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In the immediate aftermath of Glasgow Warriors’ stunning triumph over the Bulls in the United Rugby Championship final in South Africa, Franco Smith was quick to stress it was the beginning rather than the end of his squad’s achievements. “This team shouldn’t be done after tonight,” said the head coach. “We’ve got the building blocks to go further still.” Smith has proved adept at smashing the glass ceiling which has limited Scottish rugby ambitions and the next target is success in Europe. Glasgow open their Investec Champions Cup campaign against Sale Sharks on Scotstoun on Saturday night, the first step on a mission to achieve what no previous Scottish rugby club has, namely lifting a European trophy. Smith himself took Glasgow to the Challenge Cup final in 2023, his first season in charge, but they were second best against Toulon in Dublin. This year they are back in the top tier and will meet the French side again next week in their second group game but it’s Sale first and Alex Sanderson’s side travel north off the back of an impressive home win over Leicester Tigers. Racing 92 and Harlequins also await in Pool 3 and Smith is relishing the opportunity to pit his wits against the best of England and France - but he was reluctant to make bold predictions. When it was put to him that Glasgow are considered to be dark horses in this year’s competition, the coach gave a considered answer. “Well, I don’t want the expectation to influence what we try to do here,” he said. “So, yes, the squad needs to kick on in every game that we play. The quality of the players and the way they've developed and the way that they work at their game and the influence that the internationals have is important and we need to continue evolving and continue growing and continue adding value to the squad in various ways. “And the Champions Cup obviously is a massive, good competition to play in as well as the URC, but there's something special about playing the French and the Premiership sides.” Glasgow came unstuck in the round of 16 last season, losing a thriller to Harlequins at the Stoop. Interestingly, Smith cites that match as the spur that drove them on to URC glory. “We fell last year against the Harlequins in the 78th minute,” he said. “We were still leading and there was a little bit more in us to get across the line. So, yes, I think that hurt inspired us actually in the URC to complete that season properly. “So, definitely one of the objectives is to perform as best as we can in this competition.” Glasgow’s stunning success in Pretoria was rightly recognised this week. It was voted ‘Sporting Moment of the Year’ at the Scottish Sports Awards, beating the impressive Bob McIntyre’s Scottish Open win to the prize. Smith was also rewarded, winning ‘Coach of the Year’ at the Glasgow’s Sport Awards. It was hot and humid as the Warriors fought back to beat the Bulls at altitude, in stark contrast to the conditions Sale can expect at Scotstoun. Nevertheless, Smith believes Glasgow can take inspiration from the way they handled adversity both in the final and in the semi, against Munster in Limerick. “Without that we would have been weaker, I'll put it that way,” he said. “So it is an important ingredient and it is important that we can refer back to games like that. “But Sale will pose a different challenge. It's at home, it's eight o'clock on a Saturday night, the temperature is definitely different. We're in a different part of the season. So, no, we'll take a lot of experience from those league games that we've played and I am sure that we will be a better team again after this one.” Glasgow shook off the rust of the international break with a patchy win over the Scarlets last week. Smith has brought the big guns back to face Sale which means a return for Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu in the centre as Tom Jordan moves to stand-off. Up front, there are six personnel changes, with Jamie Bhatti, Gregor Hiddleston, Zander Fagerson, Scott Cummings, Matt Fagerson and Rory Darge all selected. Jare Oguntibeju retains his place in the second row after impressing on his debut against the Scarlets and Smith wants the former Scotland Under-20 forward to back it up. Oguntibeju, 22, only took up rugby seriously at 17 after playing football at school in Edinburgh. He has had to overcome adversity in the shape of serious injuries but the South African-born lock has worked hard with Glasgow’s strength and conditioning team to get into the sort of shape required to play at the elite level. “The S&C has done a great job on him,” said Smith. “And I'm happy to see that, from a rugby perspective, he's also growing. He's a later arrival to the game, but he's learned, he's intelligent and he's trying to step up every day.” Smith has a track record of bringing through young players and the hope is that Oguntibeju can follow in the footsteps of Max Williamson, Alex Samuel , Euan Ferrie and Gregor Brown. It also helps plug the gap in the second row caused by Richie Gray’s mid-season departure to Japan. Smith had hoped to sign an experienced replacement for Gray but was thwarted in his bid to land his top target, believed to be the Scarlets’ Alex Craig. Williamson, Brown, Ferrie and JP du Preez are all out injured but they should return in the next month or so. Smith also reported good news on the fitness of Ollie Smith and Kyle Steyn who are close to a return. “Ollie is looking good,” said the coach. “He's been training with us the last three weeks.” Steyn, the club captain, is also progressing well and should be back before Christmas. The