Category: Entertainment

JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Centuries-old stone Buddha statues and precious jewelry repatriated by the Dutch government to its former colony are on display at Indonesia’s National Museum, providing a glimpse into the country’s rich heritage that the government had struggled to retrieve.

The collection is part of more than 800 artifacts that were returned under a Repatriation Agreement signed in 2022 between Indonesia and the Netherlands, said Gunawan, the museum’s head of cultural heritage. The objects are not just those looted in conflict but also those seized by scientists and missionaries or smuggled by mercenaries during the four centuries of colonial rule. 

“I was so amazed that we have all of these artifacts,” said Shaloom Azura, a visitor to the museum in Jakarta. She hoped other historical objects can be repatriated too, “so we don’t have to go to the Netherlands just to see our own cultural heritage.”

The agreement to return cultural objects was inspired by the new era of global restitution and repatriation efforts.

In 2021, France said it was returning statues, royal thrones and sacred altars taken from the West African nation of Benin. Belgium returned a gold-capped tooth belonging to the slain Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba.

Cambodia in 2023 welcomed the return of priceless stolen artifacts that had been seized during periods of war and instability. Many of the items returned so far have come from the United States. And the Berlin museum authority said it would return hundreds of human skulls from the former German colony of East Africa.

The Dutch government announced the same year the return of the Indonesian treasures and looted artifacts from Sri Lanka.

Few objects made it back before deal was struck

The repatriation “is not something out of the blue” but followed a lengthy process, said I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja, former Indonesian ambassador to the Netherlands who also headed the government’s team tasked to recover the objects.

He said negotiations with the Dutch government have been ongoing since Indonesia’s independence in August 1945, but it was only in July 2022 that Indonesia formally requested the return of its cultural objects with a list of specific items.

“This repatriation is important for us to reconstruct history that may be lost or obscured or manipulated,” Puja said. “And we can fill the gap of the historical vacuum that has existed so far.”

The Dutch government in 1978 returned the famous 13th-century statue of Princess Pradnya Paramita from the Javanese Singhasari Kingdom. During the same visit to Indonesia, then-Queen Juliana also returned a saddle and spear seized from Prince Diponegoro, a Javanese nobleman considered a national hero for his struggle against colonial rule in the 19th century.

The prince’s scepter was returned in 2015. In 2020, Dutch King Willem-Alexander handed over Diponegoro’s gold-plated kris dagger in his first state visit to Indonesia.

Also pending is the return of the “Java Man” — the first known example of homo erectus that was collected by Dutch paleoanthropologist Eugene Dubois in the 19th century.

“The importance of the most recent repatriation is knowledge creation, that will give society a more complete knowledge of our past history,” said Puja.

He said the recent repatriation efforts seem to also be motivated by practical considerations, such as when the Delf city administration sent back 1,500 objects in 2019. They were part of the bankrupted Nusantara Museum collection.

Focus on protection of repatriated artifacts

However, Marc Gerritsen, the Dutch ambassador to Indonesia, said the repatriation would only focus on cultural objects that are requested, rather than emptying out European museums.

“There is a huge interest from the Dutch public in Indonesian history and Indonesian culture, so we do know that if Dutch museums put these objects on display, there will be an interest,” Gerritsen said, “But again, the heart of the matter is that the colonial collections artifacts that were stolen during the colonial period are returned on the basis of this process that was established.”

He said the Netherlands, the largest investor from the European Union in Indonesia, has a unique relationship with Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.

“Of course, we have elements of which we are not proud, but we are really grateful for the fact that Indonesia is so much attached to preserving that history,” Gerritsen said.

To support its former colony in safeguarding its repatriated cultural heritage, the Dutch government has offered to assist in improving museum storage conditions and staff expertise.

Some researchers have criticized Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago nation of 17,000 islands, for a lack of legal framework to protect its rich cultural heritage and natural conservation.

At least 11 cases of museum theft were reported between 2010 and 2020, according to a 2023 report by Rucitarahma Ristiawan, a lecturer of cultural science at Gajah Mada University, and two other researchers.

In 2023, dozens of ships dredged the bottom of the Batanghari River in Jambi province, and the crews looted archaeological objects including porcelain, coins, metal and gold artifacts, which are believed to have been sold abroad, the report said.

“I think there is a lot to be reviewed from our historical works that are still kept in other countries,” said Frengky Simanjuntak, who marveled at the Repatriation Exhibition at the National Museum, on display since October. “So it’s not just about bringing them back home, but how to protect them.”
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In 2016, Herschel Hepler was browsing Google Images to practice his paleography — the study of historical writing systems — when he stumbled upon an eerily familiar photo that would lead to a groundbreaking discovery.

“I recognized it immediately and said, ‘That’s a manuscript in our collection,’” Hepler, a curator at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, recalls.

The museum had recently acquired the manuscript — a rare Jewish prayer book — believing it to be part of the famous Cairo Geniza, a trove of ancient Jewish documents uncovered in a Cairo synagogue in the late 19th century.

But the black and white picture in Tablet magazine described the manuscript as a “16th to 17th century Hebrew book of Psalms, said to be from the Bamiyan area” of central Afghanistan.

Stunned by the revelation, Hepler set out to verify it. Tracking down the author of the Tablet article, British historian and archaeologist Jonathan Lee, Hepler confirmed that Lee had in fact found the book in an Afghan warlord’s possession in 1998 and photographed the cover and two inside pages.

“Without Jonathan’s documentation from his trip to Bamiyan in 1998, we would still be assuming this is probably from the Cairo Geniza,” Hepler said.

