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Malaysian feminist body horror Tiger Stripes to debut at Cannes

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Malaysian feminist body horror Tiger Stripes to debut at Cannes

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — For 12-year-old Zaffan (performed by Zafreen Zairizal), going via puberty is actually a beast. When she discovers that her physique is morphing in terrifying methods and her neighborhood sidelines her, Zaffan has no alternative however to just accept her true self, revealing her magnificence, wrath and energy to everybody

Amanda Nell Eu is reluctant to disclose an excessive amount of of the plot of Tiger Stripes, however her debut function mixes teenage physique horror, and themes of feminine empowerment in a Southeast Asian setting and can make historical past this month as the primary movie directed by a Malaysian lady to debut on the prestigious Cannes Movie Competition.

Tiger Stripes is the fourth Malaysian movie and the primary in 13 years, to be invited to Cannes after Kaki Bakar (The Arsonist, 1995) by U-Wei Saari, Karaoke (2009) by Chris Chong Chan Fui and The Tiger Manufacturing facility (2010) by Woo Ming Jin.

It is going to compete for the Grand Prix on the 62nd Semaine de la Critique (Worldwide Critics Week), which can run from Might 17 to 25 and is the programme devoted to discovering first and second-feature filmmakers from all over the world. It’s the place acclaimed administrators like Wong Kar-wai, Guillermo del Toro, Ken Loach and Gaspar Noé all began.

“I’m so honoured. It’s what the workforce and I’ve been dreaming of. I don’t suppose anybody can be prepared for it as a result of it’s an actual punch within the face,” Nell Eu, who’s a Malaysian of combined Chinese language and British heritage, informed Al Jazeera.

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“Jokes apart, I hope Tiger Stripes’ themes and messages will resonate with many individuals and they’ll additionally benefit from the trip the movie takes you on.”

Nell Eu had the concept for Tiger Stripes originally of 2018 and did a lot of the event work over the next two years. “We did lots of labs and workshops after which ended up going to worldwide markets as effectively,” she mentioned.

After the COVID-19 pandemic halted work on the undertaking for about two years, the crew lastly shot the movie in 2022 within the wilds of Selangor state, east of Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur. It stars veteran Malaysian actors Shaheizy Sam (Polis Evo 3, 2023), June Lojong (Roh, 2019), and Fatimah Abu Bakar (Imaginur, 2022), plus a trio of younger and gifted first-time actresses – Zafreen, Deena Ezral and Piqa, who play the three Malay ladies from a rural neighborhood.

Amanda Nell Eu says she is obsessive about horror, feminism and feminine monsters [Courtesy of Amanda Nell Eu]

Produced by Foo Fei Ling for the impartial Kuala Lumpur movie firm Ghost Grrrl Productions that she co-founded with Nell Eu, Tiger Stripes is a co-production between Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Qatar.

It was a choice that stemmed partly from figuring out that the Movie Censorship Board of Malaysia might be laborious on artistic works that contact on the multi-cultural nation’s most delicate points, from ethnicity to faith. Islam is Malaysia’s official faith and adopted by greater than half the inhabitants.

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“As a filmmaker myself, I completely perceive the issues of censorship and I actually tried to not let that hinder me, particularly in script writing and making the movie,” mentioned Nell Eu.

“Preserving the filmmaker’s imaginative and prescient, particularly in a debut undertaking, is all the time my main mission as a producer,” mentioned Foo. “But, producing a debut just isn’t straightforward. That’s why now we have co-productions with a number of different nations, so we will say as a lot as we wish.”

Feminist physique horrors

Nell Eu says she is obsessive about horror, feminism and feminine monsters – all themes Tiger Stripes share along with her two earlier brief movies. Her 2017 debut, Lagi Senang Jaga Sekandang Lembu (It’s Simpler to Elevate Cattle), premiered on the Venice Worldwide Movie Competition and centered on the friendship between two teenage feminine outcasts in a distant village.

Her second brief, Vinegar Baths (2018), tells the story of an overworked maternity ward nurse who’s happiest when she roams hospital corridors at evening and may lastly eat. It received a number of competition awards, together with Greatest Image on the Scream Asia Horror Shorts competitors.

“I’m an enormous fan of physique horror. I simply discover it fascinating,” Nell Eu informed Al Jazeera, citing the style’s stalwart Canadian director David Cronenberg and Shinya Tsukamoto, the Japanese director of the visionary Tetsuo: the Iron Man (1989), amongst her early influences.

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“Creatively, I attempt laborious to take heed to my physique greater than my ideas and after I make choices, it’s my intestine feeling, how my coronary heart feels, and what takes me in direction of one thing,” mentioned Nell Eu.

