22 Established 1961 Monday, February 11, 2019 Lifestyle Features Renowned French author and illustrator Tomi Ungerer dies at 87 he renowned French cartoonist, author and illustra- and what he later described as a “trunk full of drawings Ttor Tomi Ungerer, a lifelong activist who protested and manuscripts”. against racial segregation, the Vietnam war and the The following year, after meeting the children’s book election of US President Donald Trump, has died at the editor Ursula Nordstrom at Harper and Row, his first age of 87 in Ireland, his former adviser told AFP on children’s book The Mellops Go Flying was published Saturday. “He died in the night and his wife called me this and became an immediate success. A range of works fol- (Saturday) morning on the phone,” Robert Walter, his lowed from the complete Mellop series to several prize- former adviser and a friend “for 35 years” said, adding winning books and satirical works including Horrible and that Ungerer died at his daughter’s home. “He was an all- The Underground Sketchbook. round genius, a man who was talented in everything. He He then worked for Playboy magazine as its food edi- loved literature. He used to say ‘I write about what I draw tor and also did several political posters including draw- and I draw what I write’,” he said. Originally from Alsace ings for the election campaign of former German chan- in eastern France, Ungerer lived in the United States and cellor Willy Brandt’s SPD party. Ungerer donated more Canada before settling in Ireland. than 11,000 original works of art, sculptures, books and He was obsessed with books from an early age. toys to a museum devoted to his work and life, which “For me, if there was a heaven it would be a library,” opened in 2007 in his birthplace Strasbourg. he told AFP in a 2016 interview, adding that he was In this file photo taken on October 26, 2007 French cartoonist, In this file photo taken on December 21, 2010 French cartoon- Since then, the Tomi Ungerer Museum has been voted “brought up on reading”. Ungerer’s oeuvre ranged artist and illustrator Tomi Ungerer poses upon his arrival at the ist, artist and illustrator Tomi Ungerer poses in front of some of as one of the ten best museums in Europe by the Council from globally celebrated children’s books like The Tomi Ungerer’s Museum dedicated to his work, prior to its his drawings shown in an exhibition entitled “Politrics, le of Europe. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by Three Robbers and The Moon Man to erotic drawings inauguration in Strasbourg. — AFP photos dessin politique de Tomi Ungerer” (Ungerer’s political draw- France in 1990 and was elevated to Commander of the as well as satirical paintings and political posters. He ings) at the Ungerer museum in Strasbourg, eastern France. Legion of Honor in 2018. — AFP wrote in three languages: English, French and German. by critics. Born into a family of watchmakers in 1931 in the After failing the second part of the baccalaureate He published over 140 books which have been trans- Alsatian city of Strasbourg, Ungerer lost his father when exam-in a school report, his headmaster described him as lated into 30 languages. he was three-years-old. He witnessed the annexation of a “wilfully perverse and subversive individualist”- Alsace by Germany during World War II and the subse- Ungerer hitchhiked to the North Cape in Norway. After ‘Subversive’ quent imposition of German and Nazi ideology in schools, the end of the war, Ungerer travelled across Europe and Ungerer’s social activism and his often irreverent writ- which he recounted later in autobiographical works. in 1956, he left for New York with 60 dollars in his pocket ings led to some of his work being branded “subversive” sprawling studio complex has around a dozen film China entertainment sets including faux versions of Beijing’s Forbidden City and, soon, Shanghai’s Bund riverfront. Around 70 percent of China’s film and television shows are endures ‘bitter shot there, Chinese newspaper Economic Observer Bollywood superstars reported in 2017. winter’ after But studio chairman Sang Xiaoqing told AFP in an interview that Hengdian is bracing for a slowdown, test taboos with particularly after tax authorities late last year target- crackdowns ed A-list actress Fan Bingbing in a crackdown on alleged widespread tax dodging and exorbitant pay hip-hop blockbuster hinese film and television are reeling from for big-name stars. “Judging from the current situa- what industry insiders call a “bitterly cold tion, (the entertainment industry) will be in the C process of slow recovery in 2019,” Sang said. winter” of sharper government scrutiny that is expected