But if Hepler was surprised to learn about the book’s origin in the remote mountains of Afghanistan, Lee was equally stunned when Hepler revealed that the manuscript had been carbon-dated to at least the 9th century.

“At that point, I realized that the discovery was of major importance,” Lee said via email.

Recognizing their combined expertise — Hepler in Hebrew manuscripts and Lee in Afghan history — the duo joined forces and invited in other experts.

Their yearslong research not only established the manuscript as the oldest-known Hebrew book but also unearthed evidence that Jews had lived in Afghanistan — and along the ancient Silk Roads — for longer than historians previously believed.

But the thrill of discovery was dampened by the realization that the manuscript had probably been smuggled out of war-torn Afghanistan and bought on the antiquities market.

At the time, the museum, founded by the Green family, owners of the Hobby Lobby arts and craft company, was still reeling from its acquisition of artifacts smuggled from Iraq and Egypt.

The museum faced a significant challenge: Before it could showcase it to the world, it needed to legitimize its ownership of the manuscript. This required years of delicate negotiations with New York’s small Afghan Jewish community and an Afghan government teetering on the brink of collapse. The stakes were high, and the path to secure the manuscript’s rightful place in the museum would prove be too complex and demanding.

Lee’s discovery

Lee, who has spent the better part of the last five decades researching and writing about Afghan history and archaeology, discovered the book by chance.

In April 1998, he was guiding a Japanese TV crew in Bamiyan and was on the lookout for a Bactrian language inscription and gold coins looted from an ancient Buddhist shrine.

At the time, the Bamiyan Valley, with its famed Buddha statues still standing, was controlled by a local Shiite insurgent group, while the Taliban ruled most of the rest of the country.

The anti-Taliban group’s leader, Karim Khalili, kept a collection of antiquities, among them the cache of gold coins Lee had been looking for. Lee photographed them.

“Then, his [Khalili’s] advisers brought in a miscellaneous collection of other antiquities that included the ALQ,” Lee said, using the acronym for the “Afghan Liturgical Quire,” the Hebrew book in the Bible Museum’s collection.

A local man affiliated with the Shiite insurgent group had found the book under a collapsed roof in a cave the prior year and given it to Khalili.

Unversed in Hebrew, Khalili apparently showed the book to other foreigners visiting Bamiyan, trying to figure out what it was.

“I was told it had been found in Bamiyan, but then everything is found in Bamiyan,” Lee said.

As Lee recalls, the pocket-size book looked remarkably well-preserved for its age.

“The cover was somewhat bent, damaged and watermarked, but the folios were relatively well-preserved, and most of the texts readable,” he said.

To Lee, that suggested the manuscript was “not that old.” He left Afghanistan and for years didn’t give it much thought.

How and when the manuscript left Afghanistan remains unknown.

The 1990s were a dark period for Afghanistan’s rich cultural heritage. As armed groups fought over territory, their men — often directed by their commanders and guided by traffickers — plundered the country’s vast archaeological sites and ransacked its museums. Seventy percent of the national museum’s treasures vanished, according to one estimate, many ending up in private collections and some reputable institutions.

“There is a long history of illicit export of antiquities from the country that goes back for decades but ultimately back to colonial times,” said Cecilia Palombo, a University of Chicago professor who has researched the plunder of Afghan antiquities.

A leading researcher with extensive experience in Afghanistan said the manuscript was likely taken out of the country after the Taliban overran Bamiyan in late 1998. The researcher spoke on condition of anonymity.

Research by the Bible museum found that an unnamed Khalili deputy made multiple sales attempts in the United States and Europe between 1998 and 2001 before “apparently” offloading it to a private collector in London in fall 2001. The collector kept it for a decade or more before Hobby Lobby bought it in 2013 and donated it to the museum.

The office of Khalili, who later served as a vice president, declined a VOA interview request.

The Tablet article

Although Lee had found the book in Afghanistan, he didn’t know how significant it was. On returning to England, he showed his photographs to a Hebrew specialist, who thought it was from the 16th or 17th century.

Then, after a cache of ancient documents dubbed the “Afghan Geniza” surfaced on the international art market, Lee decided to publish his photograph, along with an article about Afghan Jewish history. Citing the book as an example of “Jewish material [turning up] occasionally” in Afghanistan, he wrote that the “whereabouts of this manuscript is now unknown.”

He would find out four years later. That’s when, “out of the blue,” Hepler contacted him via LinkedIn and told him the manuscript was not the Book of Psalms but a prayer book, comprising Sabbath prayers, poetry and a partial Haggadah, the Jewish text recited at the Passover seder.

The Green family bought the book from an Israeli antiquities dealer in 2013 during a buying spree of ancient artifacts. Some of these items were later returned after it was discovered they had been illegally taken out of Iraq and Egypt.

The Afghan Liturgical Quire came with a forged provenance of its own, tracing the manuscript to collectors in London in the 1950s, masking any ties to Afghanistan. With Lee’s documentation, the museum was able to correct its provenance.

The museum had initially thought the book was from the 9th century, but a second carbon-dating test performed in 2019 showed it dates to the 8th century, making it two centuries older than the previous oldest-known Hebrew book in the world.

The discovery electrified experts.

For Hebrew scholars, the discovery offered the earliest evidence of a bound Hebrew book.

For Afghanistan specialists, it highlighted “how significant this region was in respect of the history of the Middle East, Inner Asia and Northern India, and Afghanistan’s ancient connectivity with cultures and religious traditions,” Lee said.

Yet the realization that it had been smuggled out of Afghanistan cast a cloud over its legitimacy.

Afghan laws and the 1970 UNESCO Convention make it illegal to export cultural artifacts and heritage items without government approval.