A still from the movie Lembu showing a young woman squatting down in the darkness. She is wearing a pink dress and barefoot. Her fingers are elongated and covered in blood.
Nell Eu’s 2017 movie Lagi Senang Jaga Sekandang Lembu (It’s Simpler to Elevate Cattle) made its debut on the Venice Movie Competition [Courtesy of Amanda Nell Eu]

The concept for Tiger Stripes developed from her recollections of puberty, a time when the director says she “felt like such a monster” as her physique modified and didn’t like anybody to take a look at her.

“I believe that ‌each human being has a worry of their very own physique sooner or later of their life. So yeah, in my darkish sense of humour, what if the protagonist actually changed into a monster?”

To realize this imaginative and prescient, Tiger Stripes makes use of lots of particular results, make-up and stage props within the custom of old-school monster motion pictures.

“The problem is, meaning 5 hours of utility and that was very difficult, particularly as we had been capturing in a tropical local weather, which is absolutely the worst atmosphere to do particular results and make-up,” mentioned Nell Eu.

Zaffan’s physique modifications had been dropped at life by a crew that features skilled make-up artists like June Goh from Singapore, and Dutch artist Rogier Samuels, who additionally labored on worldwide movies such because the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Border, and X.

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“Simply consider the problem for [the actress] Zafreen, sweating inside, and while you take away the props, you see steam popping out… I’m so impressed by her. She was so courageous and into it. Her effort is actually wonderful,” mentioned Nell Eu.

Punk rock meets Asian monsters

The title of Tiger Stripes’s manufacturing firm, Ghost Grrrl Productions, which Foo and Nell Eu based collectively, pays homage to the feminist Riot Grrrl motion, a woman-empowerment-focused spin on the underground punk rock sub-culture that developed in the US’s Pacific Northwest because the Nineteen Nineties.

Its do-it-yourself, impartial values impressed Nell Eu and Foo to choose the manufacturing’s teammates, make choices and make “a movie that I believe is kind of punk rock,” mentioned Nell Eu.

Ghost Grrrl seeks to amplify the voices of robust, feared and misunderstood females in cinema, particularly from South East Asia. “We’re each ladies, each very feminist, and now we have lots of beliefs in feminism and empowerment, and we additionally wish to have a good time and embrace extra numerous voices within the business,” Nell Eu informed Al Jazeera.

However what makes Tiger Stripes stand out from different female-driven horror movies is its setting, which vehemently reclaims and questions the wealthy ghostly folklore of Nell Eu and Foo’s homeland.

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“Rising up in Malaysia is nearly like rising up with ghosts and also you all the time hear ghost tales each evening,” mentioned Foo. “At the same time as a baby, I watched horror motion pictures from Hong Kong and Hollywood earlier than going to sleep and the scariest monster was all the time feminine.”

A still from Vinegar Baths showing a woman sitting at an office desk in what looks like a clinic. There are diagrams of anatomy on the wall and a book case behind her with files. She has a bottle of Coke and some french fries on the desk. She has her earphones on and is moving her arms to what is playing on her phone.
Vinegar Baths tells the story of an overworked maternity ward nurse who’s happiest at evening when she roams the hospital corridors and may lastly eat [Courtesy of Amanda Nell Eu]

Nell Eu says she is an enormous fan of the pontianak (or kuntilanak in Indonesian), the vampiric ghost of a girl who died throughout childbirth, which is discovered within the folklore of maritime South East Asia.

“To me, [the pontianak] is robust and highly effective, the proper embodiment of a feminist,” mentioned Nell Eu. “I get impressed by these figures in our tales and tradition and use them as an inspiration.”

However on the similar time, the director just isn’t attempting to pigeonhole herself into any style or pattern, regardless that she is a fan of the brand new wave of South East Asian horror, particularly movies by Indonesian administrators like Joko Anwar, Kimo Stamboel and Timo Tjahjanto, who’re profitable acclaim on subscription-based streaming providers all over the world.

Nell Eu says it isn’t her place to say the place she suits in or whether or not Tiger Stripes will be a part of that wave.

“I’ve all the time felt like it is a very private story and from that non-public feeling, it turns into common. After the discharge, we’ll see what the suggestions is and what individuals’s reactions are, so it’s a bit too early for me to inform.”

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As she prepares for Cannes, Nell Eu can be within the early phases of planning a brand new function movie – a interval drama set within the late Thirties, in pre-World Warfare II colonial Malaya.

“I really like that interval, it was so vibrant, and there was a lot happening,” she mentioned. “Relaxation assured, there’ll nonetheless be style and there’ll nonetheless be blood.”

