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Terry Virts Tweets Touching Tribute To Leonard Nimoy From Outer Space

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While orbiting around Earth on the International Space Station, American astronaut Terry Virts took a minute to pay fitting tribute to Leonard Nimoy, who died on Friday at 83. The late actor's home state of Massachusetts can be seen just to the right of Virts' Vulcan salute.




Nimoy, of course, will forever be known as Mr. Spock from the original "Star Trek" series. On Friday, NASA acknowledged how influential that show had been for generations of astronauts:



Kazuo Ishiguro On Memory, Censorship And Why Proust Is Overrated

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Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel, The Buried Giant, was over a decade in the making, but unlike so many anticipated literary releases, it’s no sweeping saga of century-spanning conflicts. Nor is it a painstakingly assembled retelling of his own personal history. Instead, the author describes his quiet, deeply touching story as “fable-like.”

Set in Arthurian Britain circa 500 A.D. -- a historical period we know little about -- it follows an old married couple that hopes to restore their lost memories, as they and their neighbors seem to be suffering from a collective amnesia.

Axl and Beatrice are granted permission to leave their town, and early on in their journey they encounter bloodthirsty pixies, a once-fierce dragon made weak with age, a passionate warrior who harbors a lust for vengeance, and a stubborn boatman whose route leads passengers to an Eden-like mythical land. They soon learn from a weak, old Sir Gawain (the Green Knight, that is) that the dragon’s enchanted breath is the source of their hazy thinking.

Fantastical plot devices aside, Ishiguro would characterize his novel as an extended metaphor for the way social memory functions -- be it the way a nation tries to forget a war, or a married couple attempts to recall the details of their wanton first dates.

Although he's written about the complexities of personal memories in many of his novels, Ishiguro has never attempted to confront how memory impacts us on a social level. "I want people to appreciate the difficulty of questions about remembering and forgetting," he told The Huffington Post. "I want to insist on the complexity of human dilemmas."

Below, Kazuo Ishiguro discusses the central themes of his latest novel, as well as his opinions on genre, Marcel Proust and the way memory is illustrated in movies:

On writing a novel that -- on its surface, at least -- differs from his earlier works:
My initial inclination was to carry on doing these kind of monologues, which my previous books have been. With Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day, you stay well within the consciousness of just one character. They turn over their memories, sometimes they’re hiding from more uncomfortable parts of their pasts. And that question of, "When is it better to just forget things and keep them forgotten?" comes up over and over again as applied to just one individual.

[The Buried Giant] is not a first-person narrative, and it takes place in a landscape I haven’t previously used. Those are the two really obvious departures. And they were both very conscious decisions. I did something I’ve been wanting to do for at least 15 years, which was to write a novel about that same question -- when is it better to remember, when is it better to forget -- but applied on a larger scale, to society, to a nation, to a community. I couldn’t keep it as a first-personal narrative. This book wouldn’t be appropriate as something that stays within the confines of just one mind. I had to somehow have a way of portraying a kind of a community as a crucial point of its development.

On collective memory and its role in war:
[The Buried Giant] was triggered by my being here in Europe when Yugoslavia disintegrated, and during the Rwandan genocide. Both of these happened very close together in the '90s. And they were puzzling as they were horrifying -- how people who had lived so intimately for a generation, using each other’s babysitters for their children -- suddenly turned on each other within small villages. Neighbor had turned on neighbor, and terrible slaughters occurred. It did seem to be a case of some kind of buried memory having been deliberately resurrected so that people could feel this hatred for each other.

I haven’t entirely abandoned the idea of writing a novel set in one of these places. I thought if I did that, it’d be more journalistic or historical. It would be about Yugoslavia disintegrating or about slavery in the British Empire or in America. But people would inevitably see it as being about a single issue.

I feel it’s appropriate as a novelist as opposed to a nonfiction writer to take a step back and acknowledge that these are recurring patterns in the human condition. You’ll see them repeated all through history. Because I wanted to say that I’m looking at a universal thing, and possibly an eternal thing, I really wanted to set it in a landscape that people could see I wasn’t literally interested in. It was largely metaphorical. And what happened in this landscape is something we can apply to recent history.

I’ve even thought about a novel where characters could hop from one sort of setting to another, so that we could get all these examples plus things like South Africa after apartheid and Japan after the Second World War. There probably is a novel to be written like that, where we can see a pattern emerging over and over again. Instead, I decided to write something that’s almost like a fable.

On writing emotional, rather than political, novels:
I’m not making a huge effort to be accurate. There are ogres in the mist and pixies coming out of the water. I’m not looking for any kind of clear moral, and I never do in my novels. I like to highlight some aspect of being human. I’m not really trying to say, so don’t do this, or do that. I’m saying, this is how it feels to me. Emotions are very important to me in a novel.

On "forgiving and forgetting" in romantic relationships:
I wanted to also apply the question of memory to a marriage. I was interested in the role of shared memories in a marriage, especially a long marriage like the one in the book. Most relationships that go for a long time, whether it’s parent-child, siblings, or friends -- over time there are things that we think would be better to just leave behind. There are always dark, uncomfortable passages. It might seem the best thing to just bury them. With something like a marriage you have to ask, if you just deny that something’s happened, and you literally forget it, what does that do to the love? Is it somehow inauthentic? Is it “real” love still? On the other hand, if you do actually go back and look at it squarely, would that destroy the love as well?

On writing about memory and forgetting as a kind of supernatural force:
I needed some way of everybody losing their memories, or their memories at least being very, very patchy. This might be a metaphor of a much more complicated and subtle thing that happens in our world: Our memories are controlled by the media, popular entertainment, history books, and museums. School textbooks are a significant, conspicuous example of people trying to control societal memory. There’s regularly a rouse about this in Japan, of course. Japanese school textbooks do not mention what the Japanese did in the Second World War in Southeast Asia.

It’s not magic, but somebody is exercising something like that. In my simplified, mythical landscape I created a kind of mist that had fallen over this land, that had a supernatural quality of making people forget. You could argue that it’s been done with a relatively good end in mind: to stop the cycle of vengeance. Sometimes you can only do this by forcing a kind of amnesia. The peace is held uneasily in my story, by this mist.

[In my book], this couple starts to think, well, we need our memories for our love to survive. Where can we go to find a solution to this? How can we make the memories come back? Hence it becomes a story about people who want this mist to go away, and people who want this mist to stay.

On classifying his books as science-fiction, fantasy, or other literary genres:
I suppose I could’ve set it in the future, and people would’ve called it sci-fi. If you do a story about long, long ago, people call it fantastical.

On why Marcel Proust is overrated:
To be absolutely honest, apart from the opening volume of Proust, I find him crushingly dull. The trouble with Proust is that sometimes you go through an absolutely wonderful passage, but then you have to go about 200 pages of intense French snobbery, high-society maneuverings and pure self-indulgence. It goes on and on and on and on. But every now and again, I suppose around memory, he can be beautiful.

I’m not sure he talks about memory in the way that I do in this book. He’s really good at capturing the emotional essence of memory. I suppose he got people like me thinking about writing about memory in the first place.

On the portrayal of memory in novels as opposed to movies:
Most novels at some point use memory in some way. And memory often works well in novels. It doesn’t work very well in films. It’s something to do with the form. We have the flashback device, which is very much a device -- it’s quite clunky. It’s a storytelling device rather than a serious attempt to capture the texture of memory. Every now and again someone tries to do it. I’m wondering if it’s also to do with the fact that when we remember, we tend to remember in stills. If I ask you now to recall some sort of key memory from your childhood, you may find that it’s still images. It’s full of emotions, and you have to figure out how the emotions fit into that tableau vivant. And then you start to say, what was happening just before this picture, and what happened just after that moment?

In novel-writing that’s quite natural. You’ve got that interior monologue that can supply that. The moving image seems to be contrary to the way our memory works. It’s very concrete and present-tense, and it unwinds in a regular way. That doesn’t seem to be anything like memory.

Artists Across The Internet Imagine The Speech They Wish The Israeli Prime Minister Would Give

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"In 1948 and 1976 the United Nations proclaimed long lists of human rights, but the immense majority of humanity enjoys only the rights to see, hear, and remain silent," Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano declared. "Suppose we start by exercising the never-proclaimed right to dream? Suppose we rave a bit? Let’s set our sights beyond the abominations of today, to divine another possible world..."

