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Fear and uncertainty are as familiar in 2020 as Zoom meetings and social distancing. Still, you have to stay positive, establish a healthy routine and find ways to cope with what can feel like existential dread. That’s what makes an early scene from She Dies Tomorrow, available on streaming platforms and video on demand, so scary. During a phone call, a friend offers some advice to a young woman who’s feeling a sense of claustrophobic doom: “Go for a walk, or why don’t you try watching a movie?” Both are common stress relievers for life in the Covid-19 pandemic. But be aware that watching She Dies Tomorrow won’t distract you from what’s happening. The gripping indie is about facing your dread when fearfulness itself becomes contagious. For at least six months now, movies have been providing coronavirus catharsis. Early this year, Contagion (2011), a taut drama starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet and Laurence Fishburne, reached the hot zone of rental popularity with its fact-based vision of what would happen if a virus spread across the world and claimed millions of lives. Just recently, Host arrived on the streaming site Shudder. The horror film, shot entirely on Zoom, takes place as a bunch of friends in lockdown gather online for a seance that unleashes some serious nastiness. The concept plays off of quarantine tensions and brings new meaning to experiencing a virtual meeting from hell. She Dies Tomorrow, written and director by Amy Steimetz, explores timeless themes that just happen to correspond to the constant worry that has become 2020’s mood board. The story centres on Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil), who guzzles a drink after becoming convinced that she will die tomorrow. Amy’s fear doesn’t appear to be an offshoot of depression. She caught it from another person, and she spreads it to anyone she physically encounters. Super creepy and superbly unresolved, Steimetz’s new movie is a meditation on facing mortality that contains surprising splashes of dark humour. For instance, when Amy keeps lifting the needle of her record player to listen over and over to Mozart’s gloomy Requiem, it’s a pretty clear example of how not to wallow in misery. If time is running short, why not put on some vintage Go-Go’s or Prince’s 1999? She Dies Tomorrow is a moody, intense portrait of trapped characters — including a solitary scientist played by wonderful Jane Adams (HBO’s Hung) — who must wrestle with what it means to be approaching their final day. Should they drop the limits of polite behaviour and start saying and doing things they otherwise would self-censor? Is that a good choice? It’s certainly an honest one. With the real-life pandemic continuing to surge and no imminent end to it in sight, no wonder life is paralleling scary movies. In Bird Box (2018), wearing a mask (in this case, a blindfold) is the only weapon against mysterious creatures that provoke lethal madness with a single glimpse. There’s even a relevant plot point over whether masks are necessary or just a response to a mass hysteria. But rest assured that Sandra Bullock’s character stays masked and serves as the Dr Fauci of the Bird Box universe. There also are echoes of 2020 in Children of Men (2006), a classic dystopian film from director Alfonso Cuaron that sends a strong told-you-so message about the costs of climate change and systemic inequality. Its scenario of an infertility pandemic, coupled with huge migrations of refugees, is a nightmarish take on a future with worsening income inequality, healthcare disparities and brutalisation of asylum seekers. Even the formidable Clive Owen has a tough time shouldering this many problems at once. World War Z (2013) is the best recent spin on a zombie disaster. Its premise is that humans gain incredible speed once they’re infected with a zombie bug, making any effort to socially distance from their biting range extremely difficult. Yet World War Z is an oddly comforting action thriller, maybe because it offers Brad Pitt racing to the rescue (and he actually played Fauci on Saturday Night Live). Pitt doesn’t survey the global crisis and say, “It is what it is.” He’s relentless in the search for a vaccine, brushing off a plane crash as if it were a flat tire. For the ultimate in pandemic-fuelled pandemonium, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (both the 1956 original and a 1978 remake) reveals the hazards of trying to stay safe while others are downplaying a crisis. An allegory for the 1950s Red Scare, it imagines a plague of seed pods arriving from outer space. The pods grow exact copies of humans, only these doubles lack free will and emotions. When one man (Kevin McCarthy in the ’56 version, Donald Sutherland in ’78) tries to expose the truth of what’s happening, he’s essentially deemed fake news. Scary movies have always been a place to work out some of our deepest fears — even for filmmakers. In the production notes for She Dies Tomorrow, Seimitz described the origin of the story. “I was dealing with my own personal anxiety and found I was spreading my panic to other people by talking about it perhaps too excessively — while simultaneously watching a ton of news and watching mass anxiety spreading on the right and left politically,” she said. “All this while remembering losing my father and many friends that we all die at some point. We don’t know what to do but keep living, realising the absurdity and tragedy that with life comes death.” Seimetz notes that the characters in her latest film keep saying that everyone is going to die because they no longer can avoid that fact. “It’s just most of the time, you can push that truth aside and be as shallow or oblivious as you want to be.” Terrifying stuff, right? Or maybe a timeless reminder that time is precious. If She Dies Tomorrow feels like 2020 condensed into one script, well, there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes than with a smart, thought-provoking movie.                          —Detroit Free Press/TNS

Except for the biggest pop acts, like the Rolling Stones or Rihanna, and a few hot shows like Hamilton, musicians have struggled to fill concert halls. But now the entire business of live performance is in trouble, even for the top stars, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic: theatres and performance halls have been closed since March — and with social distancing in force, they probably won’t open any time soon. Live performance has been one of the few ways for musicians to make money after cheap streaming services undermined sales of most recorded music. If live performances are off limits, the industry may face its greatest crisis yet. But all may not be lost, provided performers and the businesses they work for are willing to adapt to digital platforms. These electronic venues might even become a part of the industry’s post-pandemic future. Consider the following example: On a recent weekend, I tuned into a concert that renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma streamed through the Berlin-based classical music platform IDAGIO. The concert programme was totally new — Ma put it together just for this performance. It’s not on YouTube or any other platform — and like any other live concert, it was visceral, ephemeral and exclusive. Plus, it was somehow deeply personal — with the cameras zoomed in close, viewers could feel as if they were on stage with Ma himself. A replay was available, but only for the next 24 hours. The economics of this type of event might work out quite well. A ticket to a typical streamed concert costs something like $8. If the artist can reach 10 times as many viewers that way, that matches the revenue brought in by an in-person show that costs $80 a ticket, a price that’s hardly unheard of. And so long as the event is advertised effectively, a 10-fold audience multiplier shouldn’t be difficult to achieve: An online concert can draw viewers from anywhere — including places that wouldn’t be on a regular tour schedule. And even for people who live nearby, there’s a lot of convenience to being able to listen at home. Plus $8 isn’t nearly as big an expenditure — about the same as paying to stream a new movie — so many more people will be able to afford it. And it also means that tuning in to a paid stream doesn’t have to be as much of a production as going to a show in person. If you miss a beat or two, it’s not a big deal. You can listen while you’re cooking, even — and who wouldn’t want a dinner show featuring the likes of Ma or Mick. For the performers and promoters, there can be cost savings on the production side: streams can be run from small studios rather than performance halls, reducing overhead. For solo acts, this can be done near where the artist lives — meaning there’s little travel required. The performing arts have been slow to adapt to digital transformation. But now that they’ve been forced to, the benefits are already becoming clear. Digital platforms can even help artists engage directly with their fans. (Ma, for example, took questions submitted over live chat after his performance.) They may also be better at managing and tracking customers to generate sustained interest — and recurring revenue. And they may have the digital tools to help artists find new listeners, perhaps in the same way that streaming music service Spotify does for recorded content. Other logistical issues will be harder to solve. Streaming a solo performance or a quartet is one thing; convening a full symphony orchestra or the cast of a Broadway musical is another. But it’s possible: Broadway has been streaming high-definition recordings at special events for years. Another unresolved question is pricing. Current approaches mostly seem to be pegged to standard theatre pricing models — either one-off admissions or season tickets. But some, like New York’s Metropolitan Opera, are offering library-like subscriptions more akin to Netflix: your favourite opera on demand. I expect we’ll see further innovation here because, unlike with seats in a concert hall, digital streams have no capacity constraints. Perhaps promoters will start offering unlimited replays for an additional fee — or packages that make it less expensive to buy additional tickets for related households. Post-pandemic, we may also see hybrid models with performances that are both in-person and streamed simultaneously — the best of both worlds. To be sure, one risk with all of this is that global access might lead to an even more winner-take-all environment for superstars. If everyone can tune in to the best performers in the world, then they might not bother with a local cover band. But with music distribution over the Internet, at least, the opposite effect has held true as well: the possibility of reaching a wider audience has enabled otherwise niche artists to gain a global following. Whatever the case, the music industry has to adapt the live-performance business to the current reality. Streaming may not have the gravity and sparking acoustics of a performance at Carnegie Hall or the raucous vibe of Madison Square Garden, but it may be the future.  — Bloomberg News

