South Korea is to bring in legislation to protect actresses after a survey found 60 percent of them said they had been pressured to have sex to further their careers, an official
said Wednesday.
The law will lay down strict rules on the establishment of entertainment agencies, a culture ministry official said, adding unregistered agencies would be shut down.
“The government will enact a
law, this year if possible, to protect their rights,” he said on condition
of anonymity.
On Tuesday the National Human Rights Commission published a survey conducted last year of 111 actresses and 240 aspiring actresses. Some 60 percent reported receiving sexual advances from people who could influence
their careers.
Such offers from wealthy businessmen, television program makers, movie producers and politicians come through colleagues, entertainment agency officials and brokers, the state rights body said.
More than half said they had been offered “sponsorship” — a secret contract under which they receive financial support from rich men in exchange for regular sexual relations.
The commission said the survey
was conducted to raise public awareness following the suicide of an actress last year.
Jang Ja-Yeon killed herself after suggesting she had been forced to have sex with influential figures to promote her career.
A group of film industry luminaries, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, on Friday called on the Iranian government to release jailed director Jafar Panahi.
In a petition signed by filmmakers and actors such as Robert De Niro and Robert Redford, the group denounced the March arrest of Panahi, whose movies include The White Balloon and The Circle.
“We ... stand in solidarity with a fellow filmmaker, condemn this detention, and strongly urge the Iranian government to release Mr Panahi immediately,” the petition says.
Panahi, a maker of gritty films that examine social issues in the Islamic republic, was a supporter of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in last year’s disputed election that saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad retain power.
On March 1, Panahi, his wife, daughter and 15 guests were held by Iranian security guards at his home, according to opposition leaders.
The petitioners say Panahi has
since been held in Tehran’s Evin prison, and they cite a letter from Panahi’s
wife expressing “deep concerns about her husband’s heart condition, and about his having been moved to a smaller cell.”
“Like artists everywhere, Iran’s filmmakers should be celebrated, not censored, repressed and imprisoned,” the petition reads.
Panahi, 49, saw his first film, 1995’s The White Ballon, win the Camera d’Or prize at the Cannes film festival, and 2000’s The Circle, which looked at the treatment of women in Iran, earned the top prize at the Venice
Film Festival.
Other filmmakers signing the document include brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, Jonathan Demme, Ang Lee (李安), Oliver Stone and documentary maker Michael Moore.
A German film about a young woman who flees an oppressive life in Istanbul and moves to Berlin and a documentary about a Down syndrome couple won the top prizes at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday.
When We Leave (Die Fremde) by Austrian filmmaker Feo Aladag took two awards including best narrative feature and best actress for Germany’s Sibel Kekilli. Monica and David, by first-time director Alexandra Codina, won the best documentary prize for a portrait of an American Down syndrome couple in love and preparing for their marriage.
Tribeca, which has grown into a high-profile film festival since its launch in 2002, has previously featured movies that went on to win critical success including Taxi to the Dark Side. This year, the festival launched a new distribution arm and online streaming for Web audiences.
The award-winning films were among 85 feature-length movies shown at the festival — including 55 narrative features and 30 documentaries — which ended yesterday. Among the jurors picking award-winners were singer Alicia Keys and actors Zach Braff, Brooke Shields, Jessica Alba and Whoopi Goldberg.
French actor Eric Elmosnino was named best actor in a feature film playing Serge Gainsbourg in a new biopic of the singer, famed for the heavy-breathing classic Je t’aime ... Moi Non Plus (I Love You, Me Neither).
Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 Over a breakfast of soymilk and fried dough costing less than NT$400, seven officials and engineers agreed on a NT$400 million plan — unaware that it would mark the beginning of Taiwan’s semiconductor empire. It was a cold February morning in 1974. Gathered at the unassuming shop were Economics minister Sun Yun-hsuan (孫運璿), director-general of Transportation and Communications Kao Yu-shu (高玉樹), Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) president Wang Chao-chen (王兆振), Telecommunications Laboratories director Kang Pao-huang (康寶煌), Executive Yuan secretary-general Fei Hua (費驊), director-general of Telecommunications Fang Hsien-chi (方賢齊) and Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Laboratories director Pan
The classic warmth of a good old-fashioned izakaya beckons you in, all cozy nooks and dark wood finishes, as tables order a third round and waiters sling tapas-sized bites and assorted — sometimes unidentifiable — skewered meats. But there’s a romantic hush about this Ximending (西門町) hotspot, with cocktails savored, plating elegant and never rushed and daters and diners lit by candlelight and chandelier. Each chair is mismatched and the assorted tables appear to be the fanciest picks from a nearby flea market. A naked sewing mannequin stands in a dimly lit corner, adorned with antique mirrors and draped foliage
The consensus on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair race is that Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) ran a populist, ideological back-to-basics campaign and soundly defeated former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), the candidate backed by the big institutional players. Cheng tapped into a wave of popular enthusiasm within the KMT, while the institutional players’ get-out-the-vote abilities fell flat, suggesting their power has weakened significantly. Yet, a closer look at the race paints a more complicated picture, raising questions about some analysts’ conclusions, including my own. TURNOUT Here is a surprising statistic: Turnout was 130,678, or 39.46 percent of the 331,145 eligible party
The election of Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) as chair of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) marked a triumphant return of pride in the “Chinese” in the party name. Cheng wants Taiwanese to be proud to call themselves Chinese again. The unambiguous winner was a return to the KMT ideology that formed in the early 2000s under then chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) put into practice as far as he could, until ultimately thwarted by hundreds of thousands of protestors thronging the streets in what became known as the Sunflower movement in 2014. Cheng is an unambiguous Chinese ethnonationalist,
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