To legitimize its custody of the manuscript, the museum adopted what it calls a “human rights-based approach” to cultural heritage.

Invoking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the museum argued that the Afghan people and Afghan Jews living in New York have a right to access the manuscript.

“One of the things this project is focused on is on access — so, access to the Afghan Jewish community, access to the people of Afghanistan,” Hepler said.

To get the backing of both stakeholders, the museum initiated discussions with officials of the former Afghan government and members of the Jewish community in New York.

These efforts culminated in the signing of a memorandum of understanding in 2021 with the Afghan embassy in Washington before the Taliban takeover, ensuring the document would be held in custodianship.

The Afghan ambassador at the time, Roya Rahmani, did not respond to a request for an interview. Another former Afghan ambassador wrote a letter of support for the project.

Jack Abraham, head of the Afghan Jewish Federation who was born in Afghanistan, said his group offered its full support for keeping the manuscript in the United States.

“I told [Hepler], ‘What you have in your hands is our heritage. It belongs to us. It could be any of our forefathers,’” Abraham said.

But some Afghans see it as equally part of their heritage.

“This is the property of Afghanistan and must be returned to Afghanistan,” a senior former government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Barnett Rubin, a leading Afghanistan scholar and an advisor on the ALQ project, said both communities can legitimately lay claim to the book.

“The museum wanted to have the approval of any one of the two main entities that might have a claim on it to their custody of it,” Rubin said.

With a custodianship agreement secured, the museum launched an exhibit in September, celebrating the project as an interfaith collaboration among Jews, Christians and Muslims.

A second exhibit is planned for New York starting this month.

While the Bible Museum technically owns the manuscript, Hepler said Afghanistan and the Afghan Jewish community “have a lot of agency in this custodianship.” To that end, the museum plans to provide one high-quality replica to the Jewish community and three to major cultural institutions in Afghanistan.
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China’s annual mass migration ahead of the Lunar New Year will peak with billions of trips anticipated during this year’s holiday, which begins Tuesday.

An estimated 9 billion trips are expected. This year’s holiday lasts from Jan. 28 through Feb. 4 and marks the arrival of the Year of the Snake. Authorities in China extended the annual break an extra day, so the public holiday will last eight days this year.

During the holiday, travel is expected to pick up domestically and internationally. The government said it expects trips by train to surpass 510 million, with 90 million more traveling by air. Inside the country, most will travel by car.

For trips overseas, travel to Southeast Asia has surged, with ticket volumes to Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia rising by more than 50%, according to data from the World Travel and Tourism Council. Additionally, demand for travel to Hong Kong has nearly doubled, and Japan is seeing a 58% increase in airline ticket purchases.

While the Lunar New Year is known as a festive time characterized by colorful lanterns, parades and lion dances, it holds more than just cultural significance to Chinese authorities who see the period as an opportunity to boost a sluggish economy.

That is one key reason authorities increased the holiday to eight days. They also launched several efforts to help revive weak consumer spending, such as promoting winter-themed holiday destinations and ensuring affordable airfares, according to officials at a State Council press conference in Beijing.

Despite the efforts, Reuters reported businesses and consumers appear to be spending less than usual during the holiday season, citing concerns over a prolonged property slump and worries over job security.

Throughout the past year, China has implemented a series of measures aimed at addressing those concerns, including stimulus measures such as cutting interest rates, increasing pensions and widening trade-in programs for consumer goods.

One industry that appears to have gotten a boost from the festival season is cinema.

The film industry in China had struggled recently, seeing a 22.6% decrease in total box office revenue in 2024. However, according to data from Maoyan, a Chinese ticketing platform, movie tickets exceeded $55 million by Jan. 23, the fastest presales for the Lunar New Year season.

A large part of that increased demand has been from the film “Legends of the Condor Heroes,” starring Xiao Zhan, an actor and singer who is also a brand ambassador for luxury goods companies such as Gucci and Tod’s.

Shops and restaurants also hope to see an increase in spending that mirrors the film industry over the course of the holiday.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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In the Rocky Mountain state of Colorado, the National Western Stock Show hosts nearly 30 professional rodeo events. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns takes us to a stock show competition for younger riders. And sheep.
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Hu Ge, a Chinese actor who is well-known in China for dramas including Flowers, was recently confirmed to serve as the deputy director of the Central Propaganda Committee of the China Democratic League. He was invited to Taiwan in June 2024 to participate in a film exchange activity.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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LOS ANGELES — Transgender cartel musical “Emilia Perez” topped this year’s Oscar nominations, earning 13 nods in an announcement on Thursday postponed by the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.

French director Jacques Audiard’s Mexico-set musical, released by Netflix, shattered the record for the most Academy Award nominations for a non-English-language movie.

It was followed by epic immigrant saga “The Brutalist” and show-stopping musical adaptation “Wicked,” which each picked up 10 nominations.

Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” and Vatican thriller “Conclave” bagged eight nods apiece.

Voting deadlines had to be extended this month, as Los Angeles — the home city of the Academy Awards — was devastated by multiple blazes that have killed more than two dozen people and forced tens of thousands to flee.

Nominees were unveiled in subdued circumstances, as a town that typically fixates on the Oscars race was instead fixated on new fires burning north of the city.

Even so, the glitzy Oscars ceremony itself is still set for March 2, and the stars and studios who have spent months and millions of dollars campaigning learned if they have made the coveted final shortlists.

“Emilia Perez,” in which a narco boss transitions to life as a woman and turns her back on crime, picked up nods for best picture, best director and best international film, as well as multiple song, score and sound nods.

Its star, Karla Sofia Gascon, became the first openly trans acting nominee in best actress, and Zoe Saldana was nominated for best supporting actress.