By Steve Rose “You get used to sticking a six-inch cotton-wool bud up your nose and down your tonsils every morning,” says Richard Clark. He is describing his typical working day. “The masks are quite suffocating. They’re quite sweaty. You don’t drink as much water, and so people dehydrate. You get headaches. Certainly on the first week, by five o’clock, a certain kind of fugginess comes over everybody. Concentrating during those last two hours … you can feel it being a little bit harder.” It sounds like the experience of a frontline care worker, but this is film-making in the age of Covid-19. Clark is directing the second season of Fox’s apocalyptic sci-fi series War of the Worlds in south Wales, with a crew of about 70 people. Having shut down in late March because of the pandemic, the UK’s film and high-end television industry is back in business, which can only be good news. But it is by no means business as usual. As the director of one of the first productions to resume, three weeks ago, Clark has been negotiating a whole new way of working — not quite as dystopian as the programme he’s making, but strange and slightly sci-fi all the same “To be honest, you get used to the patterns and the rituals pretty quickly,” he says. “Testing is the key thing: temperature checks for everybody every morning, and 30 members of the crew and the lead actors are tested every morning.” There is a full-time Covid-19 consultant on set to keep an eye on social distancing and cross-contacts. Sets are fogged every night, as are all the costumes. Props are kept sealed in bags, then only handled by the cast member using them. Even dining is different, with no more catering truck and lunchtime socialising. Meals are individually packaged and served, and eaten in a huge marquee. Each table is two metres long, so one person can sit at either end.  “The main philosophy behind how we operate is essentially: ‘You’ve got to protect the cast,’” Clark explains. In War of the Worlds’ case, that includes Gabriel Byrne, Elizabeth McGovern and Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones. “Ultimately, the crew are replaceable, including — to an extent — the director. But the lead cast are not, so you’ve got to prioritise safeguarding those personnel who, if they went down ill, would cause the whole thing to collapse.” There is a complex system of coloured armbands denoting the degree of proximity to which crew members are allowed to the actors. Everyone must wear masks, even when shooting outdoors. Some, such as hair and makeup, must wear visors, too. It is a similar setup over at Pinewood studios, says Sarah-Jane Wright, the head of production at Working Title. She has just returned from the set of Last Night in Soho, Edgar Wright’s new movie, a psychological horror set in 1960s London. Shooting was just about finished when lockdown started, but a week of additional photography was still needed. With a larger crew, their system is even more complicated than Clark’s. Personnel are divided into discrete pods. Pod A is the cast (which includes Anya Taylor-Joy, Diana Rigg and Thomasin McKenzie) along with crew who have to be close to them, such as the director and camera operators. They have their own separate entrance and check-in area (again, temperature checks and Covid-19 swab tests are routine), separate bathrooms and their own dining facilities. Pod A can only interact with their “pod unit base”, which consists of hair and makeup, second assistant directors and others. Pod B contains other technicians and crew who have to be on set. They are separated from pod A by Plexiglass and barriers. Pod C is standbys, electricians, grips, riggers and props, who have their own marquee outside the set. “If a light needs changing or props need adjusting, they can only go on to the set when pod A and pod B have cleared it.” Then there’s Pod O (office and props, who are nearby but never come on set), and Pod H (people working remotely). Plus 24-hour cleaners and a team of between six and 10 Covid-19 co-ordinators, swabbing nurses and medics. “We have a very good Covid adviser who does actually have a metal measuring tape to make sure everyone is two metres socially distanced.” Because everyone is in masks, things are quieter than usual, says Wright. “It can feel as if you’re going to work in an operating theatre. But it has so quickly become our new normal.” Before coronavirus, film and high-end television production in the UK was booming. Inward investment, mostly from the US, was at a record-breaking £3.65bn in 2019. This year was on track to exceed that. The major film studios were fully booked, new ones were being built across the country to cope with the demand and Hollywood productions were queueing up to take advantage of the UK’s expertise and tax breaks. Then, with the imposition of lockdown in March, everything changed practically overnight. “We went from pretty much full employment to zero employment and everything stopping,” says Adrian Wootton, the CEO of the British Film Commission (BFC), which is responsible for persuading foreign companies to come and film in the UK. “We had something like a billion pounds— worth of production mothballed or suspended in the UK.” The BFC, British Film Institute and others have been working ever since to figure out how to get film-making back up and running, talking to industry, studios, unions, government, public health bodies, right up to No 10. It was the biggest consultation they have ever done, according to Wootton. The end result was a 53-page document of guidelines for working safely during Covid-19, published in June but continually updated since. It has served to kickstart the recovery process. “Pretty much from the minute the guidance was published, people started rehiring their teams, and started going back into active preproduction,” Wootton says. That recovery is proceeding apace. At the beginning of July, Tom Cruise arrived in the UK to resume filming on Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 at Hertfordshire’s Leavesden studios (filming in Italy was halted in February). Cruise was one of a number of actors to be granted exemption after standard quarantine rules were relaxed to allow Hollywood crews to work in the UK under socially distanced conditions. Across the Pinewood lot from Last Night in Soho, Jurassic World: Dominion is back on set, having shut down in March. Other titles such as The Batman, Disney’s The Little Mermaid and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 3 are preparing to start up again. Netflix expects its UK series such as The Witcher and Sex Education to be filming by the end of September. Bollywood is also returning to the UK: Akshay Kumar’s Bell Bottom is due to shoot in Scotland in August. Film-making under Covid-19 will be more expensive. Working to the guidelines is adding between 15% and 25% to gross budgets, estimates Sarah-Jane Wright, on top of money lost by shutting down. At the time of lockdown, Working Title had four films scheduled to begin shooting this summer. Universal has spent a reported £5m on safety protocols for Jurassic World at Pinewood. The US studios have deeper financial resources and resilience, but for smaller domestic TV and independent film productions the costs have been prohibitive. Insurance has been a particular barrier to restarting, although that problem was finally resolved this week with a new £500m government-backed support scheme. Film-making is also expected to be slower under the guidelines, although Wright and Clark report no major schedule delays. “At the moment, we are shooting about 18 setups a day, which is what I aim for in a high-end drama,” says Clark, “so we are not dropping anything.” Much of that is down to the military-level planning required in the preproduction phase. Another factor could be the reduced number of interruptions, now that nonessential personnel cannot casually drop by to “see what’s going on” or surreptitiously gawp at Tom Cruise. Long-term lessons could yet come out of this situation. As with many sectors, the film industry seems to have realised how much more people could be working remotely. There are also, suggests Wootton, lessons about sustainability – never one of the industry’s strong points. “Big productions such as James Bond move around the world, and you can’t see that changing, but there might be more: ‘Do we really need to go to that country? Do we really need to send hundreds people on a jet there for several weeks?’” As for the creative impact, the new working conditions make certain scenarios more difficult. Crowd scenes, for example, or street scenes requiring lots of extras, all of whom must be tested, monitored and socially distanced. But there are always workarounds. This week’s shooting on Last Night in Soho was originally supposed to have taken place in the real Soho in central London; instead they have had to recreate the streetscape on a soundstage with visual effects filling in the gaps. Clark has not had to make changes to War of the Worlds’ scripts, he says, but he, too, has had difficulties finding locations, since so many places are shut down or high-risk, which has necessitated building more indoor sets. One small but significant difference, Clark observes, is how protective equipment and social distancing affect human interaction: “It puts a slight wall between you that wasn’t there before. It’s surmountable, but you feel it. There’s a kind of intimacy in terms of directing, and particularly with the cast. We shot a very emotional scene this morning and it was quite upsetting for the actor, and it was hard maintaining a distance from them. Usually, there would probably be a touch on the arm, a physical reassurance. Actors make themselves very vulnerable, and they need the support and reassurance of directors to help them go there, and know that it’s safe. That reassurance is slightly harder to provide if you’re a metre-plus away from them with a mask on.” Nobody wants this “new normal” to last, but film crews are well accustomed to coping with adverse and unpredictable conditions, points out Sarah-Jane Wright. “If any industry was going to adapt to this, the film and TV industry is built to just take this on board and run with it. If this is our normal for the next year, I feel we can achieve it. When I visited the set, there was a real sense that everyone was really, really happy to be back at work … although it’s hard, because you can’t see people smiling through a mask.” Clark agrees: “Being in a mask 10 hours a day is not fun, but these are not exactly terrible problems. We’re all bloody grateful to be working, to be honest.” – The Guardian

There’s a stunning moment in William Wyler’s 1949 film The Heiress, in which Catherine Sloper — one of Olivia de Havilland’s greatest characters — sits quietly stitching a tapestry, much as we have seen her doing throughout the movie. Embroidery has long been one of the few simple, solitary pleasures of her cosseted 19th century New York upbringing; in the contemptuous estimation of her father, it’s the only work she will ever be good for. It is also, of course, a classic emblem of women’s work, of the meek spinsterhood to which Catherine seems to have largely resigned herself. But something has permanently shifted in the life, heart and mind of this once earnest and unassuming young woman, a product of her environment who becomes, in that moment, a fierce rebuke of it. We see it in the newly hardened set of de Havilland’s soft, elegant features, the angry rigidity of her posture and the downward tilt of a gaze that until now has eagerly sought the approval of everyone around her, including the camera. We hear it too in a voice that is recognisably the same one Catherine has used all along, though it now seems to have deepened several registers and turned cold with disillusionment. “Yes, I can be cruel,” she declares, with beautifully contained fury. “I have been taught by masters.” It is hard to listen to that line and not hear an echo of de Havilland’s own film career; at the very least, you sense she knew very much of what she spoke. The story told in The Heiress — brilliantly adapted from a stage play that was itself inspired by the Henry James novel Washington Square — is that of a woman whose compassion and lack of confidence make her uniquely vulnerable to the two men in her life: a father who scars her and a suitor who both shatters and liberates her. Put another way, it’s the story of a woman coming slowly but thrillingly into her own, and whom others learn to underestimate at their peril. And so it was with de Havilland, whose death Sunday at age 104 has severed one of our last remaining ties to the classic studio system and the film industry’s much-vaunted Golden Age. De Havilland had lived in Paris for decades and had not appeared in a picture since the 1988 British television film The Woman He Loved. But she was never shy about returning to the spotlight when she felt compelled to do so. In 2016, she gave a rare interview about her late sister, Joan Fontaine, and the juicy rumours of a bitter rivalry that had swirled around them since at least 1942, when they both found themselves up for the lead actress Oscar. (De Havilland was nominated that year for Hold Back the Dawn; it was Fontaine who won, for Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion.) Speaking of the Oscars — two of which de Havilland would go on to win herself — I still remember the unusual warmth and intensity of the ovation that greeted her when she appeared as a presenter at the Academy Awards in 2003. Looking resplendent in blue, the 86-year-old De Havilland stood there for a moment before speaking in that wondrously deep voice, basking in the obvious affection of the crowd as well as the inevitable surge of music from Gone With the Wind, the film that had cemented her as a Hollywood legend. Funnily enough in retrospect, one of that night’s big Oscar winners was Catherine Zeta-Jones, who would go on to play de Havilland in Feud: Bette and Joan. That FX miniseries, focused on the notorious animus between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, became its own object of notoriety when de Havilland sued the network and Ryan Murphy Productions over the alleged misuse of her identity. She filed the lawsuit in June 2017, mere weeks after having been made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, and just a day shy of her 101st birthday, in an implicit jab at an industry known for its ageism as well as its sexism. The lawsuit ultimately came to naught. But if de Havilland’s actions took some by surprise, it shouldn’t have. Whatever you think of the merits of her position — or the even more dubious merits of Feud: Bette and Joan — it was hardly the first time she had struck an important blow at a system with a long and lucrative history of treating actors like property in general, and of stifling, exploiting and underestimating women in particular. Crucially, she had proved more successful in her litigation against Warner Bros. seven decades earlier, when she sued the studio to release her from her contract. It was a groundbreaking assertion of professional autonomy from an actor who had learned to armour herself against the reflexive disdain of directors, co-stars and studio executives, and to fight hard for the rich, meaty roles she knew she was born to play. She had first signed that contract when she played Hermia in Max Reinhardt’s 1935 film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream — a luminous debut landed on the strength of her performance in a community theatre production at age 18. (Hermia might be another quintessential de Havilland role: a woman who is contented, amiable veneer cracks as fortune unexpectedly turns on her.) Her films at Warner Bros. brought her great visibility and success, mainly through her lengthy screen partnership with Errol Flynn, which began with the merry Michael Curtiz swashbuckler Captain Blood (1935) and ended in elegiac fashion with Raoul Walsh’s 1941 Western They Died With Their Boots On. De Havilland’s splendid performance as Maid Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), directed by Curtiz and William Keighley, remains some of her best-loved work. But she knew she was destined for greater opportunities than the romantic interests, comic foils and second bananas that Warner Bros. threw her way. One of those post-WB opportunities led to the 1946 melodrama To Each His Own, which earned de Havilland her first Oscar for lead actress. (The second came three years later, for The Heiress.) She followed that later with her anguished star turn in 1948’s The Snake Pit, a pioneering achievement in Hollywood’s subgenre of prison pictures about the specific horrors of mental institutions. Those opportunities would wane in the 1950s and ’60s, though de Havilland still did memorable work in warmly acclaimed dramas such as Light in the Piazza (1962) as well as violent, headline-grabbing thrillers such as Lady in a Cage (1964) and Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). The latter film gave her the chance to star opposite her longtime friend Davis, stepping into a role that had originally been intended for Crawford (in an attempt to capitalise on the success of an earlier Davis-Crawford horror vehicle, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane). I’ve said deliberately little so far about Gone With the Wind, a movie whose recent streaming-era controversy has already generated no shortage of ink this year and a title that dominates the headlines announcing de Havilland’s death. To see the film is to understand why. In that defiantly contested, defiantly beloved 1939 landmark, she took on the role of the saintly Melanie Wilkes — a role so clearly destined for her that she managed to do it for David O Selznick while still under contract at Warner Bros. — and made her that picture’s soulful conscience. Defying the truism that you can’t make a virtuous character interesting, de Havilland’s Melanie serves as both a welcome corrective to the selfish Scarlett O’Hara and, remarkably, Scarlett’s most sincere and persuasive defender. Her tenderness becomes the prism through which we come to love and accept Scarlett for ourselves. And yet, no less than her contemporary Catherine Sloper, struggling north of the Mason-Dixon line, Melanie turns out to be no pushover. Beneath that warmly forgiving smile and that soothing embrace of a voice, de Havilland imparted to this woman and so many others a spine of steel and offered a subliminal reminder that she was never to be underestimated, in life or in art. — Los Angeles Times/TNS

