2023-05-28 20:32:03
Turkey elections: World leaders congratulate Erdogan on ‘historic victory’
May 28, 2023
World leaders have sent congratulatory messages to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following his victory in the second round of the presidential election.
The Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad, was the first leader to congratulate Mr. Erdogan. / Photo: AA (AA)
1685308122
#World #leaders #congratulate #Erdogan #historic #victory
2023-05-27 19:04:06
From 5am, the Montgomery roundregarding and the Cinquantenaire – Belliard tunnel complex will be closed.
The roads located on the Site externe route of the 20 km of Brussels will be completely withdrawn from traffic from 9 a.m.:
Depending on the circumstances of the end of the race, the course will be reopened gradually and by police order.
Site externe 20 km from Brussels – mobility (20 km from Brussels)
Site externe 20 kilometer(s) from Brussels (Brussels Capital Ixelles Police)
1685218717
#Brussels #circulation
2023-05-27 15:00:00
When Aki Kaurismaki was asked regarding the reason for the constant presence of dogs in his films, his answer was: “Dogs do not ask for monetary reward and do not have a union!”. In one sentence, the great Finnish director, born 66 years ago in a city located in southern Finland, summed up the type of humor in which he was and still is a master, whether inside or outside his films.
Kaurismaki, a fan of the “French New Wave”, did not study cinema academically, but rather learned it by watching films in cinema clubs in the vicinity of the capital, Helsinki, of which he was an active member. It is said that he was not accepted into film school because he was mean. However, he joined the Faculty of Mass Communication for three years, and this was, as he put it, wasted time in his life, which he should have spent learning carpentry.
In an interview dating back to the year 1990, he says that he started in the “business” of films by chance, because he was ignorant of what to do in his life and “was not good for anything.” Before the cinema, he worked in construction, as the character of his latest movie, “Dead Papers”, shown in the 2023 Cannes competition, then entered the field of art through writing and acting (especially in the films of his older brother Mika). He did not study directing or dramatic art. At first, he got involved in films that were doomed to fail, but with the “Proletarian Trilogy” he began to attract attention, in Europe in general, and in France in particular. His first films bore social concerns, but he was never politicized in the ideological sense. Although he does not give direct answers to such questions, he defines himself as a non-conservative.
“Yoha”.
Finding a title at Kaurismaki precedes the screenwriting process. He finds an address and then writes the idea in his head, which sometimes requires no more than a few days following it had fermented in his imagination for several months. When the interviewer of the famous “Cinema Cinema” program asked him if it would be possible for him to accomplish a “bourgeois trilogy” in the manner of his “proletarian trilogy”, his reply was that he might not do that even if he wanted to. “I lose the little talent I have when I go to a bourgeois place,” he says sarcastically. As for naming the proletariat, he says that naming him “Loser” (loser) in referring to his personalities is more correct and accurate. “They are a step below the proletariat. They don’t have enough sense of belonging. They’re just losers, they live their lives like this. They join the syndicate if someone asks them to, but if no one approaches them, they won’t know anything regarding syndication. I always decide to end my films with a miserable end, Then I look at the characters and feel pity for them, and then I change it to a happy ending at the last minute.”
Kaurismaki did not choose ease from his beginnings, despite the extreme simplicity in his films, because he decided to film “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoevsky in a cinematic quote that was remarkable. We are now talking regarding the early eighties, and Kaurismäki is in his early twenties. His next film, The Calamari Syndicate, is a diversion from the first film, which he made to prevent any attempt to outdo himself compared to his debut. However, “Girl of Matches” (1990) is a station in his career and the beginning of his dedication internationally. The film tells the story of a girl who is being exploited at work and in love. All the nineties will be full of films, up to his masterpiece “The Man Without a Past”, which will open the millennium, and it is regarding a man who loses his memory following being subjected to a physical assault, before trying to build his life once more with the homeless and with the help of a charity. The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
From the first shot, the alert viewer realizes that he is in front of a film by Kaurismaki, who prefers to describe his style as melodramatic. The color, the frame, the faces, the way everyone moves within the space, the rhythm, the quality of the dialogues, the looks of the characters at each other, the sad decorations… All of this is repeated from film to film to create a complete and integrated world. The eye gets accustomed to the details and you are not mistaken with the cinematographers who drag us into their families. This is the case of many directors such as Roy Anderson, Jacques Tati, Terence Malik and others.
