entertainmentawardevent:the academy awards

  • The achievement of Schindler’s List - World Socialist Web Site

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/12/07/list-d07.html

    #Steven_Spielberg’s #Schindler’s_List opened in movie theaters 25 years ago. It went on to win Best Picture, along with six other honors, at the Academy Awards in March 1994.

    The film, in a restored version, is being re-released this week and shown in selected theaters in the US. We are posting below the review that was published in the International Workers Bulletin, a forerunner of the World Socialist Web Site, on January 10, 1994.

    In a recent interview with NBC News, Spielberg expressed his deep concern about the current rise not only of anti-Semitism, but of “xenophobia” and “racism.” He suggested that “this may be the most important time to re-release this film, possibly now is even a more important time to re-release Schindler’s List than 1993, 1994, when it was initially released. I think there’s more at stake today than even back then.”

    –------

    Schindler’s List at 25: looking back on Spielberg’s defining Holocaust drama | Film | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/dec/06/schindlers-list-25th-anniversary-steven-spielberg-holocaust

    A big-screen rerelease leads to a re-examination of the 1993 Oscar winner which had a profound effect on critics and audiences

    Pamela Hutchinson
    @pamhutch

    Thu 6 Dec 2018 08.00 GMT
    Last modified on Thu 6 Dec 2018 16.25 GMT

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    ‘For Spielberg, telling Schindler’s story was a tool to combat ignorance, but it is work that continues.’
    ‘For Spielberg, telling Schindler’s story was a tool to combat ignorance, but it is work that continues.’ Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/Universal

    Twenty-five years ago, Steven Spielberg brought out two of his best movies, in a matter of months. The films were poles apart in style and subject matter, and the process of completing one while shooting the other left the director exhausted and emotionally ragged. In spring 1993, Spielberg was in Poland, recreating the terror of the Kraków ghetto and the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp for Schindler’s List by day, and each night he was calling Industrial Light & Magic in California to oversee the special effects for the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Spielberg’s friend Robin Williams would call him up once a week to tell him jokes for 15 minutes at a time and release the tension.

    #shoah

    • In a recent interview with NBC News, Spielberg expressed his deep concern about the current rise not only of anti-Semitism, but of “xenophobia” and “racism.” He suggested that “this may be the most important time to re-release this film, possibly now is even a more important time to re-release Schindler’s List than 1993, 1994, when it was initially released. I think there’s more at stake today than even back then.”

      Donc selon Spielberg la meilleure parade contre la montée de l’antisémitisme et de la xénophobie c’est de ressortir sa grosse merde révisionniste. On peut penser différemment. Mais j’ai bien compris que cela sera de peu de poids.

  • Vanessa Redgrave backs ’Zionist hoodlums’ comment made during 1978 Oscar speech
    Haaretz - Aug 31, 2018 7:03 PM
    https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/vanessa-redgrave-backs-zionist-hoodlums-comment-during-oscar-speech-1.64338

    Vanessa Redgrave is unapologetic for referring to “Zionist hoodlums” during her Academy Award acceptance speech 40 years ago.

    On Thursday, the veteran actress told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview ahead of receiving a lifetime achievement Golden Lion Award from the Vienna Film Festival that she felt a responsibility to speak out no matter the consequences.

    Redgrave, 81, was referring in her remarks at the 1978 Oscars to the members of the Jewish Defense League who objected to her funding and narrating “The Palestinian,” a 1977 documentary about the Palestinians’ situation and the activities of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

    She received the best supporting actress Oscar for her performance in the 1977 film “Julia,” in which Redgrave played the title role — a woman murdered by Nazis prior to World War II for her anti-fascist activism.

    Following her nomination, members of the JDL burned her in effigy and allegedly offered a bounty on her head. There was a firebombing at one of the theaters that screened the documentary. The JDL also picketed the Academy Awards ceremony where she received her Oscar opposite pro-PLO demonstrators.

    “In the last few weeks you have stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threat of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums, whose behavior is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world, and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression,” Redgrave told her supporters during her acceptance speech.

    She concluded the speech by pledging “to fight anti-Semitism and fascism for as long as I live.”

