When polo comes to Lagos, the champagne flows and exuberant fashion colors adorn the green fields.

While most Nigerians would never trade their love of soccer, the commercial capital still hosts the biggest polo tournament in West Africa, with trophies fiercely disputed against a backdrop of glitz and glamour for the upper class.

“Polo has shifted from just the sports to a fashion statement,” said Mudrakat Alabi-Macfoy, wearing an airy white kaftan with a multi-colored floral necklace and head wrap at the Lagos Polo Club.

“For me it is something fun, something playful, something whimsical, something comfortable… a bit of color, a bit of pop,” said Alabi-Macfoy, who works as a lawyer when not watching polo.

In a nation with the world’s highest number of people in extreme poverty, the often-dubbed “sport of kings” is prohibitively expensive for the majority.

First introduced by British colonial servicemen, polo has been played in Nigeria for over a hundred years and nearly all the teams are owned by local multi-millionaires.

“It is an expensive sport because, you know, your horses are like babies,” said Koyinsola Owoeye, who has been playing polo since 2007, seduced by his father’s love of the sport.

A horse can cost about $40,000 — then there is upkeep.

“Maintenance is not easy. Today they can be well, tomorrow they can have, you know, malaria, fever, colic, or even get injured on the field or on their way to the tournament,” Owoeye said.

The 2019 Lagos International Polo Tournament, which wound up on Sunday, fielded 33 teams from Nigeria, Argentina, South Africa, Kenya and the United Kingdom.
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At the 27th annual Environmental Film Festival in the nation’s capital, over 100 hundred films were showcased in 25 locations around the city. Many of them focused on the human impact on Climate Change worldwide, pointing to severe weather phenomena already underway, such as rising sea levels, and disappearing biodiversity. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with filmmakers who came to DC to present their work.
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Larry Cohen, the maverick B-movie director of cult horror films “It’s Alive” and “God Told Me To,” has died. He was 77.

Cohen’s friend and spokesman, the actor Shade Rupe, said Cohen passed away Saturday in Los Angeles surrounded by loved ones.

Cohen’s films were schlocky, low-budget films that developed cult followings, spawned sequels and gained esteem for their genre reflections of contemporary social issues.

His 1974 “It’s Alive,” about a murderous mutant baby, dealt with the treatment of children. Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Hitchcock’s frequent composer, supplied the score.

His New York-set 1976 satire “God Told Me To” depicted a series of shootings and murders carried out in religious fervor. Andy Kaufman played a policeman who goes on a shooting spree during the St. Patrick’s Day parade. There were also aliens.

In Cohen’s 1985 film “The Stuff,” Cohen skewered consumerism with a story inspired by the rise of junk food. It’s about a sweet yogurt-like substance that’s found oozing out of the ground and is then bottled and marketed like an ice cream alternative without the calories. The “stuff” turns out to be a parasite that turns consumers of it into zombies.

“It wasn’t just going to a studio like a factory laborer and making pictures and going home every night,” Cohen told the Ringer last year. “We were out there in the jungle making these movies, improvising, and having fun, and creating movies from out of thin air without much money.”

“You’ve gotta make the picture your way and no other way,” he added, “because it can’t be made otherwise.”

Cohen’s approach — he would often shoot extreme scenes on New York City streets without permits or alerting people in the area — made him, like Roger Corman, revered among subsequent generations of independent genre-movie filmmakers. A documentary released last year, “King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen,” paid tribute to Cohen.

“Larry Cohen truly was an independent freewheeling movie legend,” the writer-director Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead,” ″Baby Driver”) said on Sunday, praising him “for so many fun, high-concept genre romps with ideas bigger than the budgets.”

The New York-native Cohen began in television, where he wrote episodes for series like “The Fugitive,” ″The Defenders” and “Surfside 6.” New York would be the setting for many of Cohen’s films, including 1982′s “Q,” in which a giant flying lizard nests atop the Chrysler Building.

Cohen’s 1973 blaxspoitation crime drama “Black Caesar,” scored by James Brown, was about a Harlem gangster. He and star Fred Williamson reunited the next year for “Hell Up in Harlem.”

Cohen later directed Bette Davis’ last film, “Wicked Stepmother,” in 1989. More recently, he wrote the 2002 Colin Farrell thriller “Phone Booth” and 2004′s “Cellular,” with Chris Evans.

