Category Archives: Culture

Call for safety review after producer injured by falling palm tree at Cannes film festival

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Festival attendee was hospitalised by a falling tree on the celebrated Croisette boulevard

The producers of a Japanese film which screened at the Cannes film festival have called for an investigation and safety review after one of their team was struck and badly injured by a falling palm tree on the famous Croisette boulevard.

The incident occurred on Saturday as the team behind Brand New Landscape, which was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, were walking along Cannes’ celebrated seafront road when a three-metre tree fell on to the pavement. Local authorities said a man in his 30s was injured.

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‘Fight back and don’t let them win’: actor Pedro Pascal decries Trump’s attacks on artists

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Comments at Cannes come after US president’s social media posts against Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift

Pedro Pascal has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s attacks against artists, as the director of a conspiracy theory satire starring the actor said he feared the political messages of films could be weaponised by US border guards.

“Fuck the people that try to make you scared,” the Game of Thrones and The Last of Us actor said at a press conference at the Cannes film festival, promoting Ari Aster’s new film Eddington. “And fight back. And don’t let them win.”

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Campaigner wins court case over festivals in south London park

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Rebekah Shaman, of Protect Brockwell Park, took action against Lambeth council over number of large-scale events

A campaigner who argued that music festivals held in a south London park unfairly cut off large sections of the space and made it a “mud bath” has won a court case that could result in events being banned there this summer.

The Protect Brockwell Park (PBP) group, which includes the actor Mark Rylance, complained about walls being erected in the park, and noise and environmental damage, leading to a tense debate about the use of public space, nimbyism and the importance of summer cultural events.

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Charles Strouse, Tony award-winning composer of Annie, dies aged 96

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Over the course of an illustrious career, Strouse composed music for Broadway shows such as Bye Bye Birdie and Applause but was best known for Annie’s evergreen songs

The composer Charles Strouse, a three-time Tony award-winner whose hits included Annie, has died at the age of 96. His death at home in New York on Thursday was announced by his four children.

Over the course of a long and illustrious career, Strouse composed music for the Broadway shows Bye Bye Birdie, Golden Boy, Applause, Rags and Nick & Nora. But he was perhaps best known for his score for Annie which opened in New York in 1977 and ran for almost six years. The story of the plucky red-headed orphan featured evergreen songs (with lyrics by Martin Charnin) including Tomorrow, You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile and It’s the Hard-Knock Life, which was sampled by Jay-Z in a 1998 single. Annie received seven Tony awards, including best musical and best original score, and won the Grammy for best cast show album. It was adapted as a film in 1982.

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Cassie Ventura to again testify in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sex-trafficking trial

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Ex-girlfriend details sexual and physical abuse as defense zeroes in on text messages about so-called ‘freak-offs’

Singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, a former girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs and a key witness in the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial of the music mogul, is returning to the stand on Friday for further examination by Combs’s legal team.

Ventura, who is eight and a half months pregnant, has been on the stand since Tuesday afternoon, and has detailed years of sexual and physical abuse she alleges she endured during their decade-long relationship.

In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org.

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‘Napalm Girl’ may be work of different photographer, World Press Photo says

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Photo from Vietnam war is now at centre of controversy after documentary claimed it was taken by someone else

The World Press Photo group has suspended the attribution of authorship for one on the most famous press photographs ever taken, after a new documentary challenged 50 years of accepted journalism history.

The photo, officially titled The Terror of War but colloquially known as Napalm Girl, remains one of the most indelible images of the US war in Vietnam. Since its publication in June 1972, it has been officially attributed to Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer working with the Associated Press in Saigon.

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From ‘architecturally tricky’ to ‘awe-inspiring’: winners of NSW’s 2025 National Trust heritage awards revealed

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Country hospital brought back from the ashes wins top heritage prize

A colonial country hospital almost totally destroyed by fire more than two decades ago has won the top prize in the National Trust of Australia (NSW) heritage awards.

The recognition of heritage architecture and conservation projects in the built and natural environment takes place across each state annually. New South Wales staged its awards on Friday, announcing 20 winners across 10 categories.

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Joe Don Baker, tough-guy actor from Walking Tall and Bond films, dies aged 89

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The prolific performer played varied roles – from arms dealer to baseball star – and made the rare switch from Bond villain to Bond good guy

Tough-guy actor Joe Don Baker, a prolific performer in movies as varied as GoldenEye, Cape Fear and Mud, as well as the BBC TV series Edge of Darkness, has died aged 89.

Born in 1936, Baker grew up in small town Texas, and studied business administration at North Texas State College. After a period in the army, Baker moved to New York and joined the Actors’ Studio in the early 1960s, where he was a contemporary of Rip Torn. Baker made his Broadway debut in 1963 with the Actors’ Studio company, appearing in Marathon ’33, about the dance marathons of the Great Depression, and made his film debut in an uncredited role in 1967 in Cool Hand Luke. He also appeared in numerous TV series, including the pilot episode of a western show called Lancer in 1968, the making of which was fictionalised by Quentin Tarantino in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton in Baker’s role.

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Cassie Ventura returns to stand after testifying Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs raped her

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Former girlfriend of music mogul, key witness in sex-trafficking trial, details violence, abuse and blackmail

Singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, a former girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs and a key witness in the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial of the music mogul, returned to the stand on Thursday for cross-examination.

One of Combs’s lawyers, Anna Estevao, opened her cross-examination of Ventura by asking: “You and Sean Combs were in love for 11 years, right?”

In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org.

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Actor banned from Cannes red carpet after accusations of rape

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Theo Navarro-Mussy has a secondary role as a police officer in the film Dossier 137 by Dominik Moll which is to premiere on Thursday

The Cannes film festival said it had banned an actor in a prominent French film from the red carpet on Thursday because of sexual assault allegations against him.