Inspired by Galeano's words, artists Or Zubalsky (born in Israel, based in Brooklyn) and Christhian Diaz have started "Suppose We Rave a Bit," a project that seeks to reimagine a very specific 21st century event: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned March 3 speech to Congress, one that is expected to address nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran.

In collaboration with Alona Weiss, Kevin Connell and other anonymous speakers, the "Suppose we Rave a Bit" participants have taken to Vimeo -- Netanyahu masks and all -- as a form of protest, inviting the public to perform their own rendition of the speech they wish Netanyahu would give.

Suppose We Rave a Bit: Benjamin Netanyahu Sings about Sharing Land from Or Zubalsky on Vimeo.



"In what is criticized as a political stunt just prior the elections in Israel, Netanyahu is likely to follow his pattern of fear mongering and diverting attention from his own failures," the group claims online. "We recognize that both the speech itself as well as the controversy surrounding it put aside the pressing issues of the occupation in Palestine, from social inequality to racism and injustice."

Earlier this year, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that he had invited Netanyahu -- up for re-election in Israel on March 17 -- to address Congress on the dangers of U.S. negotiations with Iran. The invitations sparked controversy as many saw the invitation as a "snub" to Obama, whose administration has maintained that talks with Iran are necessary in preventing the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Suppose We Rave a Bit: Benjamin Netanyahu Fights for Equal Rights and Justice for All from Or Zubalsky on Vimeo.



"I plan to speak about an Iranian regime that is threatening to destroy Israel, devouring country after country in the Middle East, that's exporting terror around the world and is developing, as we speak, the capacity to make nuclear weapons -- lots of them," the prime minister said on Monday, before his appearance in Congress.

You can see a preview of the "ravers" who've begun performing their dream versions of Netanyahu's talk here. Some of the videos simply show participants reading from pages, others are strumming banjos as they recite their words. Below each video is the text from the imagined speeches. "The racism and hatred that I am describing to you are rooted so deeply in our culture that it will take generations to mend the damage," Or Zubalsky writes. "It is not an easy task but it must start, and it starts today."

Head over to the Vimeo page to see the entire project, which will be updated as more videos come in.

Suppose We Rave a Bit: Benjamin Netanyahu Admits Using Iran as a Distraction from Or Zubalsky on Vimeo.



Suppose We Rave a Bit: Benjamin Netanyahu Talks about Everything but Most Things from Or Zubalsky on Vimeo.

To Hell And Back: 30 Years As A Frontline Photojournalist

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Massimo Sciacca is perhaps the most important Italian photojournalist around. In 1998, he received first place at the World Press awards, and in 2015 he will be celebrating 30 intense years of work in one of the world’s most difficult and riskiest professions.

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Since the advent of web-based reporting, being a photojournalist has meant being a photographer and film director at the same time. Sciacca found himself extremely suited to both aspects of the profession. Whichever form of media he uses, his ethos always remains the same: that of a true-born photojournalist guided by intuition.

He explains it best himself, when he talks about the jobs he does: “Usually I arrive somewhere with a simple outline. Curiosity and contact with the people in the street are often the key to opening up the doors that incredible stories are hiding behind,” he told HuffPost. He always travels alone, except when he is covering news.

“I prefer to travel for myself,“ he explains simply, “because it is the best way to come into contact with the reality that you want to convey. When you’re covering the news it’s inevitable that you’ll build up friendships and working relationships with your colleagues in the field.”

Looking back at his travels puts his life in perspective: he was present at some of the most important conflicts of the last decades, and has been to many countries where danger is ever-present. The fact that he could have been killed at some point in his career is something he always keeps in mind. “When you choose this profession, you need to be aware of the possibility that you might not come back. Uncertainty lies around every corner, and it’s likely that you’ll never really know when and how close you are to the possibility of death.”

In essence, being a photojournalist means coming into contact with hell on earth every day. It is difficult not to carry all of that horror with you. What is it like to be on a battlefield one day, and the next be calmly watching TV in your living room? “Choosing to report conflicts,” Sciacca says, “has been an important lesson in humility. The people you meet, who are often victims of every kind of violence and abuse, convey a dignity that you can’t ignore once you return home. It definitely changes your everyday life.”

The experience that had the greatest impact on him occurred in Sarajevo, which he considered a second home. “The conflict in former Yugoslavia deeply affected my private as well as my professional life. The friends I made in Bosnia I am still friends with today, all those years later.”

In terms of change, it has not necessarily been easy for Sciacca to adapt to the digital age. In some ways, he has not really adapted at all: he continues to work with analog film and in black-and-white. Even though classical formats have given way to new technologies, and color has become an obligatory part of his profession, he has thankfully maintained his reputation as a cutting-edge photojournalist even in a digital world.

So, what has he taken from 30 years working in extreme environments? “Having seen and reported so many things,” he explains, “is a double-edged sword: the satisfaction of doing the work contrasts with the necessity of raising the bar for future work.“ In other words, the game is still on, and the best is yet to come.

This post originally appeared on HuffPost Italy and was translated into English. See selections from Sciacca's career below.




Very Naked Artist Milo Moire And Equally Naked Baby Visit A Museum... Naked

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Swiss artist Milo Moire has a knack for inspiring headlines. A self-professed protege of Marina Abramovic, the Dusseldorf-based performance devotee has -- on more than one occasion -- stripped down for the sake of art. Once she "gave birth" to a painting in a spectacle timed for Art Cologne. Another time she attempted to casually visit Art Basel with nothing but black writing emblazoned on her skin.

Now she's roaming the halls of a German museum, nude, with a naked baby in tow. Why? Because the LWL Museum for Art and Culture is hosting an exhibition titled "Naked Life," and Moire wanted to be a part of it, in the best way she knows how: nakedness. You can see the recent act in its entirety in the video below.

These are the articles that quickly followed her nude visit to the museum:

"Artist Goes to Gallery Nude With Baby to 'Become Art'"

"Naked woman strolls around museum leaving visitors open-mouthed"

"Naked woman strolls around museum with a baby. Why?"

Or, our personal favorite of a mouthful from the Daily Mail: "Nice legs, shame about the art: Visitors stunned by Swiss artist who walked naked around gallery while carrying a nude baby for her 'performance'"


So, what's left to say? There are only so many synonyms and euphemisms for "nude" and "performance artist." At this point in mainstream coverage, it's clear reporting on a Milo Moire intervention is an attempt to alert the masses that performance art is still weird. Or inaccesible. Or exhaustingly shocking. Or something.

But there a few takeaways worth pointing out -- you know, as long as we've hooked you with the word "naked." One, Moire is hardly the first woman to tackle pop culture's torrid love affair with the nude female body. Cue Yoko, Marina, Carolee, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.

Second, it's one thing to take issue with the mere fact that Moire is walking naked amongst us. It's another to break down what it means to see another white, notably hairless, model-esque body type -- you know, like the ones Botticelli used to paint -- inserted into contemporary art. The field is awash with muses already (she refers to herself as muse to her partner, photographer P.H. Hergarten). When we think about the nude women we're used to seeing in art, is Moire's work even shocking at all?

Third, to her defense, Moire's frequent nudity might seem bombastic to some (and, let's be fair, it is), but she's pretty consistent in her reasoning. “Without a shell, the body develops its maximum ability to communicate, its primitive nature," she writes on her website. "The body is universal and free from distraction, not bound to dominating ideals, fashions or even time. The sight of nudity provokes a meeting with oneself and affects someone within themselves, or it repels and the thought changes into outraged resistance. I see the naked human body neutrally –- as a canvas and the possibility to get closer to oneself. The opportunity to make yourself vulnerable and feel strength.”

Whether your like her methods or not, she has plenty more quotes like this lurking online. Until the next Moire headline, this has been a drive-by explanation of nude performance art, courtesy of your friends at HuffPost Arts.



The video's caption reads in part: "In keeping with the approach of the artists exhibited, Milo Moiré brings everyday life to art. And yet, she goes one step further in removing herself from the abstract form of representation and shows her main motif of the naked life: A naked infant safe in the arms of a naked woman. This direct confrontation with live nude art challenges others to reflect on familiar forms of perception. How close may a form of representation in art approach real life? Milo Moiré’s performance leaves this question within the realm of the museum: 'How little abstraction can art tolerate?'”

