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Hanoi, Vietnam | How to smile, where to place a hand, which direction to face: young Vietnamese social media users are snapping up a popular influencer's course on posing for the perfect photo.
Los Angeles, United States | When Ridley Scott, the legendary filmmaker behind "Alien," "Gladiator" and "Blade Runner," began directing his first television series in decades, he was faced with a dilemma.
Sci-fi show "Raised by Wolves," premiering on HBO Max on September 3, sees a pair of advanced male and female androids land on a new planet after the destruction of Earth, charged with raising a new colony of humans.
"Because it's Adam and Eve, really they should be naked," Scott said. "And I thought, 'That may be a bridge too far for HBO -- they might have a heart attack.'"
His solution came as he walked past lingerie store Agent Provocateur in London's Soho district, spotting a racy elastic bodysuit in the shop window.
"The elasticity became a metaphor for nakedness," said the British auteur. "Besides, (nudity) would be too distracting."
The visually striking spandex outfits worn by actors Amanda Colin ("Mother") and Abubakar Salim ("Father") are just one intricate detail of the latest immersive, futuristic world created by Scott.
And that dystopian vision -- a universe in which a 22nd-century Earth has been ripped apart by war between atheists and the Mithraic religious movement -- has resonance for the turbulent world of 2020.
"We don't learn by past events, and we keep making the same mistakes... we're witnessing that right now," said Scott. "So it's relevant to me in that way."
"Science fiction looking forward is useful if somebody pays attention, because in a funny kind of way it's like striking a warning bell."
- 'Error code?' -
Scott's decision to direct on the small screen for the first time since his BBC career in the 1960s came once a script from Aaron Guzikowski ("Prisoners," "Papillon") landed on his desk.
"I read the material, the material was inspirational," said Scott. "I thought -- I can't let this one get away, I need to do it. It was that simple."
The plot sees both atheist and religious survivors of Earth's apocalyptic war flee to Kepler-22b -- the only known inhabitable planet.
On this dangerous, remote planet, humans and androids become entwined in a battle for survival amid warring faiths and fearsome artificial intelligence.
Scott, who executive produces and directed the first two episodes, told journalists his biggest challenge was to "try not to repeat yourself" and "make this look different."
After all, it is just five years since Scott stranded Matt Damon on Mars in "The Martian."
But Salim, playing a "generic service model" android whose loyalties quickly become torn, said Scott's willingness to give actors "space to invent and play" kept the sci-fi series fresh.
"It felt like we were working with him on a new project, rather than with him on another piece of 'Alien' or another 'Blade Runner.'"
He added: "It was all part of this growth of 'what it means to be an android?' If they can feel, if they can't feel... how does that compute, what's our error code?"
- Thinking of Bowie -
For lead actress Colin, trying to ignore Scott's remarkable canon of work was key to staying sane.
"I tried personally just to forget who he was, to be able to work, and be like, 'Thelma and who? I haven't seen it! Couldn't care less!'" she joked.
Her seemingly maternal robot also provides moments of suspenseful, bone-chilling horror in the show's early episodes.
That androgynous dual role is emphasized by her short, cropped red hair -- Scott says he was "thinking of David Bowie" -- and of course, those body-hugging spandex outfits.
"They're beautifully crafted. But... every time you need to lube and talcum to put on a costume, I think... I don't know!" Colin said.
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© Agence France-Presse
Venice, Italy | Hollywood star Cate Blanchett said that she would rather be called an actor than an actress.
The Australian, who is heading the jury at the Venice film festival, gave her backing to Berlin festival's controversial decision last week to do away with gendered prizes and only give a best actor award.
"I have always referred to myself as an actor," Blanchett said after being asked about the move towards gender-neutral prizes hours before the 10-day COVID-restricted Venice jamboree began.
"I am of the generation where the word actress was used almost always in a pejorative sense. So I claim the other space," she told AFP.
As if to prove the point, she asked reporters if there was a female equivalent of the Italian word "maestro", only to be told their wasn't.
Blanchett is taking the helm at Venice -- once slammed by feminists for the "toxic masculinity" of its selection -- in a year when the number of women directors vying for the top prize has quadrupled to eight.
"I think a good performance is a good performance no matter the sexual orientation of who is making them," she told reporters.
Venice was heavily criticised for selecting only one female film-maker to compete for the Golden Lion in 2017 and 2018.
- Got husband's 'permission' -
And there was still greater fury last year when Roman Polanski -- wanted in the US for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977 -- was selected and then went on to win the festival's second prize for his historical drama, "An Officer and a Spy".
But in the run-up to festival -- the first major film gathering since the coronavirus struck -- Oscar-winner Blanchett told Variety the record eight women directors this year was "a direct response to the positive advances that have been made".
