The Russian Space Agency announced, Thursday, that it will send actress Yulia Peresild and director Klem Chibenko to the International Space Station to complete the first film to be shot in space.

The mission is scheduled to start on October 5, 2021, from the Baikonur space base, aboard the “Soyuz MS-19” missile, according to a Roscosmos statement.

Julia Peresild, on her personal account via Instagram, posted a photo of the filmmakers, in front of a model spacecraft, without revealing the details of the work.

The Russian agency indicated that the film will be a “space drama”, pointing out that the title adopted until now is “The Challenge”, and the statement did not reveal any details about the story of the film nor the role that Pereslide will provide.

Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian Space Agency, who has previously announced that Russia is seeking to become the first country to shoot a movie in space, will co-produce the movie.

Russia intends to send a crew to shoot the first movie in space

The Russian Space Agency announced, Thursday, that it will send actress Yulia Peresild and director Klem Chibenko to the International Space Station to complete the first film to be shot in space.

The mission is scheduled to start on October 5, 2021, from the Baikonur space base, aboard the “Soyuz MS-19” missile, according to a Roscosmos statement.

Julia Peresild, on her personal account via Instagram, posted a photo of the filmmakers, in front of a model spacecraft, without revealing the details of the work.

The Russian agency indicated that the film will be a “space drama”, pointing out that the title adopted until now is “The Challenge”, and the statement did not reveal any details about the story of the film nor the role that Pereslide will provide.

Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian Space Agency, who has previously announced that Russia is seeking to become the first country to shoot a movie in space, will co-produce the movie.

Tom Cruise and NASA
And the US Space Agency (NASA) announced in May 2020 that the famous actor Tom Cruise was cooperating with it to shoot a movie in space, without specifying a date for the start of filming.

“NASA is excited to work with Tom Cruise on a movie onboard the International Space Station,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a tweet on Twitter.

Bridenstine did not provide any further details, but the tweet was published after a report by the online entertainment website “Deadline”, stating that Cruz is working with Tesla and businessman Elon Musk, CEO of “Space X”, on a film project that will be the first feature film to be shot in the space.

Variety and Deadline Hollywood reported on Tuesday that American actor, producer and director Norman Lloyd has passed away at the age of 106.

Lloyd’s artistic history dates back more than 80 years and included collaborations with legends such as Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles.

Variety said Lloyd’s friend and co-producer Dean Hargrove confirmed the death, saying Lloyd had died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. Deadline Hollywood added that Lloyd died in his sleep.

Reuters was not able to independently confirm the news.

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The audience for the Academy Awards ceremony in the United States on Sunday reached 9.85 million, down more than 58% from last year, the lowest level ever seen, according to statistics reported by the ABC network that reported the event.

At the start of 2020, before the pandemic that rocked Hollywood and the film industry, the Oscars ceremony attracted 23.6 million American viewers, which was already the lowest number of viewers for the celebration.

Experts had expected this very poor result, which had previously been recorded during this season by other celebrations for awarding cinemas, such as the Golden Globes (6.9 million viewers in the United States) and Grammy (8.8 million).

The Oscars are usually the non-sporting event with the largest number of viewers during the year, but this time they were behind the first episode of “The Equalizer”, which attracted 20 million Americans, and Prince Harry and Megan Markle’s interview with the media Oprah Winfrey last month (more than 17 million viewers).

This decrease in the number of viewers of the Oscars has been observed regularly in recent years, knowing that in the year 2014 it was still attracting more than 43 million viewers through the small screen.

An exceptional celebration was held at the historic Union Station train station in downtown Los Angeles to allow the commitment of health measures and physical distancing to the participants and organizers.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts “BAFTA” suspended the membership of actor and director Noel Clark in it after a report in the “Guardian” newspaper on his accusation of harassment and bullying by 20 women.

The Academy stated in a statement: “In light of the serious misconduct allegations regarding Noel Clark reported in the Guardian newspaper, the Academy has taken a decision to suspend his membership until further notice, as well as withdraw the award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinema that it granted him.”

Clark (45 years) denied committing any sexual assault or misconduct, explaining that he would “defend himself in the face of these false allegations.”