news on Adam Hastings was less good. The stand-off has had an operation after fracturing his jaw against Scarlets and will be out for eight to 12 weeks, according to Smith. The coach also confirmed he would like to hang on to full-back Josh McKay who is out of contract at the end of the season. The teams Glasgow Warriors: 15. Josh McKay; 14. Seb Cancelliere, 13. Huw Jones, 12. Sione Tuipulotu (c), 11. Kyle Rowe; 10. Tom Jordan, 9. George Horne; 1. Jamie Bhatti, 2. Gregor Hiddleston, 3. Zander Fagerson, 4. Olujare Oguntibeju, 5. Scott Cummings, 6. Matt Fagerson, 7. Rory Darge, 8. Henco Venter. Replacements: 16. Johnny Matthews, 17. Rory Sutherland, 18. Sam Talakai, 19. Alex Samuel, 20. Ally Miller, 21. Jack Mann, 22. Jamie Dobie, 23. Duncan Weir. Sale Sharks: 15. Joe Carpenter; 14. Will Addison, 13. Luke James, 12. Sam Bedlow, 11. Arron Reed; 10. Robert du Preez (c), 9. Gus Warr; 1. Bevan Rodd, 2. Tadgh McElroy, 3. Asher Opoku-Fordjour, 4. Ernst van Rhyn, 5. Hyron Andrews, 6. Jean-Luc du Preez, 7. Tom Curry, 8. Dan du Preez. Replacements: 16. Harry Thompson, 17. Si McIntyre, 18. James Harper, 19. Ben Bamber, 20. Jonny Hill, 21. Raffi Quirke, 22. Tom Curtis, 23. Sam Dugdale. Referee: Andrea Piardi (Italy).F1 closer to approving expanded grid for GM entry
The Irish Times view on government formation: one clear route comes into focus(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Nick Lehr , The Conversation (THE CONVERSATION) For the past few years, right-wing media have argued that the U.S. is plagued by a masculinity crisis , whether it’s former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson warning of collapsing testosterone levels in his 2022 documentary “ The End of Men ” or Sen. Josh Hawley decrying what he called the left’s project to “deconstruct” men and “define traditional masculinity as toxic.” Rhetoric aside, there may be a real vein that these pundits and politicians are tapping into. Deaths of despair , which are caused by drugs, alcohol or suicide, are disproportionately experienced by men . Meanwhile, many of the traditional markers of manhood – earning enough money to raise a family, buy a home or even rent an apartment – are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain . What does it mean for society if young men sense that their masculinity is under threat? Or for our politics if young men see less hope for the future? In 2021, psychologist Adam Stanaland and his colleagues conducted an experiment exploring masculinity anxiety in young men between the ages of 18 and 40. They found that statements as simple as “you are less masculine than the average man” could provoke aggression among the study’s participants. For their next study, they turned to adolescent boys, with a couple of key questions in mind: When does masculine anxiety start to appear? And what fuels it? In the findings, which they published in July 2024, they were able to show that boys in late puberty – but not those in early puberty – would respond aggressively when their masculinity was challenged. Not all boys in late puberty reacted this way; those most prone to aggression tended to care a lot about what other people thought about them. Their parents were more likely to have lower incomes, less formal education and associate masculinity with traits such as power and dominance. They were also much more likely to live in counties that supported Donald Trump in 2020. In an interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Stanaland discusses some of the broader economic and social forces that may have influenced his team’s findings and explores how they relate to the results of the 2024 election. In your more recent study, you broke your adolescent participants down into two groups. There was this early puberty group and a late puberty group. And you found that the threats to masculinity only really started to have an effect in that later puberty group. Can you talk about why that might have been the case? In prior research , we had already detected a pattern: The pressure to act stereotypically masculine predicts aggression in young adult men in the U.S., particularly when they feel like their manhood is under threat. So we started to wonder – OK, well, when does this pattern start? We thought about age. But age is somewhat of a rough predictor of development, right? It’s just a number. Although age corresponds with social changes, such as changing schools and navigating new social situations, boys go through puberty at different ages. For example, changes in secondary sex characteristics, such as height, body type and voice – these are going to affect how other people treat you. As boys’ bodies start changing, there’s going to be much more of an expectation for them to act in stereotypically masculine ways, just like adult men do. There are also vast cognitive changes going on during this time . You’re able to grasp social pressures with much more nuance than you could before. And part of that is realizing, “Oh shoot, if I don’t defend my manhood, then I won’t have friends, I won’t fit in, my parents might disapprove.” In our research, puberty captured these nuances better than age. Age did predict these things, but puberty was just a much stronger predictor. How did you threaten the boys’ masculinity? Half of the participants were threatened and the other half were not, at random. We had everyone take two quizzes: a “Boy Questions Quiz” and a “Girls Question Quiz.” For the half whose masculinity we threatened, we would tell them they did poorly on the guys quiz – “Well, you missed more questions than other guys usually do. Based on your quiz results, it seems