ecopolis

L’AGE D’OR (The Golden Age)

France, 1930

Director: Luis Buñuel

Production: Black and white, 35mm; running time: 60 minutes (some French sources list 80 minutes). Released 28 November 1930, Paris. Filmed in Studios Billancourt-Epinay, France. Producer: Charles Vicomte de Noailles; screenplay: Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí; photography: Albert Duverger; editor: Luis Buñuel; production designer: Pierre Schilzneck; original music: Van Parys, montage of extracts from Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Debussy, and Wagner.
Cast: Lya Lys (The Woman); Gaston Modot (The Man); Max Ernst (Bandit Chief); Pierre Prévert (Péman, a Bandit); Caridad de Labaerdesque; Madame Noizet; Liorens Artigas; Duchange Ibanez; Lionel Salem; Pancho Cossio; Valentine Hugo; Marie Berthe Ernst; Jacques B. Brunius; Simone Cottance; Paul Eluard; Manuel Angeles Ortiz; Juan Esplandio; Pedro Flores; Juan Castañe; Joaquin Roa; Pruna; Xaume de Maravilles.

The Retrospective of the 58th Berlin International Film Festival will honor Spanish director Luis Buñuel, who died in 1983, by presenting a comprehensive program of his works.

Luis Buñuel Retrospective will commence and conclude at the Volksbühne with two special presentations focusing on Buñuel’s famous directorial debut: his silent film Un chien andalou (France 1929) is to be screened four times, and each time it will be accompanied live by different works of contemporary music.

On February 9, 2008, Un chien andalou will be shown alongside another masterpiece of surrealistic film, Jean Epstein’s La chute de la maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher, France 1928), on which Buñuel worked as assistant director. Both films will be presented in restored versions and accompanied live by Dutch musicians Maud Nelissen, Merima Kljuco and Frido ter Beek. With their improvisation, they will provide the proper acoustic environment for the intense and poetic cinematic worlds of Buñuel and Epstein.

On February 17, 2008, the Berlinale Kinotag, the 21 musicians of the Spanish Grup Instrumental BCN216 will approach Buñuel’s debut film in three successive screenings of Un chien andalou at the Volksbühne. Under the programmatic title 3 chiens, each composition has its own conception: Clonic Mutations by Catalan musician Sergio López, an acoustic “demystification” of Buñuel’s classic work, full of black humor; Szénario by Mauricio Kagel, a composition for the film from 1981/82; and Las siete vidas de un gato by Martín Matalón, a free association of images and sounds.

In addition to Buñuel’s 32 directorial works, the Retrospective will present a program of eight films to introduce his contributions as assistant director, producer and screenwriter. Buñuel worked for the first time as assistant director on Epstein’s film Mauprat (France 1926), in which he also played two small roles – a monk and a guardsman.

After the Berlinale, the programme will go on tour: partners in this cooperation are the Österreichisches Filmmmuseum Wien, which will present the program immediately following the Festival; and the Filmmuseum München, which will begin screening the films in March 2008.
From February 7 onwards, 3sat will augment the Retrospective with the film series “Der Zauber des Surrealen. Luis Buñuel und die Folgen”.

Peter Jenner:

Payment for recorded music has become voluntary, and it will become ever more so as time goes on.

Music is an essential aspect of our human existence, virtually a human right in that when we see people deprived of music, oppression is usually not far removed.

Traditionally accessed via concerts and performances, radio, jukebox, and hard carriers bearing recordings, music has historically been relatively easy to control even when the means of reproduction have challenged the existing music business. Player pianos, electricity, radio and the changes in physical sound carriers have all forced radical changes, but essential music business structures have managed to adjust after the adoption of new business models and the passage of some time.

The digital technologies that became ubiquitous in the early 21st century however, have made the recorded music industry descend into panic.

The digital revolution has fundamentally transformed all the processes of the traditional recorded music value chain. These technologies have made recording easier and cheaper, and made the distribution and manufacture of those recordings cost almost nothing. Promotion and marketing has morphed as well, creating the possibility that we have entered a business environment dominated by a mass of international niche markets, rather than a world of national mass markets (though the mass market will probably survive, but as a smaller proportion of the total market).