Their more famous co-star, Selena Gomez, who has been criticized for her Spanish-language dialogue, missed out.

Even so, the Netflix film easily surpassed the most nominated non-English-language movie ever — a record previously held by “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Roma,” each with 10.

In best actor, firm favorite Adrien Brody was nominated for “The Brutalist” along with Timothee Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”), Ralph Fiennes (“Conclave”) and Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”).

But in an unexpected pick sure to ruffle a few feathers in the new White House, the fifth and final spot went to Sebastian Stan, for his unsettling transformation into a young Donald Trump in “The Apprentice.” The movie drew threats of lawsuits from Trump’s attorneys, particularly for a scene in which the new U.S. president is shown raping his wife.

In arguably the morning’s biggest surprise, Jeremy Strong, who plays the youthful Trump’s sinister mentor Roy Cohn, was also nominated in his supporting role.

He edged out the likes of Denzel Washington (“Gladiator II”).

Meanwhile, in an intense race for best actress, A-listers Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman — who went all-out with their performances in “Maria” and “Babygirl,” respectively — missed out entirely.

Instead, comeback queen Demi Moore, who charmed the industry with her Golden Globes acceptance speech for body horror-satire “The Substance,” was nominated and is seen as the favorite.

Her rivals include Gascon, “Anora” star Mikey Madison, “Wicked” lead Cynthia Erivo and Brazil’s Fernanda Torres for “I’m Still Here.”
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An Afghan author’s latest book is a generational call to remember the country’s recent violent past, he says. But Taliban rules mean publishers and bookstores are wary of stocking it. From Peshawar, Pakistan, Muska Safi has the story, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard. Roshan Noorzai contributed to this report.
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Los Angeles — The U.S. film industry’s first big gathering since fires devastated Los Angeles will begin Thursday at the Sundance festival, where highlights include a glitzy new Jennifer Lopez musical and a dark Benedict Cumberbatch drama.

Hollywood’s annual pilgrimage to the Rocky Mountains to premiere the coming year’s most-anticipated indie films is taking place in somber circumstances, after the blazes that killed at least 27 people and brought the entertainment capital to a halt.

Festival chiefs held lengthy talks with filmmakers, including those “who lost homes or were displaced” by the blazes, before deciding to press ahead, said Sundance director Eugene Hernandez.

Organizers heard “harrowing stories of people running out of their homes, evacuating… with their hard drives under their arms” to ensure their films survived, he told AFP.

“Everybody to a person just wants to look forward and wants to look ahead… it’ll be a nice moment of reunion and community.”

Among the 88 features being screened in Utah’s Park City is “Rebuilding,” about a rancher who loses everything in a wildfire.

“It takes on an added poignance, for those who will watch it next week,” said Hernandez.

Josh O’Connor, known for “The Crown” and “Challengers,” plays the lead role. 

“It’s an incredible film, and one that we felt was important to show, based on that spirit of resilience,” said Sundance programming director Kim Yutani.

“I think it will be a particularly moving one for people to see.”

J-Lo, Cumberbatch

A-lister Lopez brings her first film to Sundance, with “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

From “Dreamgirls” director Bill Condon, the film is based on the Broadway adaptation of Argentine author Manuel Puig’s famous novel.

Lopez plays Aurora, a silver-screen diva whose life and roles are discussed by two mismatched prisoners as they form an unlikely bond in their grim cell. 

While harking back to grand Golden Age Hollywood musicals with its fabulous costumes and Lopez’s “knockout musical performance,” the film is a more dramatic and independent take on the genre, said Hernandez.

Cumberbatch stars in another literary adaptation, “The Thing With Feathers,” based on Max Porter’s experimental and poetic novel about a grieving husband and two young sons.

“It’s one of these juicy roles that big actors relish taking a bite out of,” said Yutani.

Family tragedy and fatherhood are also the themes of “Omaha,” with John Magaro (“Past Lives”) delivering “an emotional gut punch of a role” that could spell awards, according to Yutani.

Elsewhere, Olivia Colman plays a mother taking her non-binary teen to visit their gay grandfather (John Lithgow) in “Jimpa.”

Rapper A$AP Rocky and late-night host Conan O’Brien make up the eclectic cast of mystery “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”

And “The Bear” star Ayo Edebiri teams up with John Malkovich for thriller “Opus,” about a young writer investigating the mysterious disappearance of a legendary pop star.

Music, politics

Music is also a prominent theme of Sundance’s documentary selection, which has launched several of the most recent Oscar-winning non-fiction films.

A new “must-see” Jeff Buckley documentary features never-before-seen footage from “three very important women in his life, including his mother,” said Yutani.

Elegance Bratton explores the Chicago roots of house music with “Move Ya Body: The Birth of House,” while Oscar-winning director Questlove examines funk pioneer Sly Stone in “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius).”

Politics will again be prominent.

Former New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern is expected in town to promote behind-the-scenes documentary “Prime Minister.”

“The Jinx” director Andrew Jarecki explores violence and corruption in the U.S. prison system with “The Alabama Solution.” 

And, days after the Gaza ceasefire agreement took effect, Palestinian-American director Cherien Dabis will unveil her “groundbreaking” new film “All That’s Left of You,” which has been given a highly prominent Saturday evening premiere at Sundance’s biggest venue.

“That is not an accident. This is a really special one,” said Yutani.

“I have not seen a film about a Palestinian family told in quite this way.”

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival runs from Jan. 23 through Feb. 2. 
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WASHINGTON — The Keke Palmer buddy comedy “One of Them Days” opened in first place on the North American box office charts on a particularly slow Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. 