Cohen was often his own producer, director, writer and sometimes prop-maker and production manager. “Otherwise,” he told the Village Voice, “I’d have to sit down with producers, and producers are a real pain in the ass, believe me.”
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Jordan Peele has done it again. Two years after the filmmaker’s “Get Out” became a box-office sensation, his frightening follow-up, “Us,” debuted with $70.3 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The opening, well above forecasts, had few parallels. It was the largest debut for an original horror film (only the “It” remake and last year’s “Halloween” have surpassed it in the genre) and one of the highest openings for a live-action original film since “Avatar” was released 10 years ago.

In today’s franchise-driven movie world, seldom has a young director been such a draw. But moviegoers turned out in droves to see what kind of freak-out Peele could muster in his sophomore release.

“Peele has really crafted an extraordinary story that I think once again is going to capture the cultural zeitgeist,” said Jim Orr, distribution chief for Universal. “He is recognized as just an amazing talent. He crafts films that make you think, that are extraordinarily well-acted, well-written and are amazingly entertaining.”

“Us” took over the top spot at the box office from “Captain Marvel,” which had reigned for two weeks. The Marvel Studios superhero release slid to second place with $35 million in its third week. In three weeks of release, it’s made $910 million worldwide, and will soon become the first $1 billion release of 2019.

Other holdovers — the animated amusement “Wonder Park” and the cystic fibrosis teen romance “Five Feet Apart”— trailed in third and fourth with about $9 million each in their second week.

But the weekend belonged overwhelming to “Us,” which more than doubled the $33.4 million domestic debut of 2017′s Oscar-winning “Get Out.” The former “Key & Peele” star’s first film as writer-director, “Get Out” ultimately grossed $255.4 million on a $4.5 million budget.

“Us” cost $20 million to make, meaning it’s already a huge hit for Peele and Universal Pictures, which notched its third No. 1 release of the year following “Glass” and “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.”

It’s also, as Peele has said, more thoroughly a horror film. While “Us” has drawn very good reviews (94 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), audiences gave it a relatively low “B″ CinemaScore. Paul Dergarabedian chalked that up mainly to moviegoers feeling shell-shocked when they emerged from the theater.

“Us” stars Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke as vacationing parents whose family is faced with eerie doppelgangers of themselves. The film added $16.7 million from 47 international territories.

While “Us” was propelled by a number of things, including Nyong’o and buzz out of its SXSW premiere, the main selling point was Peele. The 40-year-old director already has an imprimatur matched only by veteran filmmakers like Clint Eastwood.

“It’s really difficult for a director to become a superstar whose name gets people in theater, and Jordan Peele has done just that,” said Dergarabedian. “He’s a superstar director with a brand all his own, and that’s with two feature films under his belt. That’s pretty astonishing. That just doesn’t happen.”

After a sluggish January and February, the overall box office has rebounded thanks to “Captain Marvel” and “Us.” The weekend was up 15.3 percent from last year, according to Comscore.

The weekend followed an especially tumultuous week in Hollywood. On Monday, Warner Bros. chief Kevin Tsujihara stepped down following a sex scandal. On Wednesday, the Walt Disney Co. completed its $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox.

In absorbing one of the six major studios in 20th Century Fox, Disney quickly made many layoffs and shuttered Fox 2000, the Fox label behind hit book adaptations like “Hidden Figures” and “Life of Pi.”

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included.

1. “Us,” $70.3 million ($16.7 million international).

2. “Captain Marvel,” $35 million ($52.1 million international).

3. “Wonder Park,” $9 million ($5 million international).

4. “Five Feet Apart,” $8.8 million ($6.2 million international).

5. “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” $6.5 million ($6 million international).

6. “A Madea Family Funeral,” $4.5 million.

7. “Gloria Bell,” $1.8 million.

8. “No Manches Frida,” $1.8 million.

9. “Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” $1.1 million ($6.2 million international).

10. “Alita: Battle Angel,” $1 million ($1.6 million international).

 
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A business in Washington, D.C., is working to empower women who have been victims of gender-based violence by targeting the growing number of consumers who are socially and environmentally conscious. Handmade handicrafts are imported from countries where women are vulnerable. Access to a broader market gives victims more opportunities for a better future.
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The U.S. President’s Guest House, commonly known as Blair House, has played a significant role in the history of American diplomacy. Milena Gjorgjievska visited the unique place and learned more about whom it has hosted and what events it has witnessed since it was built in 1824.
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