Radio, film, video and TV are all also going into flux, along with the newspaper/magazine industry, advertising, and all the other industries which have been based on the monopoly rent derived from copyright and intellectual property laws.

Maybe the most interesting question is: what remains the same?

Clearly the two essentials for a music market remain the same, the creators and the audience (though they are starting to blend into each other with the rise of user generated content). What certainly has changed is the way that recorded music gets from the creator to the audience, and how it is paid for. This fundamental change is affecting the whole structure of the traditional value chain, and the consequent distribution of revenue between all the various parties who make up the industry.

Music-related businesses need to actively pursue new opportunities for growing both their own businesses and those of the new players in the modern global economy.

The fundamental nature of the new technology – the replication of digital files cheaply and easily – cannot be controlled in the same ways as the traditional music business was controlled. Trying to control these activities will have no other effect than to thwart creativity, entrepreneurialism and cultural diversity, and worst of all delay the development of new business models that work with the technology rather than against it.

The music industry of today can, perhaps, best be described as a three-dimensional chess game where multiple strategies are simultaneously unfolding between creators, consumers, investors in music (record labels, publishers, etc), residential and wholesale broadband companies, mobile phone networks and a variety of other entities that populate the supply and distribution chains of the music business.

All of these old and new groups are trying to cope with licensing regimes and customs that are totally unfit for the new reality. The arcane and complex rights issues on which the whole industry has built itself make no sense to the new players. The historical antipathy and baggage that all the sectors carry around with them, combined with their desire to protect their existing businesses, has had the affect of completely frustrating anyone in the new digital distribution business trying to build a new 21st century business legally.

How can we rebuild the supply chain of the music industry?

A solution based on actual consumer behaviour is needed, one that allows access to music in a way that addresses how people engage with music today.
A seemingly reasonable solution looks to be a system where each customer with a broadband subscription, whether at home or via their mobile phone, would pay a small monthly fee to compensate creators and rights-holders for any unauthorised use of music that might occur via their subscription. This Access to Music Charge could be an indemnity, for networks and customers, against being sued for the unauthorised accessing of copyright protected music.

Excerpts from http://midemnetblog.typepad.com/midemnet_blog/2008/01/peter-jenner-th.html

Michel Gondry, picks his favorite YouTube videos at the Sundance Film Festival

Sundance Institute

Founded by Robert Redford in 1981, Sundance Institute is dedicated to the development of artists of independent vision and to the exhibition of their work. The Sundance Film Festival, a major program of Sundance Institute held each January, is considered the premier showcase for American and international independent film. The Documentary Film Program provides year-round support to nonfiction filmmakers through the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and programs that nurture growth and innovation in documentary storytelling. The Film Music Program supports and nurtures emerging film composers and inspires new ways for independent filmmakers to approach music in their films. The Institute maintains The Sundance Collection at UCLA, a unique archive of independent film.

Born in Palermo (Italy), “Tvboy” is the pseudonym of the young artist Salvatore Benintende.
He grew up in Milan, where he broke into the art world via graffiti since 1996. After studing painting and illustration at the University of Bilbao (Spain), he returned to Milan and graduated in Industrial design, specializing in graphic art. He began collaborating with various European studios and brands as freelancer; has put together shows in several galleries and been involved in street events in Italy and Spain. He currently lives in Barcelona where he runs his own studio. His visual style is inherit from Pop art and comic strips, with breezily expressive graphics and his own imaginative reworking of past icons. The baby with the face inside the Tv set, his alter-ego and hallmark, carries the message: “Switch it off,you’re the one on stage!”

LOVE WILL TEAR US APART
Personale di TV BOY – @ – SPAZIOINMOSTRA
Milano 14 – 31 gennaio 2008
www.spazioinmostra.it

JOY DIVISON + Love will tear us apart +

What I want for Christmas

(VIA REUTERS)- Nearly 200 nations agreed at U.N.-led talks in NUSA DUA, Indonesia – Bali to launch negotiations on a new pact to fight global warming after a reversal by the United States allowed a historic breakthrough.

