The Cannes Festival announces this year’s lineup of movies. “Having already announced Ron Howard’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ as the opening night, out-of-competition world premiere, the festival will keep star-wattage high.”
Blog
US To Foreign Artists: Stay Home
American visa rules are now so onerous (and expensive) that it’s become more and more difficult to enter the country as an artist. And if you’re part of a large dance troupe or orchestra? Almost impossible…
BBC Warned – No Full Increase
UK culture minister Tessa Jowell has warned the BBC it isn’t likely to get the full increase in the TV license fee it wants. “The BBC has proposed raising the licence fee by 2.35% above inflation, taking it from the current £131.50 to £180 by 2013.”
How To Grow Your Museum Without Letting Anyone In
The Cleveland Museum of Art might be closed to the public for the next few years as it undergoes a massive $258 million renovation and expansion, but the museum’s national and international profile may actually grow during the shutdown, thanks to a carefully planned series of traveling exhibitions which will highlight the Cleveland collection.
Foster Takes Canada
“Though his iconic buildings grace much of the planet, it’s only now, as conjurer of urban visions in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, that [Norman] Foster and Partners has seriously begun to infiltrate Canada…”
Hollywood Vet To Head Telefilm Canada
“Telefilm Canada will soon appoint former Torontonian Michael Jenkinson — a brainy entrepreneur who has spent the past 13 years in Hollywood’s hard-knocks production trenches — to become its new feature film executive for English Canada, sources say. While Montreal-based Telefilm would not confirm Jenkinson’s new posting, sources in the tight-knit entertainment community say the Jamaican-born film executive will take on this challenging job in mid-May. The federal funding agency annually doles out roughly $80-million to about 30 productions through its Canada Feature Film Fund.”
Please Touch
The Art Institute of Chicago has invested in a new technology designed to help it better serve a demographic usually left out of the museum-going experience: the blind. “The Michigan Avenue museum has re-created a handful of its art on portable, machine-etched plastic, which will help the blind to imagine what they cannot view. Called TacTiles, the 8-inch-by-10-inch boards replicate in relief the brush strokes of such masters as Renoir and Miro.”
The Past Is Grand, But The Present And Future Look Scary
John Rockwell seconds the notion that the current Martha Graham retrospective shows a company in disarray. This season’s offerings have been severely scaled back, the troupe’s leadership is chaotic at best, “the dancers have been erratically paid, touring engagements look sparse,” and perhaps worst of all, the company is facing yet another legal battle over its treatment of the Graham legacy.
Tonight, We Honor The Imprisoned Auth… Wait, He’s Here?!
“A novelist from Turkmenistan whose books have been banned and who has been under house arrest for two years became the first writer in 20 years to personally accept a Freedom to Write award from PEN American Center, the writers organization, at its gala dinner Tuesday evening in New York. His appearance was a last-minute surprise. Until Friday, government authorities had told the writer, Rakhim Esenov, 78, that he would not be allowed to leave the country.”
The $8 Million Gamble
When Random House handed author Charles Frazier (of “Cold Mountain” fame) an $8 million advance for his next novel four years ago, the publishing industry gasped. “With just a one-page outline of the planned work, [Frazier] sold the second novel in an auction, and in so doing left behind the editor, Elisabeth Schmitz of Grove/Atlantic, who had discovered and nurtured him to success.” The amount of the advance was unprecedented for such a new author, and now, as Frazier begins to hand in his manuscript, the industry will be watching closely to see whether Random House’s investment was worth it.