“The Man Without a Past”.
Bernard Jenny gave this absurd short interview with Kaurismaki in the early 1990s regarding his movie “Leningrad Cowboys Go to America”.
Your movie is great. funny.
No, it’s tragic.
Why a tragedy?
Because it’s a flop.
Why is the movie a failure?
– Because I’m a loser.
Why are you failing?
– Because I’m sad.
– And why are you sad?
– I don’t know, I’ve been like this since I was born.
– That’s why you’re a loser?
No, because I’m Finn.
– What do you mean?
– I mean, I live in a broken country.
– Who destroyed it?
– Banks, insurance companies, spoiled forests in exchange for computers and nuclear centers.
Doesn’t technological development provide some positive aspects?
– No, we don’t have it.
– Why?
Because we are sad people.
How is this sadness translated?
People are drinking more and more, fighting more and more, committing suicide more and more.
– It’s Apocalypse!
– No, it’s Finland.
“The Other Side of Hope”.
Kaurismaki, whose idol the Finnish director Tofu Tulio has remained, is extremely affectionate with his characters, even when he portrays a loser. There is a theme dear to Kaurismaki, who dreams of a better world and at the same time knows the impossibility of achieving it: human solidarity, especially when he portrays people with equal conditions, even if they come from different environments. It is not difficult to find a shirt merchant who leaves his wife (she also dreams of moving elsewhere), to start a new life and another profession (the restaurant). However, his small idea of human solidarity he grafts with the comic minimalist attitudes rooted in “Humer”, a European North that smells of wine.
This is exactly what happens in “The Other Side of Hope”, his penultimate film that was shown six years ago in Berlin. It is an ordinary story of a Syrian refugee who arrives in Helsinki on a ship, following burying himself in coal. But with Kaurismaki, nothing is normal, as he is eloquent in his ability to make others print with him and his cinematic world. The newcomers move as his characters have always moved within the cadre, leaving a space between action and reaction. And there are, of course, all those things that his films were full of: the kitsch and antique furniture of the houses that time has eaten and drank, the confused and hesitant faces, the suffocating staff, the gloomy gray atmosphere.
Without too much faith in humanity, which reminds us of the need to return to its lofty values, Kaurismäki calls for catching some rays of light that seep out of the darkness. And he is a poet and a politician in that!
“Dead Leaves”.
Yoha (a remake of a classic of Finnish cinema) was shown in Lebanon in 1999. Finnish film, silent and black and white. Attracted quite a few cinephiles. It’s this wonder called Kaurismäki. The European Film Festival in Beirut was keen to bring the latest out of this director’s imagination. In an interview with Katti Ottinen, the blonde with a polished presence and parsimonious performance in movement and expression, who has appeared in ten Kauresmäki films, she tells me behind the scenes of her work with Kaurismäki: “Aki learned to do movies while watching them. He’s a big fan of silent films. He also has an obsession with motion pictures.” In black and white and their gradations, because of the shades they contain. As a viewer, these films allow you to unleash the imagination. They have a purely cinematic aspect. This was his dream. We prepared for the film while watching silent films (laughter). We had a lot of fun shooting it, although it was not easy. Black and white need intense lighting to obtain the shadows that cover the walls, and other aesthetic details.I remember that we filmed one of the scenes from one angle, then from another angle, but the shadows suddenly disappeared from the wall, so we had to draw them with our hands, and photographed once more. “We were doing amazing things that are difficult to do today. Back then, we were shooting in 35mm. Until then, there was only one person in Europe who developed black and white films, and it was common to shoot film in color and then transfer it to black and white.”
1685204902
#Kaurismäki #Northern #European #humor #reeks #booze
2023-05-27 05:50:16
Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui, who heads the country’s delegation to resolve the Ukrainian conflict, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on May 26, according to the Russian diplomatic department. In the Russian capital, Lee completed a European tour, during which he visited Ukraine (May 16-17), where he met with President Vladimir Zelensky, as well as Poland (May 19), France (May 23) and Germany (May 24).
As noted in the Russian Foreign Ministry, during the meeting between Lavrov and Lee, “an exchange of views took place on the situation around Ukraine and the prospects for a settlement.” Moscow expressed “gratitude to the Chinese side” and praised “Beijing’s willingness to play a positive role.” Lavrov confirmed Moscow’s “commitment to a politico-diplomatic resolution” of the situation in Ukraine, complaining regarding “obstacles to the resumption of peace talks” created by the West and Kiev.