German Pensioner Needs New Drill To Dig For Nazi-Looted Amber Room

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By Madeline Chambers
BERLIN (Reuters) - A pensioner has started digging in Germany's western Ruhr region for the Amber Room, a priceless work of art looted by Nazis from the Soviet Union during World War Two and missing for 70 years, but says he needs a new drill to help him.
Dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Amber Room was an ornate chamber made of amber panels given to Czar Peter the Great by Prussia's Friedrich Wilhelm I in 1716.
German troops stole the treasure chamber from a palace near St Petersburg in 1941 and took it to Koenigsberg, now the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, before it disappeared.
Conspiracy theories abound about the whereabouts of what some say is the world's most valuable piece of lost art. Some historians think it was destroyed in the war, others say Germans smuggled it to safety.
Now 68-year-old pensioner Karl-Heinz Kleine says he thinks the chamber is hidden under the town of Wuppertal, deep in western Germany's industrial Ruhr area.
After analyzing the evidence, Kleine has concluded that Erich Koch, who was the Nazis' chief administrator in East Prussia, may have secretly dispatched it to his home town.
"Wuppertal has a large number of tunnels and bunkers which have not yet been searched for the Amber Room. We have started looking in possible hiding places here," Kleine said.
"But the search is very costly. We need helpers, special equipment and money," Kleine told Reuters, adding that a building firm which had lent him a drill had asked for it back.
"I only have a small pension, a new machine is too expensive for me. But whoever helps will get his share of the Amber Room when we find it," he told Reuters.
"I am optimistic. I just need the tools, then it could go quickly," he said.
Even Communist East Germany's loathed Stasi secret police tried and failed to find the Amber Room. Hobby treasure hunters have launched expensive searches for it across Germany, from lake bottoms to mines in the eastern Ore Mountains. But in vain.
Historians say Erich Koch, convicted of war crimes by a Polish court, amassed a hoard of looted art and had it transported west from Koenigsberg in the final months of the war as the Soviet forces drew closer.
Russian craftsmen, helped by German funds, have recreated a replica of the Amber Room at the Catherine Palace from where the original was stolen.


(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Stephen Brown and Gareth Jones)

Wildly Hyperrealistic Drawings Capture The Transformation Of The Aging Face

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"The question that they usually ask me is: How can a 30-year-old artist, being young, be so fascinated by the aging and wrinkles that mark each person’s face?" artist Antonio Finelli explained in an email to The Huffington Post. Indeed, judging by his works, the Italian artist does seem to possess an uncanny fascination with the ways of wrinkles, furrows and creases. The way skin thins and folds over time.

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Finelli channels this interest into wildly intricate hyperrealist drawings, zoomed-in encounters with strangers who display time's wear on their flesh in beautiful and wholly unique ways. In Finelli's meticulous renderings, cheeks begin to rumple, chins double over and skin turn a shade at once spotted and translucent. However, throughout the intense physical shifts taking place, his subjects' eyes remain as glittering and keen as ever.

"I am continuously obsessed by the sloughing of the body through time," Finelli continued. "In fact, I don’t like to represent in a drawing the oldness itself but rather the passage of time that ends necessarily in this human state. I am deeply in love with the human body, with the skin -- its most external layer, that absorbs and records all the experiences of our life -- but most of all I am interested in a body’s evolution, its transformation, throughout the years. I am intrigued by the signs, lines, points, which enrich our cutis year after year and testify all the changes of our lives."

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With the help of some well-sharpened pencils, rubbers and magnifiers, Finelli creates intimate portraits so realistic one feels, upon looking at them, like they're face to face with a complete stranger. Save for the fact that the artist leaves moments of his process incomplete, a deeper reminder of the transformation we all undergo.

"With my portrayals I want to bring a specific thought into the viewer’s mind: the body suffers a metamorphosis through the slow passage of time. With this, comes aging, that sooner or later arrives in each and everyone’s lives. There is nothing we can do. The only possible way of redemption from this status is death."

Discover the beauty of our imminent mortality in the images below. Be warned, some of the drawings are nude and may not be suitable for work.

New York's City's Last Classical Sheet Music Store To Close

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NEW YORK (AP) — It's a sad day for classical music lovers. New York City's last classical sheet music store is closing for good on Friday.

Frank Music Company says poor sales due to scores being readily available online were to blame. The retail store on West 54th Street has supplied generations of instrumentalists, singers and composers with classical sheet music.

Owner Heidi Rogers tells the Wall Street Journal (http://on.wsj.com/1vXuENq ) the number of customers she sees per day has dwindled from a high of 20 to two or three.

The store opened in 1937. Some of its celebrity customers included pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Pamela Frank.

Its stock of hundreds of thousands of scores has been purchased by an anonymous donor as a gift for the Colburn School music conservatory in Los Angeles.

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Information from: The Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com

Elena Ferrante's First In-Person Interview Sheds Light On Gender And Self-Doubt

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Although she's garnered a following of devoted readers, novelist Elena Ferrante prefers to keep her identity a secret. Her Neapolitan novels were originally written in Italian, and were published in America by Europa Editions, a house that specializes in literature in translation. The books follow two friends -- Elena and Lila -- from grade school through marriage and adulthood, as their friendship waxes and wanes. Their educational, romantic and political pursuits are all framed within the context of their relationship, which can be a source of both love and jealousy. After the first installment of the four-book series, My Brilliant Friend, was translated into English in 2012, it received a glowing review from James Wood, and earned the writer an overseas readership.

Growing interest in the novels has of course lead to speculation about the writer's identity. The byline affixed to the back of her books reads simply, "Elena Ferrante is from Naples" -- leading fans to fill in the gaps with theories both plausible and bizarre. Is she actually a more well-established male writer? The texture she applies to the female relationships in her stories might be enough to rule out such a theory. All signs -- including her memoir and a brief email interview with The New York Times -- suggest that Ferrante is a mother and a humble artist who writes "first and foremost" for herself.

The closest we may come to understanding the individual behind these stories was published today in the Spring 2015 issue of The Paris Review. The author agreed to conduct her first-ever in-person interview with the publishers of Europa Editions, and to run the conversation in the magazine.

In the interview, she eloquently shares insights about her own self-doubt:

For months I felt that the preceding pages were beyond my abilities, and now I no longer felt equal to my own work. It made me bitter. You’d rather lose yourself than find yourself, I thought. Then everything started up again. But even today I don’t dare reread the book. I’m afraid that the last part has only the appearance of good writing.


And how that self-doubt comes in part from being a woman working in a field still dominated by men:

At fifteen I began to write stories about brave girls who were in serious trouble. But the idea remained -- indeed, it grew stronger -- that the greatest narrators were men and that one had to learn to narrate like them. I devoured books at that age, and there’s no getting around it, my models were masculine. So even when I wrote stories about girls, I wanted to give the heroine a wealth of experiences, a freedom, a determination that I tried to imitate from the great novels written by men.


To read the conversation in full, you can pick up an issue of The Paris Review No. 212, Spring 2015.

Kim Kardashian Reportedly Taking Piano Lessons With Oksana Kolesnikova

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Kim Kardashian is getting back into music, but thankfully she’s not recording a follow-up to “Jam (Turn It Up).” Instead, Kardashian is going the classical route and taking piano lessons with famed pianist Oksana Kolesnikova.

18 Snoozin' Babies Who Know Just How Important Sleep Awareness Is

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Babies are pretty limited in their skill sets, but one thing they do very well is sleep (though not always at the specific times you need them to). In honor of National Sleep Awareness Week, we asked the HuffPost Parents Facebook community for photos of their cute babies sleeping.

From newborn nappers to cuddling cuties, here are 18 sweet snoozers that are sure to inspire you to get more shut-eye.





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How One Former Marine Used Ballet To Spread Veterans' Stories Around The World

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Patrolling the stage in "Habibi Hhaloua," 2009. Photo by A. Fink.






Roman Baca still recalls his first day of training, when a Marine recruiter arrived at his Connecticut house "at 0500" to usher him to boot camp. It was still dark that morning, he remembers, as the recruiter's car pulled out of the driveway, pointed in the direction of the Military Entrance Processing Station. The next thing Baca knew, he was getting off a bus and stepping onto yellow footprints at the Marine Recruit Depot at Parris Island, South Carolina, snapping to attention as a drill instructor barked orders.

At that point, he thought he was leaving dance forever.

Baca had trained as a dancer -- ballet and jazz, to be specific. In 2000, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, and went on to serve in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2005 and 2006. Now, after having immersed himself in two incredibly demanding vocations, he's taking on an even bigger challenge -- bringing together the worlds of ballet and battle with honesty, bravery and grace. Lots of grace.

