Category Archives: Festivals

‘More than the usual gastro’: at least 260 people report symptoms after outbreak at Victorian music festival

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Those who attended the Esoteric festival in Donald on 8-12 March warned about Shigella bacteria

Victoria’s health department says at least 260 festival goers have reported gastroenteritis symptoms after attending a dance music festival, with authorities urging anyone showing signs of shigellosis to be tested.

Those who attended the Esoteric festival in Donald on 8-12 March have been warned that the Shigella bacteria had been detected in a number of those with gastroenteritis. Symptoms could take up to a week to emerge after exposure.

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Paolo Taviani, acclaimed director of classic Italian films, dies aged 92

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The film-maker, who won the Palme d’Or for 1977’s Padre Padrone, was a towering presence for more than three decades, creating politically engaged works with his brother Vittorio

The Italian film-maker Paolo Taviani, whose gritty biopic Padre Padrone won top prize at the Cannes film festival, has died aged 92, Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, said on Thursday.

For more than three decades Taviani and his brother Vittorio formed one of cinema’s greatest directorial duos. “Paolo Taviani, a great maestro of Italian cinema, leaves us,” Gualtieri said on X. The brothers “directed unforgettable, profound, committed films which entered into the collective imagination and the history of cinema”, Gualtieri added.

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‘It’s almost like having the Olympics again’: Sydney’s lunar new year celebrations grow bigger every year

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The festivities’ popularity isn’t lost on older migrants from Asia, who arrived in a country very different from today’s Australia

Simon Chan has watched Sydney’s lunar new year celebrations grow over the past two decades, from the small-scale events of the early 90s to what are today thought to be the largest outside Asia.

“Its almost like having a World Cup or the Olympics again, obviously on a smaller scale but the feeling is similar,” says Chan, the president of the Chinese Australian Forum, adding: “We see thousands and thousands of people descend on these events, its massive here.”

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Berlin film festival announces eclectic lineup including Rooney Mara, Stephen Fry and Gael García Bernal

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Films include a sci-fi about a man who rents out his dead wife’s body and a documentary about a hippo owned by Pablo Escobar

Colombian cocaine hippos, a Star Wars parody set in northern France and an unlikely father-daughter pairing of Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham all feature in an eclectic lineup at this year’s Berlin film festival, which was unveiled on Monday.

The 74th edition of the 10-day Berlinale will open on 15 February with the world premiere of Small Things Like These, based on Irish author Clare Keegan’s bestselling historical novel. Adapted to the big screen by Enda Walsh, the film sees Cillian Murphy reuniting with Belgian director Tim Mielants, who directed the third series of Peaky Blinders.

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ACT police take aim at ‘moron tourism’ for bad behaviour at Summernats

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Senior officer says ‘pest’ drivers and not ‘real’ car enthusiasts were causing problems during festival in Canberra

A group of “morons” who would fail to enter the ACT if there were IQ requirements at the border are to blame for bad behaviour at one of Australia’s premier car festivals, a senior police officer has said.

ACT Policing seized 13 cars, including a Holden Commodore for doing a burnout metres from pedestrians, during this year’s Summernats festival in Canberra.

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NSW police accused of ‘killing’ music festivals by charging excessive fees

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Greens MP and Australian Festival Association say NSW force charging much more than other states to patrol equivalent events

New South Wales police have been accused of “price gouging” and operating a “rort” that threatens the viability of music festivals, by charging tens of thousands of dollars more than their counterparts in other states to patrol the events.

The Greens MP Cate Faehrmann told NSW parliament this week that a recent festival that played across three states paid $107,852 for policing for 16,000 people in NSW, but just $45,000 for 14,000 people in both Victoria and Queensland.

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Ambiguous Japanese eco-drama wins London film festival top prize

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Evil Does Not Exist, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, is about community’s fight against ‘glamping’ development

A Japanese eco-drama about a lakeside community’s resistance to a corporate “glamping” development in their beautiful unspoilt village has won the top prize at the London film festival.

Evil Does Not Exist, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, tells the story of a community fighting to preserve its principles and the integrity of the natural world. They are up against a Tokyo company that has bought up swathes of nearby land, intending to turn it into a destination for well-off city tourists.

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Martin Scorsese tells young film-makers to embrace new tech for ‘serious’ work

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Director in London for Killers of the Flower Moon premiere says it is time to ‘rethink what you want to say and how you want to say it’

Martin Scorsese has urged young film-makers to use new technology for “serious” work, as he emphasised the importance of cinema over content.

Speaking at a Screen Talk at the BFI London film festival hosted by the British film-maker Edgar Wright, Scorsese – arguably America’s highest status film director – said the industry’s “period of reinventing” didn’t have to spell the end of auteur-led film-making.

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Literary satire American Fiction takes Toronto film festival’s top award

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Cord Jefferson’s story of a novelist (Jeffrey Wright) grappling with the publishing industry’s expectations of black writers is now practically guaranteed serious Oscar consideration

American Fiction, the literary satire starring Jeffrey Wright as a novelist grappling with the publishing industry’s expectations of black writers, has won the Toronto international film festival’s influential People’s Choice award, a result that practically guarantees it serious Oscar consideration and contention for major awards.

Described by the Guardian as “hilarious and withering”, American Fiction triumphed over pre-festival favourites such as Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers and Hayao Miyazaki’s final film The Boy and the Heron, which were named the runners-up. It is written and directed by Cord Jefferson, a credited writer on TV shows including The Good Place, Watchmen and Station Eleven, and now making his feature directing debut.