“During my 20-year career, I have placed inclusion and diversity at the forefront of my work, and if anyone who has worked with me feels uncomfortable or disrespectful, I sincerely apologize,” he said in a statement.

He added, “I strongly deny any sexual misconduct or misconduct of this kind, and I intend to defend myself against these false allegations.”

The newspaper stated that it spoke to 20 women who accused Clark of sexual harassment against them, or touching their bodies in an inappropriate way, or directing obscene comments to them, taking explicit pictures and videos and sharing them without consent, or bullying, during the period between 2004 and 2019, and Reuters was unable to “Independently verified the Guardian report.”

The Academy Awards ceremony, which was held at a railway station in downtown Los Angeles, looked pale and dry without political speeches, dance performances, or extravagance in costumes, decorations, and lighting, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has done 93 years ago.

The organizers and festival director, Steven Soderberg, contented themselves with broadcasting the recorded shows of the 5 best original Oscar-nominated songs and broadcasted on “ABC” and “OSN” prior to the official opening.

The famous red carpet was shorter than usual this year, and the number of stars is very few, as some hundreds of candidates and presenters do not exceed, compared with thousands over the previous years, while some of the prize contestants joined the celebration via satellites from Britain, Paris and some countries. Which its citizens were unable to travel.

Many masks and strictness in the precautionary measures for the Corona epidemic, made the celebration teeming with speeches dominated by personal stories, and a celebration of life after surviving Corona.

Daniel Kaluuya’s banter gave an air of fun about the intimate relationship between his mother and father, as he received the award for best-supporting actor for the film “Juda and Christ”, and some emotions were evident from people of African and Asian origins for winning prizes for the first time.

Tears added during the ceremony a kind of sincere emotions that drew the viewers and was the focus of their comments on social media, especially the tears of Thomas Winterberg, director of the Danish film “Another Round” winner of the Best Foreign Film Award, who cried for the death of his daughter while filming the movie, as well as tears Mia Neal and Jamaica Wilson, winners in the Best Hairstyling and Makeup category in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, are influenced by being the first women of African descent to win this award.

Followers of the Oscars used to send political messages or give rave speeches that shake American society, as happened last year when the ballroom was filled with harsh criticism of former US President Donald Trump, his party, and his rule, but it seems that this atmosphere disappeared with the arrival of Joe Biden to the presidency, and the ruling of the Democratic Party that It is supported by the majority of American filmmakers and artists.

Chinese media ignored her compatriot Chloe Gao winning the best director Oscar for her movie “Nomadland” on Sunday, and social networks censored the news.

The Beijing-born director in 1982 became the first Asian woman to win this award for her feature film about American “trailer dwellers” who live on the roads after they lost everything in the “mortgage” crisis.

The film also won an Academy Award for Best Picture, and its lead actress, Frances McDormand, won the Best Actress award. However, this success did not find momentum in China.

No major media outlet reported the news. On Monday, the social network “Weibo” imposed a censorship on all messages containing the name of the director or her film.

Director Chloe Gao became the second woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director in the history of the prestigious Hollywood award, which extends over 93 rounds.

Gao, 39, has become fascinated by the American West, the talk of the hour in Hollywood, through the awards she has won and the nominations she has won this season.

“I’ve always found kindness in the people I have met wherever I am in the world,” the director told the limited audience at the Oscars in Los Angeles.

And she added, “I dedicate this award to all those who have faith and courage to stick to their kindness and the kindness of others, no matter how difficult it is to do so.”

Beijing-born Chloe Gao, whose original name is Zhao Ting, left China in her teens to join an English boarding school, before moving to pursue her studies in Los Angeles and then in New York, where she studied, especially at the hands of Spike Lee.

The director won praise since her first successes in her home country, as she was described as a national “pride”, but she was subjected to a focused Chinese campaign after Internet users exhumed statements attributed to her during an interview with an American magazine in 2013 that included criticism of her mother country.

And some Chinese nationalists came to describe her as a “traitor”, in an argument that would undermine the chances of showing the movie “Nomadland” in China.

The film is currently based in the small rural city of Ojai, California, about 150 kilometers northwest of Los Angeles.

