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In a last-minute controversial move, Pakistan has banned the screening of its international award-winning movie, “Joyland” in theaters across the country for containing “highly objectionable” content.

The movie, which features a married man falling for a transgender woman, was supposed to be released in Pakistani cinemas Friday.

In May, “Joyland” became the first Pakistani feature film to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It is also Pakistan’s entry for the 2023 Academy Awards in the United States.

The government-led Central Board of Film Censors (CBFC) had in August formally granted the filmmaker the license to screen the movie in cinemas.

A federal information ministry statement, however, said that it had stopped the screening of the movie as the material in question does not “conform with the social values and moral stands of our society.”

The material in question is “clearly repugnant to the norms of decency and morality” in line with the relevant laws, said the statement without elaborating.

The director of “Joyland” denounced the decision as “absolutely unconstitutional and illegal.”

“We — a team — are gutted by this development but fully intend to raise our voice against this grave injustice,” Saim Sadiq said in an Instagram post late Sunday.

Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, who represents the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami party in the upper house of parliament, was leading the campaign against the screening of “Joyland” in Pakistan. He praised the government’s decision to revoke the license.

“Pakistan is an Islamic state where no law, no step and no ideology against Islam can work here,” Khan wrote on Twitter.

Sadiq criticized the government, saying it “caved under pressure from a few extremist factions … and made a mockery of our federal censor board.” He urged the information ministry to review its decision.

Independent critics, Pakistani show business celebrities and social media activists also questioned the movie ban in a country that recognizes and gives legal rights to transgender people.

Salman Sufi, a key government adviser, announced Monday on Twitter that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had constituted a high-level committee to “assess the complaints as well as merits to decide on its release in Pakistan.”

“I personally do not believe in banning films that highlight issues faced by marginalized segments of our society. People should be trusted to watch & make their own mind,” Sufi tweeted Sunday in response to the widespread outcry sparked by the ban.

Pakistan has in recent years taken significant legal and administrative measures in its bid to protect the rights of transgender people who are often considered outcasts in the Muslim-majority South Asian nation.

The reforms effectively started with a landmark Supreme Court ruling a decade ago, which directed authorities to register transgender people as voters and give them, among others, equal inheritance and job opportunity rights.

The government launched a hotline this past September for transgender people, estimated to number around 500,000, to protect them against discrimination and harassment.
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Facial hair enthusiasts claimed to have set a new world record for longest beard chain during an event in Wyoming on Friday, the Casper Star-Tribune reports.

Participants gathered at Gaslight Social, a bar in Casper, where they stood side by side and clipped their beards together to create a hairy chain that was measured at 150 feet long, according to the newspaper. That’s more than double the Guinness World Record of 62 feet, 6 inches, set in Germany in 2007.

To participate, people needed to sport a beard at least 8 inches long, according to the Star-Tribune.

The event occurred on the sidelines of the National Beard and Moustache Championships, which took place Saturday at the city’s Ford Wyoming Center.
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California is home to the largest Arab American community in the United States. That growing economic and political visibility is evident in Southern California’s newly designated “Little Arabia” neighborhood. For VOA, Genia Dulot takes us there. Videographer and producer: Genia Dulot
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Art restorers in the Italian city of Florence have begun a six-month project to clean and virtually “unveil” a long-censored nude painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most prominent women in the history of Italian art.

Swirling veils and drapery were added to the “Allegory of Inclination” some 70 years after Gentileschi painted the life-size female nude, believed to be a self-portrait, in 1616.

The work to reveal the image as originally painted comes as Gentileschi’s contribution to Italian Baroque art is getting renewed attention in the #MeToo era, both for her artistic achievements but also for breaking into the male-dominated art world after being raped by one of her art teachers.

Her work was featured in a 2020 exhibit at the National Gallery in London.

“Through her, we can talk about how important it is to restore artwork, how important it is to restore the stories of women to the forefront,” said Linda Falcone, coordinator of the Artemisia Up Close project.

“Allegory of Inclination” originally was commissioned for the family home of Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, the great-nephew of the famed artist. The building later became the Casa Buonarotti museum, and the painting was displayed until recently on the ceiling in a gilded frame. When lead conservator Elizabeth Wick removed the painting in late September, a shower of 400-year-old dust was released.

Wick’s team of restorers is using ultraviolet light, diagnostic imaging and X-rays to differentiate Gentileschi’s brush strokes from those of the artist that covered the nudity. The public can watch the project underway at the museum through April 23.

Restorers won’t be able to remove the veils because the cover-up was done too soon after the original, raising the risk that Gentileschi’s painting would be damaged in the process.

Instead, the restoration team plans to create a digital image of the original version that will be displayed in an exhibition on the project opening in September 2023.

