Kate Winslet will be competing with herself at Britain's film awards next month since she won two nominations for best actress, but Martin Scorsese's The Aviator led the way with 14 nods in a pre-Oscar boost.
Vera Drake, about a back-street abortionist in 1950s London, won 11 British Academy Film Awards nominations on Monday, and was matched by Finding Neverland, about JM Barrie's friendship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan.
PHOTO: AP
Once again the BAFTAs -- moved in 2001 from April to February to fall between the US Golden Globes and Oscars -- are seeking to steal a little of Hollywood's limelight as the cinema awards season reaches its climax.
PHOTO: AFP
"There is a perception that the BAFTAs are now some sort of indicator en route to the Oscars," BAFTA chairman Duncan Kenworthy said.
"The bottom line is that we want to have all nominees in the room. If Americans stayed away it would be less exciting," added Kenworthy, producer of British cinema successes including Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually.
Winslet has been shortlisted for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Finding Neverland, and is up against Imelda Staunton for Vera Drake, Charlize Theron (Monster) and Zhang Zhiyi (House of Flying Daggers) in the best actress category.
Daggers is up for nine BAFTA awards.
Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has been threatened for her criticism of Islam and who wrote the scenario for slain filmmaker Theo Van Gogh's film Submission, returned to parliament Tuesday after more than two months in hiding.
The Somali-born politician, who is still subject to tough security measures, was due to attend a meeting of the parliamentary group of her liberal VVD party.
Submission, made by Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali, dealt with Islam and the abuse of women and caused an uproar in the Muslim community when shown on Dutch television in August 2004.
The filmmaker was shot dead while cycling in Amsterdam on Nov. 2 last year, and a letter found on his body contained a direct threat to Hirsi Ali.
Dutch media then reported that she had gone into hiding in the United States.
With sand dunes, oases and snow-capped peaks so beloved of epic filmmakers, not to mention an army willing to provide thousands of extras, Morroco can now boast one of the world's largest film studios.
Veteran Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis and Rome's famed Cinecitta Studios have teamed up to create CLA Studios, which stretches over 150 hectares with two shooting stages.
Bigger than any studio in Hollywood or Europe, the site will be able to accommodate two major movies a year.
The earliest known footage of Manchester United -- filmed in 1902 when they were little more than a cash-strapped local works side -- is to be broadcast by the BBC today.
The scratchy, black-and-white footage is from a match against Burnley at their Turf Moor ground on Dec. 6, 1902.
It was made to be shown to workers at the Burnley Mechanics Institute that evening but the screening was cancelled because Burnley were defeated 2-0.
The film was then lost for nearly a century before being discovered in the basement of a shop in Lancashire that was due to be demolished.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In the aftermath of the 2020 general elections the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had crushed them in a second landslide in a row, with their presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) winning more votes than any in Taiwan’s history. The KMT did pick up three legislative seats, but the DPP retained an outright majority. To take responsibility for that catastrophic loss, as is customary, party chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) resigned. This would mark the end of an era of how the party operated and the beginning of a new effort at reform, first under