Theo Navarro-Mussy has a secondary role as a police officer in the film Dossier 137 by Dominik Moll which is to premiere on Thursday in the festival’s main competition. According to French magazine Télérama, which broke the news, Navarro-Mussy was accused of rape by three former partners in 2018, 2019, and 2020, but the case was dropped last month for lack of evidence.

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Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa decries ‘nightmare’ of Putin-Trump alliance

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In Cannes to promote his Stalinist drama Two Prosecutors, the film-maker said he feared the US and Russia would soon ‘become equal’

One of Ukraine’s leading film-makers has spoken of the “nightmare” of an emergent alliance between authoritarian leaders in Russia and the US, as his new film on contemporary echoes with the Stalinist era opens at the Cannes film festival.

“The events that unfolded in the past 100 days really surprised many people all over the world,” said director Sergei Loznitsa, whose new film Two Prosecutors received its world premiere on Wednesday. “One couldn’t even imagine in a nightmare such a union, such an understanding between two authoritarian leaders.”

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Bruce Springsteen says Trump is running ‘rogue government’ and ‘siding with dictators’

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Rock’n’roll legend makes series of blistering speeches on stage in Manchester, targeting ‘corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration’

Bruce Springsteen has made a series of rousing, splenetic speeches castigating Donald Trump and his administration, calling the president “unfit” for office.

In what amounts to one of the most sustained attacks on Trump and American lawmakers from a cultural figure, he made the speeches on stage in Manchester, as he opened his Land of Hope and Dreams tour with the E Street Band.

There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.

In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.

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‘We couldn’t tell if he was conscious’: Tom Cruise got stuck on top of biplane shooting Mission: Impossible sequel

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The star, who at 62 performed his own stunts for the forthcoming Final Reckoning, tells Cannes press conference ‘I don’t mind encountering the unknown’

Tom Cruise got stuck on the wing of a biplane shortly before it ran out fuel during the filming of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the director of the eighth instalment of the action franchise has revealed.

Speaking to an audience at the Cannes film festival hours before the film’s premiere, director Christopher McQuarrie recounted the filming of a stunt sequence in which Cruise, in his long-running role as the field agent Ethan Hunt, walked between between the two wings of a biplane as the aircraft was mid-air over South Africa.

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Cassie Ventura tells court at day three of trial that Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs raped her

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Music mogul’s former girlfriend describes physical abuse, control and violence at trial in New York City

Singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, a former girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs and a key witness in the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial of the music mogul, returned to the witness stand in New York City on Wednesday morning and testified that Combs raped her, assaulted one of his employees, and detailed abuse she says occurred in their over decade-long relationship.

Ventura, who is eight and a half months pregnant, began her second day of testimony by revisiting the hotel surveillance footage of her 2016 assault by Combs. She said Combs was yelling at her and then threw a vase at her in the elevator lobby.

In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org.

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Ashley Judd reveals vulnerable account of last moments with mother Naomi

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Actor and daughter of country star shares heartbreaking story in docuseries of discovering her mom’s 2022 suicide

Ashley Judd has delivered her most complete account yet of the heart-wrenching moments during which she personally discovered her mother’s suicide in 2022 – and sought to ensure her parent let go of “her guilt and her shame” over what she had done at the conclusion of a long struggle with depression.

“I … told her how much I loved her, and it’s OK to go,” the actor said on The Judd Family: Truth Be Told.

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‘Eerie gem’ of an unearthed Graham Greene story published in Strand Magazine

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A ghost story – unusual subject matter for the late author of political thrillers – features alongside little-known Ian Fleming story

A short ghost story by Graham Greene described by analysts as “an eerie gem” was published for the first time on Wednesday, a rare glimpse into the largely uncelebrated darker side of one of the giants of 20th-century literature.

Reading at Night appears in the 75th issue of Strand Magazine, a New York literary quarterly that has built a reputation for finding and publishing “lost” writings of well-known authors.

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Cassie Ventura claims ‘physical abuse’ from ex Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs in sex-trafficking trial

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Singer said on the stand there were ‘violent arguments’ and ‘dragging’ in former relationship with the hip-hop mogul

The singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, a former girlfriend of Sean “Diddy” Combs and central character in the case against him, took the stand on Tuesday as the high-profile federal trial of Combs enters its second day in lower Manhattan.

She is expected to testify against her former partner for several days.

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Madonna limited series directed by Shawn Levy in the works at Netflix

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Queen of pop will partner with the streamer and Deadpool & Wolverine film-maker for a project on her life and music

A television series on Madonna is in development at Netflix – with participation from the trailblazing pop star.

The 66-year-old singer is partnering with Netflix and the Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy for a limited series about her life and music.

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Danny Dyer says Harold Pinter’s death sent him into ‘spiral of madness’

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Actor tells BBC about his relationship with the playwright, his ‘mentor’, and how he went ‘off the rails’

The actor Danny Dyer said the death of his mentor, the Nobel prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, triggered a “spiral of madness” in his life.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Dyer reflected on how he had stayed at Pinter’s home while performing in his play Celebration. The play opened at London’s Almeida theatre in 2000, before transferring to the Lincoln Center in New York.

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‘A lot of pride and joy’: the First Nations team representing Australia at the Venice Biennale of Architecture

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These seven architects hope to show First Nations design and connection to Country at the world’s most prestigious architecture exhibition

Australia’s participation in next year’s Venice Biennale remains under a cloud. With Creative Australia holding fast to its decision to cancel its commission of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, it’s becoming increasingly likely that the Australian Pavilion might remain dark in 2026.

It is an added weight for the First Nations team who have unveiled their new creation inside the pavilion as part of Venice’s other biennale: the Venice Biennale of Architecture, held every other year in the Giardini.

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