JEDDAH: Saudi director Haifa Al-Mansour’s latest directorial venture, a British-set costume drama titled “Mary Shelley,” will be featured at the upcoming Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF).
The English-language feature debut by Al-Mansour (of “Wadjda” fame), stars Elle Fanning as Mary, the 19th century author who penned horror classic “Frankenstein” at the age of 18. It is about her romance with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who inspired her to write the masterpiece of literature.
The film also stars Bel Powley, Maisie Williams and Douglas Booth.
It joins a robust “Cinema of the World” line-up at DIFF 2017 featuring some of the year’s most anticipated global releases.
“Mary Shelling” had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 9
The 14th edition of DIFF will take place from Dec. 6-13 at Madinat Jumeirah and features more than 200 long and short films from the Arab world and beyond.
In 2012, Al-Mansour scooped the top prize of the Best Arab Feature for “Wadjda” at the 9th edition of DIFF.
Haifa Al-Mansour returns with ‘Mary Shelley’ to DIFF 2017
Haifa Al-Mansour returns with ‘Mary Shelley’ to DIFF 2017
Menendez brothers case set for LA court hearing on resentencing
- The case of Erik and Lyle Menendez will go before a Los Angeles court Friday in the latest chapter of their bid to get out of jail, decades after slaughtering their own parents
LOS ANGELES: The case of Erik and Lyle Menendez will go before a Los Angeles court Friday in the latest chapter of their bid to get out of jail, decades after slaughtering their own parents.
The brothers — who are among America’s most infamous murderers — are hoping the court will agree to resentence them for the 1989 shotgun slayings that left their luxury Beverly Hills mansion soaked in blood.
During blockbuster trials in the 1990s, prosecutors said the men killed Jose and Kitty Menendez to get their hands on a $14 million fortune, initially blaming their deaths on a Mafia hit.
Supporters say the men acted in self-defense, terrified of their parents’ rage after years of sexual and emotional abuse by a tyrannical father and a complicit mother.
But despite a lengthy campaign and a seemingly sympathetic public — nourished by a hit Netflix series — Erik Menendez, 54, and Lyle Menendez, 57, face an uphill battle.
Last month, the new chief prosecutor of Los Angeles County said his office wanted to withdraw its earlier support for a resentencing hearing that supporters hoped would see the brothers walk free.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the pair should remain behind bars because they had never accepted their guilt and continued to rely on untruths.
“In looking at whether or not the Menendezes have exhibited the full insight and complete responsibility for their crimes, they have not,” Hochman told reporters.
“They have told 20 different lies, they’ve actually admitted to four of them, but 16 realized lies remain unacknowledged.”
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic is expected to hear arguments Friday from Hochman’s office asking to withdraw a motion filed by his predecessor George Gascon, who believed the brothers were reformed.
That motion asked for the court to resentence them, changing their current life-without-parole to a minimum term with parole that would allow them to go free, given the length of time they have been in prison.
The resentencing effort is one of three separate routes being pursued by attorneys for the brothers, who are also seeking a retrial and are appealing to California Governor Gavin Newsom for clemency.
Hochman also opposes a new trial.
The brothers’ original trials were huge events, and the case saw a surge of renewed interest last year with the release of the Netflix hit “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”
Newsom is bound by no specific timeline and could release the men at any point, or refuse their appeal for clemency.
He has said he has not watched dramatizations of the Menendez case or documentaries on it “because I don’t want to be influenced by them.”
“I just want to be influenced by the facts.”
Boris Johnson gets a surprise peck from an ostrich in Texas
- Video shared on Instagram by his wife Carrie Johnson
- The couple visited Dinosaur Valley Park, southwest of Dallas
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson received a memorable welcome from an ostrich at a state park in Texas when the towering two-legged bird gave him a peck, according to a video Sunday.
In the video, posted by his wife Carrie Johnson, an ostrich slowly walks toward a car before poking its head through the driver's seat window where Johnson is sitting with his son on his lap. Once in front of Johnson, the bird quickly pecks its beak toward his hand.
“Oh, Christ,” Johnson yells before driving off in the video.
“Too funny not to share,” Carrie Johnson said in the caption on Instagram.
It is not clear which wildlife park they were visiting, but other posts on the same account show the family visiting Dinosaur Valley Park, about 80 miles (128 kilometers) southwest of Dallas.
Boris Johnson, who served as prime minister from 2019 to 2022, was also spotted with his wife at a local restaurant in Lake Granbury, Texas, on Sunday, according to the restaurant's Facebook page.
“We are so honored to have him as our guest!!” said Stumpy's Lakeside Grill in a Facebook post with a photo of the former prime minister.
Nose job boom in Iran where procedure can boost social status
- Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranian women have been required to dress modestly and cover their hair, and the beauty industry has become almost entirely centered on the face
TEHRAN: All of the women in Iranian model Azadeh’s family have had nose surgeries, each feeling the pressure to conform with Western beauty standards in a country where female bodies are heavily policed.
To Azadeh, smoothing out the bump in what Iranians would call the “Persian nose” she was born with proved a lucrative investment.
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranian women have been required to dress modestly and cover their hair, and the beauty industry has become almost entirely centered on the face.
Having rhinoplasty — a nose job — can make a major difference, Azadeh told AFP.
“After the operation, not only have I earned myself a modelling job with better social standing but I’m also earning three times more and I’m more respected by clients,” she said. Azadeh, 29, asked that her surname be withheld because women models can face social pressure in Iran.