Gentileschi arrived in Florence shortly after the trial in Rome of her rapist, during which the then-17-year-old was forced to testify with ropes tied around her fingers that were progressively tightened in a test of her honesty.

She also had to endure a physical examination in the courtroom behind a curtain to confirm that she was no longer a virgin. Eventually, her rapist was convicted and sentenced to eight months in prison.

“Somebody else would have been crushed by this experience,” Wick said. “But Artemisia bounces back. She comes up to Florence. She gets this wonderful commission to paint a full-length nude figure for the ceiling of Casa Buonarroti. So, I think she’s showing people, ‘This is what I can do.'”

While in Florence, Gentileschi also won commissions from the Medici family. Her distinctive, dramatic and energetic style emerged, taking inspiration from the most renowned Baroque painter of the time, Caravaggio. Many of her paintings featured female heroines, often in violent scenes and often nude.

She was 22 when she painted “Allegory of Inclination,” which was commissioned by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger. Another member of the family, Leonardo Buonarroti, decided to have it embellished to protect the sensibilities of his wife and children.

“This is one of her first paintings. In the Florentine context, it was her debut painting, the same year she was then accepted into the Academy of Drawing, which was the first drawing academy in Europe at the time,” Falcone said.

With the younger Michelangelo as her patron, Gentileschi gained entry to the cultural milieu of the time.

“She was able to hobnob with Galileo and with other great thinkers. So this almost illiterate woman was suddenly at the university level, producing works of art that were then, you know, appreciated by the Grand Duke,” Falcone said. “And she became a courtly painter from then on.”
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Phrygian caps will be the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots as organizers look to to celebrate the French revolution’s spirit.

“‘Phryges’ aim to show that sport can change everything, and that it deserves to have a prominent place in our society,” Paris 2024 brand director Julie Matikhine said on Monday.

The Phrygian caps were favored over animals, who have mostly been the first choice in other Olympics — such as the ‘Bing Dwen Dwen’ panda at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing this year.

“We were almost ready not to make a mascot if we didn’t find a real reason to do so, and a real message to convey,” said Matikhine.

“The mascot must embody the French spirit, which is something very fine to grasp. It’s an ideal, a kind of conviction that carries the values of our country, and which has been built up over time, over history.”

The red Phrygian caps come in two versions — the Olympic and the Paralympic one — with a blade leg.

The Olympic Games will be held from July 26-Aug. 11 and the Paralympics from Aug. 28-Sept. 8.
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Taylor Swift walked away with four prizes at MTV’s Europe Music Awards on Sunday, including best video for her 10-minute “All Too Well.”   

Double-award winners included Nicki Minaj for best song and best hip-hop, and the French DJ and record producer David Guetta won the best electronic award and best collaboration.   

The event, broadcast on MTV from Duesseldorf in western Germany, honored musicians from Brazil to South Korea.   

It featured an appearance by Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, the winner of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which performed “Stefania” in an arena glowing with Ukraine’s national colors of blue and yellow.   

The U.S. pop singer Swift, wearing a dress of bejeweled mesh, won best artist, best pop, best video and best long form video.   

“I felt like I learned so much about how making film can be a natural extension of my storytelling,” Swift said as she accepted the long form video award.   

In “All Too Well,” Swift draws inspiration from 1970s Hollywood and recounts a fraying romantic relationship that disintegrates, leaving behind only a scarf and memories.   

“It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well,” Swift sings.   

Minaj’s winning song “Super Freaky Girl” incorporates the 1981 hit “Super Freak” with lyrics “I can lick it, I can ride it while you slippin’ and slidin’.”   

British pop star Harry Styles won in the “best live” category and the Thai-born Lalisa ‘Lisa’ Manoban won best K-pop. South Korea’s BTS, the global K-pop sensation, won the biggest fans category.   

The hosts for the show were British pop star Rita Ora and the film director Taika Waititi, who married this year. Ora herself won for “best look.”   

Duesseldorf has a musical heritage as home to the pioneering German electronic band Kraftwerk, which influenced generations of pop and dance musicians with mesmerizing tracks such as “Autobahn.”   

The city also hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2011.   

Screaming teens watched the stars walk down a red carpet before the event was broadcast from the PSD Bank Dome.   

Julian Lennon, the son of the Beatles’ John Lennon, said as he entered that he had not seen a concert in years and was looking forward to it.   

The rock band Muse, which won the best rock award, said it was dedicating its victory to the people of Ukraine and Iran.   

Kalush Orchestra’s frontman Oleh Psiuk, donning a pink hat, said before the performance that he hoped more Ukrainian bands would be present next year.
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