Category: Новини

Different races and religions sharing space is part of America’s melting pot ethos. Indonesian-American Christians and Muslims in Philadelphia are doing just that. VOA’s Alam Burhanan has more in this report narrated by Nova Poerwadi.Camera: Alam Burhanan, Irfan Ihsan, Ronan Zakaria
 
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Zimbabwean sculptor David Ngwerume is gaining attention for works inspired by the coronavirus pandemic. One of his collections urges people to get vaccinated. Another reminds people to take health measures, as he hammers home a message to curb the spread of the virus. Ngwerume’s latest piece is “Michael Jackson,” named after the late U.S. pop icon who was well known for wearing masks and a glove.Forty-year-old Zimbabwean sculptor David Ngwerume is making what he calls a “COVID-19 Gallery.” Forty-year-old Zimbabwean sculptor David Ngwerume in front of his exhibit, called “Arms,” in what he calls a “COVID-19 Gallery” in Harare, April 23, 2021. He encourages people to take the COVID jab to help the country reach its vaccination target of 60 percent by the end of the year. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)His exhibit, called “Arms,” encourages people to take the COVID jab to help the country reach its vaccination target of 60 percent by the end of the year.Another one, called “We are torn,” encourages people to sneeze into their elbows.And the most talked about one encourages people to mask up in an exhibit called: “MJ” – named after the late U.S. pop icon “Michael Jackson.”“The iconic Michael Jackson was the first celebrity to move around wearing a mask and gloves. When he was asked, he stood his ground and said the air is somehow polluted,” Ngwerume said. “Michael Jackson used his public figure position to highlight what he was seeing as what would come with the times; that we have the COVID pandemic. We are now wearing masks. At that time people thought he was trying to show off. He warned us. Now I am using his figure around this COVID pandemic on my art to show that Michael Jackson gave us a warning that: Mask up. His figure shows a finger pointing to us as a people to say: Mask Up.”Ngwerume has posted his pieces online to keep most people from coming to his studio and potentially spreading the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease.New York-based art dealer Shingirai Mafara says he wants to hold an art exhibition to display the work of his fellow Zimbabwean David Ngwerume for a wider reach, April 23, 2021.  (Columbus Mavhunga/SKYPE/VOA) Speaking via Skype, New York-based art dealer Shingirai Mafara says he wants to hold an art exhibition to display the work of his fellow Zimbabwean for a wider reach.”I find his pieces very, very pivotal not only putting Zimbabwean art sculpture on the map, because we are already back on the map but also sending to the entire world: let’s get vaccinated, let’s wear masks, let’s social distance, hold hands and try to see this together,” Mafara said. “These pieces are going to sit in the permanent collection of the United Nations World Health Organization or at a private collector’s residence. The work that David has created: a 100, 200 years from now you can look back and say in 2020/2021, we had a pandemic that killed millions and millions of people.”Ngwerume’s work has also caught the attention of a Zimbabwe government official.Josiah Kusena is the acting director of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe. Josiah Kusena, the acting director of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe, says the government appreciates artists who think outside the box, April 23, 2021.  (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)“The situation has taught our artists to be resilient, to be imaginative and creative in terms of sustenance – how do you eke a livelihood in such an environment which is not easy to operate when sources of income have been closed totally,” Kusena said. “So that creativity is not a surprise at all. It is also an appreciation by the artist that COVID-19 has destroyed livelihoods, but it is also an appreciation that there has been progress in research in terms of how do you contain COVID-19.”Zimbabwean Doctors Worried about Low Acceptance of COVID-19 VaccineFewer than 36,000 people received shots since 200,000 doses arrived in February Ngwerume says he hopes to work with art auctioneers and use part of the proceeds to get personal protective equipment or PPEs for Zimbabwe’s health workers.Zimbabwe’s doctors and nurses have struggled due to lack of adequate resources while working in the front lines of prevention and treatment during the coronavirus pandemic. Zimbabwe has more than 38,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and 1,550 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the global outbreak.