to lead to more Communist Party-friendly “Some crew have postponed their shooting plans content. The entertainment sector had blossomed in and some have even cancelled. The business opera- recent years, with official encouragement by a gov- tions of film and television companies were also ernment keen to replace foreign content with home- impacted by the strengthened tax reform.” Sang said grown fare and develop the industry as a global “soft he expects to see a shift to more films or TV pro- power” asset. grams focused on the revolution that brought the But a nationwide push for more party-approved Communists to power in 1949, particularly as this material across media, music and entertainment has October will mark the event’s 70th anniversary. combined with a clampdown on spiraling screen-star Krypt Chen, a Shanghai-based media analyst, salaries to cloud the outlook. “(It’s been a) cold win- said: “(Government) scrutiny has been stricter year ter, a bitterly cold winter,” said Yu Zheng, screen- after year since 2016. It was already quite harsh last writer and producer of the hugely popular series year and may be even stricter this year.” China’s film “Story of Yanxi Palace”. The period drama set amid industry earned a record of nearly 61 billion yuan Qing dynasty court intrigue drew 18 billion views on ($9.1 billion) in box-office revenue last year, up nine Chinese platform iQIYI and was the most “Googled” percent from 2017, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, though growth slowed from the previous wo of Bollywood’s biggest stars have premiered “The fact is, they shouldn’t be taboo subjects because TV show in the world last year, due in part to popu- “Gully Boy”, a still rare female-directed block- they exist and it happens.” Akhtar, who recently made an larity among the Chinese diaspora. year. Radio and TV revenue, meanwhile, rose 20 per- T cent in 2017. buster that pokes at enduring taboos, at the Berlin episode of the Netflix series “Lust Stories” exploring But the tightened scrutiny has Chinese studios film festival. Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt threw their female sexuality, said she was a “huge fan of hip-hop” as Cloudy future sizeable industry clout behind the tale, unveiled Saturday, a music of liberation. The program, since concluded, was filmed at feeling the heat. Entertainment giant Huayi Brothers Media Corporation’s share price was almost halved of a couple yearning to break out of their Mumbai slum “When I was editing my last film, my editor showed Hengdian World Studios in the eastern province of and traditional Muslim families to realize their dreams. me a video of a 21-year-old kid called Naezy and he had Zhejiang. Widely considered “China’s Hollywood”, the last year, and Hengdian stock shed more than 20 per- cent. President Xi Jinping is waging a campaign to “It’s got commentary on the class divide, it’s got com- recorded this track on a phone and it was put up on sanitize media content, which has resulted in a crack- mentary on choices young people make-whether they YouTube and he was singing about his life, his socio- down on art forms like rap, while even tattoos are want to be stuck in something that gives them no fulfill- economic space, his family and he had an insane flow, an believed to have been banned from television. ment versus pursuing their passion,” said Singh, whose incredible writing style and it was legit,” she said. “I just character Murad has a meteoric rise after posting his first realized there’s an entire movement called Gully Rap-gul- rap video online. ly meaning street, lane. This urban youth is not represent- “I think it’s got a whole variety of stuff embedded ed in the mainstream at all and they’re telling stories.” between the lines that may just have a positive social “Gully Boy” culminates in a rap battle to be the opening impact.” Bhatt’s character Safeena wears a traditional act in Mumbai for US rapper Nas, who served as an Muslim headscarf but resists her family’s attempts to executive producer on the film. arrange her marriage and wants to become a surgeon. Murad and Safeena have loved each other since child- ‘A revolution’ hood but have to keep their relationship secret from their Akhtar and her stars hailed a growing generation of parents so they meet for illicit trysts. female filmmakers in India. They also welcomed the grad- “You can’t really be so sure about who may get ual arrival in Bollywood of the #MeToo movement offended or who may not,” Bhatt said of the film’s touchi- against sexual misconduct as well as the “Time’s Up” er subjects. “My character Safeena, I don’t think that she campaign against industry sexism.