A giant screen flickers to life in a remote village in the equatorial forest of the Central African Republic. Some 200 villagers avidly take in an evening of films thanks to a travelling cinema team with the dual goal of entertaining and enlightening.

Ambulant Digital Cinema (CNA) brought its show to the southwestern village of Bayanga along bumpy rutted tracks, aiming to reach people living in remote parts of a deeply poor country scarred by violence.

“Some people are astounded when they see a car, so imagine what it’s like when we’re projecting films,” said Serge Mbilika, a state television journalist who brought CNA into the light of day in April 2018.

Silence falls across the clearing among the mango trees once a presenter announces the first film, her voice rising over birdsong and the chirping of crickets.

Then a booming voice surprises the audience. “If you don’t register your identity, you won’t be able to receive your retirement pay!” warns a man on the giant screen.

Before the show, Mbilika spent the afternoon strolling around the streets of Bayanga with his compact camera, filming villagers as they went about their business.

“This helps us to attract people’s attention before the projection,” said Carmelle, the presenter. “Going to see them and filming in the afternoon gets people interested by word of mouth.”

During the show, which follows an hour of music and dancing, the viewers laugh to see themselves on the large screen.

‘Force her to go to school’  

“What do you want with that thing of yours?” a taciturn woman asked Mbilika in Sango, the local language, while grinding cassava a few hours earlier.

“You’ll see this evening, at 5:00 pm at the school,” Mbilika replied.

The prime aim of the roving cinema is to raise awareness of issues such as proper hand-washing methods, the need for vaccinations and the ethics of forced marriages. The last film of the evening in Bayanga concerned girls’ education.

“I didn’t think that was a problem,” said Maeva, a woman who had come to Bayanga with her young son in her arms to see the films, along with many other inhabitants of a Pygmy village 10 kilometres (six miles) away.

“My daughter stays to help me with the house. She looks after it while I’m in the forest. But now I’m going to force her to go to school,” Maeva smiled.

For team leader Mbilika, the evening was a success. “We thought this was the best way of reaching out to people in remote regions. The big screen leaves its mark on some minds and they will talk to others about what they learned.”

‘A means to bring peace’  

Mbilika is also convinced that cinema can serve as a means to help people to live together with respect after violence between armed groups erupted into civil war in 2012 over natural resources and religious convictions.

“The cinema can be a means to bring peace to Central Africa,” he said.

CNA’s films, which come from a variety of countries, may not always hit home, such as one from Cameroon featuring people wearing djellabas and debating marital status. It was dubbed into Sango, but the original Arabic could still be heard.

“The problem is that this doesn’t necessarily get through to the people,” whispered Franklin. “Central Africans find it hard to identify.”

‘In the public interest’  

“We could make proper films — two of us in the group are journalists — but the problem is that there’s no money,” Franklin said.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Alliance Francaise provide the funds required for travelling the country and to show some of the films. The bulk of the equipment comes from CNA Afrique (Cinema Numerique Ambulant – Afrique), which networks mobile teams in nine West and Central African countries.

The team’s car, for example, is a gift from the Cameroonian CNA. However, it is only two-wheel drive, the suspension is shot and the chassis broke in two during the last mission.

“It’s dangerous, when the roads are already difficult,” said Vivien, the team’s driver. “What’s more, we’ve made plans to go to Bambari, which is in a tense area.”

Since good roads are virtually non-existent in the CAR, vehicles are routinely battered and damaged. “We need to find partners to change this car,” said Olivier Colin, the director of the Alliance Francaise in the capital Bangui.

“This cinema is in the public interest!” he exclaimed.

 
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The Golden Globe Awards will introduce a new TV special achievement trophy at next month’s telecast and name it after its first recipient — comedic icon Carol Burnett.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association said Tuesday the Carol Burnett Award — the small-screen version of the group’s film counterpart, the Cecil B. DeMille Award — will annually honor someone “who has made outstanding contributions to television on or off the screen.”

The first Carol Burnett Award will, fittingly, go to Burnett, a five-time Golden Globe winner who was the first woman to host a variety sketch show, “The Carol Burnett Show.”

In a statement, association President Meher Tatna said: “We are profoundly grateful for her contributions to the entertainment industry and honored to celebrate her legacy forever at the Golden Globes.”
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Slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi is among a group of journalists who were named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” Tuesday.

The publication recognizes a person or a group of people who most influenced the news and world affairs over the past year “for better or for worse.”

Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal announced on NBC’s “Today” show the 2018 person of the year are the “guardians and the war on truth.”

In addition to Khashoggi, the other “guardians” are the staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, where five members were killed in a mass shooting at the newspaper’s offices in June.

Also honored were Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, who was arrested on tax evasion charges, and Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been imprisoned in Myanmar for nearly a year.

The magazine cited Committee to Protect Journalists statistics, noting 262 reporters were imprisoned in 2017 and that the group expects the number to be high again this year.

Editor-at-Large Karl Vick wrote, “This ought to be a time when democracy leaps forward,” but “Instead, it’s in retreat.”

