ОГЛЯД

U.S. actors Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck were wed Saturday in a late-night Las Vegas drive-through chapel, culminating a relationship that stretched over two decades in two separate romances and headlined countless tabloid covers.

Lopez announced their marriage Sunday in her newsletter for fans with the heading “We did it.” Lopez initially made their engagement public in April in the same newsletter, “On the J Lo.”

“Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient,” wrote Lopez in a message signed Jennifer Lynn Affleck.

Lopez wrote that the couple flew to Las Vegas on Saturday, stood in line for their license with four other couples and were wed just after midnight at A Little White Wedding Chapel, a chapel boasting a drive-through “tunnel of love.” Lopez said a Bluetooth speaker played their brief march down the aisle. She called it the best night of their lives.

“Stick around long enough and maybe you’ll find the best moment of your life in a drive through in Las Vegas at 12:30 in the morning in the tunnel of love drive through with your kids and the one you’ll spend forever with,” said Lopez.

News of their nuptials first spread Sunday after the Clark County clerk’s office in Nevada showed that the pair obtained a marriage license that was processed Saturday.

The marriage license filing showed that Lopez plans to take the name Jennifer Affleck.

Representatives for Lopez and Affleck declined to comment.

Lopez, 52, and Affleck, 49, famously dated in the early 2000s, spawning the nickname “Bennifer,” before rekindling their romance last year. They earlier starred together in 2003′s “Gigli” and 2004′s “Jersey Girl.” Around that time, they became engaged but never wed.

Affleck married Jennifer Garner in 2005, with whom he shares three children. They divorced in 2018.

Lopez has been married three times before. She was briefly married to Ojani Noa from 1997-1998 and to Cris Judd from 2001-2003. She and singer Marc Anthony were married for a decade after wedding in 2004 and share 14-year-old twins together.
…

Action-packed police thriller “Raging Fire” won best film and three other awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards Sunday, beating out a crowd favorite film about late Cantopop singer Anita Mui.

The 40th Hong Kong Film Awards took place Sunday, after it was postponed thrice from April following the city’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak. It was also the first time that the awards were held in person since 2019.

“Raging Fire” sees action star Donnie Yen play an incorruptible policeman who ends up going head-to-head with a former mentee played by Nicholas Tse, who wants revenge after Yen’s character put him in prison.

The movie is a swansong by director Benny Chan, who died of cancer in August 2020 while the movie was still in post-production.

Chan posthumously won the Best Director Award on Sunday. “Raging Fire” also won for Best Editing as well as Best Action Choreography.

The film that took home the most awards for the night was “Anita,” a biographical drama film about Mui.

“Anita,” which was the highest-grossing Hong Kong film in 2021, bagged a total of five awards for Best Costume and Design, Best Visual Effects as well as Best Sound Design.

The film topped the box office in Hong Kong upon release, eventually grossing $18.5 million in total box office sales. It topped the Hong Kong box office upon debut, grossing some 61 million Hong Kong dollars ($7.8 million) in about seven weeks.

“Anita” also earned more than 10 million yuan ($1.48 million) on its opening day at the Chinese box office.

Louise Wong, who played Mui in the film, won Best New Performer.

“Honestly, it wasn’t a day (or) overnight that I could play the role Anita,” said Wong. “I’m grateful for the team’s support and encouragement.”

“They helped me gradually understand Anita and the role,” she said. “I’m very grateful that I could experience her life.”

Malaysian actor Fish Liew, who played Mui’s sister Ann Mui, won Best Supporting Actress.

Another big winner at Sunday’s awards was crime thriller film “Limbo” which is based on the novel “Wisdom Tooth” by Chinese author Lei Mi. The film follows two policemen in their efforts to hunt down a serial killer.

The film won Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography.

Cya Liu, who played a drug addict who becomes a target for the serial killer, won Best Actress for her portrayal of the role.

“I’m grateful for the chance to perform in this movie and for director Soi Cheang’s trust and recognition,” said Liu.

“With his encouragement, I could completely engage in playing the role and act. Today is the first time in my life … that I feel the recognition as an actress.”

Meanwhile, 85-year-old Patrick Tse took home the award for best actor for his performance in the film “Time,” which centers on the city’s neglected elderly population. He was given a standing ovation while receiving his award.

Comedian and actor Michael Hui was also presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the comedy genre in Hong Kong’s film industry.
…

Soprano Angel Blue says she won’t perform in an opera in Italy this month because blackface was used in the staging of a different work this summer on the same stage.

The U.S. singer posted a note on her angeljoyblue Instagram page saying she will be bowing out of “La Traviata” at Verona’s Arena this month because the theater recently mounted another Giuseppe Verdi opera, “Aida,” that had performers in blackface.

She blasted such use of “archaic” theatrical practices as “offensive, humiliating, and outright racist.” 

Angel Blue, however, was still listed Saturday on the Arena’s website as singing the role of Violetta in “La Traviata” on July 22 and 30. 

The theater said it was hoping that Blue, who is Black, would accept an invitation to meet with Arena officials in a “dialogue” over the issue. The Arena, in a statement Friday, said it had “no reason nor intent whatsoever to offend and disturb anyone’s sensibility.”