The 51-year-old has become a major player in Hollywood gender politics since the #MeToo movement sparked by the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
She led a red-carpet protest for equality by an army of female stars and directors at the rival Cannes film festival two years ago.
The "Carol" and "Elizabeth" star has also been a prominent supporter of the Time's Up and #50/50 movements for gender parity and against sexual harassment in the industry in the wake of Weinstein's disgrace.
Veteran French director Claire Denis, who is heading the jury for Venice's "Horizons" sidebar competition, said the limits of gendered prizes were clear when you have to "give a prize to someone who has played the role of a man or a woman and who is transgender."
- 'Talking to chickens' -
But some stereotypes are slow to die. Blanchett was asked at one stage during the news conference before the festival's opening gala whether she had asked her husband if she could go to Venice, given the risk of a second wave of COVID.
"My husband said I had permission to leave," the actor replied dryly. "My children not so much."
She also made a thinly-veiled attack on US President Donald Trump for cutting funding to the WHO as the pandemic began to rage.
"I find it bizarre that the World Health Organization is not being allowed to lead this global challenge. We are a very strange species that we didn't learn from Italy... and other countries who were first hit.
"We behave in quite obtuse and destructive ways which is not particularly helpful."
The star, who spent the lockdown on her farm in southern England with her family, said that "it was very exciting to be having conversations with adults" now she was free.
"I have been talking with chickens and pigs the last few months."
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© Agence France-Presse
New York, United States | Its fall season has been cancelled and its concert hall closed indefinitely, so New York's Philharmonic is taking it to the streets.
One of America's oldest musical institutions, the famed symphony orchestra is playing outdoor pop-up shows, getting creative during the coronavirus pandemic that has kept concert halls closed and New Yorkers starved for live music.
Each weekend, small ensembles play at surprise locations throughout the city, wearing T-shirts and masks in front of a pickup truck dubbed the "bandwagon."
Sometimes musicians get rained on or people just walk on by -- but sometimes a nearby delivery truck honks along in exactly the right key.
In those moments, says opera singer and series producer Anthony Roth Costanzo, "it feels like the city is our orchestra and we're the soloists."
"In this moment of pandemic, in this moment of social change, we're exploring new ways together... to connect to people and to realize that we have to reinvent the concert-going ritual," the countertenor told AFP after performing a set in Brooklyn's Betty Carter Park, a small leafy urban oasis above a subway track.
"It's not just about bringing people into our house. It's about getting our house out in the world, and sharing what music can do."
On a balmy Friday evening, Roth Costanzo and a string duet -- Quan Ge on violin and Cong Wu on viola -- drew a socially distanced crowd to their show that began with Mozart's Allegro in G Major and wrapped with the classic New York ballad "Somewhere" from "West Side Story."
Unlike at its traditional classical music concerts, the Philharmonic encourages its pop-up audiences to dance, applaud and interact between songs.
Roth Costanzo played the role of MC, speaking to the crowd between each song from the bed of the pickup, at one point giving a shoutout to the vendor selling sheets and towels next to the makeshift stage.
Drivers slowed to roll down their windows and pedestrians took cell phone videos, as dozens of audience members -- including children and dogs -- stopped to take in the tunes that featured a string arrangement of Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind."
"I love you!" applauded one onlooker, Lorri, whose eyes welled with tears as Roth Costanzo finished a moving rendition of the somber "Lachrimae Pavane."
"It touched me," Lorri told AFP afterwards, calling the surprise concert "heaven-sent."
- 'Share the energy' -
Like many musicians, members of the Philharmonic took their shows online when the spread of Covid-19 shut their doors in March.
And while virtual concerts offered a stop-gap solution, they are simply "not the same," said Cong.
"Music is about communication," he said. "We need the stage."
Outdoors, he continued, "it's nice to feel the energy from people -- we play, we share the energy, and we have energy back from the audience."
The Philharmonic isn't publicly announcing when and where each concert will occur, to avoid large crowds from amassing.
The organization is planning three performances a day on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays into at least mid-October, aiming to eventually cover all five city boroughs.
In each audience is the co-president of the League of Women Voters, who acts as a groupie of sorts, following the performers and helping those gathering to register to vote.
After Friday evening's mini concert wrapped at the park, where Brooklyn's Academy of Music towers across the street, Roth Costanzo called it "gratifying" to be back out performing live.
"There was a moment at the end when the violins finished playing, and there was a perfect stillness, silence like you'd have in a concert hall," he said. "I can feel people connecting -- it's not just me to them and them to me -- it's them to each other as well."
"That's so important in our world right now."
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© Agence France-Presse
London, United Kingdom | The Rolling Stones defied the gloom of the coronavirus outbreak to launch the band's first flagship store in the heart of Swinging Sixties London.
