Sun in Splendor

Cinema Minima features reports filed by its International Correspondents in East Africa ( Nairobi , Kenya), India ( Bombay|Mumbai ), South America ( Rio de Janeiro , Brazil; São Paulo , Brazil), and Europe ( Copenhagen , Denmark; London , England). These intrepid filmmakers and journalists are working hard to provide you with news — and expert opinion — about cinema in their own regions. Each is doing superb work. The extracts published here are but samples of the riches you will discover at their Cinema Minima Correspondents web logs: Mike Atherton in London Daniel Camargo in Rio de Janeiro Brandon Chalk in Copenhagen Fernanda Guerra Gil in São Paulo Wilfred Lobo in Bombay|Mumbai, India Amit Tyagi in Nairobi, Kenya

La mort de Françoise Sagan ou la disparition d'un mythe PARIS (AFP) — Françoise Sagan restera dans l'histoire comme un personnage de roman, sans doute plus important que ses livres, un mythe dont la notoriété dépasse les frontières de l'Hexagone, le totem d'une époque faite de liberté et d'insouciance. Dès l'annonce de sa mort, vendredi soir à l'hôpital d'Honfleur (Calvados), les hommages se sont multipliés pour saluer la mémoire de l'écrivain français contemporain le plus connu au monde et qui ne reçut pourtant aucun prix littéraire de première importance. Avec sa mort, s'en va "la couleur, l'humeur d'une époque", a résumé le comédien Laurent Terzieff tandis que l'écrivain Edmonde Charles-Roux a parlé à son sujet d'un "mythe" et que le photographe Jean-Marie Périer l'a qualifiée de "Rolling...

Don Juan , or Europe Unmasked

necrorule . Having sex with corpses is now officially illegal in California after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill barring necrophilia. [ Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog ]

This letter came to my office today: From: [withheld] Subject: Im interested in sex film actings Date: 2004 September 10 14:47:07 PDT To: festivals editor My name is mr [name withheld], 21 years of age, live in the u.k, london south, curently available. i've always love to do acting in the sex movies industry because i have all it takes and also for the simple fack that i love oral sex and can proudly say im good at it and also good at blow jobs too because im use to it and would really appreciate if im givn an opportunity to perform as a lead actor in your sex movies. Im really interested in this profession because most of the ladies i sleep with always wants more of me but since im not being paid for my services,i call a quit to it and realise its actually a talent GOD as giving which im eager to use. I wonder what reply would be the most fun — I invite you, Dear Reader, to propose a reply to this letter!

The New York Film Festival has accredited my publication's stringer as Press. Yay! This was lucky -- the first guy who had signed up to cover the Festival flaked out at the last minute. Fortunately another stringer stepped forward to do the job.

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Today a journalist in London applied to be a stringer (correspondent) for the "trade paper" I edit [a "trade" is for people who make movies, not those who watch them]. He wants to cover The Times/bfi 48th London Film Festival . My publication, although small, is well-respected: festivals usually give its stringers Press credentials. The Bombay stringer is working out fine, readers appreciate his rather breathless reports on Bollywood. I had no idea that readers (mostly North Americans and Europeans) would be interested in the subject; so I am a little surprised that his work has attracted favorable notice. Last Spring a man applied to cover the Copenhagen International Film Festival . I didn't hear a word from him for four months. I thought he had flaked out. Then, last month he contacted me. I arranged for a Press pass for him. He has been churning out reports and reviews -- about one a day, which is considerable. This year I have recruited stringers...

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©MM SUN IN SPLENDOR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The photo has been cropped to the proportion of the Golden Section

COPYRIGHT ©MM SUN IN SPLENDOR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The "Circus Allegria" is a tiny, family circus which, at the time I visited, had pitched its tent and trailers on the outskirts of Valença, a town of seventy thousand souls in Bahia, Brazil. In the photograph, the father (as Master of Ceremonies) stands near the backdrop. One of his daughters dances, with good cheer as much as seductiveness. She couldn't have been much more than sixteen — older than most of the audience. The sign by the side of the road promised a show each night. In fact, if it rained, there would be no show, since the audience — pedestrians all — would not come. Admission was one Real (pronounced "Hey-I"), which was about 70¢; I regret, very much, that I had not the presence of mind to pay for the score of children who stood outside, unable to afford admission.

AKOACACERE by L. Clichy. This QuickTime file is large, and hosted on the server of its producer, Cube (France). It may be difficult to play online over a slow ( i. e., dial-up) Internet connection. An alternative to playing the movie online would be to download it, and play it offline (this can be done by right-clicking or control-clicking this link and Save As...).

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My new Bombay stringer writes in "Indian English," which is a dialect, as American English is a dialect. I use the word dialect in its philological sense, not as a pejorative. His copy — like most writers' copy — has spelling and typographical errors, e. g., ollywood where Bollywood is meant. I try to correct those. However, he is also using Indian English grammar, and idioms, with which I — and non-Indian readers — are not familiar. I have to take care not to adjust the copy so far as to turn it into American English dialect. That could rob it of nuance and shades of meaning, as well as color, which Indian English may do a better job of conveying.

I edit a daily news digest for digital movie makers — nothing grand, but it is fun building it up. I have recruited stringers (correspondents) in the North of England, Singapore, Seattle, Brooklyn, Copenhagen, and most recently, Bombay. This is fun, and it keeps life interesting, too. I received the Bombay stringer's application last week. I was surprised that he referred to his city as Bombay — I had been told that the new, and "correct" name is "Mumbai," and I had corrected my speech and writing to reflect that. I had supposed that this was like the Chinese correction of Peking to Beijing. I asked the fellow about Bombay/Mumbai. Here's what he replied: "As for your kind info, we all in India call Bombay; rarely someone mentions Mumbai." So it's back to Bombay for me! Istanbul was Constantinople Now it's Istanbul not Constantinople * * * Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks's! List...

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The Texas Observer is online. It is terrific — one of the things which made Texas politics, Right or Left, bearable. Molly Ivins writes for it. Even if you don't live in Texas, it is worth reading, because it is good, engaged, and engaging, writing. It has an RSS news feed , too.