Today Baca, 41, serves as the artistic director of Exit 12 Dance Company in New York. He founded Exit 12 in 2007, a year after coming home from Iraq. Exit 12 focuses on choreographing works that relay the experiences of veterans and their families, often in ways that language cannot express. One dance, "Conflict(ed)," tells the story of a mother waiting for her sons to come home from Afghanistan. Another piece is inspired by the places the mind wanders when on duty. In a 2013 review for The Washington Post, Sarah Kauffman described a piece called "Sometimes, Silence" as "straightforward, exquisitely simple and unmuddled with cliche or overwrought emotionalism," and noted that against all odds, the dance captured the attention of hundreds of middle and high school boys at the performance she attended.

To most of us, the connection between dance and the military isn't immediately obvious. Yet speaking to Baca, you start to see what the two disciplines have in common. Each one requires devotion, rigor and intensity. Each one challenges the spirit along with the body. Each one forces you to come to grips with your own mental and physical limits. In photographs of Baca in a war zone, he appears assertive and stern, with rigid posture and a furrowed brow. When he's on a stage, though, his features shift ever so slightly, his powerful body revealing its unexpected ability to cradle stories and communicate feelings.

Baca originally studied ballet at an arts conservatory in Connecticut. Following the rigorous training, he found himself juggling freelance dance gigs and odd jobs, a life that left something to be desired. "I think I just wanted a change," Baca explained in a phone conversation with The Huffington Post. And that change was joining the military. "I looked up to a lot of Marines in my life. I wanted to serve my country, do something completely different from ballet and test myself. I decided to join the Marine Corps in December of 2000."

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Fallujah, Iraq, 2005. Photo by R. Baca.



Those who knew Baca reacted to his decision with everything from understanding to confusion to fear. "A couple of my friends were competing in the International Ballet Competition in New York City," he said, "and we were driving down there to visit them, and I remember falling asleep and waking up to a conversation they were having about me joining the Marine Corps. One of my friends was saying he was really scared, he didn't think it was my character. And another one of my friends stopped him and said, 'Yes it is. I think everything that Roman is is about service, and I think he is going to be OK.'"

For the most part, once Baca enlisted, he kept his identity as a dancer under wraps. There was, however, one incident during boot camp when Baca's old dance partner sent him some photos of the two of them dancing together. Three of Baca's fellow recruits sneaked a glance. Two of them thought the photos were "cool," Baca remembers. The third never spoke to him again.

"I attribute that to the misconceptions of male dancers," he said.

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Fallujah, 2005. Photo by R. Baca.



Baca trained for deployment at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, but his unit was deactivated and sent home after six months. Finally, in 2005, he was sent to Fallujah. Baca didn't know much about the city at the time, but he quickly got an idea of how serious the situation was there.

"Fallujah at the time was an extremely dangerous place," Baca would later tell The Village Voice. "The base got mortared a lot. The very first patrol that we went on, we rolled up onto an area where a Humvee had been hit with an IED or a mortar or some sort of explosive, and we actually found a helmet. So what was supposed to be a normal, run-of-the-mill patrol turned into something that emphasized that we weren't in a safe place."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Baca's time in Fallujah didn't include much dancing. Instead, Baca turned to sketching to express himself. "I would climb to the top of the building where we were staying early in the mornings just to sketch," he told HuffPost. "It was very surreal, with machine guns going off in the background and helicopters flying overhead, to just zone everything out and be entranced with the feeling of creating something artistic in a war zone."

He came back to Connecticut in 2006 and immediately felt pressure to begin checking off life goals -- to get the right job, the right house, the right partner. "I wanted to do all of the things that people were supposed to do when they got home from war," he said. "I wanted to do the normal life thing that everyone talks about."

But something wasn't right. While in Fallujah, Baca and his fellow Marines were trained to act with aggression and violence, in order to fend off anyone who might have hassled them, or worse. Once Baca got back to "normal life," that war zone persona was hard to shake. "It sounds so cliché, but even driving down the road was difficult," he said. "I remember driving and wanting to ram vehicles because that was the standard procedure in Iraq, if any got too close. And here I am, in the middle of a civilian highway with someone tailgating me, and I'm having to be like, 'OK, just pull off the road and take a breath. You'll be OK.'"

Baca's girlfriend (they are now married) noticed the changes in him. She sat him down to break the news. "You're not doing OK," she said. "You're anxious, you're depressed. People are afraid of you."

They discussed what to do next. Baca revealed that he'd always harbored a desire to choreograph, to start his own dance company. He never expected his girlfriend to respond how she did: "Let's do it."

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Baca's first dance piece about the military experience, "Habibi Hhaloua," 2009. Photo by C.T. Dorman.



Together, they created a series of dance videos and sent them off to various choreography competitions. The rejections rolled in. Baca tried to remain positive, although he now refers to this initial stretch as a "horrible failure." Eventually, some advice from Stephen Mills, the artistic director of Ballet Austin, changed Baca's choreography forever. "The one thing he said that really caught me was, you have to find voice," Baca remembers. "You have to find that thing within you that is aching to come out, aching to be talked about, aching to be explored. And that's how you'll find your vision."

For Baca, "that thing" was the military.

"I felt like the works out there about the military experience were overt with people trying to inject meaning and inject all these sort of assumptions and political statements that I thought were misrepresentative of the actual experience," he told HuffPost. "And so I turned my choreographic lens to the military experience and tried to show what it was like in Iraq -- what it was like being so far from your family, in a dangerous place 24/7, and just trying to get people to feel that."

That's how Exit 12 Dance Company was born. The company aims to open people's eyes to the military experience, and to so much more besides: new art; new experiences; other cultures; pain and suffering. "We're trying to be a beacon of hope, so we can come together and create a better world," Baca said.

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Baca dancing with his wife in "Habibi Hhaloua," 2009. Photo by C.T. Dorman.



Baca never intended simply to tell his own story. He wanted to present a multifaceted narrative, pieced together by a diverse selection of veterans and their families, each contributing individual details to a broader collage. Still, no matter how diverse the stories and experiences of the veterans Baca approached, there was one thing they all had in common.

"They all said the same thing -- that they couldn't talk about this stuff. Through dance we have the opportunity to show this experience in a way that is safe," he said. "In a way that can be hyperrealistic. In a way that can be metaphorical or symbolic. We can put this stuff in the world and we don't have to hold on to it."

The company's first piece, staged in a converted barn in Woodstock, New York, was called "Habibi Hhaloua" -- an Arabic expression that translates as "my love is beautiful," and that Baca had been taught to mean "you have my eyes" or "when I look at you, all I see is you," colloquial alternatives for "I love you." The piece follows a Marine on patrol in Iraq as his mind begins to wander, leading him to his love back home. His fantasy eventually causes him to get injured. Another work, "Homecoming," takes inspiration from various letters sent back and forth between military personnel and their families, as well as the messages, fears and hopes that go unsaid.

It wasn't long before Baca's work expressing the military experience through dance led him back to where it all began -- Iraq. In 2012, he teamed up with Mission Continues, a nonprofit for veterans, and an organization called Battery Dance Company. Battery Dance Company is known for its program Dancing to Connect, which brings together people from conflicting cultural groups to work as unlikely dance partners, bridging divides through artistic creation.

In northern Iraq, Baca worked with 15 predominately Kurdish students from Erbil and 15 predominately Arab students from Kirkuk, all of them between 16 and 20 years old, at a time when fierce Arab-Kurdish conflicts were brewing.

"I had a friend come to me and he said 'I have a ton of gear if you need it. I have flak jacket, flares, radios. What do you need?'" Baca remembers. "And I said 'Dude, I'm going back with a bag of music, my dance shoes, my camera and that's it.' If we get into trouble, we get into trouble, but hopefully the fact that we're going there to do a good thing will prevail."

It did. According to Baca, the students got to rehearsals early and stayed late. After 10 days, they had created a 10-minute dance piece that explored their collective hope for a safer world. Sprinkled in were reflections on what it's like to live in Iraq today, how the students thought Americans perceived them and what they thought of America in return. They performed the piece at a theater filled with 240 members of their community.

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"I have to tell you, having people who live there come and give you flowers at the end of a performance, and to be able to tell them you came to protect their country with a weapon and now you're back with art," Baca said, "there is no better feeling."