In Jim Carrey’s new semi-autobiographical novel, Memoirs and Misinformation, there are flying saucers and a fire-bombing on Rodeo Drive, apocalyptic fires devouring Malibu and a mega-budget Hungry Hungry Hippos movie written by Kenneth Lonergan. One moment, ‘Carrey’ dreams of strangling his late mother; the next, he pines for Renée Zellweger (‘his last great love’) and challenges Nicolas Cage, a man ‘whose artistic bravery had always given him courage,’ to a jujitsu duel. (Warning: Cage fights dirty.) Cowritten with novelist Dana Vachon in the third person to capture what Carrey calls the “wholeness that has an infinite knowledge of all of its parts,” Memoirs and Misinformation is, like the twisted political drawings Carrey posts on Twitter, entirely its own thing. A satire of Hollywood’s self-absorption coinciding with the end of the planet, none of it is real … except when it is. And given the extreme circumstances that have marked Carrey’s life, it’s sometimes difficult to sort out fact from fiction. When Sonny Mehta, Alfred A Knopf’s late publisher, bought the book several years ago, he wrote Carrey a note, congratulating him for steering clear of “‘There is a town in North Ontario’ bull—,” referencing the opening line from Neil Young’s autobiographical song Helpless. Memoirs and Misinformation is a deconstruction of the standard-issue show biz chronicle. There aren’t any fun anecdotes about the making of Dumb and Dumber or Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Instead, there is a wholly strange work of autofiction, laden with symbolism and metaphor, sometimes beautiful, sometimes tragic, often inscrutable. In a recent FaceTime call — with Vachon first joining, followed by another good hour one-on-one — Carrey, 58, says he didn’t want to write a memoir that dryly catalogued his life. “You can tell a lot about somebody through their fictional choices,” he says, with Vachon adding that they wanted to use heightened reality to create a “super-position of truth.” That reality, as you might expect from Carrey’s career of infiltrating fiends, clowns and sad men trying to stave off loneliness, naturally tilts toward the surreal — a tone consistent with the experience of speaking with Carrey himself. For instance, when the conversation turns to Las Vegas, a place the book’s “Jim Carrey” fears he’ll wind up “when he’s old, jowly with bleached teeth and hair plugs, whoring for the bingo crowds,” Carrey describes his own visits to Sin City in feverish prose that surpasses the book. “Whenever I go to Vegas, I go crazy,” Carrey says. “The only way I can live there is if I put all the faucets on scalding hot so the room becomes some sort of terrarium for tropical plants where literally you can’t see out the windows after a while. They’re just bleeding with sweat. It’s what I imagine living on Mars is going to be like. ‘I don’t give a damn how you think you’re controlling my environment! I’m going tropical!’ I might have to break a window at some point to stick my head out.” Memoirs and Misinformation, which Carrey describes as “burning myself to the ground and telling you that’s not who I was anyway,” began its life eight years ago when Vachon walked into Carrey’s West Village artist workspace, checked out his paintings and thought, “There’s a story here.” In one corner, there was a depiction of Malibu engulfed in flames. In another, a self-portrait had been slashed. Vachon told Carrey that the scene reminded him of Aeneas standing in Juno’s temple, lamenting the hardships of his life. Instantly, a friendship was born. Early in the collaboration, Carrey spilled his life story — his family’s financial struggles, his mother’s pain-medication addiction, his eight-hour shifts at a tyre factory, his father’s “sweet, incredible soul,” his stand-up days in Toronto and his meteoric rise to fame — so that Vachon could upload those memories before composing the fictionalised “Carrey.” They Skyped constantly, Carrey spewing ideas, Vachon struggling to turn them into cohesive prose. That process continued regularly for nearly a decade, ending only in February with a final draft. The book was originally set for a May release with an accompanying promotional tour, but the Covid-19 pandemic scuttled those plans. It’s now due July 7. “We’re still not sure it’s done,” Carrey says, only half-joking. Adds Vachon: “The book is the product of an epic, open conversation. Who spends eight years on a project? To me, that was a gift.” Writing, Carrey says, felt like “somebody opened the doors of an ancient temple for me.” What he saw inside — and what he wished to convey — can be glimpsed in the image on the book’s cover. The painting, by Carrey, incorporates a photo accidentally taken of him in Maui in 2018 when an early-morning emergency alert warned, by mistake, of an incoming ballistic missile attack. “My assistant, Linda, called me and said, ‘Chief, we have 10 minutes,’ and I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And she said, ‘The missiles are coming.’ And she was squeezing the phone and accidentally took a screen shot,” Carrey says. “That’s the cover of the book, my actual face after being told I had 10 minutes to live.” After initially trying to reach his daughter from Maui, Carrey walked outside, sat on the lanai and spent eight minutes going through a “gratitude list.” Staggered by the bounty of his life, he reached a state of grace, closed his eyes and waited for the missiles. “Now, I walk around the world knowing what that is for me, and if that should happen, where my head’s going to be,” Carrey says haltingly, wiping away tears. “I’ll sit and thank God for the blessings in my life. If I was anybody, who was I? And I don’t really believe that I’m anybody. I believe there’s nothing that isn’t you.” Memoirs and Misinformation features a comparable apocalyptic accounting, with similar results. Yet the real Carrey has been anticipating oblivion for most of his life. In the book’s sixth chapter, our hero goes to the Saharan Motor Hotel to meet screenwriter Charlie Kaufman to discuss playing Mao Zedong in a biopic that “Carrey” believes “will be his Raging Bull.” It’s the same seedy Sunset Boulevard lodge Carrey checked into in 1982, freshly arrived from Toronto with just a suitcase of clothes and a second-hand copy of Hal Lindsey’s doomsday bestseller, The Late Great Planet Earth. “I walked through to some motel room that would make Baretta jealous,” Carrey says. “And I’m reading this book saying the world is going to end soon and I’m like, ‘But I just got here. I gotta make it before I die.’ So, literally, I’ve been making it before I die for almost 40 years. But we all have the sword of Damocles over our heads. That mushroom cloud is a character in our lives. And we have to learn how to dance and smile and do all the proper and appropriate things.” Dave Holstein, creator of the Showtime series Kidding, starring Carrey as a children’s television personality coping with tragedy, believes his star has reached a tenuous peace with a life of “peaks and valleys we can only begin to understand.” “When you go to enough therapy your whole life, you eventually become your own therapist … and I think Jim has mastered the art of self-study,” Holstein adds. “He’s so unsatisfied, in a way that most incredibly ambitious people are, that there’s always something they feel they can accomplish that they haven’t yet done.” The two seasons of Kidding survey similar ground as Memoirs and Misinformation, picking at family wounds, excoriating celebrity and mulling mortality, engaging in what Holstein calls a “full-throttled emotionality.” “He is sensitive,” Holstein says, “and not afraid to really tap into the raw, honest feelings that we go through in the dark.” Midway through our FaceTime conversation, Carrey says he wants to show me something. Scrolling through his phone, he lands on a drawing he’s making of his father, Percy, wearing a navy suit, the only suit he ever owned. It’s a work in progress, illustrating a scene from the book in which Percy holds his son’s wounded hands (which “Carrey” had gnawed away in a fever dream, thinking they were Slim Jims) and reveals nothing less than the meaning of existence. “There is one spirit guiding all things,” the father tells the son. “The universe, one verse. The stars and the sea and the wind through the wheat fields. And us, you and me. Once through flesh. Now through memory. See? I’m in you and you’re within me.” “It’s Dad to the rescue,” Carrey says softly, looking at the image. “At a certain point, when you’re at your lowest, those are the voices that you go to, the people that taught you how to live.” He puts the phone down. The house is quiet, and neither of us wants to break the spell. “There’s freedom in creating, man,” Carrey finally says. “I swear to God, I couldn’t live without it. I’m drawing my father, and there’s joy because I’m remembering my dad, how hurt he was in life, but still what a beautiful gentleman and joyful soul. Creating these things makes me happy.” It’s all in the book, he continues. “I said a lot of things I want to convey. About my way of thinking. About going down a red carpet and seeing an almost Wile E Coyote blueprint of the physical bit I’m about to do for people. How I’m inspired that way. How I feel every time I tell a joke or take a chance on humour, no matter what it is, it’s like being a cliff diver and hoping you timed it right so the tide is in when you hit the water.” Carrey pauses and then, slowly, that elastic smile that has sold millions of tickets over the last quarter century washes over his face. “But you never really know if you’re going to hit the rocks.”   —Los Angeles Times/TNS