For decades, U.S. civil rights organizations for decades have publicly condemned blackface — in which white performers blacken their faces — as dehumanizing Blacks by introducing and reinforcing racial stereotypes.

The Arena this summer has mounted performances of “Aida” based on a 2002 staging of the opera “Dear Friends, Family, and Opera Lovers,” began the soprano’s Instagram post. “I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I will not be singing La Traviata at Arena di Verona this summer as planned.”

Referring to Arena’s decision to use blackface makeup in “Aida,″ the singer wrote: “Let me be perfectly clear: the use of blackface under any circumstances, artistic or otherwise, is a deeply misguided practice based on archaic theatrical traditions which have no place in modern society. It is offensive, humiliating and outright racist.”

She wrote that she couldn’t “in good conscience associate myself with an institution which continues this practice.”

The theater’s statement said “Angel Blue knowingly committed herself to sing at the Arena” even though the “characteristics” of the 2002 Zeffirelli staging were “well known.”

Still, the theater stressed its hope that her protest would ultimately improve understanding between cultures as well as educate Italian audiences. 

“Every country has different roots, and their cultural and social structures developed along different historical and cultural paths,” said the statement by the Arena of Verona Foundation. “Common convictions have often been reached only after years of dialogue and mutual understanding.”

The Arena statement stressed dialogue, “in effort to understand others’ point of view, in respect of consciously assumed artistic obligations.” 

“Contraposition, judgments, labeling, lack of dialogue only feed the culture of contrasts, which we totally reject,” said the statement, appealing for cooperation “to avoid divisions.”

It’s not the first time that the use of blackface makeup for a staging of “Aida” in Verona has sparked a soprano’s protest. In 2019, opera singer Tamara Wilson, who is white, protested darkening her face to sing the title character of an Ethiopian woman in the opera at the Arena.
…

Venezuela’s national currency, the Bolivar, has lost almost all its value over the past 10 years. That has prompted artists in neighboring Colombia to use the almost worthless bills as a canvas. For VOA News, Jair Diaz has the story from Bogota.
…

Ukraine’s deputy minister of culture said Friday that her country’s heritage is under attack by Russia and must be protected.

“The president of Russia, Mr. Putin, announced that Ukrainian culture and identity is a target of this war,” Kateryna Chueva, deputy minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, reminded an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

She said the Russian bombs and missiles that have damaged and destroyed Ukrainian cities also have hit scores of important cultural sites.

The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has verified damage to 163 cultural sites since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. They include religious sites, a dozen museums, 30 historic buildings, 17 monuments and seven libraries. More than half are in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. UNESCO says cultural sites in the capital, Kyiv, have also sustained considerable damage.

Chueva says the figure is much higher. She told the council her ministry has verified damage and destruction to at least 423 objects and institutions of cultural heritage.

Destruction of cultural heritage is a potential war crime and a violation of the 1954 Hague convention for the protection of cultural property in conflict, of which Russia is a signatory.

Chueva noted that destruction of cultural heritage is not limited to structures and objects.

“Every single person is a bearer of culture, of knowledge and traditions,” she said.

The director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Center, Lazare Eloundou Assomo, urged Russia to take precautions to protect cultural heritage sites. He said from Paris that the agency has also worked with Kyiv to take steps to clearly mark protected sites and is verifying reports of damage, including through satellite imagery.

“The verification on the ground will enable UNESCO to unveil the scale of damage to cultural sites, as well as to verify the impact of the war on movable cultural property and to prepare for future recovery,” he said.

UNESCO is also providing technical and financial support to the cultural sector and plans to help Ukraine train law enforcement officials in the prevention of trafficking of cultural heritage.

Russia’s representative at the meeting, Sergey Leonidchenko, denied that Moscow targets heritage sites and says coordinates are provided to their military in advance in order take precautions.

He accused Kyiv of targeting Russian culture and language even before the February invasion.

“Demolition of monuments to Russian writers, poets, musicians and World War II heroes, renaming streets devoted to them, confiscation of school textbooks, Russian language and Russian literature in general,” Leonidchenko said. He said the Kyiv regime wants to “rewire people” to forget who they are.

Several Ukrainian cities did rename some streets and squares associated with Russia following the invasion, and a Soviet-era monument symbolizing friendship between Russia and Ukraine was dismantled in Kyiv.

The U.S. representative said Moscow has been destroying parts of Ukraine’s heritage in an effort to rewrite history, dating back to its invasion of eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“This campaign has been in motion since 2014, when Russia began to remove artifacts, demolish grave sites, and shutter churches and other houses of worship in the Donbas region and Crimea,” Lisa Carty said. “Even before Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia reportedly illegally exported artifacts from Crimea, conducted unauthorized archaeological expeditions, demolished Muslim burial sites, and damaged cultural heritage sites.”

Ireland’s deputy ambassador underscored the importance of accountability.

“When protection cannot be insured, it is necessary to build an evidence base so that accountability can be pursued when conditions allow,” Cait Moran said.
…