All posts tagged: director

‘Mother’s Baby’ Director Johanna Moder on Berlin Film, Claes Bang

‘Mother’s Baby’ Director Johanna Moder on Berlin Film, Claes Bang

Published by skeptic

The dream of motherhood turns into a nightmare in Mother’s Baby, the new film from Austrian director Johanna Moder (High Performance, Once Were Rebels, TV series School of Champions) that is world premiering in the competition program of the 75th Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 18. 40-year-old Julia (Marie Leuenberger) is a successful conductor and has a loving partner (Hans Löw). So what could she be missing for complete happiness? Well, the couple is longing for a child. Luckily, a fertility doctor (Claes Bang) offers them hope and treatment. Unfortunately, though, the birth does not go as planned, and the baby is taken away, leaving Julia in the dark about what has happened. When reunited with the child, she feels strangely distant. And she begins to doubt whether this is really her baby. From there, the co-production between Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, which was co-written by Moder and Arne Kohlweyer, takes the audience on a female journey full of tension and simmering doubt. Moder, who has two children, talked to THR‘s Georg Szalai about how …

Bristol law firm Barcan+Kirby appoints legal director

Bristol law firm Barcan+Kirby appoints legal director

Published by skeptic

Growing Bristol law firm Barcan+Kirby has appointed its first legal director – Nic Barker. Barker is a corporate solicitor and specialises in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) with a focus on owner-managed businesses. READ MORE: Walker Family Law grows presence in Bristol She will work from the firm’s Bristol city centre office alongside partners Georgina Bryant and Robert Davenport. She originally trained and worked in London as a solicitor before taking time out of the law to run her own business. Six years ago, she came back to Bristol to work as a finance and corporate lawyer. Barker said: “I am looking forward to working with the team at Barcan+Kirby and getting to know the firm’s clients and their businesses. There is a great team spirit, and I am sure we will go from strength to strength!” With five offices across Bristol and South Gloucestershire, the firm provides services for individuals and businesses within the South West and nationwide. The team has doubled in the last year due to growth and with Barker’s expertise, it is …

Director Joe Wright on ‘global problem’ of fascism and what can be learnt from ‘deeply flawed’ Mussolini | Ents & Arts News

Director Joe Wright on ‘global problem’ of fascism and what can be learnt from ‘deeply flawed’ Mussolini | Ents & Arts News

Published by skeptic

British director Joe Wright has said fascism is a “global problem” and there is a sense of the ideology “within us all”. Wright, who is best known for films including Darkest Hour and Atonement, described fascism as the “politicisation of toxic masculinity” which he said “exists everywhere”. Speaking to Sky News’ Barbara Serra ahead of the launch of his new eight-part series, Mussolini: Son Of The Century – which documents the rise of the Italian dictator – Wright said he was interested in delving into history as he didn’t fully understand the meaning of fascism. “Growing up in the 80s, the word fascist was bandied about and was used against any authoritarian figure, but I don’t think I really understood what it meant,” he said. “Then with the spread of the far right across the world recently, I felt it was my responsibility to really understand what the word really meant and where it came from.” Image: (L-R) Joe Wright and author Antonio Scurati speaking to Sky News Fascism, by dictionary definition, is an “extreme …

Former Orlando Museum Director Aaron De Groft Is Dead at 59

Former Orlando Museum Director Aaron De Groft Is Dead at 59

Published by skeptic

Aaron De Groft, the former CEO of the Orlando Museum of Art whose tenure was ultimately defined by a Basquiat forgery scandal, died on January 18 at 59. According to an obituary published on Monday, De Groft died after a brief illness. No further details were provided. De Groft assumed leadership of the Orlando Museum in 2021, following stints at helm of the Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. But his tenure at the Orlando Museum would define his career—especially after the FBI seize a suite of paintings attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat that were on view at the institution in 2022. Related Articles Those paintings were on display in the show “Heroes & Monsters: Jean-Michel Basquiat.” An FBI affidavit revealed that De Groft was under investigation for the paintings, which were thought to be forgeries. De Groft claimed that the paintings were created around 1982 by Basquiat while he lived and worked with dealer Larry Gagosian in Los Angeles. The affidavit, however, …

The Brutalist director defends use of AI to ‘refine’ his lead stars’ performances | Ents & Arts News

The Brutalist director defends use of AI to ‘refine’ his lead stars’ performances | Ents & Arts News

Published by skeptic

The director of The Brutalist has defended his lead actors’ performances after it emerged that artificial intelligence had been used to “refine” their Hungarian accents. Brady Corbet insisted that the performances of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones were “completely their own”. Brody leads the three-hour film, playing Hungarian architect Laszlo Toth, a man trying to rebuild his life in the US following World War Two. Felicity Jones plays his wife, Erzsebet. The film won three Golden Globes earlier this month, and is expected to receive nods at the forthcoming Oscar nominations. In a statement, shared with Deadline, Corbet said: “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own.” He said they had “worked for months” with a dialect coach “to perfect their accents”, but that technology provided by the company Respeecher had been used “in Hungarian language dialogue editing only”. Based in Ukraine, Respeecher says it offers filmmakers the chance to “experience the future of voice cloning” with their “cutting-edge AI solutions”. Corbet said it had been used “specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for …