Just before the coronavirus became a global pandemic, Maude Apatow was planning on finally moving out of her parents’ house. She’d found a few apartments that piqued her interest and scheduled times to tour them. But when the city went on lockdown, she put her plans on hold, instead hunkering down in Brentwood with her mom, dad and 17-year-old sister. “It’s been fun, I guess — there are definitely ups and downs,” said Apatow, 22, with a telling smile. She had retreated to her mother’s office to conduct a Zoom interview, one of the few spots in the house where she doesn’t worry that “someone will start screaming in the background or embarrass me.” It was during quarantine that the actress and her dad, director Judd Apatow, began discussing the possibility of debuting his new movie via on-demand instead of postponing its theatrical release. The film, The King of Staten Island, stars SNL comedian Pete Davidson as a wannabe tattoo artist struggling to find his purpose after the death of his father. Maude has a supporting role, playing Davidson’s sister — the younger-but-more-mature sibling who leaves for college while her brother is still living at home. “When my dad first told me about the release plans, there was an option to wait a year, like so many movies that have been pushed,” she recalled. “And we were like, ‘I feel like a lot of people might watch it right now because everyone has already gone through so much content.’ I’m sad about not seeing it with an audience, but it might be a good time for it, fingers crossed.” Dressed in a BTS sweatshirt she bought at one of the K-pop band’s concerts, Apatow spoke to The Times in mid-May about her new movie, her roles in the television series Hollywood and Euphoria and making a name for herself. You acted in some of your dad’s movies when you were a kid. How did he bring up the idea of you appearing in Staten Island? It was pretty close to when we were about to shoot. Pete had said something about it, and I don’t think my dad was super open to the idea at first. I think he was hesitant. But I read it with Pete and it ended up making sense. I’ve known Pete for a long time and I feel like I care about him, so having a relationship made it easier to play it with him. Were you concerned about the perception of you getting the role only because he was your dad? I definitely thought about that before doing this movie. Obviously, I’ve acted in so many of my parents’ movies, and people are going to say it’s nepotism. I mean, it’s not even an insult — well, it is an insult, but it is what it is. But because I’d just done Euphoria and I was starting to do other projects showing I was capable of doing work without their help, I was apprehensive about it. But then I thought, “I haven’t worked with my dad since I was 12,” and I really look up to him as a mentor figure in my life. I want to be a director someday, and getting to watch my dad do what he does is very important to me. I don’t know when I’m ever going to do this again and it just felt like, “Why would I not do it?” I’m gonna spend my whole life trying to prove myself as an individual, and that’s a chip on my shoulder. It’s really important to me to show that I work really hard, because I do. I want to be an individual. How different was it working with him when you were 12 versus in your 20s? I acted when I was a kid, but not really, because I was so young. My dad said this the other day: ‘It was almost like a simulation of our real life.’ We were doing what we did normally at breakfast or whatever. And now — I would never say this to him, because it’s cringey to say it to my dad — but I wanted to do a good job for him, and his opinion of me as an actor is probably the most important to me. But my dad also makes self-tapes with me and knows how to make me be a better actor. Does he read lines with you during those auditions? Yes. I have to stop doing self-tapes with him, though. We did a self-tape for The Beach Bum with Matthew McConaughey, and my dad overacts, doing an impression of Matthew McConaughey. And I was like, “This is terrible.” You studied theatre at Northwestern University for two years until leaving during your sophomore year. Why did you make that decision? I always kind of knew in the back of my head that I was ready to start working. I felt very ready to go. I don’t want to sound cringey, but I was very ambitious. When I got to college, I started auditioning all the time — taping auditions. And then I got Euphoria, and it just wasn’t realistic to be able to fly back and forth from Illinois every week. I haven’t fully put school off yet. I still maybe would like to go back at some point. Did you like it while you were there? Oh, yeah. I had a lot of fun, and I’m really glad I went. I was in a sorority — Tri Delt. And we went to football games and did tailgating, and I think that’s why I liked Northwestern, because it was very academic but we had a lot of fun. You’ve said that part of what appealed to you about doing Euphoria was the way the show represented obsessive compulsive disorder. What has your experience been with anxiety? Even though it makes work a lot more challenging sometimes for me, I really do everything I can to not let it get in the way. Even this interview, I’m in a full-blown panic the entire time. I get very flustered when I’m put on the spot or have to talk for a long time. I had really bad OCD in middle and high school. I’ve gone to OCD treatment. My parents were very supportive of me getting help and reading books about it and learning about mental health at a young age, and I think that was a big advantage for me. Obviously, I’m not done learning and it’s still a problem. But I think I’ve gotten to a place where I’m able to be more productive. But seeing Euphoria and having them talk about OCD and that pressure — I’d never seen it in a show where it felt so real and I felt so connected to it. How has the pandemic impacted your anxiety? Pretty badly. With surfaces — now they’re saying it’s not really spread that way, but that’s something I’m always thinking about anyway. As someone who is anxious or OCD, you’re constantly having the thoughts, but you’ve found a way to brush them aside and dismiss them. But when it starts to become a real concern, like now, and it’s in your face all the time, you can justify those thoughts. The last few weeks I’ve been stressed out, for sure. How do you cope with your anxiety? My parents are very big into meditation, so they’ve always told me to meditate. So the Calm app, Headspace … reality TV is another thing that makes me feel I can fully relax into something else and distract myself. Ru Paul’s Drag Race. I fall asleep to The Great British Bake Off, because it makes me feel super relaxed. 90 Day Fiance. I still can’t believe Lana was real. She didn’t even give David a two-handed hug. I say to people: “If you haven’t seen it, it’s the best reality show I’ve ever seen.” I can’t even believe what I’m watching. It feels so invasive, and it’s so insane. I watch every spinoff. Now that you’ve had three major projects come out in the span of a year, do you feel like you’re on your way to establishing yourself outside of your parents? (Apatow’s mother is the actress Leslie Mann.) I’m always thinking I need to keep going. I don’t know how to say this without sounding emo, but I’m pretty hard on myself. I should stop and be happy sometimes, but I’m very “onto the next” mindset. I look up to Lena Dunham and Phoebe Waller-Bridge because they act, write and direct. I also think of Emma Stone as someone I look up to — doing comedies and then super dramatic roles. I saw her in Cabaret in New York. To see that she can do all of that is really cool to me. And my dad has always been really encouraging of writing for myself. He’ll give me writing advice, even though I don’t always take it. He gives really good advice, even though I don’t like to tell him that. I instinctually have to be like, “I don’t agree with that,” but he’s right, most of the time.  — Los Angeles Times/TNS

The live entertainment industry is in deep trouble. Major music promoters and presenters like Live Nation Entertainment and AEG Live have laid off or furloughed a daunting percentage of their staffs in recent weeks, arguing their businesses were among the first to close and will be the last to reopen. Broadway and live performance across the country remains shuttered and, especially as the first round of the Paycheck Protection Program expires this month, job losses in nonprofit theaters and other arts organisations have been mounting. The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, for example, has seen its staff reduced from 262 to 55. Second City has furloughed a majority of its staffers. Other major job losses in Chicago and elsewhere have been happening more quietly, even as the theatre engages in a period of self-examination after widespread allegations of institutionalised racism. Meanwhile, often by claiming to be neutral presenters of diverse programming, Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services have been making record amounts of cash: Netflix reported $709 million in profits during the first quarter of 2020, more than double the previous year’s. As quarantined citizens widely relied on streamed dramatic entertainment to get through their lonely lockdowns — as revealing of the ongoing necessity of the arts to American life as at any point in history — Netflix also added a stunning 16 million new subscribers. You could argue that Netflix and its peers merely are reaping the rewards from meeting societal changes, or even that they deserve their luck. But this staggering disconnect between two closely related industries — one never more successful, the other mired in a veiled but existential economic crisis — has sparked new conversations about what those profiting from the current state of affairs owe those who are in trouble. Or, to put that more bluntly, should these streaming services be coughing up some cash to make sure the theatres they need to make their money don’t go bust? The argument, similar to the powerful case recently made by newspapers that Facebook and Google should compensate them for sharing their content, has been advanced by the director Sam Mendes and others in the United Kingdom. It points out that streaming giants like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon are reliant on live theatres for the development of new plays and playwrights, and for the training and cultivation of actors, designers and other creative artists. With massive resources available for purchasing content, these companies can, in essence, lie in wait and read reviews until a writer shows a level of mature talent following years of cultivation by a theatre, and then swoop in and steal that writer away. There are, of course, countless examples of writers moving from the theatre to running and writing shows for cable and streaming platforms: Tanya Saracho (Vida), Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Marisa Wegrzyn (The Liar), Ike Holter (Fosse/Verdon) and enough others to fill scores of paragraphs. Moreover, many of the actors in those and other shows honed their craft in one of the very theaters looking at enormous holes in its budget. In the past, this opportunity has been seen in individual terms and thus something desirable: a chance for poorly compensated playwrights or performers to finally make some real money in TV. That remains true, to a point. But the amount of money to be made, and the attractiveness of the gig, has diminished as some shows have been ordering fewer episodes and the market has become more fractured. In either case, theatres, as institutions, traditionally have received little or none of that money. All they have been able to do these last few Covid-dominated months is put out their own online content produced, in almost every case, without access to the very resources that would allow them to be competitive. You could argue the theatres don’t deserve it: most of them have not chosen to employ these artists but rather to do business with them as part of the gig economy, spending their money instead on high-priced administrators. And unions understandably don’t want their members to be obligated to share royalties for their own work. On the other hand, consider baseball: Major League teams fund minor-league affiliates, using them to develop emerging talent. Minor league teams are independently owned and operated but contractually affiliated with the majors, ensuring their stability and, in this moment, their quick recovery. A permanent relationship like that with a giant like Netflix is probably a bridge too far for many theatres; Chicago’s Goodman or Steppenwolf Theatres would not want to relegate themselves to the minor leagues or give up artistic control and there would be worries such a change would end up taking money out of artists’ pockets. Baseball’s farm system asserts a level of institutionalised discipline and standardisation that never would fly in the arts. And minor league players make little money compared to the paychecks in the majors. Still, there’s a strong business argument to be made for the streamers to ensure that the small but artistically mighty entities that have made the golden age of television possible don’t go belly-up. Broadway has done that for years through entities like the Shubert Foundation, a major funding of regional theater and of training programmes. The Covid-19 crisis has increased that moral imperative. This is, after all, a life-threatening crisis. Theatres, comedy clubs and independent music venues could not control nor anticipate the health crisis, nor the regulations that forced them to close. Those set up to pipe entertainment into the home got very lucky. Surely, it’s only fair for them to share some of that surplus cash with their longtime partners, just as insurance companies have returned a portion of their premiums to drivers losing their cars less. It’s doing the right thing. At minimum, it’s time for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and HBO Max to sponsor some virtual galas. It’s strange how rarely those names have been on the list of benefactors. Who has more reason?                     — Chicago Tribune /TNS

Critically acclaimed Pakistani music producer Kashan Admani, who has worked alongside Pakistan’s top music talent, has produced a musical ensemble, comprising international and Pakistani musicians, among them Grammy award winning artists.  The song, which carries anthemic undertones, and seeks to inspire and renew hope in face of the challenges facing the world in the year 2020, is appropriately called We Are One — a global musical collaboration that immediately reminds the listeners of We are the world.   Talking to Community, Kashan said, “Covid-19 has changed the way we used to live our lives. Millions of people are getting hopeless due to the economic crisis and social isolation. The only thing that can keep their spirits uplifted is music.  We Are One/Aae Khuda is for all of us — the global population affected by the pandemic. It is about giving hope to people and giving them a message that we are all in it together and we shall come out of it sooner or later.”  He added: “It was a wonderful experience working on this project because musicians from all over the world joined in and all of them have a completely different sound. Using them all together was a challenge but a memorable experience. This is one-of-a-kind project initiated in Pakistan and I’m glad we’ve been able to pull it off.”  The song entitled Ae Khuda — We Are One is a joint collaboration among international and Pakistani artists from 40 countries across the world. It features Grammy Award-winning American violinist Charlie Bisharat, who has earlier played for the soundtracks of countless Hollywood movies including Titanic and Transformers; Grammy nominee Simon Philips; bass virtuoso Stu Hamm; and percussionist Gumbi Ortiz from the US; multiple award winning Russian guitarist Roman Miroshnichenko; and Dr Palash Sen, the lead vocalist of Indian pop/rock band Euphoria and Taylor Simpson, American drummer for Junoon, to name a few. The song also features famous Pakistani artists Najam Sheraz, Faakhir, Farhad Humayun, Maha Ali Kazmi, Bilal Ali (Kashmir The Band) and Farooq Ahmed (Aaroh). Talking to Community, Maha Ali Kazmi described her experience as “a dream come true”. “To have worked alongside such highly acclaimed musicians from all over the world is something very special and close to my heart,” she said, adding, “the song instills a sense of hope, bringing so many musicians from such diverse backgrounds and geographical locations, to reinforce the message that, while we seek God’s blessings, we must unite in our efforts, as one human family, to face our challenges. This is our shared destiny”.

