12 Established 1961 Lifestyle Features Wednesday, April 21, 2021

giant snowman brandishing a pitch- Wars. Boeoegg-who represents the evils fork exploded in a blaze of fire- of winter-normally holds a broom, but giv- Aworks atop a pyre on a snowy en the bridge’s name, this year he was mountain pass named Devil’s Bridge on handed a pitchfork. Local tradition says Monday, the first time the spring festival that the time between the lighting of ceremony has been held outside the Boeoegg’s pyre and the explosion of his Swiss city of Zurich. That the snowman fireworks-stuffed head predicts what the an appearance, the sequel’s producers effigy named Boeoegg blew up fairly coming summer will be like. told USA Today. quickly was taken to herald a “great sum- This year it took a relatively speedy 12 Downton Abbey The movie, which began production last mer” ahead, a positive outcome after last minutes and 57 seconds, despite the week, is set to be released on December year’s festivities were cancelled due to improvised pyre being exposed to freez- 22. The plot remains under wraps but the COVID-19 pandemic. The burning of ing cold and wind in the heart of the Julian Fellowes, the man behind the origi- Boeoegg-the climax of Zurich’s traditional mountains. While a decent time, it is still will return nal script, has signed on to write the spring holiday Sechselaeuten-is normally significantly more than the record of five sequel’s screenplay. “After a very challeng- held in the city center, but coronavirus minutes, 42 seconds recorded during a ing year with so many of us separated from restrictions meant that was not possible heatwave in 2003. Boeoegg’s speedy for sequel family and friends, it is a huge comfort to this year. demise prompted debate on local channel think that better times are ahead and that Instead the snowman was sent 100 TeleZuri, broadcasting the event, with a next Christmas we will be reunited with the kilometers (60 miles) south of Zurich and spectator commenting: “I think it will be a ownton Abbey is to return in a sequel much beloved characters of Downton installed on the famed Devil’s Bridge in great summer.” — AFP due to be released this Christmas, Abbey,” producer Gareth Neame said in a Schoellenen Gorge, the site of dramatic The Boeoegg, a symbolic snowman, is seen producers told US media. The first statement. The original television series, battles between French and Russian D over the Devil’s Bridge. Downton Abbey film, based on the hugely which ran from 2010 to 2015, followed the troops in 1799 during the Napoleonic popular British TV series, was released in trials and tribulations of the landed Crawley 2019. Reassuring diehard fans, producers family and their servants in the fictional said Monday that much of the original cast- Downton Abbey estate. A runaway suc- including Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, cess, the show launched the Hollywood Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Michelle careers of many of its stars as well as pro- Dockery and Elizabeth McGovern-will viding a financial lifeline to many struggling return. And they will be joined by new English country houses.— AFP faces, with Hugh Dancy, Laura Haddock, Nathalie Baye and Dominic West making

his year, the Oscars will feature a best competition requiring at least one crew or picture contender about a drummer cast member with a disability, which has Twith hearing loss, a nominated docu- now become the Easterseals Disability Film mentary exploring a hippie camp for dis- Challenge. “When I started it... we were abled youths, and a nod for the first film very underrepresented-much more so than ever to star a deafblind actor. It’s a step for- now,” said Novicki, who has a form of ward for disability representation in dwarfism, and was tired of being offered Hollywood, nominated filmmakers told AFP- typecast roles where disability was “the sto- The Boeoegg, a symbolic snowman, is seen burning over the Devil’s Bridge during the Sechselaeuten (Ringing of the six o’clock bells) festival but one that must be built on to prevent ryline.” “If you look at the Academy Awards near Andermatt, central Switzerland.— AFP photos progress slipping away from our screens yet this year, the proof is in the pudding,” he again. Until now, Tinseltown producers added, pointing also to Oscar-nominated “haven’t done a very good job-but they documentary “Crip Camp.” know that, we’re making them aware of that,” said “Sound of Metal” supporting actor ‘Raw’ personal loss inspired Vinterberg’s nominee Paul Raci, who was raised by deaf parents. “I’m one of the guys who has got to be in the forefront of not dropping the ball... keep- Oscar-nominated dark booze comedy ing them aware of all the deaf artists that we have, all the disabled artists, all the genius that’s out there, all the untold stories,” Raci nother Round,” a film about ments were inspired by his daughter Ida, told AFP. The wariness is understandable. a pact by four world-weary who was due to play Mikkelsen’s daugh- This is a road Hollywood has attempted to “ADanish schoolteachers to ter, and whose real-life friends play class- travel down before. In 1948, Jane Wyman, In this file photo Paul Raci attends the “Sound spend every day drunk for a loosely sci- mates who participate in a joyous teen a hearing actress, won an Oscar for playing Of Metal” premiere during the 2019 Toronto entific “experiment,” was always going drinking competition around a lake. a deaf-mute woman in “Johnny Belinda”-a International Film Festival at Winter Garden to walk a fine line between comedy and “There’s an alarming bunch of people miscasting Raci likens to “nails on a chalk- Theatre in Toronto, Canada. darkness. Director Thomas Vinterberg and countries who connected to this thing board.” Real progress came in 1987 when wrote his script, originally a play, upon about drinking,” joked Vinterberg. “Yes, Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, won the realizing many of the world’s great his- they drink differently in California-they put Academy Award for best actress for toric feats were made by people regu- the bottle in a [paper] bag-whereas in “Children of a Lesser God.” But until recent- larly intoxicated on alcohol-the very Denmark, teenagers run around in the ly, that has remained a stark exception to same substance that can rip lives and streets with bottles out,” he said. “But it In this file photo Danish director Lars Von Trier the norm, even as Hollywood has made families apart. seems that the film connects on a differ- poses as he arrives for the screening of the leaps and bounds in inclusive content But four days into shooting, ent level, and hopefully we succeeded in film “The House that Jack Built”. involving Black and LGBTQ filmmakers and Vinterberg’s daughter