Prior to this, on May 24, Lee said in Berlin that the way to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict should be started “from the root causes of the crisis” (quote according to the press service of the Chinese Foreign Ministry). He also pledged support for European efforts to resolve the situation. Following the results of Li’s visit, the French Foreign Ministry noted the confidence that “China can play a constructive role in restoring a just and lasting peace in Europe,” taking into account the support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The Chinese envoy noted that Beijing and Paris had reached a “big consensus on the Ukrainian issue.”
At the end of February 2023, Beijing published a peace plan for resolving the Ukrainian crisis, including the cessation of hostilities, the resumption of negotiations, the creation of humanitarian corridors for civilians, the end of unilateral sanctions, and the promotion of post-conflict reconstruction. In March, during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin entertained the possibility that the Chinese plan would be the basis for resolving the conflict. On May 15, on the eve of the start of Li’s European tour, Zhang Jun, China’s representative to the UN, stressed at a meeting of the organization’s Security Council that it was impossible to “endlessly wait” for the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.
Europe received Special Envoy Li in order to once once more convince Beijing to put pressure on Russia to make concessions: withdrawing troops to the borders before the start of a military operation and negotiations on Western terms, Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics, believes. The Europeans also do not want to openly quarrel with China and sharply worsen relations, says Suslov. In his opinion, China, in turn, is implementing its own agenda in this initiative – it seeks to maintain relations with the EU to the detriment of Brussels’ contacts with the United States in order to weaken the transatlantic link. Therefore, the PRC positions itself as a neutral side in the Ukrainian issue, Suslov believes.
“The purpose of the trip is also to promote the voice of the “global South”, including Africa, suffering from the consequences of the Ukrainian conflict. China positions itself as a great power that should solve global issues, and Africa as a whole claims the same,” the expert says.
Lee’s European tour began simultaneously with the announcement of the initiative of the leaders of African countries – Zambia, Senegal, Congo, Uganda, Egypt and South Africa, presented on May 16 by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa, together with a delegation of African states, intends to visit both Moscow and Kyiv, but did not indicate the exact dates of the mission. The South African leader held telephone conversations with Zelensky and Putin, with the latter backing Ramaphosa’s proposal.
In an interview with the Financial Times on May 26, French businessman and founder of the non-profit Fondation Brazzaville, Jean-Yves Olivier, said he was the one who initiated the proposal. According to the French businessman, African states have the right to do so once morest the backdrop of conflict-provoked difficulties with the supply of fertilizer and food. On May 23, Olivier met with the Russian President’s Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa, Mikhail Bogdanov. The French Foreign Ministry did not comment on either the statement or the activities of the businessman.
Olivier’s statement regarding the initiation of mediation by African countries reflects the position of part of the French and European establishment, which disagrees with the absolute support of the American course on the Ukrainian issue to the detriment of the economies of the EU and France, Pavel Timofeev, head of the European Political Studies Department at IMEMO RAS, believes. It is logical that people appear who are trying to seize the initiative, given the influence of Paris in Africa, Timofeev argues.
There are points of intersection between France and China, as evidenced by the support following the April visit to China of French President Emmanuel Macron for his unpublished settlement plan. But there is still no real cooperation between the EU and China, the EU and Africa on the Ukrainian issue, says Suslov, Deputy Director of CCEIS.
Under the current conditions, Europe, neither in the form of the EU as a whole, nor in the form of European nation states, can act as a mediator in the conflict, being a de facto party to it, recalls Artem Sokolov, a researcher at the IMI MGIMO. Chinese Special Representative Li’s trips to the EU, as well as the African initiative, from a European perspective, are more of an attempt to support Beijing’s “communication” with Europe as part of the West, he says. According to him, there are no conditions for minimally constructive peace talks. “This is understood both in the West and in Russia, and until these conditions appear, questions regarding finding a mediator, coordinating the EU with China are premature. Moreover, Beijing understands Moscow’s position very well and hardly sees in the EU the force with which at the moment it is really possible to constructively interact in this direction, ”Sokolov believes.
1685172260
#China #stepped #contacts #Europe