This Eid was different as people were not able to meet each other because of social distancing, which is why many  for social media to stay connected and exchange Eid greetings.  Children tend to be the centre of attention during all Eid celebrations. They receive Eid gifts, new clothes, and go out for picnics with family during the holidays. But this year was different for them as well. In order to entertain children during Eid, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO) arranged a special musical performance titled ‘A Musical Gift for Children: Peter and the Wolf – Sergei Prokofiev.’ As the musicians could not come together due to the stay-home orders, they performed at their homes and a video was prepared.  “Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra kicked off its Eid celebration programme by releasing videos of their everyday performance of Peter and the Wolf, a famous symphonic fairytale written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936 for children,” said Kurt Meister, QPO executive director. He added: “The story of Peter and the Wolf is told by a narrator, with the orchestra musically illustrating the events that unfold for the audience. The piece is one of Prokofiev’s most popular works, and one of the most frequently performed works of all classical repertoire.” The executive director further said: “The Philharmonic’s version of the piece appealed to children from all nationalities, with Arabic narration provided by Hussain Abdulhabib al-Jahwashi. The piece was conducted by Renchang Fu, and also included English subtitles for non-Arabic speakers. The presentation featured performances from the Shadow Theatre and children’s paintings. The entire story spanned over six consecutive days, with a video performance released daily starting from the first day of Eid.” The story is about a boy named Peter who lives with his grandfather. Grandfather does not want Peter going out of their garden because there are wolves around. One day Peter goes out of the garden gate and sees a duck swimming in a nearby pond. The duck is arguing with a little bird. Peter sees a cat approaching and warns the little bird who flies up into a tree. Just then, Peter’s grandfather comes outside and scolds Peter for going out of the garden. They go back into the garden and grandfather locks the gate. Soon a wolf does appear from the woods. The cat climbs a tree to escape the wolf, but the duck is swallowed by the hungry wolf. Peter gets a rope and climbs over the garden wall into a tree. The bird distracts the wolf by flying over his head while Peter lowers a noose and catches the wolf by his tail. Hunters then come out of the woods and fire at the wolf but Peter stops them. They all bring the wolf to the zoo and at the end, the duck can be heard quacking in the wolf’s stomach. Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was born in Sontsovska (Ukraine) on 23 April 1891. He received his first musical lessons from his pianist mother. At age six he started writing small piano pieces and by age nine he wrote The Giant, an opera for children soon to be followed by three other operas. He composed his most popular works such as Peter and the Wolf (1936). The second part of the Eid programme featured a medley of well-known patriotic Qatari songs. The performance included rearranged traditional songs such as Eashi Ya Qatar, Aeeny Qatar and Ana Qatar. Critically acclaimed Qatari artistes such as Nasser Sahim, Bader Alrayes, Ghanim Shaheen, Khaled Salem, and Aeal lent their talents to the performance. The pieces were arranged by Nasser Sahim and includes performances from Qatar Music Academy, Qatar Academy students and musicians from the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra. QPO resumed balcony concerts that were started before Ramadan after outbreak of Covid-19. The musicians performed famous musical symphonies from outside their homes all over Doha to celebrate Eid with their neighbours.

People of diverse backgrounds and cultures have praised the tireless efforts of Qatar in curbing the novel coronavirus pandemic recently. The minimum number of deaths by Covid-19 itself shows the success of the multiple steps taken by the government. Russian violinist Dimitri Torchinsky also commends the strict measures taken by the government of Qatar for the safety of both citizens and residents. Born in the former USSR, Dimitri spent his childhood in Moscow and moved to the UK in his teens. “Most of my 20’s I spent in the beautiful city of Vienna, Austria. I have spent my last 11 years in Qatar working with the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO) as a violinist. I consider myself lucky to have loved every place where I lived. Each new country presented new challenges that stimulated me in a variety of ways. Back in 2008 I hardly could imagine that Doha would become my home for such a significant part of my life. This is the place where all my children go to school, where I learnt how to drive, bought my first car, turned 30 but most importantly I made wonderful friends. Doha is such a melting pot! Nowhere else did I have such a variety among friends – different nationalities, different cultures, and religions – all living together and learning from each other, finding a home in Qatar. Within the QPO we formed the Doha String Quartet some 10 years ago, which had been a wonderful addition to my orchestral life.” The experience of staying at home is not easy for Dimitri who loves going out and playing violin in orchestra. “Life as professional performer is perhaps the exact opposite of a socially distanced artiste or a composer. So it was a major challenge to get accustomed to the new way of life – recording from home, teaching students at Qatar Music Academy, attending recordings with colleagues, having to wear masks and sitting far away. This all has become the norm for some time. “Not being able to go to the beach with friends, or at all, for that matter is a great pity, because my family adores our trips to the north of Qatar. On a lighter note, I so wish to go to the barber’s salon. I managed to cut my son’s hair in an acceptable way but struggled quite a bit with my own. “I am father of three children. It is definitely a challenge to have them around the whole day every day. This gives us a brand new perspective. We have also realised that how important schools are when it comes to childcare and education. Having the freedom to work at own pace and not have to time it around zoom classes, lunches, tantrums and walks around the compound, I wonder if their teachers are smiling as they read this. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all teachers who nurture our kids at schools. On the other hand, this gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend extra time with the kiddos, see them learn new things in front of our eyes. Struggle and succeed with them together.” The Russian composer however thinks Qatar has taken all the necessary steps to ensure the safety and well-being of all people. “Seriously, I am very grateful to Qatar for taking such proactive stance against Covid-19. I am sure the situation could have been much worse if it wasn’t for their tremendous efforts. I applaud all the front line workers that are working day and night, keeping us safe and helping the sick.” Dimitri has been witnessing and experiencing the spirit of Ramadan for 12 years in Qatar. “In the run-up to this year’s holy month, we already could not dine at restaurants, I almost didn’t feel any practical difference once Ramadan started. In fact, I tried fasting for a few days along with my Muslim friends. Life with no regular schedule is completely normal for a professional musician. Changing rehearsal times, late night recordings, Friday rehearsals, concerts finishing late – that’s all pretty standard for us. Having children at home and having to juggle with remote work gave rise to a very structured day. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a crisp routine.”

Though social changes caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic can be burdensome, some people find their ally in change instead of an enemy. Romanian violinist Lorena Manescu sees a great unifying force in faith and art as both can make people strong and united during these testing times. In a recent interview with Community, Lorena, who is a part of the team of musicians with Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO), shared about her time at home and her experience of Ramadan in Qatar. Introducing herself, the violinist said: “Besides my passion for music I have always been fascinated by the Islamic culture and the Middle East. That motivated me to join the QPO since it was founded in 2008 and I move to Qatar.” As far as her time spending at home, Lorena is all praise for QPO leadership for turning the challenge into an opportunity. “After 12 years of exhilarating music experiences our institution and the entire world face unprecedented difficulties. It is obvious that concert halls were among the first to shut down as a measure to contain the virus outbreak. Although the doors of concert halls may be temporary closed, we remain faithful to our audience. “The leadership of the orchestra wisely transformed the challenges into opportunities through unconventional performances from our balconies and through the newly opened horizons of the digital world.” The musician herself has not perceived the change as a sort of adversary. “Change can be burdensome but I try to find in it an ally, not an enemy. I continue working from home: practising violin, recording videos and online teaching students from the Qatar Music Academy. Being under lockdown pushed me towards new experiences, widened my possibilities of expression, acquired new hobbies (such as cooking and indoors gardening), offered me the opportunity to spend more time with the beloved ones, read and participate in interesting online seminars.” Lorena has been enjoying her music while playing from the balcony of her house. She treats these home concerts as homage to the victims of the coronavirus. “I enjoyed very much performing from my balcony. These concerts symbolised my way of showing gratitude to the medical staff and volunteers saving lives and containing Covid-19, homage to the victims of pandemic, wars or poverty all over the world and a prayer for harmony on Earth. My neighbours were thrilled to attend these concerts from their own homes. Some of them witnessed live classical music for the first time. Their appreciation was very rewarding.” As she has been living in Qatar for a long time, Lorena has been enjoying the atmosphere during the holy month of Ramadan. “Spending Ramadan in Qatar is for me always a captivating experience. It seems that a sort of cosmical magic descends on Earth, fills people’s hearts with empathy and humbleness. I love the call for prayer at twilight, the little lanterns and decorations. What an exquisite blend of sounds, colours and scents! Socialising naturally contributes to the festive atmosphere. I admire how people from the most various backgrounds surrender to the sacred serene energy, trying to better themselves.” The violinist sees her recent participation in the short video made involving Qatar Foundation school children celebrating Garangao a fascinating experience. “I think right now humanity is numbed. Our reality has changed overnight and vulnerability rules over a world that’s already shattered by cognitive dissonance. Despite that, the highlight of all my Ramadan experiences so far  was a recording I participated in about a week ago together with some of QPO musicians and Qatar Foundation students from home. It showcases a traditional Qatari song, featuring Qatari children wearing beautiful and colourful ceremonial clothes accompanied by the philharmonic musicians. As a Qatar Foundation and Qatar Philharmonic initiative, the recording was specially created to celebrate Garangao night, reach out to a vast number of people and invite them to stay at home for the good of everybody. “Being part of that project reminded me the tremendous unifying power of faith and art. It gave me a profound sense of belonging to the community and strengthened my mission to deliver soulfulness and cultural enrichment.”

