Author: Ewang Johnson
The Normandy beach town of Deauville is welcoming Hollywood heavyweights Kristen Stewart, Pamela Anderson and Kim Novak alongside indie talents at this year’s American Film Festival. FRANCE 24’s Genie Godula brings us the highlights of the opening weekend, as Michael Angelo Covino’s “Splitsville” kicks off proceedings, starring Dakota Johnson and Kyle Marvin. We also hear more about Kristen Stewart’s and Scarlett Johansson’s directorial débuts and the retrospectives providing insight into American film icons. Plus tributes pour in from the world of music, fashion and movies following the death of designer Giorgio Armani. Source link
Phill Magakoe/AFP/Getty Images10. Ballet students, Tembisa, South Africa A photo of two 5-year-old ballet students, Philasande Ngcobo and Yamihle Gwababa, posing in July outside a dance academy in Tembisa, South Africa, was powerful and touching. The stark contrast between parched ground, chiselled shadow and delicate dresses recalls the rigorous aesthetic angularities of Degas’s countless scenes of dancers in rehearsal. Keeping our eye fixed on the gestural gravity of his ballerinas, Degas often abstracted the dancing studios to swathes of blank colour, investing his paintings, like the photo from outside Johannesburg, with a timeless dimension.Getty Images11. Starving child, Gaza CityA sequence of devastating images…
World Entrepreneur Day, celebrated every 21st of August, highlights the global impact of entrepreneurs. In Africa alone, there are over 245 million businesses, many of which enrich communities far beyond their borders. Ramatallahi Abubakar, a Nigerian-born fashion designer who now lives in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK, is among one of them. With a mission to create beautiful outfits and make women feel confident through what they wear, the mother of one decided to become an entrepreneur and founded Ramatporsche Design. “I realised early on that fashion was my calling — it allows me to tell stories through fabric,” Ramatallahi says. “I…
Tanzania’s Foreign Minister begins his visit to the United Kingdom on the 8th September. The aim is to deepen trade and diplomatic ties as the East African nation embarks on its goal of achieving a $20 trillion economy by 2050. The scale of this ambition is clear. But so too is our strategy: economic diplomacy. Tanzania’s foreign policy is now firmly focused on mobilising investment, expanding trade, adopting technology, and creating jobs. In this journey, the United Kingdom remains one of our closest partners. Our relationship with the UK spans more than 60 years since independence. It is a bond anchored in Commonwealth membership,…
In this episode of arts24, we begin at the Venice Film Festival, where a harrowing film about a five-year-old girl killed during an Israeli assault on Gaza, entitled “The Voice of Hind Rajab”, received a 23-minute standing ovation. Directed by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania and executive produced by Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and others, the film uses real phone recordings to reconstruct the child’s final moments, leaving audiences visibly shaken and critics calling it the most urgent entry of the festival. Source link
The Brat singer isn’t the first pop star to turn to big-screen acting, but she has made an “auspicious start” that demonstrates a “commitment to cinema”.While fans of her music were obsessing over Brat last summer (the album that became a cultural meme), and cheering her five wins at the Brit awards in March, Charli XCX was quietly building a career as a film actress. She has already shot roles in seven features, and three of them are landing at this autumn’s film festivals. She has small roles in two large ensemble pieces. One Hundred Nights of Hero, a Scheherazade-like…
African ministers of livestock and agriculture have taken bold steps to reshape the future of food systems on the continent. At the African Food Systems Forum in Dakar, Senegal, thirteen countries participated in the first-ever ministerial deep dive on livestock, co-hosted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), AU-IBAR, and GIZ. The session marked a historic shift—placing livestock and animal-sourced foods firmly at the center of Africa’s food systems agenda. Africa is home to 85% of the world’s livestock keepers but produces just 2.6% of global milk. This mismatch highlights a paradox: vast resources, yet low productivity, leaving the continent…
The Chandler Index singles out Mauritius, Rwanda and Botswana for their governance performance, as well as Tanzania for its progress. According to the 2025 Chandler Good Governance Index (CGGI) ranking, Mauritius is the best-performing government in Africa, followed by Rwanda and Botswana. These strong performances cannot hide the fact that the average score for African countries is the lowest of all regions, despite a slight improvement over two years. The Chandler Institute of Governance is an NGO that works with governments around the world to build a resilient and effective public sector. It publishes an annual index that measures the…
The 82nd Venice Film Festival got underway with a constellation of stars on its red carpet, as Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield attended the premiere of “After the Hunt”, directed by Luca Guadagnino. Film critic Emma Jones tells us why she was impressed by Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Bugonia”, starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemmons. We also discuss the French-made political intrigue “The Wizard of the Kremlin”, with Jude Law playing Vladimir Putin himself. And politics were ever-present at this year’s Mostra, with Venice4Palestine protests and Kaouther Ben Hania’s powerful docu-drama “The Voice of Hind Rajab”, which is set in Gaza. Source link
They are surrounded by a supporting cast perfectly in sync with the mock documentary style. As in previous iterations of The Office, that approach pulls us into the paper’s world fluently with side-eyed glances caught by the crew and separate comments spoken directly to the camera. Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez), the one character returning from The Office, is the paper’s head accountant, who sees the familiar camera team and says, “Not again!” Nunez expertly delivers Oscar’s sceptical looks and remarks. Stand-up comedian Alex Edelman plays another accountant, so guileless he actually reacts when someone in the room yells “idiot”, not…