The R-rated Sony release earned $11.6 million from 2,675 theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday, beating Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” by a hair. By the end of Monday’s holiday, “Mufasa” will have the edge, however. 

“One of Them Days” cost only $14 million to produce, which it is expected to earn by Monday. The very well-reviewed buddy comedy stars Palmer and SZA as friends and roommates scrambling to get money for rent before their landlord evicts them. Notably it’s the first Black female-led theatrical comedy since “Girls Trip” came out in 2017 and it currently carries a stellar 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

But the marketplace was also quite weak overall. The total box office for Friday, Saturday and Sunday will add up to less than $80 million, according to data from Comscore, making it one of the worst Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekends since 1997. 

“For an individual film like ‘One of Them Days’ this was a great weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “You can still find success stories within what is overall a low grossing weekend for movie theaters.” 

The Walt Disney Co.’s “Mufasa” was close by in second place with $11.5 million from the weekend, its fifth playing in theaters. Globally, the Barry Jenkins-directed prequel has made $588 million. It even beat a brand-new offering, the Blumhouse horror “Wolf Man,” which debuted in third place with $10.6 million from 3,354 North American theaters. 

Writer-director Leigh Whannell’s monster tale starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner did not enter theaters with great reviews. It currently carries a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviews don’t generally affect the success of horror movies in their first weekend, but audiences also gave it a lackluster C- CinemaScore in exit polls. The Blumhouse production and Universal Pictures release cost a reported $25 million to make and is expected to reach $12 million by the close of Monday’s holiday. 

“Sonic the Hedgehog 3″ was in fourth place with $8.6 million and “Den of Thieves 2” rounded out the top five with $6.6 million. 

In specialty releases, Brady Corbert’s 215-minute post-war epic “The Brutalist” expanded to 388 screens where it made nearly $2 million over the weekend. A24 reported that it sold out various 70mm and IMAX showings. The studio also re-released its Colman Domingo drama “Sing Sing” in theaters and prisons, where over 1 million incarcerated people in 46 states were able to view the film. 

The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend has seen major successes in the past. Dergarabedian noted “Bad Boys for Life,” which had a three-day opening of $62.5 million in 2020, and “American Sniper,” which earned $89.3 in its first weekend in wide release in 2016. 

“This is a year that’s going to get a big boost starting with ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ and ‘Paddington in Peru’ in February,” Dergarabedian said. 

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday. 

1. “One of Them Days,” $11.6 million. 

2. “Mufasa: The Lion King,” $11.5 million. 

3. “Wolf Man,” $10.6 million. 

4. “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” $8.6 million. 

5. “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” $6.6 million. 

6. “Moana 2,” $6.1 million. 

7. “Nosferatu,” $4.3 million. 

8. “A Complete Unknown,” $3.8 million. 

9. “Wicked,” $3.6 million. 

10. “Babygirl,” $2 million. 
    …

It is one of the 20th century’s most memorable images: a naked girl, screaming, running from a napalm bombing during the Vietnam War. More than a half-century later, a new documentary is calling into question who took it — and the retired Associated Press photographer long credited for the photo insists it was his, while his longtime employer says it has no evidence of anyone else being behind the camera. 

The film about the Pulitzer Prize-winning picture, “The Stringer,” is scheduled to debut next week at the Sundance Film Festival. Both photographer Nick Ut and his longtime employer are contesting it vigorously, and Ut’s lawyer is seeking to block the premiere, threatening a defamation lawsuit. The AP, which conducted its own investigation over six months, concluded it has “no reason to believe anyone other than Ut took the photo.” 

The picture of Kim Phuc running down a road in the village of Trang Bang, crying and naked because she had taken off clothes burning from napalm, instantly became symbolic of the horrors of the Vietnam War. 

Taken on June 8, 1972, the photo is credited to Ut, then a 21-year-old staffer in AP’s Saigon bureau. He was awarded the Pulitzer a year later. Now 73, he moved to California after the war and worked for the AP for 40 years until retiring in 2017. 

The film’s allegations open an unexpected new chapter for an image that, within hours of it being taken, was beamed around the planet and became one of the most indelible photographs of both the Vietnam War and the turbulent century that produced it. Whatever the truth, the film’s investigations apparently relate only to the identity of the photographer and not the image’s overall authenticity. 

The dispute puts the filmmakers, who call the episode “a scandal behind the making of one of the most-recognized photographs of the 20th century,” at odds with Ut, whose work that day defined his career. It also puts them at cross purposes with the AP, a global news organization for whom accuracy is a foundational part of the business model. 

How did the questioning of the photo begin? 

It’s difficult, so many years later, to overestimate the wallop that this particular image packed. Ron Burnett, an expert on images and former president of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, called it “earth-shattering.” 

“It changed the way photos have always been thought about and broke the rules for how much violence you can show to the public,” Burnett said. 

The photo sat unchallenged for much of its 53-year existence. All these years later, a counter-narrative has emerged that it was instead taken by another person, someone who worked for NBC News at the time and also lives now in California. The person allegedly had delivered his film to the AP’s office as a “stringer,” a non-staff member who provides material to a news organization. 

The husband-and-wife team of Gary Knight, founder of the VII Foundation, and producer Fiona Turner are behind the film. On his website, Knight described “The Stringer” as “a story that many in our profession did not want told, and some of them continue to go to great lengths to make sure isn’t told.” 

“The film grapples with questions of authorship, racial injustice and journalistic ethics while shining a light on the fundamental yet often unrecognized contributions of local freelancers who provide the information we need to understand how events worldwide impact us all,” Knight wrote. 

