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China’s ‘Her Story’ Claims Top Prize at Udine’s Far East Film Festival

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China’s ‘Her Story’ Claims Top Prize at Udine’s Far East Film Festival

The 27th edition of the Far East Film Festival (FEFF) in Udine, Italy, concluded this weekend with China’s “Her Story” taking home the Golden Mulberry award, marking a significant triumph for female filmmakers at the event.

Director Yihui Shao’s box office hit claimed the festival’s top honor, awarded by audience votes, while Hong Kong’s “The Last Dance – Extended Version” by Anselm Chan secured the Silver Mulberry. Mainland China dominated the podium as director Yin Lichuan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” rounded out the winners with the Crystal Mulberry.

This year’s results highlighted gender equality in Asian cinema, with two of the three top prizes awarded to female directors from mainland China. The victories came as part of a festival edition that organizers described as “particularly attentive to social issues.”

The festival, which ran from April 24 to May 2 at Udine’s Teatro Nuovo and Visionario venues, drew impressive crowds. Festival founders Sabrina Baracetti and Thomas Bertacche reported 65,000 spectators attended screenings across both venues, while the event welcomed more than 3,000 guests to the northern Italian city. Professional accreditations reached a record 1,993, including 130 university cinema students from six countries.

Industry presence was equally strong, with over 200 professionals participating in the Focus Asia industry sessions. The Philippines-produced project “What’s Left of Us” claimed the TAICCA/Focus Asia Co-Production Award.

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Other award winners included “Diamonds in the Sand” by Filipino director Janus Victoria, which received the White Mulberry for best debut film from jurors Kim Yutani, Sakoda Shinji, and Megumi. Japanese psychological thriller “Welcome to the Village” by Jojo Hideo earned the Mulberry for best screenplay, while the same jury gave a special mention to Kim Bo-sol’s animated South Korean love story “The Square.”

The online component of FEFF saw more than 10,000 streaming hours across its 23 digital titles. Viewers particularly embraced Mongolian noir “Silent City Driver” by Janchivdorj Sengedorj, which won the Purple Mulberry from the MYmovies community, while Hideo Jojo’s Japanese thriller “A Bad Summer” logged 1,426 viewing hours.

Taiwanese actor and filmmaker Sylvia Chang, who received the Golden Mulberry Award for Lifetime Achievement alongside filmmaker Tsui Hark, captured the festival’s spirit in her acceptance speech: “We’re living in a very crazy world now, and in the middle of all this chaotic situation I feel we’re very blessed we still have films. We still have movie houses that we can go to… whether you want to escape or you want to cry, you want to laugh, you want to share emotion – well, at least in that two hours we still believe the world is beautiful.”

With its 27th edition successfully concluded, FEFF has already announced next year’s dates, with the 28th edition scheduled to run from April 24 to May 2, 2026, in Udine.

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Google puts AI agents at heart of its enterprise money-making push

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Google puts AI agents at heart of its enterprise money-making push
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is deepening a push into enterprise software, signaling to investors at Google’s annual ​cloud conference that AI agents — human-like digital assistants — are a lynchpin of its strategy to monetize artificial intelligence.
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Landlords allegedly posting ‘Muslim-only’ apartment ads in violation of country’s equality act: report

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Landlords allegedly posting ‘Muslim-only’ apartment ads in violation of country’s equality act: report

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Some landlords in England are apparently advertising “Muslim-only” apartments online, according to a local media report.

An investigation by The Telegraph found that alleged listings posted in London on Facebook, Gumtree and Telegram feature phrases such as “only for Muslims,” “for 2 Muslim boys or 2 Muslim girls,” and “Muslims preferred.”

Other ads appeal to Punjabi and Gujarati speakers, while some job vacancies on the platforms are advertised for men only.

Some listings specify “Hindu only,” in addition to posts that likely use religious subtext by stating: “The house should be alcohol and smoke-free.”

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On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” “one double room is available for Muslims,” and “suitable for Punjabi boy.” A Meta spokesman told Fox News Digital that Facebook then removed the company’s page “for violating the platform’s policies on discriminatory practices.”

Apartment buildings in Westminster, London, U.K. (John Keeble/Getty Images)

The ads run afoul of Britain’s Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination based on religion or belief, race and other protected characteristics.

“These adverts are disgusting and anti-British. It goes without saying that there would be a national outrage if the tables were turned,” Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s economic spokesman, told The Telegraph. “All forms of racism are unacceptable, and no religious group should get a special exemption to discriminate in this way.”

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Houses and properties line Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London, U.K. Some landlords in the city are illegally advertising for “Muslim only” tenants across the city, an investigation by The Telegraph has found. (Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images)

One landlord told The Telegraph to “go away” when asked about an ad for a “Muslims only” room for $1,150, and whether it was available to renters of other faiths.

A spokesperson for Gumtree told the newspaper that the company has clear policies in place that prohibit unlawful discrimination.

On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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“We take reports of inappropriate listings very seriously,” the spokesperson said. “The ads referenced appear to relate to private rooms within shared homes, where existing occupants may express preferences about who they live with. This is different from renting out an entire property, which is subject to stricter rules under the Equality Act.”

Telegram did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

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Is Europe too late to the metal recycling game?

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Is Europe too late to the metal recycling game?

Europe’s critical raw materials crisis has a partial answer sitting in the waste stream — but the continent has been too slow to see it.

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Dorota Włoch, CEO of Eneris Surowce, was direct: recycling is no longer optional.

Unlike plastics, metals can be recovered and reused indefinitely, making urban mining — the recovery of raw materials from existing products and waste — increasingly valuable, particularly for batteries.

“From recycling, we recover metallic aluminium and so-called black mass, which is a concentrate of metals, mainly cobalt-nickel. These are some of the most valuable battery metals. And batteries are crucial today, not only in the automotive sector, but also in storing energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar,” she said.

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‘Europe is 25 years late’

Włoch put the scale of the problem plainly. “Deposits are critical — any machine can be bought, but natural resources are not. They are non-transferable and non-renewable. If we use them, they simply disappear,” she said.

Europe’s belated recognition of that reality has cost it dearly.

“The regulation of critical raw materials came 25 years after other regions of the world had invested heavily in deposits. Europe was too passive. Today we are catching up, but the regulations are often so demanding that countries like Poland have difficulty implementing them.”

Who benefits most from extraction?

Poland holds significant reserves of raw materials critical to the modern economy, such as copper, coking coal, nickel, platinum group metals, helium, rhenium, lead and silver.

But the minerals needed most for the energy transition, such as lithium, cobalt and graphite, exist only in limited quantities, forcing imports.

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Arkadiusz Kustra, dean of the faculty of civil engineering and resource management at AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, told a panel at the European Economic Congress that awareness of the full supply chain, and who profits from it, was now essential.

He pointed to Serbia as a case study.

“Serbia has lithium deposits and is already in talks with Mercedes or Stellantis,” he said. Belgrade is using that leverage to attract investment in battery factories and car plants, keeping more of the value chain at home.

The goal, Kustra argued, should be regional supply chains that retain added value locally.

“You can earn the least at the beginning and the most from the end customer,” he said.

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The bigger obstacle is Chinese dominance.

“Margins in critical raw materials largely go to the Chinese, who control more than 90% of processing and trading, even though they do not own most of the deposits,” he said.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo — among the world’s most resource-rich countries — Chinese entities control around 90% of deposits.

The panel also pointed to growing interest in new supply partnerships, with Poland eyeing assets in the Congo region and the Americas.

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