Baca brought the dance he choreographed in Iraq back to the U.S., and he's been performing it throughout New York -- everywhere from the 92nd Street Y to the United Nations -- and around the country. That experience, he said, has been just as fulfilling as the original choreography process. By bringing artistic expression to the U.S. from a place that often feels so far away, he's hoping to pique the inner humanity that resides in us all, waiting for a way to communicate.

"These are dances we can bring back in order to educate people," he said. "I think we get mixed up with all these words that are supposed to mean things about people over there. And we forget that they are people, and they are people that are scared. Scared of ISIS, scared of this violence."

In April, Baca and Exit 12 are slated to perform "Honoring the Ghosts," a piece addressing the trauma of war and the healing powers of art, at Stanford University in California. One month later, the company will hold a performance and workshop at the Military Experience & the Arts 2015 Symposium in Lawton, Oklahoma. Both performances will feature "Conflict(ed)" and "Sometimes, Silence," as well as the works "Aggressed/This Is War" and "Yarjuun."

And he hopes to return to Iraq as soon as possible. "We could go back with arms or we could go back with guns," said Baca. "But at the end of the day, how many young people are there in these refugee camps that need to be reminded that there is good in the world? That there is hope for a better future?"






This Year's Tribeca Film Festival Will Have More Women Directors Than Ever Before

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The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival announced its initial slate of films for this year's festivities, including World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections and its Viewpoints titles. As Tribeca noted in its release, 30 of this year's feature film directors are women -- "the highest percentage in the Festival’s history." All told, this initial burst accounts for 51 of the 97 feature-length films set for this year's fest. Check out the lineup below. The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival runs from April 15 to April 26. The "Saturday Night Live" documentary "Live from New York!" will open the fest.

For more on Tribeca, head to the fest's website.

World Narrative Feature Competition

The Adderall Diaries, directed and written by Pamela Romanowsky. (USA) – World Premiere. Elliott (James Franco), a once-successful novelist inflicted with writer’s block and an Adderall addiction strives to escape his problems by delving into the world of a high-profile murder case. Amber Heard, Ed Harris, and Cynthia Nixon co-star in this adaptation of Elliott's best-selling memoir.

Bridgend, directed by Jeppe Rønde, co-written by Jeppe Rønde, Torben Bech, and Peter Asmussen. (Denmark) – North American Premiere. Sara (Hannah Murray) and her dad arrive in a town haunted by a spate of teenage suicides. When she falls in love with Jamie (Josh O’Connor), she becomes prey to the depression that threatens to engulf them all. Jeppe Rønde's debut is based on the real-life Welsh county borough of Bridgend, which has recorded at least 79 suicides since 2007.

Dixieland, directed and written by Hank Bedford. (USA) – World Premiere. In the hot lazy days of a Mississippi summer two star-crossed lovers, a recently released ex-con (Chris Zylka) and an aspiring stripper (Riley Keough), become trapped in a downward spiral of crime and obsessive love, as they try to ditch their small town lives. Featuring an impressive performance by Faith Hill.

Franny, directed and written by Andrew Renzi. (USA) – World Premiere. Richard Gere delivers a bravura performance as the title character, a rich eccentric who worms his way into the lives of a deceased friend’s young daughter (Dakota Fanning) and her new husband (Theo James). The narrative feature debut of writer-director Andrew Renzi, Franny is a warm and winsome drama about the pangs of the past, and the families we choose.

Meadowland, directed by Reed Morano, written by Chris Rossi. (USA) – World Premiere. Sarah and Phil’s son goes missing, shattering their life together and forcing each to find their own way to cope. Cinematographer-turned-director Reed Morano presents a masterfully crafted contemplation on a relationship strained to the breaking point. Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson capture the unraveling emotions with remarkable power, alongside Kevin Corrigan, John Leguizamo, Elizabeth Moss, Giovanni Ribisi, Juno Temple, and Merritt Wever.

Men Go to Battle, directed and written by Zachary Treitz, co-written by Kate Lyn Sheil. (USA) – World Premiere. Kentucky, 1861. Francis and Henry Mellon depend on each other to keep their unkempt estate afloat as winter encroaches. After Francis takes a casual fight too far, Henry ventures off in the night, leaving each of them to struggle through the wartime on their own.

Necktie Youth, directed and written by Sibs Shongwe-La Mer. (Netherlands, South Africa) – North American Premiere. Jabz and September are two twenty-something suburbanites drifting through a day of drugs, sex, and philosophizing in their privileged Johannesburg neighborhood, ill-equipped to handle a tragedy that has interrupted the hollowness of their daily lives. Using rich black and white photography, Sibs Shongwe-La Mer paints a raw, unique portrait of self-obsessed youth facing adulthood in an increasingly divided city. In Afrikaans, English, isiZulu with subtitles.

The Survivalist, directed and written by Stephen Fingleton. (Northern Ireland, UK) – World Premiere. Self-preservation takes on a new level of meaning in this organic post-apocalyptic drama, where the only way to get food is to farm it. A man is threatened when two starving women stumble across his cabin and demand to stay. Each new mouth to feed strains the limits of what the farm can produce and diminishes their chance for survival.

Sworn Virgin (Vergine Giurata), directed and written by Laura Bispuri, co-written by Francesca Manieri. (Albania, Germany, Italy, Kosovo, Switzerland) – North American Premiere. As a young woman living within the confines of a Northern Albanian village, Hana longs to escape the shackles of womanhood, and live her life as a man. To do so she must take an oath to eternally remain a virgin. Years later, as Mark, she leaves home for the first time to confront a new set of circumstances, leading her to contemplate the possibility of undoing her vow. In Albanian, Italian with subtitles.

Viaje, directed and written by Paz Fábrega. (Costa Rica) –World Premiere. After meeting at a party, Luciana and Pedro spark up a spontaneous rendezvous when Luciana accompanies Pedro to a national forest on a work trip. Eschewing the fraudulent nature of traditional relationships, the pair explores the beauty in the nature that surrounds them as they indulge in the passions of their encounter and navigate the various meanings of commitment. In Spanish with subtitles.

Virgin Mountain, directed and written by Dagur Kári. (Iceland, Denmark) – North American Premiere. Fúsi is a mammoth of a man who at 43-years-old is still living at home with his mother. Shy and awkward, he hasn’t quite learned how to socialize with others, leaving him as an untouchable inexperienced virgin. That is until his family pushes him to join a dance class, where he meets the equally innocent but playful Sjöfn. In Icelandic with subtitles.

Wednesday 04:45 (Tetari 04:45), directed and written by Alexis Alexiou. (Germany, Greece, Israel) – World Premiere. A life's work becomes a prison for jazz club owner Stelios when a shady Romanian gangster calls in his debts. This gripping, underworld drama is a parable on the perils of accumulated debt, and a depiction of the descent of a mostly decent man. Director Alexis Alexiou perfectly balances the complex emotions that drive a man to take the most drastic measures available. In Greek with subtitles.

World Documentary Feature Competition (Sponsored by Santander Bank, N.A.)

Autism in Love, directed by Matt Fuller. (USA) – World Premiere. What does it mean to love and be loved? With remarkable compassion, director Matt Fuller examines the reality of autistic adulthood and shows how the members of this often-misunderstood community cope with the challenge of keeping romance alive. Autism in Love is a celebration of accepting the differences in others, and in ourselves.

The Birth of Saké, directed by Erik Shirai. (USA) – World Premiere. Traditional and labor-intensive, the production of Saké has changed very little over the centuries. Erik Shirai’s love song to the artisans who have dedicated their lives to carrying on this increasingly rare artform follows the round-the-clock process for six straight months, offering a rare glimpse into a family-run brewery that’s been operating for over 100 years. In Japanese with subtitles.

Democrats, directed and written by Camilla Nielsson. (Denmark). – North American Premiere. In the wake of Robert Mugabe’s highly criticized 2008 presidential win, Zimbabwe’s first constitutional committee was created in an effort to transition the country away from its authoritarian leadership. With unprecedented access to the two political rivals overseeing the committee, this riveting, firsthand account of a country’s fraught first steps towards democracy plays at once like an intimate political thriller and unlikely buddy film. In English, Shona with subtitles.

Havana Motor Club, directed and written by Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt. (Cuba, USA) – World Premiere. Reforms have offered opportunity in Cuba but the children of the Revolution are unsure of the best route forward. For a half-dozen drag racers, this means last-minute changes to their beloved American muscle cars, as they prepare for the first sanctioned race in Cuba since 1960. Punctuated by a lively Cuban soundtrack, Havana Motor Club offers a fascinating glimpse at the resilience and ingenuity of the competitive spirit. In Spanish with subtitles.