like you’re more like the average girl than the average guy.” This was age-adapted from past work on masculinity threats to adults, because we wanted to be able to build on those findings. Then you used a word completion task – for example, having boys complete the fragment “GU_” – to indicate whether they responded aggressively to threats to their masculinity. Those who wrote “GUN” as opposed to, say, “GUM” were said to be reacting aggressively. How do you know that this task is connected to real-world aggression? This measure has been used in seminal research on masculinity and aggression , so we wanted our findings to directly align with that work. That research and others have found that this task is associated with actual violent behavior. However, we tried to be very careful to say that we weren’t measuring aggressive behavior. Think of cognition as a first step. People who are thinking aggressively are going to be more likely to act violently or aggressively. Not everyone who is thinking aggressively is going to act on it, but cognition can predict it. This measure is also great because it’s implicit – our participants didn’t know that we were measuring aggression. They were simply given this word completion task, which we presented as a game, and how they performed indicated how aggressively they were thinking in the moment. In the study, you found that parents’ beliefs were a strong predictor of whether their sons reported being pressured to be stereotypically masculine. Specifically, it was parents’ endorsement of hegemonic masculinity – what you define as the belief that men need to be powerful, gain status and have authority over women. Yes. We asked boys to respond to statements like, “My parents would be upset if they saw me acting like a girl.” And we found that this fear of upsetting their parents indicated whether they would endorse statements such as, “I’m like other guys because I want other people to like me.” We also found that a fear of upsetting peers could pressure certain boys to feel as if they needed to “act like a man.” We just didn’t have data from peers to look at. So we couldn’t really try to understand, within peer groups, what exactly was going on. We did, however, have data from parents, including the types of beliefs about masculinity that they endorsed, as well as certain social and demographic variables reported by parents. Two data points for the parents stood out to me. Having less income and less formal education – which is also tied to less income – strongly predicted whether they possessed beliefs about hegemonic masculinity. Do you see any connection between economic anxiety and masculine anxiety? There’s research showing that people who are under more economic stress – who experience economic hardship – more readily cling to racial stereotypes . This work has argued that poverty leads to stereotyping because high-status people are motivated to maintain the status quo when they believe that their position in society is threatened. Or this could be an example of cognitive depletion : The greater your anxiety over paying the bills, the less you’re going to be able to ponder gender and race. We observed that working-class parents were more likely to endorse these rigid, masculine ideas, especially about men being strong, powerful and dominant over people of other genders. And they’re the ones whose sons reported the most pressure to be stereotypically masculine. And I think economic anxiety and poverty are a key part of this story. In times of prosperity, or in societies that are more socialist in their orientation – where you’re guaranteed basic health care and education, for example – do men feel less pressure to be on top, because they feel more economically and socially secure? I don’t know. It’s an interesting avenue for future research. I know that voting-age men weren’t the subject of your most recent study, but I wonder about the political implications of masculine fragility as young people come of age. Trump picked up a larger percentage of male voters under 30 than any GOP candidate had since 2008. In what ways did you see Trump tap into masculine anxiety on the campaign trail? I think we, in academia, expected Gen Z to really just go all in for Harris, and it just doesn’t seem to be like that’s the case, especially among Gen Z men who are working class. You saw this play out when Trump appeared on several podcasts whose hosts lean into that strong, macho persona, especially in the weeks leading up to the election . In our two studies, we found that pressures to be masculine can predict aggressive responses among boys in later adolescence and young men – times of their lives when they are really trying to figure out what kind of man they will be in their relationships, at work and in their day-to-day lives. Coupled with rising economic uncertainties, these celebrities and politicians can give these men an outlet to demonstrate their masculinity, burnish their status and make them feel like they belong. So much status in our society is tied to wealth. Might teens and young men – who are at the bottom of the totem poll, in terms of wealth – be latching on to more visceral expressions of power and masculinity? I think it’s all wrapped up in that. Men start experiencing these pressures to be the provider in their family, to get their relationships and careers going, to make their way up the ladder at work. A lot of these goals are becoming more difficult to attain. And so what we’re seeing is that in order to gain that status – or even out of fear of losing that status if they have it – boys and men will go to great