Knight did not return a message seeking comment from the AP on Thursday. A representative from Sundance also did not return a message about a cease-and-desist letter from Ut’s lawyer, James Hornstein, trying to stop the film’s airing. Hornstein would not make Ut available for an interview, saying he anticipated future litigation. 

Knight and Turner met with AP in London last June about the allegations. According to the AP, filmmakers requested the news organization sign a non-disclosure agreement before they provided their evidence. AP declined. 

That hampered the AP’s own investigation, along with the passage of time. Horst Faas, chief of photos for AP in Saigon in 1972, and Yuichi “Jackson” Ishizaki, who developed Ut’s film, are both dead. Many of the Saigon bureau’s records were lost when communists took over the city, including any dealings with “the stringer.” Negatives of photos used back then are preserved in AP’s corporate archives in New York, but they provided no insight for the investigation. 

Still, the AP decided to release its own findings before seeing “The Stringer” and the details of the claim that it is making. “AP stands prepared to review any evidence and take whatever remedial action might be needed if their thesis is proved true,” the news organization said. 

Some who were there are sure about what happened 

The AP said it spoke to seven surviving people who were in Trang Bang or AP’s Saigon bureau that day, and all maintain they have no reason to doubt their own conclusions that Ut had taken the photo. 

One was Fox Butterfield, a renowned longtime New York Times reporter, who also said that he was contacted by Turner for the documentary. “I told them what my memory was and they didn’t like it, but they just went ahead anyway,” Butterfield told AP. 

Another was photographer David Burnett, who said he witnessed Ut and Alexander Shimkin, a freelance photographer working primarily for Newsweek, taking photos as Kim Phuc and other children emerged from smoke following an attack. Shimkin was killed in Vietnam a month later, according to the investigation. 

A key source for the story in “The Stringer” is Carl Robinson, then a photo editor for the AP in Saigon, who was initially overruled in his judgment not to use the picture. AP reached out to Robinson as part of its probe, but he said he had signed an NDA with Knight and the VII Foundation. Knight followed up, saying Robinson would only speak off the record, which the AP concluded would have prevented the news organization from setting the record straight. 

Robinson did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment on Thursday. 

On duty that day in Saigon, Robinson had concluded that Ut’s picture could not be used because it would have violated standards prohibiting nudity. But Faas overruled him, and senior AP editors in New York decided to run the picture for what it conveyed about war. 

The AP questioned Robinson’s long silence in contradicting Ut’s photo credit, and showed a photo from its archives of Robinson with champagne toasting Ut’s Pulitzer Prize. In a 2005 interview with corporate archives, Robinson said he thought AP “created a monster” when it distributed the photo because much of the world’s sympathies were focused on one victim, instead of war victims more broadly. 

Former AP correspondent Peter Arnett, who believes Ut made the image, said Robinson wrote to him after Faas’ death in 2012 to make the allegation that Ut had not taken it; he said he did not want to do it while Faas was still alive. According to the AP investigation, Arnett said Robinson told him that Ut had “gone all Hollywood” and he didn’t like it. 

Hornstein characterized Robinson, who was dismissed by AP in 1978, as “a guy with a 50-year vendetta against the AP.” He also questioned the long silence by the man supposedly identified in the documentary as the person who really took the photo. 

The lawyer also produced a statement from Kim Phuc, who said that while she has no memory of that day, her uncle has repeatedly told her that Ut took the picture and that she had no reason to doubt him. Ut also took her to the nearest hospital after the photo was taken, she wrote. 
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NABEUL, Tunisia — For years, Tunisians have been picking bright red peppers, combining them with garlic, vinegar and spices and turning them into a saucy spread called harissa. The condiment is a national staple, found in homes, restaurants and food stalls throughout the coastal North African nation.

Brick-red, spicy and tangy, it can be scooped up on bread drizzled with olive oil or dabbed onto plates of eggs, fish, stews or sandwiches. Harissa can be sprinkled atop merguez sausages, smeared on savory pastries called brik or sandwiches called fricassées.

In Nabeul, the largest city in Tunisia’s harissa-producing Cap Bon region, local chef and harissa specialist Chahida Boufayed called it “essential to Tunisian cuisine.”

“Harissa is a love story,” she said at a festival held in honor of the chili paste sauce in the northeastern Tunisian city of Nabeul earlier this month. “I don’t make it for the money.”

Aficionados from across Tunisia and the world converged on the 43-year-old mother’s stand to try her recipe. Surrounded by strings of drying baklouti red peppers, she described how she grows her vegetables and blends them with spices to make harissa.

The region’s annual harissa festival has grown in the two-plus years since the United Nations cultural organization, UNESCO, recognized the sauce on a list of items of intangible cultural heritage, said Zouheir Belamin, the president of the association behind the event. He said its growing prominence worldwide was attracting new tourists to Tunisia, specifically to Nabeul.

UNESCO in 2022 called harissa “an integral part of domestic provisions and the daily culinary and food traditions of Tunisian society, adding it to a list of traditions and practices that mark intangible cultural heritage including Ukrainian borscht and Cuban rum.

Already popular across North Africa as well as in France, the condiment is gaining popularity throughout the world from the United States to China.

Seen as sriracha’s North African cousin, harissa is typically prepared by women who sun-dry harvested red peppers and then deseed, wash and ground them. Its name comes from “haras” – the Arabic verb for “to crush” – because of the next stage in the process.

The finished peppers are combined with a mixture of garlic cloves, vinegar, salt, olive oil and spices in a mortar and pestle to make a fragrant blend. Variants on display at Nabeul’s Jan. 3-5 festival used cumin, coriander and different spice blends or types of peppers, including smoked ones, to create pastes ranging in color from burgundy to crimson.