Washington said the agreement marked a new chapter in climate diplomacy after six years of disputes with major allies since President George W. Bush pulled out in 2001 from the Kyoto Protocol, the main existing plan for combating warming.

““This is a real breakthrough, a real opportunity for the international community to successfully fight climate change,” said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “Parties have recognised the urgency of action on climate change and have now provided the political response to what scientists have been telling us is needed,” he added.

While a new global deal is envisioned for 2013, countries also agreed on a number of steps that need to be taken immediately to further implement the existing commitments of Parties to the UNFCCC.

The Bali meeting approved a “roadmap” for two years of talks to adopt a new treaty to succeed Kyoto beyond 2012, widening it to the United States and developing nations such as China and India.

A successor pact will be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009. These issues are particularly important for developing countries.

About the UNFCCC

With 192 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has 176 member Parties to date. Under the Protocol, 36 States, consisting of highly industrialised countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

About the CDM
Under the CDM, projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries and contribute to sustainable development can earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits. Countries with a commitment under the Kyoto Protocol buy CERs to cover a portion of their emission reduction commitments under the Treaty. There are currently more than 860 registered CDM projects in 49 countries, and about another 2000 projects in the project registration pipeline. The CDM is expected to generate more than 2.6 billion CERs by the time the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012, each equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide.

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

British artist Damien Hirst and Irish musician Bono U2 will host a Project RED auction of contemporary art donated by several artists such as Anish Kapoor, Matthew Barney, Georg Baselitz, Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns, Douglas Gordon, Andreas Gursky, Antony Gormley and Marc Quinn.

The Red Auction is expected to raise more than $40 million to support HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs in Africa.

More than 100 “red” pieces of art will be auctioned at Sotheby’s auction house in New York on 14th February 2008 – Saint Valentine’s Day – the traditional holiday on which lovers express their love for each other or donating to charity.

Love at first sight! — The pieces will be exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery in New York from February 4. to Feb. 13. Proceeds will go to the United Nations Foundation to support Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria programs.

“For a relatively small amount of effort on each artist’s part, we can actually save many lives,” Hirst said.

Bono called the auction a “real moment in art history”

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “Do you love me?”

The Dalai Lama opened a 10-day visit to Italy on Thursday with few official meetings on his schedule. “No audience is planned”. Nobody received an official, written statement of a meeting. So Pope Benedict did not meet Dalai Lama. Neither Italian President or the Italian Foreign Minister.

Beijing’s communist government responded early in November by saying such a meeting would “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” and urged the Pontiff to take action showing he “is sincere in improving relations” .

The Dalai Lama’s recent meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President George W. Bush drew strong rebukes from Beijing, which claims he wants to split Tibet from China. The Dalai Lama insists he only seeks autonomy for Tibet, which China has occupied since 1951.

Among his activities in Milan are a ceremony for Nobel Peace Prize winners hosted by the Milan mayor. Meanwhile he met Giuseppe Piero Grillo, better known as Beppe Grillo (born July 21, 1948), an Italian comedian and blogger. His performances as much his posts are characterized by an realistic level of political satire.
On 26 July 2007 Grillo was permitted to speak to the members of the European Parliament in Brussels, where he drew attention to the dangerous, negative state of current Italian politics. He also promoted the so called V-Day (8 September 2007).

The V-Day, which was supported in more than 170 Italian cities as well as abroad, was organised by Grillo to persuade Italians to sign a petition calling for the introduction of a Bill of Popular Initiative to remove members of the Italian Parliament who have criminal convictions of any kind from their office. And gradually expands public awareness over the general situation.

Religious and political leader of the Tibetan people Dalai Lama’s is due in Rome next week. His favorite verse comes from eighth century Buddhist saint Shantideva

For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.

Track

This is a video made in 1938 showing the Great yoga teacher demonstrating asana and pranyama. He was the teacher of BKS Iyengar and Sri K. Pattahbi Jois, founder the Astanga style of yoga. The film is so old that any claim to copyright has expired