In My Father’s House, directed by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, co-written by Ricki Stern, Annie Sundberg, and Pax Wassermann. (USA) – World Premiere. After moving into his childhood home on Chicago’s South Side, Grammy Award–winning rapper Che "Rhymefest" Smith hesitantly sets out to reconnect with his estranged father, the man who abandoned him over twenty years ago. In My Father’s House is a stirring, multigenerational chronicle of Che's sincere but often-fraught journey to build a future for his own family by reconnecting with his traumatic past.

In Transit, co-directed by Albert Maysles, Nelson Walker, Lynn True, David Usui, and Ben Wu. (USA) – World Premiere. The Empire Builder is America’s busiest long-distance train route, running from Chicago to Seattle. Throughout these corridors sit runaways, adventurers, and loners – a myriad of passengers waiting to see what their journey holds. A touching and honest observation, co-directed by the iconic documentarian Albert Maysles, In Transit breathes life into the long commute, and contemplates the unknowns that lie at our final destination.

Indian Point, directed and written by Ivy Meeropol. (USA) - World Premiere. Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant looms just 35 miles from Times Square. With over 50 million people living in close proximity to the aging facility, its continued operation has generated controversy for the surrounding community. In the brewing fight for clean energy and the catastrophic possibilities of complacency, director Ivy Meeropol weaves a startling portrait of our uncertain nuclear future.

Palio, directed by Cosima Spender, written by John Hunt. (UK, Italy) – World Premiere. In the world’s oldest horse race, the Palio, taking bribes and fixing races threatens to extinguish the passion for the sport itself. Giovanni, unversed in corruption, challenges his former mentor, who dominates the game. What ensues is a thrilling battle, filled with the intoxicating drama that is at the center of Italian tradition. In Italian with subtitles.

Song of Lahore, directed by Andy Schocken and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. (USA, Pakistan) – World Premiere. Until the late 1970s, the Pakistani city of Lahore was world-renowned for its music. Following the ban of music under Sharia law, many artists were forced to abandon their life's work. Song of Lahore turns the spotlight on a stalwart group of lifelong musicians who continue to play despite their circumstances. They end up attracting listeners from all over the world. In English, Punjabi, and Urdu with subtitles.

Thank You for Playing, co-directed and co-written by David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall. (USA) – World Premiere. For the past four years, Ryan and Amy Greene have been working on That Dragon, Cancer, a videogame about their son Joel's fight against that disease. Following the family through the creation of the game and the day-to-day realities of Joel’s treatment, David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall create a moving testament to the joy and heartbreak of raising a terminally ill child.

Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, directed and written by Nick Berardini. (USA) – World Premiere. Do you blame the technology or the person wielding it? With damaging reports of taser-related deaths at the hands of police officers, this conundrum spurs a carefully constructed argument that tasers are in fact lethal, discrediting claims by Taser International that stun guns save lives. Yet more than 17,000 police departments in the United States continue to use the electric rifle.

Very Semi-Serious, directed by Leah Wolchok. (USA) – World Premiere. The New Yorker is the benchmark for the single-panel cartoon. This light-hearted and sometimes poignant look at the art and humor of the iconic drawings shows why they have inspired and even baffled us for decades. Very Semi-Serious is a window into the minds of cartooning legends and hopefuls, including editor Bob Mankoff, shedding light onto their how their humor evolves.

Viewpoints

All Eyes and Ears, directed and written by Vanessa Hope. (China, USA) – New York Premiere, Documentary. When former Utah governor Jon Huntsman was appointed United States Ambassador to China, the charming career politician arrived at his new post with his entire family—including his adopted Chinese daughter, Gracie. Huntsman's diplomatic struggles and triumphs are explored in the broader context of China’s relationship with the rest of the world, and intersected with Gracie's personal experience living in China as a Chinese-American. In Mandarin, Cantonese, English, with subtitles.

Applesauce, directed and written by Onur Tukel. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. TFF alumnus Onur Tukel plays a husband who innocently reveals on talk radio the worst thing he's ever done. Though his gaffe never makes it on air, it sets off a chain of hilariously uncontrollable events that draw his wife and another couple into an uneasy mixture of infidelities, confessions and severed body parts.

Bad Hurt, directed and written by Mark Kemble, co-written by Jamieson Stern. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Life for the Kendalls has been burdened by grief and claustrophobia. Faced with caring for one child with special needs and another with PTSD, the family struggles for a sense of stability at home in their Staten Island hamlet. When a secret from the past is revealed, it threatens to tear them apart.

Bare, directed and written by Natalia Leite. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Sarah’s (Dianna Agron) mundane life in a Nevada desert town is turned upside down with the arrival of Pepper (Paz de la Huerta), a mysterious female drifter, who leads her into a life of seedy strip clubs and illicit drugs. Their passion inspires Sarah to break free of her past and seek out a new life of her own.

Being 14 (À 14 ans), directed and written by Hélène Zimmer. (France). – International Premiere, Narrative. Adopting an observational style, Being 14 captures all the secrets, trials, and anguish of adolescence, as experienced by best friends Sarah, Louise and Jade in their final year of middle school. The narrative plays like a documentary in each true-to-life scene; the camera is witness to their lives unfolding, as it unobtrusively records the moments of a year, after which everything will change. In French with subtitles

Come Down Molly, directed and written by Gregory Kohn. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. In this expressionist odyssey exploring the lonely side of entering adulthood, struggling new mother Molly (Eléonore Hendricks) joins her old high school group of guy friends at a secluded mountain home. Amidst tears, laughter and mushrooms, they connect with nature, one another and themselves.

A Courtship, directed by Amy Kohn. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Amy Kohn’s fascinating documentary offers a peek into the practice of Christian courtship, wherein a woman hands over the responsibility of finding a husband to her parents and the will of God. Such is Kelly’s path, enlisting her adopted spiritual family to find her Mr. Right.

Crocodile Gennadiy, directed and written by Steve Hoover. (USA)– World Premiere, Documentary. Crocodile Gennadiy, a real-life, self-appointed savior, who works tirelessly to rescue homeless, drug-addicted youth from the streets of Mariupol, Ukraine. At the same time, he challenges dealers and abusers. Despite criticism, Gennadiy is determined to continue his work. Sundance Award-winning director Steve Hoover’s second feature is a bold portrait of a man on a mission. In English, Russian with subtitles.

Cronies, directed and written by Michael Larnell. (USA) – New York Premiere, Narrative. Louis begins to question his lifelong friendship with Jack, after a simple errand to buy his daughter a birthday gift turns into a visit to a drug dealer. Director Michael Larnell combines an earnestly realistic narrative with documentary-style interviews in which the characters muse on their futures, their impact on those they love and the nature of friendship.

dream/killer, directed by Andrew Jenks. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. In the fall of 2005, 20-year-old Ryan Ferguson received a 40-year prison sentence for a murder that he did not commit. Over the next ten years, his father Bill engages in a tireless crusade to prove Ryan’s innocence. Interspersed with footage from the Ferguson family archive, Andrew Jenks’ film looks at the personal consequences of a wrongful conviction.

El Cinco (El 5 de Talleres), directed and written by Adrián Biniez. (Argentina) – North American Premiere, Narrative. Patón, with his fiery temper and aggressive play, is the veteran star of his city’s soccer team. When his transgressions land him a lengthy suspension, he considers retirement, while discovering a world that consists of more than just feet and fists. This coming-of-middle-age tale reveals the predicament of leaving the arena where you most feel at home. In Spanish with subtitles.

GORED, directed and written by Ido Mizrahy, co-written by Geoffrey Gray. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Gored centers on Spanish bullfighter Antonio Barrera, holder of the dubious title of “Most Gored Bullfighter in History,” as he grapples with the end of his career. Captivating footage of past and present bullfights reveal Barrera’s tremendous passion for the sport, as well as his seemingly irresistible urge to confront death at every opportunity. In Spanish with subtitles.

Jackrabbit, directed and written by Carleton Ranney, co-written by Destin Douglas. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. When a friend's suicide leaves behind a mysterious computer drive, a fringe hacker and accomplished computer technician come together to decipher the message left in his wake. First-time filmmaker Carleton Ranney effortlessly combines a low-fi aesthetic with an intensely ambitious sci-fi story, creating a work that manages to satisfy as both a retro throwback and a forward-thinking indie drama.