    The controversial statement about “Zionist hoodlums” reportedly cost her many roles over the years.

    “I didn’t realize pledging to fight anti-Semitism and fascism was controversial. I’m learning that it is,” she told the Hollywood Reporter this week. (...)

    • En 2018, dénoncer l’organisation raciste, fasciste et classée comme terroriste aux États-Unis de Meir Kahane, est toujours un « controversial statement ». Même pour le Haaretz.

  • Despite controversy over #OscarsSoWhite, Canadian actress and Revenant star Grace Dove was not invited to the Academy Awards
    http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/television/canadian-actress-and-revenant-star-grace-dove-was-not-invited-to-

    Unless you’ve been in hiding the for the last few months, it’s impossible to not be aware of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, a newly christened Oscar winner, and Tom Hardy.

    But the film also featured an appearance by Canada’s own Grace Dove, a Shuswap actress originally from Canim Lake Indian Band in Northern British Columbia, as DiCaprio’s character’s wife.

    Already a regular on the APTN series underEXPOSED, Dove made the leap to the silver screen alongside some of Hollywood’s greats, bolstering her resume.

    But while The Revenant went into Sunday night’s ceremony with the most nominees of any other picture and walked out with wins for DiCaprio and Iñárritu, it’s unusual to note that Dove was not at the ceremony celebrating alongside her colleagues. In fact, she wasn’t even invited.

    #oscars #racisme + #sexisme

  • Palestinians urge Oscar nominees to reject Israel junket
    https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinians-urge-oscar-nominees-reject-israel-junket

    Palestinians are calling on Oscar nominees to reject a travel voucher supplied by the Israeli government as part of the gift bag they will be given during the Academy Awards.

    The Israeli tourism ministry said it was behind the vouchers which are good for a “10-day VIP trip to Israel for two.”

    Tourism minister Yariv Levin made clear that the goal of the stunt is to improve Israel’s image by capitalizing on the fame of Hollywood stars.

    Israel hopes that stars including Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Kate Winslet will be “touring in Tel Aviv or walking through the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem” – a part of the occupied West Bank.

    “If they do indeed accept the invitation, their visit will have enormous resonance among millions of fans and followers,” Levin said.

    • Les Palestiniens demandent aux nominés aux Oscars de refuser un voyage de propagande en Israël
      http://www.pourlapalestine.be/les-palestiniens-demandent-aux-nomines-aux-oscars-de-rejeter-le-voya

      Les militants palestiniens des droits de l’homme demandent aux nominés aux Oscars de ne pas accepter les billets de voyage fournis par le gouvernement israélien () et qui font partie de l’ensemble des cadeaux remis aux nominés des catégories « acteurs » et « mise en scène ».

      Une déclaration du ministère israélien du Tourisme se targue de ce que cette initiative constitue une excellente occasion de voir d’« éminents faiseurs d’opinion » partager leur visite « avec des millions de leurs fans et partisans ».

      () Il s’agit d’un voyage de 10 jours, pour une valeur de 55.000 $

  • #Dencia’s One-Sided Beef with Lupita Nyong’o
    http://africasacountry.com/dencias-beef-with-lupita-nyongo

    Right before the Academy Awards, Camaroonian-born pop star and skin-lightener shill Dencia began tweeting a series of attack-mode responses to a supposed slight by Lupita Nyong’o.

    #FILM #OPINION #Lupita_Nyong'o #skin_bleaching #The_Oscars_2014

  • “Ich bin ein Bil’iner!” Uri Avnery
    – Gush Shalom - Israeli Peace Bloc
    http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1362763452

    One may wonder how two films like these made it to the top of the Academy awards in the first place. My own (completely unproven) conjecture is that the Jewish academy members voted for their selection without actually seeing them, assuming that an Israeli film could not be un-kosher. But when the pro-Israeli lobby started a ruckus, the members actually viewed the films, shuddered, and gave the top award to Searching for Sugar Man.

    #Palestine

  • Oscar-nominee ’Five Broken Cameras’ sparks identity debate - FRANCE 24
    http://www.france24.com/en/20130222-oscar-nominee-five-broken-cameras-sparks-identity-debate?ns_campa

    Fundwashing

    “Two Israeli films are among the five nominated for best documentary for the Academy Awards,” Israel’s embassy in the United States said on its Twitter feed immediately after the nominations were announced.