“Making harissa is an art. If you master it, you can create wonders,” Boufayed said.
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LOS ANGELES — David Lynch, the filmmaker celebrated for his uniquely dark vision in such movies as “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and the TV series “Twin Peaks,” has died just days before his 79th birthday. 

His family announced the death in a Facebook post on Thursday. The cause of death and location was not immediately available, but Lynch had been public about his emphysema. 

“We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole,'” the post read. “It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.” 

Lynch was a onetime artist who broke through in the 1970s with the surreal “Eraserhead” and rarely failed to startle and inspire audiences and peers in the following decades. His notable releases ranged from the neo-noir “Mulholland Drive” to the skewed Gothic of “Blue Velvet” to the eclectic and eccentric “Twin Peaks.” 

His other credits included the crime story “Wild at Heart,” winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; the biographical drama “The Elephant Man” and the G-rated, straightforward “The Straight Story.”
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MUMBAI — Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan was stabbed repeatedly by an intruder at his home in Mumbai on Thursday, but doctors treating him said he was out of danger after surgery.

Khan, 54, was “on the path to complete recovery” after receiving stab wounds on his spine, neck and hand, the doctors told reporters.

“He sustained a major injury to the thoracic spinal chord due to a lodged knife in the spine. Surgery was performed to remove the knife and also repair the leaking spinal fluid,” said Nitin Dange, one of the doctors operating on Khan.

Khan was attacked just after midnight when he tried to stop the intruder, believed to be a burglar, from entering his apartment in the upscale neighborhood of Bandra, police and local media said.

A female employee at the apartment was also attacked and was being treated, police said.

Among the country’s most bankable stars, Khan, 54, is the son of India’s former cricket captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and actress Sharmila Tagore. He is married to actor Kareena Kapoor, and his daughter from a previous marriage, Sara, is also a Bollywood actor.

Police had identified the perpetrator and had launched a search for him, senior police official Dikshit Gedam told reporters. “The accused attempted to enter through a fire escape. It appears to be a robbery attempt,” he said.

Khan, who has featured in more than 70 films and television series, is a regular on the red carpet. He and Kapoor have two young sons and are one of Bollywood’s most well-known couples.

Khan has acted in several notable films and series, including Sacred Games, Netflix’s first Indian production, which released in 2018.

Film stars and opposition leaders called for police to beef up security measures in the city.

“If such high-profile people with … security can be attacked in their homes, what could happen to common citizens?” Clyde Crasto, spokesperson of the Nationalist Congress Party, asked on X.

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies won November elections in the western state of Maharashtra, the capital of which is Mumbai.

Actor and filmmaker Pooja Bhatt also called for a greater police presence in the suburb home to many in the film industry.

“The city, and especially the queen of the suburbs, have never felt so unsafe before,” she said on X, using a popular description for the trendy Bandra area.
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A Kenyan company is using the age-old art of glass blowing to recycle waste into sculptures, goblets, beads and more. Juma Majanga reports from Kajiado, Kenya.
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WASHINGTON — For more than 5,000 years, humans have adorned themselves with tattoos.

In a new study, researchers used lasers to uncover highly intricate designs of ancient tattoos on mummies from Peru.

The preserved skin of the mummies and the black tattoo ink used show a stark contrast — revealing fine details in tattoos dating to around 1250 A.D. that aren’t visible to the naked eye, said study co-author Michael Pittman, an archaeologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The researchers examined around 100 mummies from coastal Peru’s Chancay culture – a civilization that flourished before the Inca empire and the arrival of Europeans.

All the individuals had some form of tattoos on the back of their hands, knuckles, forearms or other body parts. The study focused on four individuals with “exceptional tattoos” — designs of geometric shapes such as triangles and diamonds, said Pittman.

It wasn’t clear exactly how the tattoos were created, but they are “of a quality that stands up against the really good electric tattooing of today,” said Aaron Deter-Wolf, an expert in pre-Columbian tattoos and an archaeologist at the Tennessee Division of Archaeology, who was not involved in the research.

Results were published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Using lasers that make skin faintly glow, “we basically turn skin into a light bulb,” said co-author Tom Kaye of the nonprofit Foundation for Scientific Advancement in Sierra Vista, Arizona.

The findings were “helpful to learn about new non-destructive technologies that can help us study and document sensitive archaeological materials,” such as mummies, said Deter-Wolf.

The oldest known tattoos were found on remains of a Neolithic man who lived in the Italian Alps around 3,000 B.C. Many mummies from ancient Egypt also have tattoos, as do remains from cultures around the world.

Throughout history, tattoos have been used in many ways — to mark cultural or individual identity, life events or social status, or to “ward off maladies or help enhance relationships with spirits or deities,” said Lars Krutak, an archaeologist at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who was not involved in the research.

While designs on pottery, textiles and stonework are more commonly preserved and studied by researchers, “when ancient tattoos are available to us, they give exciting insights into forms of figurative and abstract art that we aren’t otherwise able to access,” said Bournemouth University archaeologist Martin Smith, who was not part of the study.
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Egypt hosted a historic number of tourists last year —15.7 million, despite regional challenges — surpassing records set in 2023 and 2010. Around the city of Luxor, Cairo-based photojournalist Hamada Elrasam captured newly unearthed antiquities showcased this month. Captions by Elle Kurancid.
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New York — On a quiet weekend in movie theaters, while much of Hollywood’s attention was on the wildfires that continue to rage in Los Angeles, Lionsgate’s “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” debuted atop the box office with $15.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Mid-January is often a slow moviegoing period, and that was slightly exacerbated by the closures of about 10 theaters in Los Angeles, the country’s top box-office market.

