality masks available to all Americans.”

As for schools, the team said that, along with increased testing, vaccination and other mitigation efforts are the keys to keeping students in the classroom.

Walensky stated that with pediatric vaccines now available, schools should be able to continue operating as planned. She also reminded reporters that 99% of schools remained open in the fall during a surge in the delta variant.

“One of the best things we can do is get our children and our teenagers vaccinated,” she said.

Source: Voice of America

More than 40 people in the U.S. have been found to be infected with the omicron variant so far, and more than three-quarters of them had been vaccinated, the chief of the CDC said Wednesday. But she said nearly all of them were only mildly ill.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the data is very limited and the agency is working on a more detailed analysis of what the new mutant form of the coronavirus might hold for the United States.

“What we generally know is the more mutations a variant has, the higher level you need your immunity to be. … We want to make sure we bolster everybody’s immunity. And that’s really what motivated the decision to expand our guidance,” Walensky said, referencing the recent approval of boosters for all adults.

She said “the disease is mild” in almost all of the cases seen so far, with reported symptoms mainly cough, congestion and fatigue. One person was hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported, CDC officials said.

Some cases can become increasingly severe as days and weeks pass, and Walensky noted that the data is a very early, first glimpse of U.S. omicron infections. The earliest onset of symptoms of any of the first 40 or so cases was November 15, according to the CDC.

The omicron variant was first identified in South Africa last month and has since been reported in 57 countries, according to the World Health Organization.

The first U.S. case was reported on December 1. As of Wednesday afternoon, the CDC had recorded 43 cases in 19 states. Most were young adults. About a third of those patients had traveled internationally.

More than three-quarters of those patients had been vaccinated, and a third had boosters, Walensky said. Boosters take about two weeks to reach full effect, and some of the patients had received their most recent shot within that period, CDC officials said.

Fewer than 1% of the U.S. COVID-19 cases genetically sequenced last week were the omicron variant; the delta variant accounted for more than 99%.

Scientists are trying to better understand how easily it spreads. British officials said Wednesday that they think the omicron variant could become the dominant version of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom in as soon as a month.

The CDC has yet to make any projections on how the variant could affect the course of the pandemic in the U.S. Walensky said officials are gathering data, but many factors could influence how the pandemic evolves.

“When I look to what the future holds, so much of that is definitely about the science, but it’s also about coming together as a community to do things that prevent disease in yourself and one another. And I think a lot of what our future holds depends on how we come together to do that,” she said.

The CDC is also trying to establish whether the omicron variant causes milder — or more severe — illness than other coronavirus types. The finding that nearly all of the cases so far are mild may be a reflection that this first look at U.S. omicron cases captured mainly vaccinated people, who are expected to have milder illnesses, CDC officials said.

Another key question is whether it is better at evading vaccines or the immunity people build from a bout with COVID-19.

This week, scientists in South Africa reported a small laboratory study that found antibodies created by vaccines were not as effective at preventing omicron infections as they were at stopping other versions of the coronavirus.

On Wednesday, vaccine manufacturer Pfizer said that while two doses may not be protective enough to prevent infection, lab tests showed a booster increased levels of virus-fighting antibodies by 25-fold.

Blood samples taken a month after a booster showed people harbored levels of omicron-neutralizing antibodies that were similar to amounts proven protective against earlier variants after two doses, the company said.

Source: Voice of America

With the Indian capital enveloped in a haze of toxic smog, authorities ordered six thermal plants in the city’s vicinity to shut temporarily, closed schools and colleges indefinitely and imposed work-from-home restrictions to control pollution levels that turned severe on several days this month.

A panel of the federal environment ministry has also banned construction activity until the end of the week and barred trucks, except those carrying essential commodities, from entering the city as part of the series of emergency measures.

Environmentalists pointed out that these steps would only marginally mitigate the air pollution crisis that grips New Delhi every winter.

