Renowned French-Lebanese film director Ziad Doueiri appeared before a military court in Beirut Monday to face questions about his role in a past movie project in neighboring Israel. Lebanon bans its citizens from travel to Israel or having business dealings with Israelis as the two nations are in a state of war.

Doueiri was briefly detained at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri airport late Sunday and his passports confiscated after arriving in Lebanon to promote a new movie that received critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival recently.  Following his release, Doueiri’s lawyer reportedly told media assembled outside the court that Doueiri had been freed following several hours of investigation and given back his travel documents.

At issue was the earlier film, The Attack, which was released in 2012.  The Attack, about a suicide bombing in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, was filmed in part in Israel and banned in Lebanon.

Profoundly hurt

In a statement to the French news agency before his appearance in court, Doueiri said, “I am profoundly hurt.  I came back to Lebanon with a prize from Venice.  The Lebanese police have authorized the broadcast of my film (The Insult).  I have no idea who is responsible for what has happened.”

Doueiri had flown from the Venice Film Festival, where The Insult, his fourth film, had won the Coppa Volpi best actor prize for Palestinian actor Kamel El Basha.  The Insult is set in Beirut and focuses on the escalation of a minor argument between a Palestinian refugee and a Lebanese Christian.

Doueiri was offered the support of Lebanon’s culture minister, Ghattas Khoury, following the brief detention.  “Ziad Doueiri is a great Lebanese director and that has been honored across the world,” Khoury tweeted, before adding, “Respecting and honoring him is a duty.”

Doueiri, however, angered many Lebanese when the earlier movie, The Attack, was released.

Unpredictable approach

According to Ayman Mhanna, director of Lebanon-based free speech NGO SKeyes, Doueiri’s appearance in court was symptomatic of an unpredictable approach within the government regarding the director’s time in Israel.

Although Mhanna “did not question” the laws preventing Lebanese visits to Israel, he told VOA that Doueiri had visited Lebanon numerous times without repercussion.

The government’s response was “chaotic” and “destabilizing,” he added, with one part of it endorsing Doueiri and another seeking to detain him. Mhanna noted that the Ministry of Culture recently backed Doueiri’s latest film, The Insult, to represent Lebanon in the foreign film category at next year’s Academy Awards in the United States.

Meanwhile, the trying of civilians in military courts has also attracted criticism.

A report by Human Rights Watch earlier this year highlighted the use of such courts to try civilians involved in protests against the Lebanese government’s handling of the country’s waste crisis.

Bassam Khawaja, of Human Rights Watch, told VOA, “Regardless of detentions being brought, Doueiri should not be tried in a military court.

“Unfortunately military courts are still used in Lebanon to try civilians on a broad range of charges, in violation of their due process rights and international law.

“These trials largely take place behind closed doors, with limited grounds for appeal, and it is difficult to see how he would get a fair trial there.”

Long history

There is a a long history of perceived moments of Israeli acknowledgment or collaboration drawing swift rebuke in Lebanon, which was first invaded by its southern neighbor in 1978.

In May, global box office hit Wonder Woman was barred from Lebanese theaters because it starred former Israeli army soldier Gal Gadot.  Last month, Swedish-Lebanese dual citizen Amanda Hanna was stripped of her title Miss Lebanon Emigrant after those behind the event discovered she had visited Israel using her Swedish passport in 2016.

Doueiri is one of the most acclaimed Lebanese directors of his generation.  He first made a name for himself with Lebanese civil war classic West Beirut, which was released in 1998.

He began his career as first camera assistant for Quentin Tarantino on the director’s films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown.
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Kristen Bell says she’s “singing in a hurricane” while riding out Irma in Florida.

The “Frozen” star is in Orlando filming a movie and staying at a hotel at the Walt Disney World resort. She stopped by an Orlando middle school that was serving as a shelter and belted out songs from “Frozen.” Back at the hotel, Bell posted pictures on Instagram of her singing with one guest and dining with a group of seniors .