While “old-school despots” favored censorship decades after the Cold War, Vick wrote, the modern despot “foments mistrust of credible fact” and “thrives on confusion loosed by social media.”

Vick went on to say, “That world is led, in some ways, by a U.S. President whose embrace of despots and attacks on the press has set a troubling tone.”

On social media and at campaign rallies, President Donald Trump has regularly accused the media of being “the enemy of the people.”
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Walt Disney Studios is again ending the year on a high note, posting more than $7 billion in global box office earnings, thanks to hits such as “Black Panther” and “Avengers: Infinity War.”

“This is only the second time in history any studio has surpassed the $7 billion mark, after Disney’s own industry-record 2016 global gross of $7.6 billion,” the company said in a statement on Monday.

“The Studios’ estimated international box office gross through December 9 is an estimated $4.069 billion, marking our second biggest year and the third biggest in industry history,” it added.

Disney’s success comes as the studio is set to release “Mary Poppins Returns” on December 19, which is expected to top the box office during the holiday season.

​”To date, four of the top eight worldwide releases of the year are from The Walt Disney Studios, including the top two global and top three domestic releases,” the company said.

“Avengers: Infinity War,” made by Disney’s Marvel subsidiary, led the way, earning $2 billion alone. It is followed by superhero movie “Black Panther,” which earned $1.35 billion worldwide.

“Incredibles 2,” made by Pixar, another Disney subsidiary, earned $1.24 billion.

Other top box office earners for 2018 are “Ant-Man and The Wasp,” “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” and “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” which has held the number one spot at the North American box office for the third consecutive week.
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They said it would never sell, with its six-minute playing time, operatic passages and lyrics about Galileo and Scaramouche, but the Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody” on Monday became the most streamed song from the 20th century.

Boosted by the new movie “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the 1975 single and music video surpassed 1.6 billion streams globally, record company Universal Music Group said in a statement.

The song overtook the likes of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’Mine,” and is now also the most streamed classic rock song of all time, Universal added.

The “Bohemian Rhapsody” film, starring Rami Malek as late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, has brought the music of the British rock band to a new generation. Five weeks after its release, it has also become the highest grossing musical biography movie ever, with a global box office take of $600 million.

Malek was nominated for a Golden Globe last week for his performance and is widely expected to get an Oscar nomination in January.

Universal said it had been promoting the single across streaming platforms in recent weeks. It used all registered streams on global on-demand services including Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer as well as streams from official song/video streams on YouTube to determine that “Bohemian Rhapsody” was the most streamed song from the 20th century.
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A journal entry penned when Shameik Moore was teenager laid out one of his dreams — to play Spider-Man on the big screen. That dream is now partially realized with Moore serving as the voice of the web-slinger in the new animated film, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” 

Moore plays Miles Morales, a biracial Brooklyn teen who gains an array of superpowers after being bitten by a radioactive spider. Morales melds his superpowers, including enhanced hearing, wall-crawling and camouflage abilities — while putting his own stamp on the character. Gone are Peter’s Parker’s blue-and-red outfits, replaced by a red-and-black version and a cool pair of sneakers.  

Moore’s ambition was to be the face of Spider-Man in a live-action film, something he still hopes will happen. But for now, he’s happy to serve as Morales’ voice in “Into the Spider-Verse,” which is in theaters Friday and has already drawn rave reviews. 

“The story now is coming out through me. So with great power, comes great responsibility,” he said, referencing an oft-repeated line from the Spider-verse of film and comics. “It’s a black Spider-Man and he looks like me. 

“It’s a new time in Hollywood,” said Moore, who is 23 and of Jamaican descent. “Not only are we in live-action superhero movies, but they are animating us now,” he said. “I’m honored to be the first black Spider-Man (in a film).”

“Into the Spider-Verse” last week was nominated by the Golden Globes for best animated film, and has generated some Oscar buzz that could lead to a superhero showdown with “Incredibles 2” and “Ralph Breaks the Internet.” It boasts a 99 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has drawn rave reviews for its visual style and deftly managing of a storyline that features six distinct versions of Spider-Man. The multiple Spideys team up to thwart a plot by Marvel supervillain Kingpin, who hatches a plan to wreak havoc across multiple realities.

Moore almost had a divergent path to becoming Spider-Man. He first auditioned to play the webslinger years ago with other multiracial candidates, but the role of Spider-Man and his alter-ego Peter Parker ultimately went to Tom Holland, who made his debut in “Captain America: Civil War,”anchored the stand-alone film “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and had a key role in “Avengers: Infinity War.”

The actor’s fascination with Morales started after seeing Donald Glover voice the character on Disney’s “Ultimate Spider-Man” a few years ago. The character was introduced in comic books in 2011 after President Barack Obama and Glover, inspired by Morales’ creation, sported Spider-Man pajamas on a different TV show.

Moore recalled how director Rick Famuyiwa, who cast him in the 2015 film “Dope,” considered him to play Morales in a live-action film, but he said those plans were scrapped after “somebody in power got switched around”and decided to make it an animated film. 