lengths. Obviously, aligning with people – celebrities, politicians, business leaders – who have those same values will become more enticing. What are your thoughts about how much of an influence media consumption can have on the development of certain beliefs about masculinity? We don’t have great measures of peers or other factors like that. But we do have this measure where we asked parents for their ZIP codes, and we mapped that to the proportion of support for Trump in 2020, so not this past election. And we saw that it wasn’t necessarily parents’ self-reported political identity – so how liberal or conservative they are – that predicted their masculinity beliefs. It was this county-level, community-level variable. So if you think about that finding, you would imagine that it’s not just the “physical counties” that boys are in. Digital spaces – social media spaces that boys are living in – are probably having an effect, too. Remember, during late puberty, teens are trying out different identities. For whatever reason, some of these more conservative online spaces have become really appealing to certain boys and men. There is definitely some important ongoing work in this area, specifically on the manosphere . Is there anything else that you’d like to add? These pressures to be stereotypically masculine come from parents, peers and the community. And they don’t seem to be changing or dissipating as quickly as we in academia thought they might. For example, you might think of Gen Z as this liberal group that’s super into social justice. And that just doesn’t seem to be the case, especially among certain men and boys from working class backgrounds. So I think we should be a lot more attuned to that lack of change – the social and economic sources of these pressures, how to address them, and what they mean not just for voting behavior but also for some of the more problematic behaviors associated with men and masculinity . This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/is-masculine-anxiety-spurring-support-for-trump-among-gen-z-241655 . Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more.
MT lawmakers vote down bathroom rule change aimed at trans legislatorsGeraldo Rivera is making amends with the father of JonBenét Ramsey. After John Ramsey’s daughter was found murdered at 6 years old in the basement of her family’s Colorado home in 1996, the journalist, 81, staged a mock murder trial on television. On Monday, during NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Rivera addressed the mock trial that aired on his daytime talk show, “The Geraldo Rivera Show,” in 1997, telling Ramsey, “I deeply apologize to you for what you and your family have suffered.” During the episode, the political commentator’s “jury” found Ramsey and his wife, Patsy Ramsey, liable for their daughter’s death, per NewsNation . Rivera continued, “No one deserves to go through what you went through. That’s my bottom line. And when I walk around and it is with stories like yours in my head over the last 54 years of my career, I, it is a burden to me. It’s a soulful burden. And again, man to man, to you, I apologize, and I am sorry for everything you have gone through, John.” Ramsey responded, “Geraldo, I accept your apology and thank you.” Ramsey and the tragedy has been back in the spotlight since the November release of the Netflix three-part docuseries “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?” , which premiered on Nov. 25. The 80-year-old has been vocal for decades about what he considers to be missteps made by authorities during their investigation. John also acknowledged how the media frenzy only made things worse at the time. Ramsey and Patsy, who has since died, became persons of interest after JonBenét was found sexually assaulted and strangled to death on Dec. 26. Earlier that morning, Patsy found a ransom note demanding $118,000 in exchange for her youngest child’s safe return. No member of the Ramsey family, including the couple’s son Burke who was nine at the time, has ever been charged in connection with the case. Despite several people falling under suspicion, no arrests have ever been made. Today, Ramsey now wants state-of-the-art labs that use genetic genealogy and other advanced DNA technology to crack the cold case. He claims that there are seven items from the crime scene that have never been tested, or were examined with outdated methods. “We’re begging the police to engage,” Ramsey told People last month. “There are cutting-edge DNA labs that want to help and who believe they can move the case forward.” However, the Boulder Police Department disputed the claims they were not pursuing all leads and said progress is, in fact, being made. “The assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing — to include DNA testing — is completely false,” the department said in a statement post on X , formerly Twitter, last month. “Additionally, it was the Boulder Police Department — not the Colorado Bureau of Investigation — who convened the Cold Case Review Panel in December 2023 as part of its investigation efforts,” the post added.Vernon elementary students get creative for entrepreneur fair