    It was a narrative quickly echoed by some of the Israeli press.

    “After a remarkable string of Oscar nominations for scripted dramas, Israel’s film industry has managed a new feat in 2013: earning two nods in a different category, in a single year,” said the online Times of Israel.

    The Jerusalem Post also flagged it as an achievement for “Israeli cinema.”

    For Burnat, it was a “cunning attempt” to damage the film.

    “The Israeli press tried to describe the film as Israeli which was strange to me because it is about me, my family and my village,” he told AFP.

    “It cannot be an Israeli movie because it is about an attempt to erase Palestine.”

    For Burnat’s co-director Davidi, the debate about whether the film is Israeli or Palestinian is “not important.”

    “For me, the whole discussion is not a very important one because for me generally, films do not represent countries, even if they are produced by countries,” he told AFP.

    “I don’t think films should have nationalities.”

    The film, which also received French funding, tracks the life of Burnat and his family since the birth of their son Jibril in 2005, the same year Israel began building its sprawling separation barrier on lands owned by the village.

    The title comes from the five cameras that were broken as Burnat captured the villagers’ plight on film over the years.

    Davidi, a former Israeli activist who used to attend the weekly solidarity protests, got involved at Burnat’s request to help with production problems.

    “I asked Guy to come and take part in the movie because he was a solidarity activist who comes to the demonstrations with us. I didn’t ask him to come to represent Israel or take part in an Israeli-Palestinian production,” Burnat said.

    “Guy doesn’t represent Israel; he helped with the production and the funding.”

    Davidi says there are many Israelis who produce work critical of the occupation, which often gives official Israel a way of showcasing the country’s democratic principles.

    “There is an expectation that Israeli filmmakers will represent their country... but there is a way to use them to show Israel is democratic and an open society that allows open discussion and freedom of speech,” he explains.

    “I am not willing to be used in that way to clear Israel’s name, especially as I am a part of a very small minority,” he said.

  • Oscars Message to Israel – Forward Thinking – Forward.com
    http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/171798/oscars-message-to-israel

    “The Gatekeepers” and “5 Broken Cameras” have already succeeded in breaking one of Israel’s biggest taboos: airing out its dirty laundry on the big screen, for the whole world to see. Now the two films are both heading to the biggest stage of all: the Academy Awards. ...

    (...)

    But there are salient and important differences between the films. Most obviously, “The Gatekeepers” provides the perspective of the privileged and powerful occupier, while “5 Broken Cameras” speaks for the powerless and debilitated occupied. (...)

    (...)

    While both films reflect a different piece of the harsh reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they exist in entirely separate political discourses. “The Gatekeepers” takes place within Israel’s national ethos, from a conscious place of privilege and power. Palestinians are not really present in “The Gatekeepers,” except as the legitimate enemy as well as the victimized “other.”

    (...)

    ... [“The Gatekeepers”] is not as much a condemnation of the occupation as it is a lamentation of its stain on Israeli democracy. It in effect applauds Israeli guilt over being the occupying force.

    (...)

    “5 Broken Cameras,” on the other hand, is a personal Palestinian story, showing the implications of occupation and its human rights violations on the very people suffering it. It gives voice to a narrative often neglected, dismissed or combated — or simply ignored — in Israeli society and media.

    (...)

    If “The Gatekeepers” wins, it will be like the Academy giving the film — and by extension, Israeli society — a pat on the back for demonstrating that some of Israel’s most elite security men know how to be retrospectively self-critical. While that may be a nod toward a more honest way of viewing Israel, it’s ultimately a cop-out since it still manages to portray Israel in a redeeming light, and thus stops short of a sea change.

    If “5 Broken Cameras” wins, it will amount to symbolic recognition by mainstream America of the Palestinian narrative as the occupied – and defy arguments voiced in Israel that it is nothing more than a provocative Palestinian propaganda film. It will go beyond the message expressed in “The Gatekeepers” that what Israel is doing is wrong and show the world what wrong looks like – and just how ugly it is.