Producers of “Spider-Verse” said they went the animation route because computer graphic illustrators could mimic comic book movements better. With the process of blending CGI and hand-drawn animation, it took three years to develop “Into the Spider-Verse.”

“Our animation is so exaggerated that the best stuntman in world couldn’t do it,” said Chris Miller, who co-produced the film with Phil Lord, one of its co-writers. The filmmaking duo is known for “21 Jump Street” and “The Lego Movie.” “At least in this film, he can move the same way as the comics. If anything, this doesn’t box out a live-action Miles movie. It actually brings more awareness to it.”

Moore says he hopes it happens sooner than later.

“I’m very physical. I don’t need the mask to do flips,” he said. “I won’t need a stunt double. … But if they take like six, seven years, I’ll be older and won’t be able to play it.” 

Regardless of awards or box offices success, “Spider-Verse” cast members believe the film will inspire audiences. The movie explores Morales’ biracial culture and upbringing of the character that swings around the city wearing Air Jordan sneakers.

“I can’t imagine if I was a kid and there was a black or brown Spider-Man, I would have been so excited,” said Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali, who is the voice of Morales’ uncle Aaron Davis aka Prowler. “This opens doors for a different generation to sort of believe in different possibilities. There’s a generation that came into the world knowing Barack Obama was their president, and never thought it was strange or a huge feat. Hopefully, this can be the same.”

Brian Tyree Henry, who plays Morales’ police officer father Jefferson Davis, called the film “necessary.” He said he and Ali’s characters showed the importance of having strong men in the teen’s life.

“I teared up sometimes. It made me think about my upbringing,” said Henry, who stars in “Atlanta” and “If Beale Street Could Talk.” 

“My father is still alive and in my life. … The number of black men who (Morales) had in his life were actually there for him, guiding him. I love that the Marvel Universe is giving that representation a face, a name and giving it a superpower.”

If “Spider-Verse” is successful, more films could follow.

“I think the studios would be very excited to make more of these,” said Peter Ramsey, co-director with Rodney Rothman and Bob Persichetti. “Right now, it still has to come out and allow the audience to fall in love with it. There’s so much potential.”
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Many different countries, voices and eras, but only one house.

Americans “find strength in diversity,” explains artist Ellyn Weiss, who curated the One House art exhibit outside of Washington D.C. The display demonstrates the richness and complexity of U.S. culture.

The exhibit, a large house structure at the BlackRock Center for the Arts, contains 300 panels, each representing a different ancestor. A few depict the country’s earliest inhabitants, American Indians, but the rest are immigrants, starting with some who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. 

“It goes through all of the major waves of immigration from Europe, from Asia, from South America, up to artists who arrived themselves from the Middle East about a year or two ago,” Weiss says.

The artists

For her panel, Shante Bullock chose her grandmother, who descended from American slaves and lived in North Carolina: “Even when we became free my grandfather still picked cotton.” But beyond that Bullock knows little about her family. “I have like the date when she was born and when she died, where we came from and that’s my piece. I would love to know like some people here do, where (my) ancestors came from or the ship they come from… but it just stops. Even though we were brought here involuntarily, we also believe in hope and opportunity.” 

Jamie Downs evoked his great-grandparents who came to the U.S. just before the Civil War: “They came here from Prussia on their honeymoon to north central Pennsylvania. They got some land, and he ran a fruit orchard and she taught Latin. Just hard to believe in very, very rural central Pennsylvania that there were people there to teach.” 

Ric Graves’ parents came from Cuba when they were recently married to settle in New York: “It was as a result of a political revolution on the island… They were looking for opportunity, and they wanted to start a family, and they chose to come to this country that was offering asylum, and they came to the Port of Miami, and they were processed through a central building that used to be a Sears Tower.”

Kyujin Lee depicted her own departure from South Korea: “So to represent that I use the image of a pair of hands stitching or knitting from unraveled threads, and so unraveling represents the separation part of my journey to this country and a rethreading is sort of my reconnecting to adapting to a new land.”

The project

The One House Project is the work of a group of artists from the Washington DC region, who formed the group ArtWatch in January 2017, the same month that Donald Trump was sworn into office.

“We formed about two years ago to develop projects that use our visual arts skills to stand up for the values and the principles about America that are right: democracy, inclusion, unity, tolerance. And this is the largest project that we’ve done so far,” Weiss said.

Weiss dedicated her own panel to her grandfather, who fled religious persecution in Romania in 1900. 

Abraham Miller was “into the wholesale [tableware] business. He bought a building in downtown Philadelphia,” Weiss said. “In those days, it was a pretty shabby part of town. Now it’s a historical area building. It had two basements, one below the other, and it was a perfect place for him to store his stock and have easy access to it.”

Later, the Philadelphia Historical Society certified that the building was a stop on the Underground Railroad, used to help slaves escape from the south before the Civil War. 

“I just thought that was such a beautiful story about how we are all intertwined in this country,” Weiss says.

To her, the One House Project is a testament to the continuing American dream.

“We represent a very wide swath of the world that’s come to the U.S. fleeing persecution, seeking a better life, fleeing extreme poverty. And these are the elements that still drive migration today. It never has changed.”
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