CHATHAM, N.J. (AP) — That buzzing coming out of New Jersey? It's unclear if it's drones or something else, but for sure the nighttime sightings are producing tons of talk, a raft of conspiracy theories and craned necks looking skyward. Cropping up on local news and social media sites around Thanksgiving, the saga of the drones reported over New Jersey has reached incredible heights. This week seems to have begun a new, higher-profile chapter: Lawmakers are demanding (but so far not getting) explanations from federal and state authorities about what's behind them. Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey's new senator, Andy Kim, spent Thursday night on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey, and posted about it on X. But perhaps the most fantastic development is the dizzying proliferation of conspiracies — none of which has been confirmed or suggested by federal and state officials who say they're looking into what's happening. It has become shorthand to refer to the flying machines as drones, but there are questions about whether what people are seeing are unmanned aircraft or something else. Some theorize the drones came from an Iranian mothership. Others think they are the Secret Service making sure President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster property is secure. Others worry about China. The deep state. And on. In the face of uncertainty, people have done what they do in 2024: Create a social media group. The Facebook page, New Jersey Mystery Drones — let’s solve it , has nearly 44,000 members, up from 39,000 late Thursday. People are posting their photo and video sightings, and the online commenters take it from there. One video shows a whitish light flying in a darkened sky, and one commenter concludes it’s otherworldly. “Straight up orbs,” the person says. Others weigh in to say it’s a plane or maybe a satellite. Another group called for hunting the drones literally, shooting them down like turkeys. (Do not shoot at anything in the sky, experts warn.) Trisha Bushey, 48, of Lebanon Township, New Jersey, lives near Round Valley Reservoir where there have been numerous sightings. She said she first posted photos online last month wondering what the objects were and became convinced they were drones when she saw how they moved and when her son showed her on a flight tracking site that no planes were around. Now she's glued to the Mystery Drones page, she said. “I find myself — instead of Christmas shopping or cleaning my house — checking it,” she said. She doesn't buy what the governor said, that the drones aren't a risk to public safety. Murphy told Biden on Friday that residents need answers. The federal Homeland Security Department and FBI also said in a joint statement they have no evidence that the sightings pose “a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.” “How can you say it’s not posing a threat if you don’t know what it is?” she said. “I think that’s why so many people are uneasy.” Then there's the notion that people could misunderstand what they're seeing. William Austin is the president of Warren County Community College, which has a drone technology degree program, and is coincidentally located in one of the sighting hotspots. Austin says he has looked at videos of purported drones and that airplanes are being misidentified as drones. He cited an optical effect called parallax, which is the apparent shift of an object when viewed from different perspectives. Austin encouraged people to download flight and drone tracker apps so they can better understand what they're looking at. Nonetheless, people continue to come up with their own theories. “It represents the United States of America in 2024,” Austin said. “We’ve lost trust in our institutions, and we need it.” Federal officials echo Austin's view that many of the sightings are piloted aircraft such as planes and helicopters being mistaken for drones, according to lawmakers and Murphy. That's not really convincing for many, though, who are homing in on the sightings beyond just New Jersey and the East Coast, where others have reported seeing the objects. For Seph Divine, 34, another member of the drone hunting group who lives in Eugene, Oregon, it feels as if it’s up to citizen sleuths to solve the mystery. He said he tries to be a voice of reason, encouraging people to fact check their information, while also asking probing questions. “My main goal is I don’t want people to be caught up in the hysteria and I also want people to not just ignore it at the same time,” he said. “Whether or not it’s foreign military or some secret access program or something otherworldly, whatever it is, all I’m saying is it’s alarming that this is happening so suddenly and so consistently for hours at a time,” he added. Golden reported form Seattle.Elevai Labs Inc. Announces Reverse Stock Split to Maintain Nasdaq Listing Compliance
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JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — “My Driver and I” was supposed to be made in 2016, but was scuttled amid Saudi Arabia’s decades-long cinema ban. Eight years later, the landscape for film in the kingdom looks much different — and the star of “My Driver and I” now has an award. Roula Dakheelallah was named the winner of the Chopard Emerging Saudi Talent award at the Red Sea International Film Festival on Thursday. The award — and the glitzy festival itself — is a sign of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to shaping a new film industry. “My heart is attached to cinema and art; I have always dreamed of a moment like this,” Dakheelallah, who still works a 9-5 job, told The Associated Press before the awards ceremony. “I used to work in voluntary films and help my friends in the field, but this is my first big role in a film.” The reopening of cinemas in 2018 marked a cultural turning point for Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy that had instituted the ban 35 years before, under the influence of ultraconservative religious authorities. It has since invested heavily in a native film industry by building