King Jack, directed and written by Felix Thompson. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Growing up in a rural town filled with violent delinquents, Jack has learned to do what it takes to survive, despite having an oblivious mother and no father. After his aunt falls ill and a younger cousin comes to stay with him, the hardened 15-year-old discovers the importance of friendship, family and looking for happiness even in the most desolate of circumstances.

Lucifer, directed and written by Gust Van den Berghe. (Belgium, Mexico) – United States Premiere, Narrative. An angel falling from heaven to hell unexpectedly lands in a Mexican village where his presence affects the villagers in surprising ways. Inspired by the biblical story, Lucifer is a mesmerizing, moving and unique exercise in form, presented in the director’s own format, Tondoscope. In Spanish with subtitles.

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, directed and written by Jeanie Finlay. (UK) – World Premiere, Documentary. Millions of Americans clung to the hope that Elvis Presley faked his death. For the executives at Sun Records that fantasy became an opportunity in the form of Orion, a mysterious masked performer with the voice of The King. But who was the man behind the mask? In this stranger-than-fiction true story, Jeanie Finlay explores a life led in service to those who couldn't let Elvis go.

Shut Up and Drive, directed and written by Melanie Shaw. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. Uptight and insecure Jane breaks down when her live-in boyfriend must move from Los Angeles to New Orleans for an acting gig. Jane's anxiety worsens upon the arrival of Laura, Austin's wild childhood friend. Unable to deal with each other without Austin, the two women embark on a road trip to see him, forming an unexpected friendship along the way.

Slow Learners, co-directed by Sheena Joyce and Don Argott, written by Matt Serword. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. High school teachers Jeff and Anne (Adam Pally and Sarah Burns) are work BFFs all too familiar with the woes of romance. Desperate to turn their luck around they take on new personas and embark, with gusto, on an adventurous summer of uncharacteristic encounters. Slow Learners is a charming, comedic crash course in discovering who you really are.

Stranded in Canton (Nakangami na Guangzhou), directed by Måns Månsson, co-written by Måns Månsson, Li Hongqi, and George Cragg. (Sweden, Denmark, China)– North American Premiere, Narrative. Lebrun is an entrepreneur from The Democratic Republic of Congo who goes to China intent on making a fortune selling political T-shirts. When things don’t go as planned Lebrun spends more time in karaoke bars and falling in love than he does on business. Somewhere between documentary and fiction, this fascinating story explores new trade routes and their impact in two separate continents. In Cantonese, English, French, Lingala, Mandarin with subtitles.

Sunrise (Arunoday), directed and written by Partho Sen-Gupta. (India, France) – North American Premiere, Narrative. Social Service officer Lakshman Joshi is led on a chase through the dark gutters and rain-soaked back alleys of Mumbai by a shadowy figure. His pursuit leads him to Paradise, a seedy nightclub seemingly at the center of the kidnapping ring he is investigating. Joshi's hunt brings back memories of his own kidnapped daughter, as his past and current reality converge. In Marathi with subtitles.

Tenured, directed and written by Christopher Modoono, co-written by Gil Zabarsky. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. In Chris Modoono’s hilarious directorial debut, a broody and foul-mouthed elementary school teacher, Ethan Collins, finds his life turned upside down when his wife leaves him. Stuck with a group of precocious fifth graders, and fraught with fizzling writing aspirations, Ethan uses the school play as a last-ditch effort to fix his marriage. Will this be his greatest accomplishment or his most misguided lesson to date?

(T)ERROR, directed by Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe. (USA) – New York Premiere, Documentary. A rare, insider’s view of an FBI undercover investigation in progress, (T)ERROR follows a 63-year-old informant in his attempt to befriend a suspected Taliban sympathizer, and build a fraudulent case against him. Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe's startling and timely exposé questions the sacrifices that are being made to prevent terror in the United States.

Toto and His Sisters (Toto Si Surorile Lui), directed and written by Alexander Nanau. (Romania) – North American Premiere, Documentary. Shot over a period of 15 months, this hands-off documentary follows siblings living in a Bucharest slum. With their mother in jail, Toto and his two sisters, Ana and Andreea, live in what appears to be a communal drug den. As Ana drifts away with frequent drug use, Toto and Andreea must stick together in an orphanage, awaiting their mother’s return. In Romanian with subtitles.

TransFatty Lives, directed by Patrick O’Brien, co-written by Patrick O'Brien, Scott Crowningshield, Lasse Jarvi, Doug Pray. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. Director Patrick O’Brien is TransFatty, the onetime NYC deejay and Internet meme-making superstar. In 2005, O’Brien began to document his life after being diagnosed with ALS and given only two to five years to live. TransFatty Lives is a brazen and illustrative account of what it's like to live when you find out you are going to die.

Uncertain, co-directed and co-written by Ewan McNicol and Anna Sandilands. (USA) – World Premiere, Documentary. An aquatic weed threatens the lake of the small American border town of Uncertain, Texas, and consequently the livelihoods of those who live there. As some of the men in town attempt to figure out their future, they confront a past that haunts them.

We Are Young. We Are Strong. (Wir Sind Jung. Wir Sind Stark.), directed by Burhan Qurbani, co-written by Martin Behnke and Burhan Qurbani. (Germany) – North American Premiere, Narrative. A group of disillusioned teenagers wander about in the restless hours leading up to an anti-immigrant riot that took place in Rostock, Germany, in August of 1992. The impending incident is seen through the experiences of three individuals: a Vietnamese factory worker, a local politician and the politician's teenage son, Stefan. In German, Vietnamese with subtitles.

The Wolfpack, directed by Crystal Moselle. (USA) – New York Premiere, Documentary. Everything the Angulo brothers know about the outside world they learned from obsessively watching movies. Shut away from bustling New York City by their overprotective father, they cope with their isolation by diligently re-enacting their favorite films. When one of the brothers escapes, the world as they know it will be transformed. A Magnolia Release.

Man With Quadriplegia Who Flew Solo Around Australia Says He Hasn't Yet 'Reached The Top'

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An Australian man who has high-level quadriplegia has learned to approach life with an incredible spirit.

Dave Jacka was 19 years old when his motorcycle slammed into a tree more than two decades ago, leaving him paralyzed below his chest and without feeling in his fingers, but with limited shoulder, bicep and wrist function.

He said his future felt limited.

"Doctors said if I was lucky I might even be able to drive a car again, but at the time no one with quadriplegia even worked," Jacka told the Herald Sun back in 2013.

But after years of determination, he taught himself to perform everyday tasks again, and took up wheelchair rugby, eventually representing Australia in the sport at the 1996 Paralympic Games. He also worked to fulfill his childhood dream of flying a plane, and, in 2013, he achieved his ultimate goal of flying solo around Australia.

It's this resilience that's the subject of "Soar: The Quadriplegic Who Reached for the Sky," a short film about Jacka that was uploaded to Vimeo a month ago.

"I'm surprised every day. Especially with what I can do with my disability," he says in the video. "I don't think I've reached the top. Not yet."

Jacka flies his plane by using modifications he designed himself, according to the film. He controls the engine's speed by breathing into a tube. The pilot then steers the plane using his arms and hands. It's no easy task, but Jacka's wife, Linda Sands, says if anyone is able to conquer such a challenge, it's him.

"David is the toughest, most capable person I've ever met," Sands says in the video. "It's your mind -- it's the most important thing. And your attitude."

The accomplished pilot's adventures are not over. He's preparing to take a four-month solo trip down Australia's longest river, the video indicated. After all, he says he has much more to accomplish.

"We can all achieve so much," Jacka says in the short film. "Most people have no idea what their true potential is."

Watch Jacka's story in the video above.

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11 Photos That Show Birth Is Beautiful, No Matter What Method You Choose

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The International Association of Professional Birth Photographers announced today the winners of its annual "Image of the Year Competition." According to the IAPBP website, a panel of judges selected the winners based a point system that measures "technicality, emotionality, and composition." From water births to C-sections, all the contest entries show that despite the different birth plans parents follow, the moment a child comes into the world is beautiful, emotional and indescribable.




To see some of the other stunning contest entries, keep scrolling and check out the International Association of Birth Photographers website.





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The 7 Style Books That You Should Add To Your Personal Library

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Some might think that style books only make great additions to coffee tables, but there are many fashion-focused books that are worth curling up with, especially in these brisk winter months. To some of us, these books make inspiring reads, complete with advice that we can't live without.