A sequel to the Gerard Butler 2018 heist thriller, “Den of Thieves 2” performed similarly to the original. The first installment, released by STX, opened with $15.2 million seven years ago. O’Shea Jackson Jr. co-stars in the sequel, which debuted in 3,008 North American theaters.

Butler’s films are becoming something of a regular feature in January. He also starred in “Plane,” which managed $32.1 million after launching on Jan. 13 in 2023.

“Den of Thieves 2,” made for about $40 million, was a bit more costly to make. Audiences liked it well enough, giving it a “B+” CinemaScore. Reviews (58% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) weren’t particularly good. But it counted as Lionsgate’s first No.1 opening since “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” in November 2023.

Also entering wide release over the weekend was the Robbie Williams movie “Better Man,” one of the more audacious spins on the music biopic in recent years. Rather than going the more tradition routes of Elton John (“Rocketman”) or Elvis Presley (“Elvis”), the British popstar is portrayed by a CGI chimpanzee in Michael Gracey’s film.

The Paramount Pictures release, produced for $110 million and acquired by Paramount for $25 million, didn’t catch on much better than Williams’ previous forays into the United States. It tanked, with $1.1 million in ticket sales from 1,291 locations. Gracey’s previous feature, 2017’s “The Greatest Showman” ($459 million worldwide), fared far better in theaters. Reviews, however, have been very good for “Better Man.”

It was bested by “The Last Showgirl,” the Las Vegas drama starring Pamela Anderson. The Roadside Attractions release expanded to 870 theaters and collected $1.5 million.

Also outdoing “Better Man” was Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist.” Coming off winning best drama at the Golden Globes, the A24 postwar epic grossed a hefty $1.4 million from just 68 locations. It will expand wider in the coming weeks.

The weekend’s lion share of business went to holiday holdovers, including “Mufasa: The Lion King,” “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” “Nosferatu” and “Moana 2.”

In its fourth week of release, Barry Jenkins “Mufasa” continued to do well, adding $13.2 million to bring its total to $539.7 million worldwide. Also on its fourth weekend, “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” padded its $384.8 million global total with $11 million. Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu,” the surprise hit of the Christmas period, collected $6.8 million in ticket sales, bringing the vampire tale to $81.1 million domestically.

The Walt Disney Co.’s “Moana 2,” in its seventh week of release, added $6.5 million to bring its global tally to $989.8 million. In the coming days, it will become the third Disney film released in 2024 to notch $1 billion, joining “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool and Wolverine.”

Final domestic figures will be released Monday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” $15.5 million.

2. “Mufasa: The Lion King,” $13.2 million.

3. “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” $11 million.

4. “Nosferatu,” $6.8 million.

5. “Moana 2,” $6.5 million.

6. “A Complete Unknown,” $5 million.

7. “Wicked,” $5 million.

8. “Babygirl,” $3.1 million.

9. “Game Changer,” $1.9 million.

10. “The Last Showgirl,” $1.5 million.
    …

London — Hundreds of Londoners headed down to the Underground on Sunday afternoon, stripped down to their underwear and travelled around a bit, trying to look as though nothing unusual was going on.

As if.

This was the Official No Trousers Tube Ride, an annual event with no point other than injecting a little levity into the bleak midwinter. No deep meaning, no bigger motive. The only goal was to be silly, if but for one afternoon.

“There’s so much bad, so much not fun going on,” said ringleader Dave Selkirk, a 40-year-old personal trainer. “It’s nice to do something just for the sake of it.”

After gathering at the entrance to Chinatown, dozens of clothing anarchists trooped through the icy streets to the Piccadilly Circus Underground station in central London where they boarded their first train. The only hiccup was that the cars were so crowded some people couldn’t shed their trousers.

Selfies were taken. Grins were exchanged. The tourists looked puzzled.

The first stunt in this vein was held in New York in 2002, the brainchild of local comedian Charlie Todd. His idea was this: Wouldn’t it be funny if someone walked onto a subway train in the middle of winter wearing a hat, gloves, scarf — everything but pants? Or trousers as they’re known in London, pants being synonymous with underpants in Britain.

“It would be unusual in New York, although you can see anything on our subway system, but what would really be funny is if at the next stop, a couple of minutes later, when the doors open and additional persons got on, not wearing trousers as well,” Todd told the BBC. “And they act like they don’t know each other, and they act like … it’s no big deal and they just forgot their trousers.”

The idea took off, and no pants days have been held all over: in Berlin, Prague, Jerusalem, Warsaw and Washington, D.C., among other cities.

London hosted its first big reveal in 2009.

“You know, it’s meant to be a bit of harmless fun,” Todd said. “Certainly, we are living in a climate where, you know, people like to have culture war fights. My rule in New York was always the goal of this event is to amuse other people, to give people a laugh. It’s not to be provocative, it’s not to irritate someone. So hopefully the spirit of that continues.”

Basil Long, a lawyer, showed up at the meeting point in a down coat and hat on a freezing winter afternoon. But after his journey underground in the warm tunnels of the Tube, he had been transformed, wearing only a white shirt with bold rainbow stripes, pink underwear and Underground-themed socks.

“I just saw it online and I just thought, why not? It’s always a question, isn’t it?” he said. “When someone is asked why they climbed Everest, they were just like, why not?”

But Miriam Correa had a purpose. The 43-year-old chef wanted to come because she had seen pictures of previous no trouser rides that featured lots of thin, scantily clad women.

“I am a real woman,” she said, adding that there was no reason to be ashamed of her shape. “All bodies are perfect.”
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