According to the US-based International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, more than 264,000 cosmetic operations were performed in Iran in 2023, with rhinoplasty being the most common.
Across Tehran and other Iranian cities, brightly colored billboards advertise beauty clinics and cosmetic procedures, offering promises of sculpted noses, flawless skin and perfect teeth. Many people with bandaged noses can be seen on the streets, a testament to the popularity of rhinoplasty.
“It has become more of a cultural trend,” said rhinoplasty surgeon Hamidreza Hosnani who performs up to 20 operations a week at his well-equipped clinic in the capital.
And that trend has evolved, becoming more and more tied to social identity and status, especially as more women have defied the strict dress code.
Such defiance became more marked following the mass protests sparked by the 2022 death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini.
In Iran, where the minimum wage is around $100, basic rhinoplasty costs up to $1,000 — significantly cheaper than in other countries, Hosnani said.
Millions of Iranians have long struggled with soaring prices and a plunging currency, driven in part by years of international sanctions.
“I even had to borrow the money required for the operation from my friends and family, but the money was well spent, and it was completely worth it,” Azadeh said.
Reyhaneh Khoshhali, a 28-year-old surgical assistant, had the operation four years ago, and regrets not having it sooner.
“My nose really did not look good aesthetically and I wanted to be more beautiful,” she said.
“If I could go back, I would have had the operation earlier.”
For years, Iran has hosted highly advanced medical centers, even becoming a destination for foreigners seeking high-quality and affordable cosmetic surgery.
However, the procedures can also come with risks.
The Iranian authorities have repeatedly warned about the growing number of unauthorized clinics performing cosmetic procedures.
In February, a dozen unlicensed practitioners were arrested and several operating theaters in Tehran’s Apadana Hospital were closed because of unauthorized cosmetic procedures, the health ministry said.
In 2023, three women died in a single day — November 7 — during cosmetic surgery in three separate incidents in Tehran, media reported at the time.
Ava Goli has yet to undergo her rhinoplasty operation, and said that finding a reliable doctor involved some research.
“I saw some people whose nose job did not look good... and yeah, it really made me scared at times,” the 23-year-old told AFP.
Yet the demand for cosmetic surgery in Iran remains high — and the pressure to keep up is not limited to women.
Bahador Sayyadi, a 33-year-old accountant, said he had to borrow money so he could have a hair transplant.
“My financial situation isn’t great, but thanks to a loan I got recently, I will be doing the procedure just in time before my wedding,” he said.
“Men should also take care of themselves these days, just like women.”
Scientists genetically engineer wolves like the extinct dire wolf
NEW YORK: Three genetically engineered wolves that may resemble extinct dire wolves are trotting, sleeping and howling in an undisclosed secure location in the US, according to the company that aims to bring back lost species.
The wolf pups, which range in age from three to six months old, have long white hair, muscular jaws and already weigh in at around 80 pounds — on track to reach 140 pounds at maturity, researchers at Colossal Biosciences reported Monday.
Dire wolves, which went extinct more than 10,000 years old, are much larger than gray wolves, their closest living relatives today.
Independent scientists said this latest effort doesn’t mean dire wolves are coming back to North American grasslands any time soon.
“All you can do now is make something look superficially like something else“— not fully revive extinct species, said Vincent Lynch, a biologist at the University at Buffalo who was not involved in the research.
Colossal scientists learned about specific traits that dire wolves possessed by examining ancient DNA from fossils. The researchers studied a 13,000 year-old dire wolf tooth unearthed in Ohio and a 72,000 year-old skull fragment found in Idaho, both part of natural history museum collections.
Then the scientists took blood cells from a living gray wolf and used CRISPR to genetically modify them in 20 different sites, said Colossal’s chief scientist Beth Shapiro. They transferred that genetic material to an egg cell from a domestic dog. When ready, embryos were transferred to surrogates, also domestic dogs, and 62 days later the genetically engineered pups were born.
Colossal has previously announced similar projects to genetically alter cells from living species to create animals resembling extinct woolly mammoths, dodos and others.
Artist of ‘distorted’ portrait says Trump complaint harming business
WASHINGTON: The artist who painted US President Donald Trump in what he criticized as a “purposefully distorted” portrait has said his remarks have harmed her business.
Colorado removed the official portrait of Trump from display in the state’s capitol building last month after the president complained that it was deliberately unflattering.
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol... along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on March 24.
“The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst,” Trump said.
The 78-year-old Republican called for the oil painting to be taken down, and said the artist, Sarah Boardman, “must have lost her talent as she got older.”
The Democrat-controlled Colorado legislature said the same day as Trump’s complaint that the painting would be removed from the gallery in the capitol’s rotunda — where it had been hung since 2019 — and placed in storage.
Boardman has responded to Trump’s critique in a statement on her website, saying she completed the work “accurately, without ‘purposeful distortion,’ political bias, or any attempt to caricature the subject, actual or implied.”
“President Trump is entitled to comment freely, as we all are, but the additional allegations that I ‘purposefully distorted’ the portrait, and that I ‘must have lost my talent as I got older’ are now directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years,” the British-born artist said.
Boardman added in the undated statement that for the six years that the portrait of Trump hung in the Colorado capitol, she “received overwhelmingly positive reviews” on the commissioned work.
However, since Trump’s comments “that has changed for the worst,” she said.
In addition to Trump and former president Barack Obama, Boardman was also commissioned to paint a portrait of ex-president George W. Bush.