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Taylor Swift spends Black Friday amid sea of red as boyfriend Travis Kelce's Chiefs face the Raiders

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Taylor Swift spends Black Friday amid sea of red as boyfriend Travis Kelce's Chiefs face the Raiders

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Pop superstar Taylor Swift was spending Black Friday amid a sea of red to watch her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs as they played the Las Vegas Raiders in a chilly matinee at Arrowhead Stadium.

Swift had the Thanksgiving weekend off from her Eras Tour before it wraps with three shows in Vancouver beginning Dec. 6.

Swift walked down the tunnel into Arrowhead Stadium wearing a black outfit and red jacket as camera flashes created a strobe-like effect. Her arrival at Chiefs games over the past year-plus — ever since she started dating Kelce, who had reached out to her with an invitation to a game — has become a red-carpet moment for both local and national media.

Earlier in the day, Target stores across the country began selling an exclusive book devoted to the Eras Tour along with a bonus edition of her “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” that it said would only be available in stores on Black Friday.

There also are two new Christmas movies on television that have Swift connections.

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“Christmas in the Spotlight,” which premiered Nov. 23 on Lifetime, stars Jessica Lord as a pop star and Laith Wallschleger as a football player who meet and fall in love. The script was written by Eirene Tran Donohue, who said she was inspired to write a script loosely based on her favorite musician after watching Swift and Kelce’s relationship blossom.

On Saturday, Hallmark will air “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story,” which centers on a new Chiefs employee (Tyler Hynes) who meets a woman — played by Hunter King — whose family’s dedication to the team goes back decades. The story was written by Sherman Wolfe, a 49ers fan who was asked to pen it after the Chiefs beat San Francisco in the Super Bowl.

“Holiday Touchdown” has several cameos involving Chiefs players along with a small role for Kelce’s mother, Donna Kelce. And the team celebrated its pending release Friday by handing out small pennants and pins to fans at the game.

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Associated Press writer Alicia Rancilio contributed to this report.

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AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

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Ireland votes in a close-run election where incumbents hope to cling on to power

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Ireland votes in a close-run election where incumbents hope to cling on to power

Ireland is voting Friday in a parliamentary election that will decide the next government — and will show whether Ireland bucks the global trend of incumbents being ousted by disgruntled voters after years of pandemic, international instability and cost-of-living pressures.

Polls opened at 7 a.m.. (0700GMT), and Ireland’s 3.8 million voters are selecting 174 lawmakers to sit in the Dail, the lower house of parliament.

2,000-YEAR-OLD FIG UNEARTHED IN IRELAND MARKS ‘OLDEST EXAMPLE OF AN EXOTIC FRUIT’ DISCOVERED IN THE AREA

Here’s a look at the parties, the issues and the likely outcome.

Who’s running?

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The outgoing government was led by the two parties who have dominated Irish politics for the past century: Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. They have similar center-right policies but are longtime rivals with origins on opposing sides of Ireland’s 1920s civil war.

After the 2020 election ended in a virtual dead heat they formed a coalition, agreeing to share Cabinet posts and take turns as taoiseach, or prime minister. Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin served as premier for the first half of the term and was replaced by Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar in December 2022. Varadkar unexpectedly stepped down in March, passing the job to current Taoiseach Simon Harris.

Opposition party Sinn Fein achieved a stunning breakthrough in the 2020 election, topping the popular vote, but was shut out of government because Fianna Fail and Fine Gael refused to work with it, citing its leftist policies and historic ties with militant group the Irish Republican Army during three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Under Ireland’s system of proportional representation, each of the 43 constituencies elects multiple lawmakers, with voters ranking their preferences. That makes it relatively easy for smaller parties and independent candidates with a strong local following to gain seats.

Presiding officer Caroline Sharkey and Garda Ronan Steede look after a ballot box that is taken by boat to the Island of Gola as voters go to polls the for the 2024 General Election in Ireland, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

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This election includes a large crop of independent candidates, ranging from local campaigners to far-right activists and reputed crime boss Gerry “the Monk” Hutch.

What are the main issues?

As in many other countries, the cost of living — especially housing — has dominated the campaign. Ireland has an acute housing shortage, the legacy of failing to build enough new homes during the country’s “Celtic Tiger” boom years and the economic slump that followed the 2008 global financial crisis.

“There was not building during the crisis, and when the crisis receded, offices and hotels were built first,” said John-Mark McCafferty, chief executive of housing and homelessness charity Threshold.

The result is soaring house prices, rising rents and growing homelessness.

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After a decade of economic growth, McCafferty said “Ireland has resources” — not least 13 billion euros ($13.6 billion) in back taxes the European Union has ordered Apple to pay it — “but it is trying to address big historic infrastructural deficits.”