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While some mosques have opened to prayer during this second Ramadan during the COVID-19 pandemic, religious studies continue online. And in at least one mosque near Washington, D.C., a local teen is trying to keep the lessons entertaining and engaging, as VOA’s Dhania Iman reports.Camera: Dhania Iman Produced by:    Bronwyn Benito 
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With diversity at center stage, minority Oscar nominees took home many coveted golden statuettes, but the three major awards for best actor, best actress and best cinematography went to white nominees. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
Camera: Penelope Poulou      Producer: Penelope Poulou  
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Chinese filmmaker Chloe Zhao became only the second woman, and the first woman of color, to win the Academy Award for best director as her film Nomadland also captured the award for best picture at Sunday’s Oscars.The film follows a woman who leaves her small town to wander the American West, meeting along the way others who have sought an itinerant life away from conventional society.“I have always found goodness in the people I’ve met everywhere I went in the world,” Zhao said as she accepted her directing award. “This is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold onto the goodness in themselves and hold onto to the goodness in each other, no matter how difficult it is to do that.”Nomadland star Frances McDormand won the Oscar for best actress. It was her second time winning the award, following her recognition in 2018 for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.The award for best actor went to Anthony Hopkins for his role as a man battling dementia in the film The Father, which also won for best adapted screenplay. Hopkins first won an Oscar nearly 30 years ago.Best original screenplay went to Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman, a thriller in which a woman seeks revenge against predatory men.Daniel Kaluuya, winner of the award for best actor in a supporting role for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” poses in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, April 25, 2021, at Union Station in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, Pool)Winners at the 2021 OscarsHere’s a look at the winners at the 93rd annual Academy Awards, which took place April 25, 2021, in Los Angeles.Typically a glamor-filled event held at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, the award show shifted to the city’s Union Station transit hub due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nominees were seated at lamp-lit tables around an amphitheater.The list of nominees featured more women and more actors of color than ever before.South Korean actress Yuh-Jung Youn won the best supporting actress award for her portrayal as the matriarch in the film Minari. She is the first Asian actress to win an Academy Award since 1957.Best supporting actor went to Britain’s Daniel Kaluuya, who played Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah.Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson made history as the first Black women to win the Oscar for makeup and hairstyling for their work, along with Sergio Lopez-Rivera, in the film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.The award for best international film went to Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round. 
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The red carpet is back. After the coronavirus pandemic forced awards shows to be canceled or go virtual over the past year, movie stars and Hollywood A-listers returned Sunday to strut their stuff, live and in person, on perhaps the most iconic red carpet of all: at the Oscars.It was a smaller-than-usual affair with fewer celebrities and cameras — and strict COVID-19 protocols in place. But there was no less glamour to grace the carpet set up at Los Angeles’ Union Station, where the 93rd annual Academy Awards will take place this year.Wearing a double-breasted black tuxedo, actor Paul Raci, 73, was among the first to step in front of the microphones on the carpet.”I don’t think I could have it any other way; it means a lot. It’s perfect,” said Raci, who has been nominated for best supporting actor for his role in the movie “The Sound of Metal.”TV hosts and personalities described a pent-up red carpet energy, with stars and spectators alike eager to forget, albeit temporarily, the rigors of 2020.”Minari” star Steven Yeun, one of the nominees for best actor, said it felt strange to be out and interacting with people.”I haven’t talked to random people in a while, so this is crazy,” said Yeun, 37.Glenn Close, nominated for the eighth time for an Oscar for her portrayal of tough-love parent Mamaw in “Hillbilly Elegy,” walked the red carpet