Director Claire van Kampen dies on husband Mark Rylance’s birthday | Ents & Arts News

Director Claire van Kampen dies on husband Mark Rylance’s birthday | Ents & Arts News

Published by skeptic

Director Claire van Kampen has died, aged 71, on the 65th birthday of her husband, Sir Mark Rylance. She died in the German town of Kassel on Saturday morning after being diagnosed with cancer. A statement, shared on behalf of Sir Mark and her daughter Juliet, described her as “one of the funniest and (most) inspiring women we have ever known”. It added: “We thank her for imbuing our lives with her magic, music, laughter, and love. “Ring the bell, sound the trumpets reverie, something is done, something is beginning. One of the great wise ones has passed.” Van Kampen was a concert pianist, composer, playwright, theatre director and worked in various roles at Shakespeare’s Globe for around two decades. She wrote and performed for theatre, radio, television and film soundtracks, and was the first female musical director for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. Van Kampen was previously married to architect Christopher van Kampen, with whom she had two daughters Juliet and Nataasha. Read more:£20k reward to identify parents of abandoned …

Mufasa: The Lion King 2 review – A catastrophic waste of director Barry Jenkins

Mufasa: The Lion King 2 review – A catastrophic waste of director Barry Jenkins

Published by skeptic

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Disney, it seems, is at least open to feedback. While the 2019 version of The Lion King may have been a hit, critics and audiences alike expressed an aversion to the uncanny inexpressiveness of its photorealistic, computer-animated felidae. And so, in its prequel, the lions have all had melted plastic grins slapped across their mouths. Some may prefer this. Personally, it frightened me on a primordial level, as if one of my old rainbow-splattered Lisa Frank pocket portfolios from the Nineties had gained sentience. The sell here is both the promise of jacked-up anthropomorphism, and the talents of Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins, director of the miraculous Moonlight (2016) and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018). The news that he’d direct Mufasa: The Lion King sparked a minor controversy. Could he really turn what, on paper, seemed like arbitrary franchise mining into something extraordinary? …

An open letter to the Director of the Office of Government Ethics. | Walter M. Shaub Jr.

An open letter to the Director of the Office of Government Ethics. | Walter M. Shaub Jr.

Published by skeptic

Dear Hon. David Huitema (David), Congratulations on being confirmed to serve as director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). Thank you for accepting a job you will not enjoy. It’s been more than a year since President Biden nominated you. The confirmation process took far too long, and it could not have been pleasant. Back in 2023, not long after President Trump’s appointee, Hon. Emory A. Rounds III, finished his term, Senator Mike Lee of Utah declared that the next OGE director should be chosen after the new president’s inauguration (although he had championed Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination shortly before the 2020 election). Since then, he has tried to block you from serving in that role. This September he even claimed in the Senate that “Mr. Huitema left open the possibility of supporting a partisan policy, a partisan approach, from a nonpartisan position.” If the senator had bothered to read the transcript of your confirmation hearing, he would have known you emphatically rejected partisanship. You can expect the Republicans to make increasingly frequent, …

Trump says former ICE director Tom Homan will be appointed ‘border czar’

Trump says former ICE director Tom Homan will be appointed ‘border czar’

Published by Sam

Tom Homan, former Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement speaks to supporters of then-candidate Donald Trump, during a rally in Commerce, Georgia, on March 26, 2022. MEGAN VARNER / AFP US President-elect Donald Trump said, late on Sunday, November 10, that he was bringing back hardline immigration official Tom Homan to oversee the country’s borders in the incoming administration. The 78-year-old Republican tycoon has pledged to launch – on day one of his presidency – the largest deportation operation of undocumented immigrants in US history. “I am pleased to announce that the Former ICE Director, and stalwart on Border Control, Tom Homan, will be joining the Trump Administration, in charge of our Nation’s Borders (‘The Border Czar’),” Trump posted on his social network, Truth Social. “I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” Trump said, adding that Homan will be in charge of “all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.” Homan, who led immigration enforcement during part of Trump’s …

Pace Gallery Senior Director Departs for New York’s Canada Gallery

Pace Gallery Senior Director Departs for New York’s Canada Gallery

Published by skeptic

Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle has left her post as senior director at Pace Gallery to return to Canada gallery, the New York space where she once held that same title. At Canada, Boyle will now be partner and co-owner. The move is an unusual one, as it is rare for high-ranking figures at a mega-gallery like Pace to leave for a smaller operation. Moreover, in the past year, Pace has lost three other senior members of its staff, including its executive vice president of global sales and operations. Three weeks ago, Boyle announced her departure on Instagram, calling her time at Pace “one of the most transformative periods of my career.” She added, “I was taught to always leave things better than found, and I can confidently say I did just that.” Related Articles At the time, she did not reveal where she was headed, but on Friday, Canada announced her return. She was formerly a senior director at that gallery, which is known for its roster of acclaimed painters, including Katherine Bernhardt, Katherine Bradford, Joan …