Bell also helped out the parents of “Frozen” co-star Josh Gad by securing them a room at the hotel .

Bell tells Sacramento, California, station KMAX-TV, where her father is news director, that the experience is her version of one of her favorite movies, “Singin’ in the Rain.”

 
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Rebel super-hacker Lisbeth Salander is back in the fifth book in the Millennium series, this time battling neo-Nazi prison gangs and honor killings as well as trying to uncover the secrets about her troubled childhood.

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye is the long-awaited return of Salander, the small but combative computer wizard and hobby quantum physicist, that was introduced to readers in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, published in 2005.

The best-selling series, which made the “Nordic Noir” genre of gritty Scandinavian crime novels popular globally, was created by author and reporter Stieg Larsson who had completed the first three novels before he died in a heart attack in 2004.

Author David Lagercrantz was commissioned to write a fourth novel, published in 2015, and this time around he delves deeper into the mystery of her childhood where she often witnessed her mother being abused by her father.

“The big question is, of course, why does Lisbeth Salander have a big dragon tattoo on her back, and you can be sure that a girl like her wouldn’t [get] a dragon tattoo without a very good reason,” Lagercrantz said.

“I had to find something, you know, that was really heavy and mythical, and when I did, I sort of had a story. I’ve added more darkness to Lisbeth Salander.”

The book, which was released Thursday, also draws inspiration from issues Sweden has grappled with in recent years, such as a resurgent far-right movement and honor killings — both fiercely debated topics in the Nordic country.

“Sweden is now changing so quickly and that is something I have to deal with as well,” Lagercrantz said.

Sweden was shocked after members of a neo-Nazi cell conducted a string of bombings in the city of Gothenburg around the turn of the year, while the far-right Nordic Resistance Movement has stepped up its activity.

As a reporter, Larsson devoted much of his life to investigating Sweden’s far-right movement. In 1995, he co-founded the anti-Fascist magazine Expo and worked there until his death.

“That was the core of Stieg Larsson, to fight intolerance, racism and Fascism,” said Lagercrantz.

Honor killings have also been on the agenda. A recent report by Swedish public service radio showed 10 of the 105 murders in Sweden last year were honor killings. The government has launched an investigation and said it is reviewing relevant legislation.

The original three books have been translated into 50 languages and sold more than 80 million copies while the fourth sequel, the first penned by Lagercrantz, has sold 6 million.
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The kind of breakthrough performance where it’s immediately apparent that an actor is going to be a star for years to come is a rarity in movies. Think of Emma Stone in “Easy A” or Jessica Chastain in “The Tree of Life.”

But that kind of thunderbolt moment is striking now for 21-year-old Timothee Chalamet, a New Yorker with the talent to speak multiple languages, play numerous instruments and take the festival circuit by storm with a handful of performances  — including one assured of ranking among the finest performances of the year.

The Toronto International Film Festival has been a coming out party for Chalamet, who has three films at the festival. He stars in Luca Guadagnino’s coming-of-age, coming-out tale “Call Me By Your Name,” he’s a supporting player in Greta Gerwig’s equally lauded coming-of-age tale “Lady Bird,” and he co-stars in the Christian Bale-led Western “Hostiles.” A Cape Cod thriller in which he stars, “Hot Summer Nights,” was also acquired here by A24.

But the headliner is his performance in “Call Me By Your Name,” which Sony Pictures Classics will release Nov. 24. In the film, adapted by James Ivory from André Aciman’s novel, Chalamet plays Elio, a headstrong 17-year-old living with his parents in 1980s northern Italy. When a handsome academic (Armie Hammer) comes to stay with them, Elio has a self-discovery that mingles love with art, language and natural beauty.

In the film, he plays piano and guitar, speaks fluent French and Italian, and indelibly captures the experience of first love. The film and its cast are considered likely Academy Awards contenders, partly because of Chalamet’s uncommon poise and wide-ranging intelligence in a deeply sensual movie.