From the son of the iconic Raj Kapoor to the romantic hero of the Seventies to the father of new-age star Ranbir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor was a magnetic personality. He lived a life in a way that lives up to the title of his autobiography, Khullam Khulla. Here we take a look at the journey of the legendary actor through the years: 1952 Rishi, the second child of actor-filmmaker Raj Kapoor and Krishna Raj, is born on September 4. 1955 Little Rishi, lovingly called as Chintu was just three when he faced the camera for the first time, in the iconic rain song Pyar hua iqrar hua of the film Shree 420, featuring his father Raj Kapoor with Nargis. During his last interview with IANS, asked if he remembered the shoot, Rishi replied: “Nah! I hold hand with other two boys and walked. Baaki kahan yaad rahega, bohat chhota tha main.” 1970 Mera Naam Joker marks his debut as a young boy, as the younger version of the protagonist clown Raju, essayed by his father Raj Kapoor. He bagged the National Award as Best Child Artist. 1973 He makes his debut as a Bollywood hero in Bobby, a teenage love story that also featured Dimple. The film is a superhit. 1980 Rishi marries Neetu Singh, his co-star of many a hit. Also, this is the year of Karz, a milestone in his career that cemented his image as a romantic hero, with superhit songs like Dard-e-dil and Om Shanti Om. In September 1983 He appears in Coolie alongside Amitabh Bachchan after earlier collaborations such as Kabhie Kabhie, Amar Akbar Anthony. 1988 Bollywood loses its ultimate showman Raj Kapoor. Rishi lost more than his father — he lost his mentor and his favourite film director. Rishi was starring in Kapoor’s senior final film Henna back then. The film would be completed by Rishi’s older brother Randhir Kapoor in 1991. 1999 Rishi Kapoor turns director for the first and last time with Aa Ab Laut Chalen, starring Rajesh Khanna, Aishwarya Rai, Akshaye Khanna and Suman Ranganathan. The film fails to create fireworks at the box office. 2010 Rishi Kapoor joins Twitter in January, and is an instant cyber sensation. Over the past decade he had been, by turns, regaling, informing, and triggering off debates routinely with his blunt statements on social media. 2012 The actor, mostly known for his loverboy roles in his heydays, turns villain as Rauf Lala in Agneepath. The performance remains one of his best till date. He repeats villainy again the next year in D-Day. 2016 His role of a merry-spirited grandpa obsessed with Mandakini of Ram Teri Ganga Maili in the film Kapoor & Sons was a comic delight across generations. 2017 Rishi pens his autobiography Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored. True to his nature, the writer Rishi unveils unadulterated emotions and pours his heart out in the book. 2018 He is diagnosed with bone marrow cancer and he flies off to New York for a year’s treatment. Incidentally on October 1, 2018, Rishi’s mother, Krishna Raj passes away. For fans, the year is special because Rishi Kapoor united with Amitabh Bachchan for what would be their last time in 102 Not Out. In the comedy drama, Rishi played the 75-year-old son of a man who is 102. 2019 The actor’s last release, The Body, opens on November 13. The film co-starring Emraan Hashmi and Sobhita Dhulipala fares below expectations. 2020 Rishi Kapoor breathes his last at 8.45am on April 30. He is 67. The Rishi Kapoor you didn’t know Open, frank and unfiltered are some of the words used describe Rishi Kapoor’s life, but there are some aspects of his life which might have evaded public eye. A day after he was hospitalised in Mumbai, Rishi Kapoor is no more. He passed away yesterday after a two-year battle with leukaemia. He was 67. Here is some trivia from the multifaceted life that he led.  Rishi Kapoor’s love for food, especially non-vegetarian food, is not something that the world doesn’t know about. But there was a place he had to turn vegetarian, and that was when he visited Chennai because he was coming after a darshan at Tirupati.  Rishi Kapoor had a thing for agarbati (incense stick), and used to carry packs wherever he went. His favourite fragrance was Nag Champa.   The world lovingly calls him Chintu ji, and in 2009 he even starred in a film by that name. But he hated his nickname, and once took to Twitter to share his old picture and expressed his views on nicknames, saying “parents must never nickname a child”.  There are several reports suggesting that he used sweaters to look hot.  He did two international movies — Don’t Stop Dreaming in 2007 and Sambar Salsa in 2008.  He struggled with depression at one point of his career due to back to back failures.  His songs are evergreen, and still loved by one and all. But Rishi personally never liked many of his songs.  He admitted that there was a time when he was a male chauvinist.  He always admitted to his flaws. The actor once confessed buying a film award.  In his book Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored, he claimed his father Raj Kapoor was involved with other women even while he was married to Krishna Raj Kapoor. — IANS

The abrupt change is already evident in almost all walks of social life since the outbreak of Covid-19. Some experts around the world suggest it may take five years to make up for the changes that have taken place in five weeks. Like any other industry or field, the film industry is also hard hit by the pandemic. With all planned film releases postponed, film festivals cancelled, movie theatres closed and almost zero production of new projects, the industry has already started undergoing a drastic change. Further with social distancing and the switch to digital platforms, the entertainment industry experts foresee a long lasting, may be permanent, paradigm shift in the industry. The animation genre of the film is however, at an advantage as the bulk of production works is carried out through computer technology. To have an expert opinion on the impact of Covid-19 on the global film industry and prospects of animation films, Community interviewed Fatma Hassan Alremaihi, Chief Executive Officer of Doha Film Institute (DFI). Alremaihi was born and raised in Doha where she earned her degree in English Literature from Qatar University. “I started my professional career working with the Amiri Diwan. In 2009, I joined the organising team of the first international film festival in Qatar. In many ways, the move fuelled my passion for film, storytelling and the industry at large. Contributing to the development of local creative talent and building key relationships with the regional and global film industry felt like my calling.” Alremaihi was appointed the CEO of the DFI in 2014, a capacity in which she oversees the strategic direction of the institute and work to strengthen Qatar’s position within the international film community. “It has been a rewarding experience for me as CEO of the institute to meet and interact with the world cinema’s finest creative talent, promote cross-cultural exchange, and see the bold new energy of filmmakers in the Arab world and beyond. “I also get to do what I love most — supporting new voices and taking our stories to the world through our diverse initiatives, including Qumra and the Ajyal Film Festival. I believe in the power of film in bringing about real change and empowering underrepresented voices to share their perspectives through the medium of film.” The CEO foresees a long lasting impact of the pandemic on the film industry. “All global industries, including film and arts, are bound to feel the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic long after the day-to-day risk subsides. Cinemas and film theatres have been closed, festivals have been cancelled or postponed, film releases have been delayed, and the global box office dropped by billions of dollars.” The film enthusiast also sees a change in movie screening platforms and consumer behaviour. “We are also witnessing a lot of experimentation around new formats that have raised questions in the industry such as:  • How to best manage conversations online? • Which digital platforms to use? • Is it preferable to create an intimate experience or community-wide initiatives? • Should we replicate existing screening platforms or create something entirely new? “Exploring new formats will always bring its own challenges and the initial delivery may not be perfect, but we are all part of this experiment and, I believe, it has given us a more forgiving and open-minded perspective on each other’s and our own work.” Regarding film festivals and events, the DFI head said: “Film festivals and organisers around the globe are faced with questions on how to cope and circumvent the current circumstances. A shift to an online format may be sensible, but must be weighed against the core mission, objectives and nature of the event. We will assess all options for the institute’s upcoming Ajyal Film Festival later this year, which is primarily an audience-driven festival, to preserve the nature of the event.” Looking to the future of film industry further, she said: “We should never forget the lessons that this time will undoubtedly imprint within our society and in the way we create films in the future. From an industry perspective, lasting change is inevitable, but I believe that we are witnessing a global spirit of collaboration and solidarity in finding solutions, particularly amongst cultural institutions such as DFI, who share a common goal to help and support creative talents and filmmakers, while keeping audiences engaged and connected during times of isolation. “We have continued to collaborate with like-minded institutions and friends of DFI, who are spread around the world but inspire us with a common spirit of collaboration that we hope to carry into the future.” When asked if the health crisis offers an opportunity for animation films to boom, the CEO said: “Animation and motion capture, the new frontiers in cinema, highlights the evolution of this rapidly-evolving technology which has opened doors to new and unlimited possibilities in content creation. “Animation filmmakers are still able to continue their productions since location is secondary when the bulk of the work is delivered via computer technology. I think the current situation has offered a rare opportunity to animation films to outrace their live film counterparts – as long as social distancing measures prevail – and we are witnessing an interesting creative shift towards animation as a film form that continues to inspire filmmakers and live on during this time of crisis. It will be interesting to see how this will impact upcoming film releases in the coming year and the industry at large.” In response to the question about how DFI can help the creative individuals who are interested in producing animation films, Alremaihi said: “Even though the Qatari animation industry is still in the formative stages, the interest the medium has gained from local filmmakers signals strong growth over the coming years and we are confident they will pave the way for a major presence in the global market. “DFI’s initiatives and programmes are geared towards developing Qatar’s film industry. As a very young nation in terms of filmmaking, we are open to greater creative freedoms and possibilities that may not be present in more established national industries. Through our funding initiatives of DFI Grants (Waves 98 won the Palme d’Or for Short Films at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival), co-financing (Academy Award nominated Loving Vincent; Salma Hayek’s The Prophet) and Qatari Film Fund (1001 Days won the Distinction Award for Short Films at the 2019 Athens Animefest), we have supported 22 local and international animation projects to promote, strengthen and expand animation as a cinematic art form in Qatar and the wider region, and help support the development of a dynamic animation community. “We have also partnered with leading international establishments such as GOBELINS and the VIA University College Denmark’s premier animation school — The Animation Workshop (TAW), to provide the best in knowledge and resources to the Qatari community, and to strengthen their skills in an industry that is undergoing a fascinating transformation.” She added: “Our core mission revolves around offering opportunities to emerging talents through our widespread industry programmes and development workshops to hone their practical skills — including our most recent ‘Stop Motion Animation 101’ workshop, which will be held entirely online and is open to film enthusiasts between the ages of 8 and 17.”  

