Skip to main content

Venice Film Festival from September 2

Friday, July 31, 2009:: HONG KONG: Three more Chinese-language films have been pulled from an Australian film festival to protest the planned appearance of an exiled Uighur activist Beijing blames for inciting recent ethnic violence, organizers said Thursday.

Rebiya Kadeer's scheduled visit to the Melbourne International Film Festival on Aug. 8 has already prompted Venice Film Festival winner Jia Zhangke and Hong Kong director Emily Tang to withdraw their movies.

The makers of the short Chinese documentary "YB Box," the Hong Kong-Taiwan romance "Miao Miao," and the Hong Kong black comedy "The Moss" have also withdrawn their films, festival spokeswoman Louise Heseltine told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

The boycotting filmmakers are upset by Kadeer's visit and the screening of a documentary about her, Heseltine said.

The 62-year-old U.S.-based activist is scheduled to attend a question-and-answer session after a screening of "10 Conditions of Love" on Aug. 8.

"YB Box" director Liu Feng thinks the Melbourne event has become too political, a publicist said.

"He shares the feelings of the other directors who have pulled out. ... Movies are an art form to him, but if they are linked to politics, he will question that," said Julia Liu, a spokesman for the advertising agency Wieden and Kennedy Shanghai, which made "YB Box."

An official at Mei Ah Entertainment Group Ltd., which made "The Moss," said it was following the lead of other Chinese filmmakers.

"We are worried about the political sensitivity of the situation," said Sara Law, an official in the company's distribution department.

Charlotte Yu, a publicist at Jettone Films, which made "Miao Miao," said she did not handle the film's withdrawal and couldn't immediately comment.

The Melbourne festival has been besieged by objections to Kadeer's appearance. Festival director Richard Moore said an official from the Chinese consulate in Melbourne asked him to pull the film about three weeks ago. The festival's Web site was also hacked — an attack Moore blames on his refusal to scrap the Kadeer film or her visit.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...

Suicide bombings kill 18 in Iraq

Thursday, August 13, 2009 MOSUL: At least 18 people, most of them members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect, were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Thursday in a packed cafe in northern Iraq, a local government official said.At least 31 people were also wounded after the bombers detonated suicide belts packed with explosives in the cafe in Kalaa town, in the district of Sanjar, local district chief Dakheel Qassem Hasoon, told a foreign news agency."Two suicide bombers entered the Cafe Barbaroz at 4:30 pm (1330 GMT) and blew themselves up, killing 18 civilians and wounding 31. Most of the victims were Yazidis," Hasoon said.Kalaa, northwest of the insurgent stronghold of Mosul in northern Nineveh province is predominantly populated by the minority Yazidi religious sect, as well as Arabs and Kurds.The attack is the deadliest since Monday, when 51 people were killed across Iraq, including 28 members of the tiny Shabak sect cut down when two truck bombs det...

US drones to target Taliban in Afghan war

Friday, July 31, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US military plans to use more drone aircraft to target Taliban militants in Afghanistan while focusing less on hunting down Al-Qaeda figures, report said on Thursday.Although defeating the Al-Qaeda terror network remains an overriding goal for Washington, officials now believe the best way to pursue that objective is to ensure stability in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan instead of Al-Qaeda manhunts, the paper said, citing US government and Defense Department officials.It was more important to prevent a slide towards violence and anarchy that could be exploited by Al-Qaeda, which used Afghanistan to stage its attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the officials said."We might still be too focused on Bin Laden," an official said. "We should probably reassess our priorities."The shift in priorities for the drone fleet comes despite President Barack Obama's declaration that defeating and dismantling Al-Qaeda ...