“It feels like a real seminal moment,” said Chalamet in an interview. “I feel like the luckiest guy in the world that I get to share it with Luca and Armie and Michaels Stuhlbarg. I’m obviously very young and I’ve had a short career, but I’ve never been a part of anything like this.”

“He’s being excessively humble,” Hammer cuts in. “He’s the man of the year here at TIFF and we’re just riding his coattails.”

Though the two are separated by a decade in age and experience, they’ve become close friends, drawn closer by the intimacy of making “Call Me By Your Name” in the meadows, cafes and villas of Crema, Italy, where Guadagnino lives.

“He’s a very difficult dude to hate,” Hammer said.

What Chalamet lacks in vanity, those around him make up for in their praise for him.

“Not to sound pompous, but the guy is kind of a genius,” said Guadagnino, the Italian filmmaker of “I Am Love.” “He has a capacity for understanding human nature instinctively that’s astonishing. It’s also naive in a way, because he’s young, but also very focused. The cinema is at its best when it can present a new personality in the world.”

Chalamet doesn’t come out of nowhere. He’s appeared on stage, earning a Drama League Award nomination for John Patrick Stanley’s “Prodigal Son.” He was a regular on “Homeland” and played smaller roles in films like Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” and Jason Reitman’s “Men, Women and Children” — his screen debut.

“I have been working for a number of years,” says Chalamet. “I just graduated from theater high school in New York. I went to LaGuardia so I’m very close to the reality that lot of actors work rarely.”

Chalamet’s mother was a Broadway dancer and his French father works for UNICEF. He credits them for pushing him into piano lessons and taking him on trips to France.

He recently shot a father-son drama, “Beautiful Boy,” in which he plays a methamphetamine-addicted son to Steve Carell. After making “Call Me By Your Name,” he shot his scenes for “Lady Bird,” in which he plays the alluring love interest of Saorsie Ronan’s high-school senior.

“To have those films back-to-back, and they contrast so heavily, it helps you understand filmmaking,” said Chalamet. “There’s the truth to every moment that you have to bring to every scene, but you have to understand the tonality the film before you begin, which isn’t something that’s instinctual to me.”

Chalamet will have plenty of practice to get accustom to that adjustment. He’s also to star in Woody Allen’s next, untitled film. But whatever lies ahead for Chalamet, making “Call Me By Your Name” will remain an experience he long treasures.

“I miss the sense of belonging somewhere,” he says. “I miss the sense of belonging on a film as much as I did on ‘Call Me By Your Name.”’
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Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, a dark fairy tale in which a mute cleaning lady falls in love with an aquatic creature, won the Golden Lion award for best film at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

The film beat contenders including George Clooney’s Suburbicon and Alexander Payne’s Downsizing at the end of a 10-day, high-quality and star-studded movie marathon that critics said showed Venice was now on an equal footing with the widely revered Cannes film festival.

“As a Mexican, I want to say this is a first for a Mexican storyteller, so I want to dedicate and give the prize to every young Mexican filmmaker or Latin American filmmaker that is dreaming to do something in the fantastic genre, as a fairy tale, as a parable, and is faced with a lot of people saying it can’t be done. It can,” del Toro said.

The runner-up Grand Jury prize went to family tragedy Foxtrot by Israel’s Samuel Maoz, while France’s Xavier Legrand was picked as best director for his divorce drama Jusqu’a la Garde (Custody).

Charlotte Rampling received the best actress award for her performance in Italian film Hannah, while Palestinian Kamel El Basha took the best actor prize for his role in The Insult.

The award ceremony brought down the curtain on the Venice festival, the world’s oldest, which is seen as a launching pad for the industry’s awards season.

Moviemakers will be hoping for a replay of the success of films such as musical La La Land, clergy sex-abuse drama Spotlight, space movie Gravity and backstage comedy Birdman, which all won Academy Awards after premiering in Venice.