“The tactile quality of traditional techniques of natural dyeing in a modern context brings a sense of mindfulness that I find both inspiring and illuminating. I enjoy working with my hands directly with the materials. It is very meditative.” So says Canadian national Paula Bouffard, a textile designer and a natural dyer. She created Touche textile as a creative outlet soon after she started living in the Gulf region. Community engaged with Paula to discern about her passion for natural colours. Please tell us about your journey so far. I was born and grew up in Montreal, Canada. I was a rather solitary, introvert and creative child. These features still define me today. Three women marked my early life. My mother had studied decorative arts. She has always been a decorator in spirit. Every room, in every home that we lived in was worthy of a magazine feature. Given this context, painting, creating wall effects, sewing curtains, pillows, varnishing custom built units, and, very importantly, shopping for rugs, antiques and vintage treasures was a big part of my childhood. The second woman was my maternal aunt, who married a Turk and moved to Istanbul. Her husband, the son of two renowned Turkish artists, ran a Yazma (traditional Turkish block printing) studio using the motifs and designs painted by his parents. The third was my grandmother, who was also a major influence. She awakened my sense of a woman’s world, particularly its domestic aspect and taught me how to knit, my entry point into textiles. At university, I got into linguistics by chance. Studying human language and cognition appealed to both my logical and aesthetic sides. I completed my BA, MA and PhD degrees successively and immediately landed an academic position in the French Studies Department at Concordia University in Montreal. I held the position of associate professor of French language and linguistics until I moved to the Gulf with my husband and our son. What propelled you towards textile designing and natural dyeing? A change in career was not within the planning horizon; but expatriation, for family or other reasons, became life changing. I founded Touche textile in 2014 a few months after I started living in the Gulf region. It began as a personal project which involved making my own textiles to decorate our new home. When I started, I did not know how to sew or print, as most of my textile work until that point had revolved around knitting. I found working with different textures and materials both challenging and gratifying. Learning how to translate my drawings into printing blocks, and later into silkscreens, opened a whole world of different patterns allowing my surface design work to develop.  The idea of shifting my practice from synthetic inks to natural colours began to develop in my mind in the summer of 2018. I was in the quiet, green and colourful countryside of Quebec thinking about ways to work closer to nature. I started experimenting with foraged plants from surrounding fields and food scraps from my kitchen counter and was struck by the unparalleled beauty of the hues I was creating.  When I returned to Doha after that summer break I decided to continue experimenting with natural dyes focusing on extracting colours from selected pre-consumer food waste that are well known for their dyeing properties. I started the Alwan Qatar project, through which I would collect bio waste from local restaurants and supermarkets to make colours. I incorporate these colours into my textile work with the hope to raise awareness about waste and inspire, although at a very small scale, global action about pollution and climate change. What do you love most about your work as a textile designer? My practice embraces a broad range of techniques spanning knitting, patchwork, printmaking, sewing, stitching, weaving, and natural dyeing. The tactile quality of these traditional techniques in a modern context brings a sense of mindfulness that I find both inspiring and illuminating. I enjoy working with my hands directly with the materials. It is very meditative. Creating objects that are personal, authentic, and made with concern for quality and intention, is an antidote to the world of overproduction we live in today. I consider it a privilege. I enjoy experimenting, making my own colours from foraged material. I love the idea that a textile creation starts in a field of wildflowers or in a forest of evergreens. Each plant gives a different hue, and each fabric takes it differently. Therefore, there is always an element of surprise. Research and experimentation with botany and natural fibres have taken my textile practice to another level. The science and know-how related to the art and craft of natural dyeing suits well my scientific mind. Foraging plants and growing flowers specifically for natural dyeing feels very curative for both the soul and the body, especially in the contemporary context of global ecological degradation. I consider design to be not only about making beautiful objects, but also about making thoughtful ones. My work is meant to be a statement against the throwaway culture of consumerism. When struggling in your creativity, what do you do? Creativity is energy! I place strong emphasis on leading a healthy lifestyle. I cook food that keeps me feeling light and fueled, get good sleep and go outside daily to jog, bike or simply walk. Discipline is an important part of art work. I keep my textile design process experimental, tactile and playful. Like everyone, I sometimes feel stuck or unhappy with what I am making, but I keep at it. I manipulate fabric with my hands, juxtapose colours, shapes and textures until that feeling disappears, and my work turns into something I like. How would you best define natural dyeing? What is distinct about it? Natural dyeing serves to change the colour of some material by using a substance that comes from a natural source. Natural colours can be obtained from rock minerals, insects, lichen and plants. Colours derived from nature have been around for millennia. In fact, up until the mid-19th century, colours were all obtained from natural sources. Making natural dyes from plants is a local, small scale and seasonal process. Tree barks, roots, and leaves are all products of our natural environment. They are affected by soil, climate, time of harvest, and extraction methods. Synthetic dyes and synthetic fibres are manufactured in response to the growing demand by textile mass production. As a result, natural dyeing became obsolete and has nearly disappeared.  It survived in the West thanks to the artistes of the Arts and Crafts Movement who stood for traditional craftsmanship and favoured the pure shades and subtle varieties of natural dyes in their creations. Recently, the market for natural dyes in the fashion industry has witnessed resurgence. Growing numbers of consumers are becoming more concerned about the health and environmental impact of synthetic dyes, and there is an increasing demand for naturally dyed products.  What is distinct about natural dyeing in my practice is the fact that colour is no longer something that I shop for at the art shop, or something that I mix from pre-existing colours that I bought. Colour is something that happens in the dye bath that I prepare. Avocado skins, for example, can yield a blush pink very similar to the trendy millennial pink we see on the runway; but it can also yield a peachier hue, and even sometimes true beige. Accepting what comes from nature is a big part of the process which makes it very distinct in my view. What has influenced your creative work the most? Do you follow some particular designers? My aesthetics is deeply rooted in my homeland with an eclectic mix of the urban vibes of Montreal city and the majestic nature of the Quebec rural area where I spend my summers. My work is also influenced by my travels, especially to Turkey and Morocco, two countries where I also feel at home because I have family. I have lived in Doha for five years, and I can see how the colours of the country and the lines and shapes of its rich architectural landscape find their way into my work. My work is set at the intersection between craft, design, fashion and art. Sources of influence are therefore many. There are many designers who inspire me and whose work I admire. I can name Arounna Khounnoraj, who runs Bookhou in Toronto, Canada; Kiva Motnik, founder of Thompson Street Studio in New York; and Lotta Jansdotter, textile designer and author. Dutch textile artiste Claudy Jongstra is another one. She is a material artiste. In fashion, I have been enjoying Eileen Fisher’s simple and elegant designs for years. How would you define your stay and work in Qatar? What prospects of textile designing do you see here? Qatar has been rich in terms of opportunities. As soon as I arrived I joined Qatart, a community of artistes, designers and makers who focus on handmade. I have taught different workshops at Katara Art Studios and with Hobby House Qatar to communicate and share my experience in textile techniques. Through the Alwan Qatar Project, I gave a series of short lectures on sustainability with a focus on making colours using bio waste. I have also taught natural dyes in the Community Program of VCU Art, Qatar.  The element that makes Qatar’s emerging creative industry initiatives particularly interesting, in my view, is the country’s commitment to sustainability. Prospects for textile design are excellent both locally and regionally. What are your future plans?  I would love to travel to India where the textile history is like no other. Each region has its set of native plants; so there is always something to learn. I dream of creating a dye garden in Doha, a place where people from all occupations and age groups, including schoolchildren, could observe dye plants as they grow, and connect with the process of making colours from local organic matter.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has offered many people more spare time as they work from home. It is up to individuals how they utilise the free time they have on their hands. Perhaps more than anyone else, artistic individuals will explore unique ideas and create something new in their respective genres. Razwan Bobby Sarwar is a British national of Pakistani origin. He is a composer, pianist and head of music at Sherborne Qatar. The musician has been working on a project to recreate a famous song of Michael Jackson to motivate and inspire people during the coronavirus outbreak and social distancing. Razwan has been performing and teaching from a very young age and created his first music album at the age of 15. He started by learning the tabla and then continued to learn drums, keyboard and finally piano. He deems himself fortunate to be surrounded by many musical styles and musicians from around the world.  His education as a music composer, educator and marketer continues to develop and support Razwan’s career. “I have continued to create and develop musical projects as an artist and as an educator. It includes conducting at the Royal Albert Hall (London) with over 1,000 pupils, developing an outstanding music department in various schools in England and at Sherborne Qatar. Our school choir has become the talk of the town with their versatility. “I have organised events and projects all over the world and have been fortunate to also perform and conduct with many international artistes. I have a number of albums, singles and music jingles currently in the market and also have appeared on TV and Radio.” In Qatar he and his choir have had the privilege to perform at Katara, Mall of Qatar, Sheikh Faisal Museum and Qatar National Convention Center. “My recent fame is a composition that was taken by the BBC to air with the World Athletics Championship in Doha. Millions of people around the world had the opportunity to hear this.” As far as spending his time at home, Razwan has been busy in continuing to teach and encourage his students to stay positive and develop their musical knowledge and skills. “I have created a YouTube channel for my students to see the wonderful learning that has been going on at home. I am also working towards creative ways to teach music online and how to continue the passion of learning. Personally, I am also continuing to develop musical compositions and reflecting on this challenging moment.” He added: “It’s important to stay at home and adhere to the rules and regulations in Qatar. Keep safe and healthy and the most important of all is to stay positive and keep smiling. This crisis will pass and we need to stay strong as a community.” Razwan is working on many projects with Kidzania, Haydee Soul, a professional musician and composer; Katara, Mall of Qatar and with various organisations. ‘My recent composition Tumhi Ho has crossed over a million views – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erhC7aBfX7U” Razwan is also working on many new compositions to inspire and motivate the community. “I feel music is a way to lift one’s energy. I have created a wonderful project with international artistes in Doha and aim to showcase the project in November. This will be a blend of different genres and styles of music. I am also working on to create a new version of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s famous quwali Tu kuja maan kuja. He is further working on a project to redo a famous song by Michael Jackson to lift the spirit of people during hard times. “I have also done an arrangement of an Arabic song and working on a world fusion song with Rodrigo Alexandre Aguilera, international song writer and composer; and Haydee Soul, a professional musician and composer.” Finally, the musician thanked all the health professionals who are at the frontline of this pandemic and the Qatar Government for providing the care and support to the community. 

In the dozen years since Lucas Papierniak first scouted Bali, Indonesia, for its tuna fishing, the seafood supplier has built a thriving business shipping poke cubes to hundreds of restaurants and sashimi-grade yellowfin to high-end sushi bars in Los Angeles and New York. But almost immediately after lockdowns were announced last month to slow the spread of the coronavirus, orders for his fish came to a stop. One East Coast customer cancelled a purchase of two 45,000-pound containers of poke cubes valued at about half a million dollars.  “Business just died,” said Papierniak, whose company is based in Hawaii. “We had to figure out how to keep paying our fishermen.” The 40-year-old father of four, including a newborn, started scrambling for ways to keep 5,000 fishermen and 350 factory workers on his payroll. His distributor in downtown Los Angeles suggested tapping into the extraordinarily busy grocery industry by supplying tuna steaks. The change in business keeps him open, but each day is a struggle; tuna steaks command a fraction of the price of sashimi. Even if restaurants were to reopen in the near future, Papierniak estimates it would take three months to restart his supply chain. “This isn’t going to blow over once shelter-in-place is lifted,” he said. The coronavirus pandemic is short-circuiting the intricate network of producers and suppliers like Papierniak needed to power the global food system. It affects everything from caviar to apple juice and from Michelin-grade restaurants to the shopkeeper selling nuts and canned goods in a village in India. Restaurants, an industry where Americans devote more than half their annual food budget, are out of action. Cargo freight and ports are operating well below normal capacity. And the labour that propels the harvesting, packing and delivery of food can’t return to full force until conditions are safe. The crisis has upset the palates of consumers in richer countries who are accustomed to eating whatever and whenever they want thanks to synchronised, rapidly moving economic designs that can make all manner of food appear, including out-of-season blueberries from the Southern Hemisphere. “The system has evolved to be highly efficient; able to get food from Asia or South America onto the grocery store shelves within days,” said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and the former chief economist at the US Department of Agriculture. “Now we have all these things gone from stores in the US. I lived in Mali for two years in the ‘70s and the grocery stores were always that way. It’s striking if nothing else.” Glauber said supermarkets weren’t designed to suddenly absorb all the spending on food that normally takes place at restaurants. Whether the scenes of sparsely stocked shelves worsens into a genuine food shortage will depend on the length of the pandemic and whether nations can refrain from protectionism, he added. Already Vietnam, the world’s third-largest exporter of rice, suspended sales to foreign buyers. Kazakhstan banned exports of flour. And the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, which also includes Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, halted exports of rye, soybeans and some flour. Glauber said the bans were mostly symbolic, to ease concerns about shortages at home. Global grain stocks, he added, were high enough to weather a months-long disruption. That doesn’t mean other food sectors aren’t feeling the pain. The virus, as it has done in the lives and neighbourhoods it has swept through, has forced new reckonings. Dairy farmers in the US and Canada are reportedly dumping millions of gallons of milk because they can no longer supply schools and restaurants. The supply of apple juice to the US is in jeopardy because of delays at Chinese ports, according to Mintec, a commodities research firm that estimates two-thirds of the kid-friendly beverage consumed by Americans originates from China. California almond growers are struggling to get their product into their top export market, India. Ports there are in disarray, prompting some to declare force majeure, as strict lockdown measures have left many migrant workers at home. “It’s difficult to see how the national and state governments (in India) are going to get the machine going again,” said Richard Waycott, president and chief executive of the Almond Board of California. “A lot of merchandise is still on the water.” A prolonged interruption in shipments could be costly for the $5.5 billion California almond industry. Exports account for more than two-thirds of the almonds shipped by the state last year. Farmers aren’t able to calibrate their herds to adjust for changes in foreign demand or, as in today’s case, the near absence of the restaurant industry. Starting with breeding, it can take up to 18 months to prepare a herd for market. “Biology prevents producers from instantly responding to price changes,” said Lee Schulz, a livestock economist at Iowa State University. “We don’t have the ability to slow down production.” Processing plants designed to serve restaurants and other food service businesses also aren’t all equipped to prepare and package pork for grocery aisles, which require smaller portions and often different cuts. In another sign of how the outbreak has disrupted the food business, once-unpopular items are now back in vogue. Demand for beans is skyrocketing because their long shelf life is coveted during times of uncertainty. Goya Foods Inc., the New Jersey brand synonymous with canned beans, reported demand quadrupling at grocery stores. Demand for vitamin C pushed the price of frozen orange juice concentrate in commodities markets up 25% in late February — this after the beverage faced years of decline in the face of growing competition and declining interest in traditional breakfasts. Even canned tuna has made a big comeback. Thai Union Group, owner of Chicken of the Sea, saw a 25% surge in share value on the Thai Stock Exchange in mid-March as cans of its signature product were scooped up by shoppers. The coronavirus is changing the way the world feeds itself.                      — Los Angeles Times/TNS