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Officials investigate death at Burning Man as thousands stranded by floods

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Sheriff’s office offers few details but says death occurred during festival in Nevada desert, where storms turned ground to mud

Over 70,000 attendees of the annual Burning Man festival in the Black Rock desert of Nevada are stranded as the festival comes to a close on Monday due to heavy rains that have cut off access to the site.

Attendees have been ordered to shelter in place and to conserve food, water, and fuel, although no shortages have been reported. A death that occurred at the festival is currently under investigation, but no details have been released, including the identity of the deceased or the suspected cause of death.

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Burning Man festival-goers trapped in desert as rain turns site to mud

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Tens of thousands of ‘burners’ urged to conserve food and water as rain and flash floods sweep Nevada

Tens of thousands of “burners” at the Burning Man festival have been told to stay in the camps, conserve food and water and are being blocked from leaving Nevada’s Black Rock desert after a slow-moving rainstorm turned the event into a mud bath.

Organizers responding to the unusual weather indicated the closures could endure, as local reports described the conditions at the festival as “treacherous” with “thick, slimy mud that clung to shoes and anything else it touched”.

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Martin Scorsese backs Iranian director jailed over Cannes screening

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Oscar winner urges signing of petition after Iran court finds Saeed Roustaee guilty of ‘contributing to propaganda’ for showing banned movie

Martin Scorsese has backed a petition against the jailing of the prominent Iranian movie director Saeed Roustaee for screening a film at the Cannes film festival.

Scorsese, the Oscar-winning director of Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, reposted a campaign launched by his daughter Francesca this week after news of Roustaee’s prison sentence emerged.

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Georgie Grier plays to sell-out Edinburgh crowd 24 hours after tearful tweet

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Actor and writer posted yesterday after performing her show Sunsets to one audience member

An actor who went viral online after she posted a tearful tweet about performing her one-woman show to an audience of one at the Edinburgh festival fringe has played to a sell out crowd only 24 hours later.

The actor and writer Georgie Grier received messages of support from comedians including Jason Manford and Dara Ó Briain when she posted on Twitter on Thursday afternoon: “There was one person in my audience today when I performed my one-woman play, ‘Sunsets’ at #edfringe. It’s fine, isn’t it? It’s fine …?”

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Venice film festival picks starry films despite actors’ strike

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Hollywood films vying for Golden Lion include Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, with non-competition films by Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater

The Venice film festival appears to have largely shrugged off issues caused by non-attendance of Hollywood actors due to the Sag-Aftra strike as it unveiled its lineup for its 2023 edition.

Venice has traditionally functioned partly as a platform for major American releases looking for strong positioning in the autumn awards season, and it has already seen its originally announced opening film Challengers, a tennis drama starring Zendaya, drop out after it was forced to delay its release date.

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Malaysia’s gay community fears backlash after Matty Healy’s outburst

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The 1975 singer’s onstage condemnation of homophobic laws has angered conservatives and left some LGBTQ+ people uneasy

The 1975 frontman Matty Healy’s recent appearance at a festival in Kuala Lumpur – where he criticised Malaysia’s homophobic laws and kissed a male bandmate on stage – has strongly angered conservatives in the country.

Members of the LGBTQ+ community have also expressed unease over his actions, fearing that the episode risks further exacerbating the hostilities they face.

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Iran authorities ban film festival over poster of actor without hijab

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Government blocks event after release of publicity featuring Susan Taslimi in 1982 film The Death of Yazdgerd

Iranian authorities have banned a film festival that issued a publicity poster featuring an actor who was not wearing a hijab, state media has reported.

The move came after the Iranian Short Film Association (ISFA) released a poster for its upcoming short-film festival featuring the Iranian actor Susan Taslimi in the 1982 film The Death of Yazdgerd.

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Malaysia bans the 1975 after Matty Healy defies anti-LGBTQ+ laws with stage kiss

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Singer’s protest kiss with bandmate and criticism of anti-homosexuality law leads to ban and festival cancellation

The English band the 1975 have been banned from performing in Malaysia after their lead singer criticised the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws on stage.

The group, fronted by Matty Healy, were playing at the Good Vibes festival in Kuala Lumpur on Friday.

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Capaldi’s crowd and Del Rey cut short: memorable Glastonbury 2023 moments

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Audience comes to Scottish singer’s aid at Pyramid stage, while late-arriving US star performs a cappella after midnight curfew

As this year’s Glastonbury festival comes to a close, here is a look back at some of the weekend’s most memorable moments.

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‘I’ve had enough’: pop star Rina Sawayama criticises comments by labelmate Matty Healy

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On stage at Glastonbury, Sawayama criticised the 1975 frontman over podcast appearance in which he joined in with mockery of rapper Ice Spice and referred to racially charged pornography

Pop singer Rina Sawayama has spoken out against her labelmate, the 1975’s lead singer Matty Healy, for widely criticised comments he made on an American podcast in February.

Introducing the song STFU!, she said: “I wrote this next song because I was sick and tired of microaggressions. So, tonight, this song goes out to a white man who watches [pornography series] Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough.”

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Just Stop Oil protesters interrupt opera at Glyndebourne festival

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Three activists use glitter cannons and air horns during performance of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites

Just Stop Oil protesters have interrupted a performance during the Glyndebourne opera festival in East Sussex by letting off glitter cannons and blowing air horns.

The disruption took place during a performance on Thursday of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at the festival near Lewes.

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