theaters and launching programs to support local filmmakers through grants and training. The Red Sea International Film Festival was launched just a year later, part of an attempt to expand Saudi influence into films, gaming, sports and other cultural fields. Activists have decried the investments as whitewashing the kingdom’s human rights record as it tightly controls speech and remains one of the world’s top executioners. With FIFA awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia this week, Lina al-Hathloul, a Saudi activist with the London-based rights group ALQST, said Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman “has really managed to create this bubble where people only see entertainment and they don’t see the reality on the ground.” RELATED COVERAGE Saudi Arabia’s plans to host the men’s World Cup will harm the climate, experts warn 2034 World Cup visitors will live in ‘a bubble’ and not see real life, Saudi rights activist says Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup. But when exactly? These efforts are part of Vision 2030, an ambitious reform plan unveiled in 2016 to ease the economy’s dependence on oil. As part of it, Saudi Arabia plans to construct 350 cinemas with over 2,500 movie screens — by this past April, across 22 cities, it already had 66 cinemas showing movies from the local film industry, as well as Hollywood and Bollywood. (The Red Sea International Film Festival attracts a host of talent from the latter industries, with Viola Davis and Priyanka Chopra Jonas also picking up awards Thursday.) The Red Sea International Film Festival (AP Photo/Baraa Anwer) The Red Sea International Film Festival (AP Photo/Baraa Anwer) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More The country’s General Entertainment Authority last month opened Al Hisn Studios on the outskirts of Riyadh. As one of the largest such production hubs in the Middle East, it not only includes several film studios but also a production village with workshops for carpentry, blacksmithing and fashion tailoring. “These facilities, when they exist, will stimulate filmmakers,” said Saudi actor Mohammed Elshehri. “Today, no writer or director has an excuse to imagine and say, ‘I cannot implement my imagination.’” The facilities are one part of the equation — the content itself is another. One of the major players in transforming Saudi filmmaking has been Telfaz11, a media company founded in 2011 that began as a YouTube channel and quickly became a trailblazer. Producing high-quality digital content such as short films, comedy sketches and series, Telfaz11 offered fresh perspectives on Saudi and regional issues. In 2020, Telfaz11 signed a partnership with Netflix to produce original content for the streaming giant. The result has been movies that demonstrate an evolution on the storytelling level, tackling topics that were once off-limits and sensitive to the public like secret nightlife in “Mandoob” (“Night Courier”) and changing social norms in “Naga.” One of the Middle East’s fastest-growing film festivals opened last Thursday in Saudi Arabia, attracting filmmakers and stars from around the world, to present over 120 films from 81 countries in Jeddah’s historic Al-Balad district. (Dec. 7) “I think we tell our stories in a very simple way, and that’s what reaches the world,” Elshehri says of the changing shift. “When you tell your story in a natural way without any affectation, it will reach every person.” But the films were not without their critics, drawing mixed reaction. Social media discoursed ranged from pleasure that Saudi film were tackling such topics to anger over how the films reflected conservative society. As Hana Al-Omair, a Saudi writer and director, points out, there are still many stories left untold. “We certainly have a long time ahead of us before we can tell the Saudi narrative as it should be,” she said, acknowledging that there are still barriers and rampant censorship. “The Goat Life,” a Malayalam-language movie about an Indian man forced to work without pay in Saudi Arabia, is not available on Netflix’s platform in the country. Movies that explore political topics or LGBTQ+ stories are essentially out of the question. Roula Dakheelallah and Mustafa Shehata, stars of “My Driver and I,” at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 7, 2024 (AP Photo/Baraa Anwer) Roula Dakheelallah and Mustafa Shehata, stars of “My Driver and I,” at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 7, 2024 (AP Photo/Baraa Anwer) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Even “My Driver and I,” featured at the Red Sea festival alongside 11 other Saudi feature-length films, was initially too controversial. It centers on a Sudanese man in Jeddah, living away from his own daughter, who feels responsible for the girl he drives as her parents are absent. It was initially blocked from being made because of the relationship between the girl and the driver, filmmaker Ahd Kamel has said, even though it’s not a romantic relationship. Now in 2024, the film is a success story — a symbol of the Saudi film industry’s evolution as well as the growing role of women like Kamel behind the camera and Dakheelallah in front of it. “I see the change in Saudi cinema, a very beautiful change and it is moving at a wonderful speed. In my opinion, we do not need to rush,” Dakheelallah said. “We need to guide the truth of the artistic movement that is happening in Saudi Arabia.”NoneApple AI Sends False BBC Notification Saying Luigi Mangione Shot HimselfVerano Holdings: Rare Entry Point For Long-Term Upside
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