‘Incredible day’

“This is an incredible day for Mexican film, for Mexican storytellers. The three amigos have now conquered the Lido, with Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) and Alejandro Inarritu (Birdman) both going on to Oscar gold after dominating Venice,” said Ariston Anderson, a film critic at Hollywood Reporter.

“While there’s no sure bet at this stage, there couldn’t be a better start for del Toro’s road to Oscar gold. And it will be very interesting to see what happens in March at the Academy Awards if he can continue the trend of Venice picking Oscar winners,” she said.

The big disappointment of the night was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, starring Frances McDormand, which won only the award for best screenplay. The film, a portrayal of vengeance in small-town America, was acclaimed by critics in Venice as a prime Oscar contender.

For all the quality of the Venice film fest, this year in its 74th edition, critics said there was no clear outstanding movie.

“My thoughts after having viewed the lineup are the same — a lot of strong Oscar contenders but no clear-cut winner, unfortunately, as we had in previous years at the festival,” Anderson said.

Still, she said Venice — which not too long ago was seen as being doomed in the face of strong competition from Cannes and Toronto — had once again shown its appeal.

“Because of recent successes, we’re seeing more big studio films shift over to Venice for their international launches, so it will be interesting to see if this trend will continue over the next few years.”
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Country music singer Don Williams, one of the biggest stars of the 1970s and 1980s, died on Friday at the age of 78, his publicist said.

Williams, known as “the Gentle Giant” because of his 6-foot, 1-inch frame, mellow voice and low-key profile, had hits with Tulsa Time, I Believe in You and It Must Be Love over the course of a 50-year career.

He died on the same day as Troy Gentry, one half of the country music duo Montgomery Gentry, who was killed in a helicopter crash in New Jersey.

“2 legends lost at once. Troy Gentry and Don Williams will be missed so much. Praying for their families and may they rest in peace,” country-pop band Big & Rich wrote on Twitter.

The statement announcing his passing said Williams died of an undisclosed illness but gave no further details.

Williams was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2010 and released his last studio album, “Reflections,” in 2014.

Two years later, he announced his retirement from touring, saying it was “time to hang up my hat and enjoy some quiet time at home.”

Williams was a big influence on other musicians, spanning country to rock. Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend were among those who have recorded his music.

In 2016, a tribute album, “Gentle Giants: The Songs of Don Williams,” was released featuring performances by Alison Krauss, Trisha Yearwood, Garth Brooks and many others.
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Troy Gentry, one half of the award-winning country music duo Montgomery Gentry, died Friday in a helicopter crash just hours before a concert, according to a statement from the band’s website. He was 50.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the helicopter crashed into a wooded area near the Flying W Airport in Medford hours before Montgomery Gentry was due to perform at a resort that is also housed at the airport.

The band’s website called Gentry’s death “tragic” and said details of the crash are unknown.

“Troy Gentry’s family wishes to acknowledge all of the kind thoughts and prayers, and asks for privacy at this time,” the website said.

Medford Township Police Chief Richard Meder told NJ.com that police got a call at around 1 p.m. about a helicopter that was “distressed.”

He said crews were able to remove the passenger from the wreckage, but he died on the way to a hospital. The pilot died at the scene and crews were working to remove his body, Meder said.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Gentry was the pilot or the passenger.

Gentry was born on April 5, 1967, in Lexington, Kentucky, where he met bandmate Eddie Montgomery and formed a group based off their last names.

Montgomery Gentry had success on the country charts and country radio in the 2000s, scoring No. 1 hits with Roll With Me, Back When I Knew It All, Lucky Man, Something to Be Proud Of and If You Ever Stop Loving Me. Some of the songs even cracked the Top 40 on the pop charts.

The band mixed country music with Southern rock. It was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2009. The group released their debut album, “Tattoos & Scars,” in 1999.
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