"Why would you open a shop during a pandemic?" joked singer Mick Jagger in a video message released before the shop opened its doors to the public on Wednesday.
"It's our eternal optimism," he said.
In the current climate, face masks emblazoned with the band's famous lips and tongue logo promise to be a best-seller.
The band's branding features throughout the store on t-shirts, jackets, water bottles, notebooks, umbrellas and plectrum packs for those hoping to emulate guitarist Keith Richards.
But the team behind the project hope that it will become more than just a shop.
"The product is dear to our hearts, but it is the experience that is just as important," said David Boyne, managing director of Bravado, the merchandising arm of Universal Music.
A giant lips and tongue sculpture takes up the window display, beckoning passers-by on Carnaby Street, the epicentre of the capital's explosion of music and fashion in the 1960s.
Giant screens inside broadcast high-definition footage of the band's decades of live tours, while their biggest hits and blues classics provide the soundtrack for shoppers.
Jointly curated by the Stones and Bravado, the decor stays loyal to the band's red and black brand, while a glass floor, featuring Stones lyrics, provides a view to the basement floor.
"That experiential element was really important to us," explained Boyne.
"My favourite space is downstairs, the sound room, with the insulated red panelling and the super-red neon light.
"It's just a great spot and great for that Instagram moment."
- Textiles on Main Street -
Jagger recalled how the band used to visit Carnaby Street before it became associated with London's 1960s music scene including The Who and David Bowie.
"We used to work around there, we rehearsed there, we used to eat near there. It's not a bad place to have a shop," he added.
Shoppers have deserted central London since Britain locked down in March, but the owners hope their high-profile store will help boost the area.
"It's a super-positive message both for Carnaby Street and the Rolling Stones," said Boyne.
"I've spoken to people in the world of retail and Carnaby Street who think what we are doing is incredible and will give a great boost to the retail landscape."
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© Agence France-Presse
New York, United States | Lady Gaga cleaned up at MTV's Video Music Awards, an unorthodox show that paid socially distanced homage to New York City as themes of voting and racial justice punctuated the night.
The 2020 VMAs -- a show known more for ostentatious performances, made-for-Twitter moments and wild costumes than the actual awards -- was scaled back due to the coronavirus pandemic, with performances held at outdoor spaces and many celebrities accepting prizes via video.
Host Keke Palmer, known for her role in last year's film "Hustlers," opened the show with an emotional cold-open paying tribute to actor Chadwick Boseman, who just died after of cancer.
"We dedicate tonight's show to a man whose spirit touched so many," she said of the performer who portrayed James Brown and Jackie Robinson, and was the first Black superhero in "Black Panther."
Canadian R&B singer The Weeknd -- whose wins included the coveted Video of The Year -- then launched into a performance of the hit "Blinding Lights" atop a viewing deck protruding off a Manhattan skyscraper, 1,000 feet in the air.
"It's really hard for me to celebrate right now," he said in accepting his moon man trophy for Best R&B.
"I'm just going to say justice for Jacob Blake and justice for Breonna Taylor," he continued, referring to recent black victims of police violence.
It was one of many nods to the Black Lives Matter movement, acknowledging a year that has seen months of anti-racism protests.
Several stars also encouraged voting during the show where the Joe Biden campaign bought a number of advertisements in a bid to reach youth in his campaign against President Donald Trump.
Lady Gaga took home trophies including Artist of the Year and Song of the Year for "Rain on Me," her collaboration with Ariana Grande.
The pair staged a futuristic performance atop the Empire State Building, both masked, with Gaga in a BDSM-esque corseted get-up, one of her many eccentric costumes of the night.
The 34-year-old -- who famously wore a dress crafted of raw flank steak to the 2010 VMAs -- also won the show's inaugural "Tricon Award," which recognizes an artist who is highly accomplished across three or more disciplines.
"This has not been an easy year for a lot of people, but what I see in the world is a massive triumph of courage," she said.
"Stay safe. Speak your mind and, I might sound like a broken record, but wear a mask. It's a sign of respect."
- Exempt from quarantine -
The show featured sweeping pans of New York, a city devastated in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic and that originally was meant to host the VMAs at Brooklyn's Barclays Center.
In addition to the Empire State Building, performances were also held at the waterfront Skyline Drive-in theater, with an audience watching from spaced-out cars.
Performers and crew at this year's VMAs were exempt from New York's statewide mandatory two-week quarantine imposed on travelers coming from areas with high rates of Covid-19.
The state's Department of Health said those involved with the show were required to quarantine when not working and submit to "rigorous testing."
This year's edition included new awards recognizing the tumultuous year in music, with the pandemic halting tours and festivals worldwide in a devastating blow to the industry.
The show also honored healthcare workers with a tribute to doctors and nurses singing and dancing in crowd-sourced videos.