Chloe Gao will soon enter the world of huge Hollywood productions, as she directed the movie “Eternels” from the world of “Marvel” and includes a constellation of stars, including Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek. It is scheduled to put this work in halls by the end of this year.

In an indication of the filmmakers ’passion for Gao, it was reported that Universal Studios will be entrusted with directing a forward-looking version of“ Dracula ”films inspired by the atmosphere of the American West.

This year, the Academy Award nominations included several works centering on people with disabilities in a decisive step towards strengthening the representation of this group in Hollywood, but experts in the film sector stress the need for greater efforts in this field.

“They’ve never done a good job before, but they know that and we’re here to tell them,” says Paul Russey, Oscar nominee for a best supporting role in “Sound of Metal,” which deals with the story of a drummer who loses his hearing.

An actor, born to deaf parents and suffering from hearing disorders, is “one of the people who have to be in the forefront to prevent a waning momentum.”

“We have to remind them of all the deaf and disabled artists that we have, and all the geniuses who are here,” he explains to AFP.

The caution appears especially justified, as it is not the first time that the film sector has tried to make progress on the subject before returning to its old habits.

In 1948 Jane Weiman, an actress without a hearing impairment won an Oscar for her role as a deaf woman in “Johnny Belinda”.

But Rasi believes that assigning this role to her and not to someone who truly suffers from hearing disabilities was an unsuccessful option.

Little prizes
Hollywood also made great progress in 1987 with the awarding of the Oscar for Best Actress to Marley Matlin, a deaf woman, for her role in “Children of a Lesser God”.

However, awards rewarding artists with disabilities are still very few compared to the progress recorded in the representation of ethnic minorities on the big screen.

“The disabled are often ranked last among these marginalized groups,” says Doug Rowland, director of this year’s Oscar-nominated short film “Feeling Throw”.

The director, who does not suffer from physical disabilities, explains that his film was inspired by his meeting with a deaf and blind man who needed help navigating a road in New York.

An inferior look
In “Feeling Throw,” Doug Rowland recruited actor Robert Tarango who became the first deaf and blind person to play a major role in a movie.

Thanks to this short film that won Marley Matlin’s support as an executive producer, the director wants to communicate the voice of people with disabilities.

But this struggle without it has huge hurdles in the entertainment sector where stereotypes remain “deeply rooted” without people often being aware of it, according to Doug Rowland. “People with disabilities are often viewed with an inferior gaze, even as if they are not even imperfect,” he says.

Open letter
Due to the lack of adequate equipment, access to the filming locations is an impossible task for some artists with physical or visual impairments.

Hollywood stars, including Amy Poehler and Naomi Harris, have sent an open letter to film production companies urging them to urgently seek the help of specialists in dealing with people with disabilities to remove these obstacles.

To try to change things, in 2013 actor Nick Novicki launched a film award requiring that at least one member of the artistic team or cast be persons with disabilities. “When I first started out, we were really suffering a lot more misrepresentation than it is now,” says Novicki.

The stunted actor was tired of filmmakers assigning him roles exclusively related to his short stature.

Crepe camp
Also nominated for the Oscars this year is the documentary “Crip Camp,” produced by a company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama.

The film deals with the establishment of a vacation camp for disabled youth in the 1970s, and the critical role that this played in defending the rights of people with disabilities in the United States.

“This is one of the most beautiful films I know and the one that rejects exclusion,” Novicki confirms, praising the work of assistant director James Lubrecht, who is a disabled person.

He says that the number of people with disabilities is estimated in the hundreds of millions around the world, which makes them the “largest minority”, calling for members of this group to be given their rightful place in films.

British actress, Kate Winslet, has expressed her pride in her daughter Mia Thrillton, who started her acting career on her own.

The 45-year-old Oscar-winning star said in statements to the British TV program “Lauren”: “She is now 20 years old and acting .. It is really wonderful,” adding that Mia is currently in the Czech Republic to act on a TV series.

She added, “It is wonderful for her to have a different family name than me, and thus she became unattended … The people who chose her did not know that she was my daughter, and of course, that was very important in her self-esteem.”

The Hollywood star stated that she “had always predicted” that her daughter would one day follow in her footsteps, and said, “Then a few years ago she said she would just give her a try.”