in a blue tunic and pants by Armani Prive.”It’s not two miles long, so that’s lovely,” Close, 74, joked, referring to this year’s shortened red carpet.”I’m very excited, I think it will be very, very different,” she said of the ceremony.”It feels like a special season, like a special time to remember,” said best supporting actor nominee Leslie Odom Jr., 39, who wore one of the more eye-catching outfits of the night, a head-to-toe gold Brioni suit.Andra Day arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, April 25, 2021, at Union Station in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, Pool)2021 Oscars Red CarpetThe red carpet makes a comebackChina native Chloe Zhao, who is nominated for best director for “Nomadland,” brought two the van dwellers who appeared as themselves in the movie.  Fashion commentators hailed the baby blue gown with butterflylike shoulders worn by Regina King, director of the Oscar-nominated movie “One Night in Miami,” as one of the red carpet’s showstoppers.Zendaya also drew praise for her Oscars style, a yellow midriff cutout dress.Gold proved to be a popular choice among nominees. Mulligan of “Promising Young Woman” stunned in a gold gown on the red carpet, and Andra Day, star of biopic “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” wore a midriff-baring gold dress.”I really can’t believe we’re around people,” said best supporting actress nominee Amanda Seyfried, who appeared in a bright red dress with a plunging neckline.Some of the others on the red carpet aside from the actors and actresses wore masks, and interviewers kept their social distance from their subjects.Some of the nominees and other celebrities took to social media ahead of the ceremony to share preparations for this year’s awards show.On Instagram, Close silently toasted in front of the camera while getting ready for the show.A mask-wearing Laura Dern held what looked like a swab for a COVID-19 test in a shot the actress shared with her Instagram followers and captioned “Oscars prep!” 
 
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Chloé Zhao has made history at the Academy Awards.Zhao won the Oscar for best director for Nomadland, becoming just the second woman and the first woman of color to win the award.”My entire Nomadland company, what a crazy, once-in-a-lifetime journey we’ve all been on together,” Zhao said.Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win, for The Hurt Locker, in 2009.This was the only year in Oscar history with two female nominees, Zhao and Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennell. Only seven women have ever been nominated.It was the first Oscar for the 39-year-old Zhao, who was born in Beijing and went to college and film school in the United States. Nomadland is her third feature.The other nominees were Lee Isaac Chung for Minari, Thomas Vinterberg for Another Round, and David Fincher for Mank.Best animated featurePixar’s Soul has won the Oscar for best animated feature.The film stars the voices of Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey.Soul follows an aspiring musician and middle-school band teacher who loses his life — but attempts to escape the afterlife during his quest to help an infant soul.Pixar has now won the award 11 times in the 20 years since the category was established.Best supporting actorDaniel Kaluuya used a lead role to win a best supporting actor Oscar. He’ll take it.Kaluuya won his first Academy Award on Sunday night for playing one of the two title roles in Judas and the Black Messiah.”I’d like to thank my mom,” Kaluuya said, as his mother teared up while watching. “You gave me everything. You gave me your factory settings. So I could stand at my fullest height.”Kaluuya played Chicago Blank Panther leader Fred Hampton, who was killed in an FBI raid in 1969.The other nominees were Paul Raci, Leslie Odom Jr. and Sacha Baron Cohen.Best international feature filmRaise a glass for Another Round.The film from Denmark, directed by Thomas Vinterburg, has won the Oscar for best international feature film.”This is beyond anything I could ever imagine,” Vinterburg said from the stage at Union Station in Los Angeles on Sunday night. “Except this is something I’ve always imagined.”It is the fourth time a film from Denmark has won in the category. The last was In a Better World in 2010.Vinterberg teared up when he told the audience his daughter died four days into shooting. “An accident on the highway took my daughter away,” he said. “We ended up making this movie for her, as her monument. So, Ida, this is a miracle that just happened.”Vinterburg was also nominated for best director Sunday night.Best original screenplayThe first Oscar of the night went to Emerald Fennell, writer and director of Promising Young Woman.It’s the first Oscar for Fennell, a 35-year-old British actor and screenwriter.
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