Grande and fellow pop star Justin Bieber won Best Music Video From Home for "Stuck With You," while Latin boy band CNCO won Best Quarantine Performance for "Unplugged At Home."
And while American pop regulars including Gaga, Grande and Taylor Swift all took home trophies, they were upset in their genre's primary category by Korean megastars BTS, which won for Best Pop for "On."
The group held a green-screen performance that placed them in front of the Brooklyn Bridge in a shot recalling the classic film "Once Upon A Time in America" that starred Robert DeNiro.
Miley Cyrus meanwhile performed "Midnight Sky" while swinging on a disco ball, recalling her "Wrecking Ball" music video.
Colombian singer Maluma won Best Latin for "Que Pena" featuring J Balvin, as R&B prodigy H.E.R. won MTV's Video For Good, which honors work with a social message, for "I Can't Breathe."
Rapper Megan Thee Stallion -- currently basking in the glow of her recent success with Cardi B for their raunchy hit "WAP" -- won Best Hip Hop for "Savage."
The star accepted her award from home, popping champagne wearing spandex shorts and a T-shirt.
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© Agence France-Presse
Geneva, Switzerland |As Roberto Azevedo steps down as head of the World Trade Organization, here are penpics of the eight candidates running to become the next WTO director-general:
- Liam Fox -
(Britain)
-- Fox, 58, spent three years as Britain's first post-Brexit international trade minister. A former family doctor, the Scot twice ran for the Conservative Party leadership.
Fox was the defence minister during the latter years of Britain's engagement in Afghanistan. The lawmaker is the only elected politician running. He has vowed to appoint women to at least half of the WTO senior leadership.
-- "Free trade must never mean a free-for-all."
- Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh -
(Egypt)
-- A WTO veteran, he came to its predecessor GATT in 1985 as a negotiator for Egypt, before joining the secretariat in 1990. He ran the WTO's trade in services division from 2001 to 2017.
Also a Swiss national, Mamdouh, 67, pitches himself as an honest broker who wants to diagnose the WTO's problems, and then reform and rebuild the institution.
-- "Africa never held that position before and it's time because all other regions have occupied that position."
- Amina Mohamed -
(Kenya)
-- The former Kenyan foreign minister, 58, is well-known at the WTO, having already chaired the organisation's most important bodies: the Ministerial Conference, the General Council, the Dispute Settlement Body and the Trade Policy Review Body.
The current sports minister ran for the WTO leadership in 2013 and her vision this time is "reform, recovery, renewal".
-- "We need to break the cycle of despair and enter into a new phase of hope and realism."
- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala -
(Nigeria)
-- Her country's first female finance and foreign minister, the 66-year-old had a 25-year career as a development economist at the World Bank, eventually becoming its number two.
She chairs Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is on the Twitter board of directors, and is a special envoy for the World Health Organization's Covid-19 fight.
-- "If the right washes the left hand, and the left hand washes the right hand, then both become clean. This is a call for collective action."
- Jesus Seade -
(Mexico)
-- A former WTO deputy director-general, Seade, like Mamdouh, reckons an old hand is needed to fix the organisation's problems. At 73, the Mexican-Lebanese dual national is the oldest candidate.
A former World Bank chief economist and International Monetary Fund assistant director, he was recently Mexico's lead in North American trade talks.
-- "The WTO is like a bicycle that fell over from lack of momentum.
"It has to be fully repaired, which requires a mechanic who... was at the heart of the design."
- Mohammad al-Tuwaijri -
(Saudi Arabia)
-- A former air force pilot who flew more than 30 Gulf War missions, he was a banker who ran J.P. Morgan's fledgling Saudi Arabia operations before joining HSBC.
The former Saudi economy minister, 53, currently advises the kingdom's royal court on economic strategy. He wants to do an "MRI scan" deep assessment of the WTO's problems.
-- "If all wheels do not spin as designed, the tricycle cannot carry the members forward to reach their goal."
- Tudor Ulianovschi -
(Moldova)
-- He served as Moldova's foreign minister from January 2018 to June 2019 but before that he had been his country's ambassador to the UN and the WTO in Geneva.
The youngest candidate at 37, his pitch is based on a "3D vision and approach": direct access to ministers, dialogue with ambassadors and driving efficiency in the WTO.
-- "The time is always right to do what's right. Let's win together!"
- Yoo Myung-hee -
(South Korea)
-- Yoo, 53, became South Korea's first female trade minister in March last year after a career in trade diplomacy and foreign affairs. In 1995, she headed WTO affairs at the trade ministry and went on to strike free trade agreements with China and the United States.
Her plan is to make the WTO more relevant, resilient, and responsive.
-- "Despite many challenges, I am confident that the WTO will regain the hope and optimism."
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© Agence France-Presse