Here are some of our favorites that you'll definitely want to make space for on your bookshelves.




The Bottom Line: 'The Sellout' By Paul Beatty

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The Sellout
by Paul Beatty
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26.00
Published March 3, 2015

The Bottom Line is a weekly review combining plot description and analysis with fun tidbits about the book.

What we think:
In the prologue to his lyrical new novel The Sellout, Paul Beatty’s protagonist turns a snarky, discerning eye toward Washington, D.C., observing that the city is supposed to look like ancient Rome, “that is, if the streets of ancient Rome were lined with homeless black people, bomb-sniffing dogs, tour buses and cherry blossoms.” He’s waiting for his case -- “Me v. the United States of America” -- to be heard by the Supreme Court. When standing before the jury, ready to outline the complex injustices committed against him over the course of his lifetime, he wonders why there’s no legal gray area between “innocent” and “guilty.” He thinks, “Why couldn’t I be ‘neither’ or ‘both’?”

The court case isn’t a real one, of course -- even in the context of a novel that waffles between gritty and surreal, it serves as a metaphor for the crimes, both physical and psychological, that are endured by its protagonist and his peers. The actual charge against the narrator: He’s attempted to re-segregate a school outside of Los Angeles, in an attempt to call attention to still-extant racism there and across the country.

The narrator, the son of a wayward psychologist who got his kicks from exposing his son to ridiculous social experiments, including intense quizzing about daily news findings and “field research” that involved sending him onto a busy street to cry for help, demonstrating “the bystander effect as it applies to the black community,” develops what he calls “attachment disorder” -- he often feels like an outsider in social situations. Rather than speaking up at, say, the bi-monthly gatherings of the Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals, a group organized by his father and a fame-hungry pseudo-intellectual named Foy Cheshire to discuss contemporary issues in the black community, he remarks to himself about the irony of Foy’s self-supplied bag of gourmet cannoli -- “We were both too good to eat the crap Dum Dum Donuts served up.”

His choices to intellectualize rather than take action come to an end after a pair of puzzling occurrences. The first is the disappearance of Dickens, his small hometown, from the map, no thanks to neighboring towns battling to "keep their property values up and their blood pressures down." Shortly afterwards, a bus ride to celebrate his friend and former "Little Rascals" star’s birthday leads to the snarky creation of a sign indicating that priority seating is reserved for white passengers. But in Beatty's satire, the sign, rather than enraging passengers, instills in them a calm sense of purpose. Thus, the idea to re-segregate a school as a means of calling attention to the city’s still-present racism is born.

Beatty is at his best when parodying attempts to correct racial prejudices from within the ivory tower. Foy Cheshire, mentioned above, is his mouthpiece for such jargon-riddled, academic talk. Foy creates office platforms such as “EmpowerPoint” and publishes revamped classics under a new curriculum called “Fire the Canon!” featuring titles such as The Great Blacksby, which begins, “Real talk. When I was young, dumb, and full of cum, my omnipresent, good to my mother, non-stereotypical African-American daddy dropped some knowledge on me that I been trippin’ off ever since.” While burning the whole collection, the narrator's friend, a local teacher, insists such projects are devised by "white teachers talking white methodology and drinking white wine."

The cleverness of some lines can distract from the multitudinous ideas within them: as a response to his father’s riff on a famous social experiment where he’s asked to choose between a white, bikinied Barbie and another doll dressed as Harriet Tubman running from a klansman-G.I. Joe, our adolescent protagonist scoffs, “what are these, inaction figures?” This observation that even with strict social conditioning it’s impossible to completely bury the ways we're taught to value ourselves is worthy of careful consideration rather than a quick joke. Still, on the whole, Beatty’s relentless humor carries along a stream of important observations about so-called post-racial America.

The bottom line:
The Sellout is a hilarious, pop-culture-packed satire about race in America. Beatty writes energetically, providing insight as often as he elicits laughs.

What other reviewers think:
The LA Times: "[I]t's fairly obvious that the United States is a Kara Walker exhibit and a Paul Beatty novel unknowingly masquerading as a crinkled Gettysburg Address."

The New York Times: "The first 100 pages of his new novel, The Sellout, are the most caustic and the most badass first 100 pages of an American novel I’ve read in at least a decade. I gave up underlining the killer bits because my arm began to hurt."

Publishers Weekly: "Wildly funny but deadly serious, Beatty’s caper is populated by outrageous caricatures, and its damning social critique carries the day."

Who wrote it?
Paul Beatty is the author of three earlier novels and two volumes of poetry. He's from Los Angeles, and has studied both psychology and creative writing.

Who will read it?
Anyone interested in lyrical language, funny stories and questions about race in America.

Opening lines:
"This may be hard to believe, coming from a black man, but I've never stolen anything. Never cheated on my taxes or at cards. Never snuck into the movies or failed to give back the extra change to a drugstore cashier indifferent to the ways of mercantilism and minimum-wage expectations."

Notable passage:
"Let's see your three sister cities in order of compatibility... Juárez, Chernobyl, and Kinshasa."
While I couldn't quite understand how Chernobyl had made the cut, especially since it's not even a city, at least Juárez and Kinshasa were two major multiplicities with global profiles, if not besmirched reputations. But beggars can't be choosy. "We'll accept all three!" I shouted into the phone.
"That's all well and good, but I'm afraid all three have rejected Dickens."
"What? Why? On what grounds?"
"Juárez (aka the City That Never Stops Bleeding) feels that Dickens is too violent. Chernobyl, while tempted, felt that, in the end, Dickens's proximity to the Los Angeles River sewage treatment plans was a problem. And questioned the attitudes of a citizenry so laissez-faire about such rampant pollution."

Here Are Stock Photos Of Vince Vaughn That People Seem To Love

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To promote the new Vince Vaughn comedy "Unfinished Business," iStock by Getty Images and Twentieth Century Fox released a set of stock photos featuring Vaughn and co-stars Dave Franco and Tom Wilkinson doing office-y things. People who enjoy these kind of pictures can download the first burst right here. New images will come out on March 9 and March 16, with a "best-of selection" available starting on March 23. "Unfinished Business" is out Friday.

'Cinderella' Star Lily James Comments On Waist Controversy

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Lily James is defending her "Cinderella" waistline after critics claimed it was altered to look smaller in the upcoming live-action version of the classic fairy tale.

"I have naturally a quite small waist," James told ABC's "Nightline" when asked about the speculation. "And on top of that I have a corset that was pulled me into the inch of my life ... And then the skirt is so big that the perspective and the proportions make it look smaller than it is."

cinderella

On Twitter, users shared images from the movie and questioned whether James' body had been manipulated by computer effects to achieve a smaller look. (It's worth noting that the waistlines of Disney princesses have been a source of debate for some time.)

Now, in the wake of James' comments, the dress itself -- which was designed by Oscar winner Sandy Powell -- has come under scrutiny. Here's Bustle's Jessica Willingham:

Making the transition from animation to IRL princesses is tricky enough for producers and writers without the added corset. Disney viewers today respond to a new-age princess with different ideas about her own life and beauty. Disney dropped the “I-need-a-man” storyline in "Frozen" and watched the money pile up ... So why would Disney choose to take a step back by dressing James in this unreal corset? It’s completely unnecessary in order to connect with their audience. What were they thinking? More importantly, what is wrong with James’ already naturally thin shape?!


During an interview with the Los Angeles Times Monday, James criticized the press for commenting on her figure.

"I think it's all very hypocritical, and they contradict themselves, and they're drawing more attention to it. I think all that stuff’s so negative, and you've got to let it wash over your head," she said. "I'm so healthy. I've got hips and boobs and a bum and a small waist."

"Cinderella" is out on March 13.

These Minimalist Ice Sculptures Just Might Calm Your Ragged Winter Nerves

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Sick of winter?

You could vent that frustration by muttering curse words under your breath with every shovel of snow you clear from the driveway. Or you could give Scott Grove's method a try, and make ice sculptures.

The Rochester, New York, sculptor spends some of his free time crafting surprisingly intricate works of ice-based art, including pieces that have been formed into knots and curved into frozen spirals. Alas, when spring arrives, the minimalist sculptures will melt away, hopefully along with any lingering seasonal melancholy.

If making ice sculptures isn't quite difficult enough to soothe your winter nerves, maybe try carving snow?

See some of Grove's work, below:


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