“The emergency action is not a magic bullet that will address the pollution crisis,” said Anumita Rowchowdhury, executive director research and advocacy at New Delhi’s Center for Science and Environment. “It only ensures that it will not worsen the pollution but it will not clean the air.”

The world’s most polluted capital city has recorded levels for dangerous particles known as PM 2.5 that settle deep inside lungs many times higher than the standards set by the World Health Organization.

The haze that covers the city is a mix of fumes, including vehicular emissions, industrial pollution, construction dust, farm fires and fumes caused by the burning of waste in the open. In winter, the pollutants hang over the city due to low wind speeds.

City authorities in Delhi have told the Supreme Court they are considering a weekend lockdown, similar to what was implemented during the pandemic. If so, it would be the first of a kind “pollution” lockdown.

The toxic smog is not restricted to the capital city — skies across much of North India also turn grey at this time of the year leaving millions gasping for air.

But while Delhi has taken some steps to combat the dirty air by shutting down coal-fired power stations and switching most industry and public transport to clean fuel, the same standards have not been imposed by neighboring states, experts point out.

“Air does not respect political boundaries. The time has come to take a regional approach and scale up stringent action in the entire Indo-Gangetic plains,” said Roychowdhury. “For example, Delhi is the only city to have switched industry to natural gas, imposed clean fuel standards for vehicles and shut down coal plants. But the same needs to be done elsewhere. We really need to ramp up our energy transition.”

However, phasing out coal, which still powers 70% of India’s electricity grid, will not be easy. As North India battled its annual air pollution crisis, Indian delegates to the recent climate summit held in Scotland said developing countries were entitled to the responsible use of fossil fuels.

“How can anyone expect that developing countries can make promises about phasing out coal and fossil fuel subsidies?” Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav asked at the summit. “Developing countries have still to deal with their development agendas and poverty eradication.”

India and China were blamed for watering down a commitment to phasing out coal at the summit.

But in India, environmentalists said the country’s concerns were genuine. “The dilemma that India faces is, how quickly can it make the transition from coal?” said Chandra Bhushan, who heads the Delhi-based International Forum for Environment. “While coal does contribute to air pollution and climate change, we cannot shut down coal right away and replace it with renewables in a hurry. This is going to be a process.”

Meanwhile, the severe air pollution has led to a public health emergency with many residents in Delhi and other North Indian cities struggling with respiratory problems and doctors warning it is a serious health hazard.

The dirty air kills more than a million people every year in India according to a report by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, a U.S. research group.

Source: Voice of America

Thousands of young campaigners marched through the streets of Glasgow on Friday, chanting their demand that world leaders at the U.N. climate conference safeguard their future against catastrophic climate change.

Inside the COP26 conference venue in the Scottish city, civil society leaders took over discussions at the end of a week of government speeches and pledges that included promises to phase out coal, slash emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane and reduce deforestation.

“We must not declare victory here,” said former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work informing the world about climate change. “We know that we have made progress, but we are far from the goals that we need to reach.”

Campaigners and pressure groups have been underwhelmed by the commitments made so far, many of which are voluntary, exclude the biggest polluters, or set deadlines decades away.

Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg joined the marchers on the streets, who held placards and banners with messages that reflected frustration with what she described as “blah-blah-blah” coming from years of global climate negotiations.

“You don’t care, but I do!” read one sign, carried by a girl sitting on her father’s shoulders.

Sixteen-year-old protester Hannah McInnes called climate change “the most universally devastating problem in the world,” adding: “It’s our lives and our futures that are on the line.”

Promises

The talks aim to secure enough national promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions – mainly from fossil fuels – to keep the rise in the average global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Scientists say this is the point at which the already intense storms, heatwaves, droughts and floods that the Earth is experiencing could become catastrophic and irreversible.

To that end, the United Nations wants countries to halve their emissions from 1990 levels by 2030, on their way to net-zero emissions by 2050. That would mean the world would release no more climate-warming gases than the amount it is simultaneously recapturing from the atmosphere.