Tangled up with the housing issue is immigration, a fairly recent challenge to a country long defined by emigration. Recent arrivals include more than 100,000 Ukrainians displaced by war and thousands of people fleeing poverty and conflict in the Middle East and Africa.

This country of 5.4 million has struggled to house all the asylum-seekers, leading to tent camps and makeshift accommodation centers that have attracted tension and protests. A stabbing attack on children outside a Dublin school a year ago, in which an Algerian man has been charged, sparked the worst rioting Ireland had seen in decades.

Unlike many European countries, Ireland does not have a significant far-right party, but far-right voices on social media seek to drum up hostility to migrants, and anti-immigrant independent candidates are hoping for election in several districts. The issue appears to be hitting support for Sinn Fein, as working-class supporters bristled at its pro-immigration policies.

What’s the likely outcome?

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Opinion polls suggest voters’ support is split into five roughly even chunks — for Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, several smaller parties and an assortment of independents.

Fine Gael has run a gaffe-prone campaign, Fianna Fail has remained steady in the polls and Sinn Fein says it has momentum, but is unlikely to win power unless the other parties drop their opposition to working with it.

Analysts say the most likely outcome is another Fine Gael-Fianna Fail coalition, possibly with a smaller party or a clutch of independents as kingmakers.

“It’s just a question of which minor group is going to be the group that supports the government this time,” said Eoin O’Malley, a political scientist at Dublin City University. “Coalition-forming is about putting a hue on what is essentially the same middle-of-the-road government every time.”

When will we know the results?

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Polls close Friday at 10 p.m. (2200GMT), when an exit poll will give the first hints about the result. Counting ballots begins on Saturday morning. Full results could take several days, and forming a government days or weeks after that.

Harris, who cast his vote in Delgany, south of Dublin, said Irish voters and politicians have “got a long few days ahead of us.”

“Isn’t it the beauty and the complexity of our system that when the clock strikes 10 o’clock tonight, there’ll be an exit poll but that won’t even tell us the outcome of the election,” he said.

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At least 42 Palestinians killed as Israel ramps up Gaza attacks

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At least 42 Palestinians killed as Israel ramps up Gaza attacks

Medics say an Israeli drone strike killed Ahmed al-Kahlout, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

At least 42 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza, according to medical sources.

Twenty-four people were killed in Israeli strikes on central Gaza’s Nuseirat, one of the enclave’s eight longstanding refugee camps, sources told Al Jazeera on Friday.

An Israeli air strike killed at least 10 Palestinians in a house in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday, medics said.

Others were killed in the northern and southern areas of the enclave, medics added.

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The Israeli military on Thursday said its forces were continuing to “strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip”.

Israeli tanks had entered northern and western areas of Nuseirat on Thursday.

Some tanks withdrew from northern areas on Friday but remained active in western parts of the camp, the Reuters news agency reported.

The Palestinian Civil Defence said teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped in their homes.

Dozens of displaced Palestinians returned on Friday to areas where the army had retreated to check on damage to their homes. Medics and relatives covered up dead bodies, including of women, that lay on the road with blankets or white shrouds and carried them away on stretchers.

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Medics said an Israeli drone strike killed Ahmed al-Kahlout, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, on the northern edge of Gaza, where the Israeli ground forces have been operating since early October.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza that barely function now due to shortages of medical, fuel, and food supplies.

Most of its medical staff have been detained or expelled by the Israeli army, health officials say.

The Israeli army said its forces operating in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and Jabalia since October 5 aimed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping and waging attacks from those areas.

Residents have accused the army of depopulating the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon as well as the Jabalia refugee camp.

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Three killed in bakery stampede

Separately, two children and a woman were crushed to death on Friday as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in Gaza amid a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory, according to medics in Gaza.

The bodies of two girls aged 13 and 17 and a 50-year-old woman were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, where a doctor confirmed that they died from suffocation due to crowding at the al-Banna bakery.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities released about 30 Palestinians whom it had detained in the past few months during its Gaza offensive.

Those released arrived at a hospital in southern Gaza for medical checkups, medics said.

Freed Palestinians, detained during the war, have complained of ill-treatment and torture in Israeli detention after they were released. Israel denies torture.

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Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.

A ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, took effect before dawn on Wednesday, bringing a halt to hostilities that had escalated sharply in recent months and had overshadowed the Gaza conflict.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed at least 44,363 people, mostly women and children, since October 2023, according to Palestinian health officials.

Israel launched its war on Gaza after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing at least 1,139 people and seizing approximately 250 others as captives.

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