was killed in a car elevating this film... to a movie about themes. crash. He somehow still finished the something more.” “Oftentimes, the disability community uniquely funny, tender and tragic film- brings up the rear as far as underrepresent- which has earned him a rare Oscar nomi- ‘My own garden’ In this file photo actress Marlee Matlin arrives ed communities getting the spotlight,” said at the 2016 American Film Institute Life nation for best director. “The movie was Humor is not always associated with Doug Roland, director of the Oscar-nomi- always meant to be life-affirming and full Vinterberg, co-founder of the ascetic Achievement Awards Honoring John Williams, nated short film “Feeling Through.” Roland in Hollywood, California. of love, and bare to some extent... raw,” Dogme 95 filmmaking movement with is able-bodied, but his short film was Vinterberg told AFP in an interview via Lars Von Trier, and director of movies inspired by a late-night encounter he had Zoom. “But the tragedy that happened in tackling issues such as child abuse with a deafblind man who needed help my life left all defenseless and open.” including “The Celebration” and “The crossing a New York street. He cast first- Starring as the teachers are four of Hunt.” But Vinterberg, 51, has often time actor Robert Tarango-the first deafblind Vinterberg’s close friends and collabora- defied categorization. The famous Dogme person with a leading role in any movie, tors, including former 007 villain Mads 95 “manifesto” imposing strict naturalistic according to filmmakers. Matlin herself Mikkelsen, who all spent the shoot doing limits on directors was always half seri- came on board as an executive producer, “everything they could to make me laugh ous, half tongue-in-cheek. and the film is now on an Oscar shortlist of in these circumstances.” And while he has dabbled in In this file photo Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen arrives for the opening ceremony of the 12th five. “That conversation has really started to “There was so much love on the set- Hollywood-for instance 2015’s “Far From shift in a very significant way to the disability and I guess you can see that on the the Madding Crowd” starring Carey edition of the Lumiere Film Festival in Lyon, central eastern France. community, and there’s louder voices being screen,” said Vinterberg, whose movie is Mulligan, also an Oscar nominee this heard,” said Roland. a favorite to take home the Oscar for best year-his most widely acclaimed films are best director nods, for a non-English-lan- international film on Sunday. While the often his most Danish and local. “It seems guage film (fellow nominee Lee Isaac ‘Subhuman’ In this file photo Director and Producers Jim film is clearly about alcohol, it is also like when I dig in my own garden, that’s Chung’s “Minari” is in Korean and But disability representation is such an LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham attend the “about living inspired, about forgetting when people really get interested, also English). uphill battle in entertainment because bias- “Crip Camp” Premiere during the 2020 about yourself, about being curious, and abroad,” he said. The universal themes of “The pleasures of alcohol, but also the es are “very deep and hard to identify,” with Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center being in the moment and all that comes “Another Round” may partly explain how destructive side of drinking, have been those holding them often not even aware of Theatre in Park City, Utah. — AFP photos with drinking.” Those life-affirming ele- Vinterberg landed one of just five Oscar around for thousands of years, in all cul- their prejudice, according to Roland. The tures almost,” said Vinterberg. The direc- community is “often seen as ‘less than’ in a ‘Tipping point’ tor served his cast booze during way that’s more severe than other commu- The film, from Barack and Michelle rehearsals, and they watched Russian nities,” or even “almost as subhuman,” he Obama’s production company, begins at a YouTube videos together to observe told AFP. 1970s New York summer camp for disabled episodes of extreme inebriation. “We “That’s something that has maybe stifled youths, before charting their outsized role in needed to see these characters being in people really listening or leaning in or taking the US disability rights movement. “That’s the zone,” he recalled. “It wasn’t like they it seriously.” Raci, who plays an addiction one of the most inclusive and beautiful films were very drunk, actually, but there was counselor who lost his hearing late in life in I can remember,” said Novicki, praising its alcohol.” On set, however, everyone was “Sound of Metal,” agreed that “people are co-director James Lebrecht, a lifelong sober, Vinterberg said-”they had to act, afraid of the unknown, or they’re threat- wheelchair user born with spina bifida. With basically, which I think they did well.” ened.” “Deafness is a hidden disability- roughly a quarter of the planet’s population Much as the production of “Another there’s no sign in anybody that says ‘I’m suffering some disability, the “largest minori- Round” is a story of contrasts-tragedy and deaf’,” he told AFP. Another obstacle for ty population in the world” remains vastly camaraderie, humor and philosophy-the actors with disabilities is physical access to under-represented, even at this year’s fates of the teachers diverge when the film sets and locations, which are not Oscars, said Novicki. temptation of booze takes hold to varying always equipped for a wide range of people But “I think we’re at that tipping point, degrees with each of them. But the movie such as wheelchair users or the blind. This honestly... just getting more and more in the itself deliberately “did not want to moral- month, A-listers including Amy Poehler and mindset of everybody in the entertainment ize” or “make an advertisement for alco- Naomie Harris signed an open letter to top industry,” he said. “It can’t be all these able- hol,” said Vinterberg. “Very importantly, I movie studios urging them to hire perma- bodied people, that’s not how it works,” did not want to have a message.” — AFP nent disability officers, who would help seek agreed Raci. “It’s about time to start paying opportunities for disabled talent and ensure attention to that, and this, and that-every- more inclusive hiring. thing.”— AFP In this file photo Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (left), British actress Carey Mulligan and In a bid to change Hollywood’s course, Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts (right) pose for photographers on the red carpet ahead of actor Nic Novicki in 2013 launched a film the world premiere of the film “Far From The Madding Crowd” in central London. — AFP photos