The summit on Thursday saw 23 additional countries pledge to try to phase out coal – albeit over the next three decades, and without the world’s biggest consumer, China.

A pledge to reduce deforestation brought a hasty about-turn from Indonesia, home to vast and endangered tropical forests.

But a plan to curb emissions of methane by 30% did appear to strike a blow against greenhouse gases that should produce rapid results.

And city mayors have been working out what they can do to advance climate action more quickly and nimbly than governments.

The Glasgow talks also have showcased a jumble of financial pledges, buoying hopes that national commitments to bring down emissions can actually be implemented.

But time was running short. “It is not possible for a large number of unresolved issues to continue into week 2,” COP26 President Alok Sharma said in a note to negotiators published by the United Nations.

Efforts to set a global pricing framework for carbon, as a way to make polluters pay fairly for their emissions and ideally finance efforts to offset them, are likely to continue to the very end of the two-week conference.

The new normal

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said on Friday it was possible to reach a deal at the summit settling the final details of the rulebook for how to interpret the 2015 Paris Agreement.

He said the United States was in favor of “the most frequent possible” assessments of whether countries were meeting their goals to reduce emissions.

In Washington, President Joe Biden’s mammoth “Build Back Better” package, including $555 billion of measures aimed at hitting the 2030 target and adapting to climate change, looks set to pass eventually. It hit snags on Friday, however, as the House of Representatives was due to vote on it.

Gore, a veteran of such battles, offered conference-goers a scientific video and photo presentation filled with images of climate-fueled natural disasters, from flooding to wildfires.

“We cannot allow this to become the new normal,” Gore said.

One schoolchild’s placard put it just as well.

“The Earth’s climate is changing!” it read, under a hand-painted picture of a globe on fire. “Why aren’t we?”

Source: Voice of America

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO — The Pan-African Film Festival of Ouagadougou returns to Burkina Faso this weekend after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

One Burkinabe director, who has made a film documenting a nursery for the infants of sex workers, talks about the importance of telling African stories through cinema.

Moumouni Sanou is a documentary film director from Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second largest city.

In 2019, he made a film, which is being screened at The Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, or FESPACO.

Night Nursery follows the story of an older woman who runs a nighttime home for sex workers’ children in Bobo Dioulasso.

Sanou said he wants Night Nursery to humanize sex workers.

Sanou said the idea was to show a different side to sex workers, which is very rarely seen. In Burkina Faso and in the rest of Africa this profession is frowned upon, he said. “But it is also the oldest profession in the world. When we see these girls, people say they are bad people because they are sex workers,” he adds.

FESPACO has been running since 1969 and this year will feature films from around 30 African countries in its official selection. Cinema professionals and cinephiles travel from all over Africa and beyond to attend.

“FESPACO is one of the biggest African film festivals, and for me to be selected and represent Burkina Faso in the documentary film section will mean this film will be seen by the whole world, not just by Africans,” Sanou said.

Ardiouma Soma, the director of FESPACO, says that this year, the event will also host the African International Film & TV Market — known as MICA — for the first time.

Soma said, because this year the MICA will be held at FESPACO they have invited distributors, whose names he prefers not to mention, to Ouagadougou. He said the market will allow them to find new projects that are in post-production and also films that are already finished but not scheduled for FESPACO, so that they can buy them for their own platforms.

Last year, FESPACO, which usually happens every two years, was cancelled due to COVID-19. Burkina Faso is also in the middle of a conflict with terrorist groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida.

Burkina Faso’s culture minister, Élise Foniyama Ilboudo Thiombiano, said it is important the festival goes on.

She said it’s a challenge for Burkinabè to continue to be able to keep the festival going every two years. But it is through cinema we can see the vision of Africans and the people who live on this continent, she adds. She points out that her predecessors all made sure FESPACO remained a focal point for Africa and she intends to do the same.

As for Sanou, he is hoping Night Nursery could receive an award, and the recognition it needs to win a wide audience.

Source: Voice of America