Canadian clinical psychologist and professor Paul TP Wong said, “Adversity is an opportunity for creativity, because it forces one to dig deeper and discover something new about oneself”. It is obvious that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus and resultant social distancing phenomenon is a kind of adversity that can push individuals to come up with novel ideas and ingenuity. Anjali Anil is a Doha-based girl, who is currently studying in India away from her parents. An alumna of MES Indian School, Doha, she along with a friend has come out with an interesting Instagram story for children on the pandemic. Currently a final year architecture student at Holy Crescent College of Architecture in Kerala, Anjali recently communicated with Community via e-mail sharing how she and her friend came across the idea and converted it into an interesting story. Talking about herself, she said: “I’ve always been an avid reader since the time I can remember, and of late, I have been trying my luck at content creation and creative writing. Recently, one such trial with short story writing along with my friend Arjun Sankar led to the creation of character Little Diya and her battle against a pack of deadly monsters she calls Kovynintee.” Regarding the story-line, Anjali said: “A very confused Little Diya is suddenly confined to the bounds of her home along with her parents, who are unusually not going for work, and are constantly nagging her to wash her hands. Diya’s mother finally sits down to tell her the story of a gang of monsters running around scaring people and how she can fight them by staying indoors and protecting herself using a potion called ‘sanitiser’ and a special mask that repels these villains.” When asked how they developed the story idea, she said: “This story was a joint venture spurred forth by Arjun, who created the vibrant illustrations for the short. Arjun, a fellow Holy Crescent graduate, is a practicing architect. Parallelly, he has been honing his artistic skills since his school days and is currently focused on character design and storytelling. “The story of Little Diya came up when Arjun sent me a video of his kid niece passionately expressing her views on the coronavirus and about how it must be chased away as soon as possible. We found it hilarious at first but then thought of it as an opportunity to view the whole situation from a child’s perspective. While the news today is practically overflowing with all things Covid-19, children may seem lost and confused by the sudden change in their daily lives.” She further said: “This brought us to visualise the exchange between a mother and her little one explaining how and why it is important to chase away these naughty monsters that are rampaging the streets lately. The virus has been visualised as brightly coloured monsters to easily capture the attention of children. Most kids wouldn’t know what a virus is, whereas they may be familiar with the idea of monsters through stories and films. The heroine of the story, Little Diya, was modeled on Vibha, Arjun’s little niece, with her dress, hairstyle, and actions being the primary inspiration for the illustrations. Building on the idea, Arjun first came up with the initial sketches and worked on the illustrations while I developed the script for the story.” Discussing the nature of response their story has been amassing, Anjali said: “Wanting to keep our creative muscles working while on a nation-wide lockdown, the story was initially just an experimental piece to test out our individual skills in character illustration and writing while drawing inspiration from recent events. It was kept to the confines of being just a 10 slide short story with the idea of simply putting it up on social media for our close friends and family to see, and was met with gracious reviews. The story somehow hit off and was shared numerous times, which led to it being covered by local media in Kerala.” Speaking about the message of the story, she said: “Seeking inspiration from these trying times, the story of Little Diya was created to convey a very simple message aimed at the younger audience. Diya was brought to life to show that even while being cooped up inside, one must be ready to fight against the coronavirus in the ways that we have been instructed to and to remain strong, as this too shall pass. You can find Kovynintee- Diya Gets Battle Ready on Instagram by visiting the page @arjunsankarps.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This is best being practised by a young girl during these challenging times where we have to remain inside our homes for safety. Janna Thomson is only 14 but she has already begun making her mark as a young musician and singer. Like millions of other people around the world, she along with her family is also forced to stay home in Qatar. She has, however, been trying to make maximum use of this time by rehearsing and learning more about music. A British-Arab, who was born and bourght up in Qatar, Janna says has her dreams and ambitions to achieve like many other young girls. She is steadfast as far as her dreams of becoming well versed with music go, and believes the challenges thrown by the novel coronavirus outbreak will not affect her love for music. Sharing about herself further, Janna told Community, “I participated in the Voice Kids last season and won the Qatar national music competition and currently I’m active on social media with over 5 million views and hundreds of thousands of lovely people who support me and encourage me across all social media platforms.” When asked how she is trying to cope with the unusual phenomenon of social distancing, the talented girl said: “I am fortunate enough to be taught by my father that ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.’ No matter what the circumstances are, you need to stay positive and find ways to productively deal with the situation you are in, whether is of your own making or forced upon you by nature or circumstances. I am just as scared as most people with regards to the coronavirus, it is unfortunate that young people like myself and my sister are faced with such a serious global challenge, we wish that we had not to experience this so early in our life time. “However, we have taken positive steps towards social distancing, we setup our home environment to suit our needs and we had several family meetings to discuss ideas for study, work, entertainment and how to protect ourselves from being exposed to this awful virus. We setup a small gym at home with basic equipment where we hold family and individual fitness classes, we setup a space for movie nights where we watch movies together and we setup a great space for study times and enabled ourselves to study online and co-operate with friends and teachers to take on our study challenges. My mother is helping us daily with that and doing a great job supporting us even when we are non-co-operative. In addition to this, myself and my younger sister setup our hobby space where we practice music and painting and learning new skills online. In addition to all of these activities with my family, I spend some of my time talking to my friends online. My father also started holding Qur’an reading classes with us and we are very happy about that.” The young singer is happy because staying at home has allowed her to have some extra time for composing new music and rehearsing. “Yes, I previously taught myself how to play piano and always wanted to learn to play guitar, and guess what? Now I have the time and I have already started to practice, and I am getting better all the time. I also have more time to share my singing and musical interests online with the rest of the world. I managed to create several videos and record several new songs and posted them on YouTube on my Janna Thomson Page and enhanced my Instagram account and gained many more followers and fans. I have also managed to work on my home studio and improve it so that I can finally produce a full art package.” When asked what she has planned for future regarding creating new music, Janna said: “I recently completed and shared four new songs and managed to place my music on iTunes, apple music, Google Music, Amazon and Deezer and I am very happy about that. After all, I am still just a young girl, and hopefully will continue on my journey of self-discovery and share my music with many more people around the world.

The coronavirus pandemic situation is getting gloomy world over as more and more people are getting infected. However, there are people who try to cheer up others, particularly those who are closer to them in relation and in proximity. In these disturbing times when the world is observing social distancing and facing a grim health crisis, musicians are coming forward to cheer up people in unique ways. With many feelings to express, there might not be a better medium than music to align emotions and sensitivities right now. “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent,” said Victor Hugo, who was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of Romantic Movement, rightly echo the condition of people today. The musicians of Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra have started playing from their homes first to keep rehearsing and then to entertaining their neighbours. The QP seems to follow the words of Germany Kent, who says: “Reach out and help others. If you have the power to make someone happy, do it. Be a vessel, be the change, be the difference, or be the inspiration. Shine your light as an example. The world needs more of that.” Kent is an American print and broadcast journalist. He is also regarded as a social media etiquette expert. As many 96 musicians of QPO are all set to perform same time at 8pm today to cheer up and entertain their neighbours. Scattered all over Doha, the musicians will play Ode to Joy by Beethoven Symphony No. 9, using different instruments from the balconies of their houses. The symphony is the final complete symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed between 1822 and 1824. It was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824. The symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as Beethoven’s greatest work and one of the supreme achievements in the history of western music. One of the best-known works in common practice music, it stands as one of the most performed symphonies in the world. The symphony was the first example of a major composer using voices in a symphony (thus making it a choral symphony). The words are sung during the final (4th) movement of the symphony by four vocal soloists and a chorus. They were taken from the Ode to Joy, a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in 1803, with text additions made by Beethoven. In 2001, Beethoven’s original, hand-written manuscript of the score, held by the Berlin State Library, was added to the United Nations Memory of the World Programme Heritage list, becoming the first musical score so designated. “The times are challenging. We all are staying at homes in quarantine to face an unprecedented war against Covid-19. This is the time to protect our families and all around the globe, said Lorena Manescu, a Romanian violinist working with QPO for last 12 years. “I am a professional musician. I play in the first violin section of the orchestra. Music knows no boundaries. Even under current circumstances it has the power to inspire and help people of all ethnicities, ages and social backgrounds,” she added. Lorena has been missing playing at live concerts that she has been enjoying the most. “I miss our audience, my colleagues and performing together very much. We have been working online lately. I feel very excited about the idea of performing “together” with my colleagues today. Even as circumstances keep us apart, our love for music unites us and will hopefully enable us to reach out to the world and invite everybody to be mindful and caring. I am anxious to get back to normalcy but the challenging times also have their opportunity as we can entertain our neighbours and other people who might not have been able to attend a live concert.”

Social distancing and staying at home can be boring and sometimes stressful for people. People cannot avoid being isolated but they definitely can avoid being stressed. Creative people may be able to have enough time to first have some novel ideas during a novel situation and to materialise their ideas into some kind of art works.  Rashmi Agarwal, an Indian expatriate, is a long-time resident of Qatar. She is well-known in the art circles and artist communities in Doha. An art entrepreneur, artist and designer herself, Rashmi has been using her time at home in her own creative way. She also has some pieces of advice for other artists on how to spend quality time at home. Founder and president of the MAPS International WLL., Rashmi is a board member of Silk Painters International- SPIN, USA. She is also national chairperson of Qatar for Anti-Corruption Foundation of India and International Director at Human Rights International Federation of India. She carries professional degree in law and finance. The artist believes that the times may appear to be a test but it could also be used in some positive ways and productivity. “People are living at home not by choice. They however have no other choice. We have to stay at home to ward off the coronavirus. We face both health and economic crises. The situation definitely stresses our minds but all is not lost. What have come will definitely go away and now is the moment to decide whether we own these times, or we disown these times. Creating, learning, and growing artistically, Rashmi has kept the joy alive and it is her passion to bring healing, joy and beauty to others. “I have developed my own way of living during these days. I call it ‘My Time, My Way’. We need to look at the silver lining in the darkness. With all the extra time in our hands, we must go back to the things that make us happy.  A crisis has now forced everyone to remain indoors and self-quarantine is not easy. Let this be our responsibility to stay at home and do all the things we always wanted to do but simply didn’t have the time to get around. Nowadays, I have started my new painting after long time. I have also started arranging my albums besides taking care of my beautiful indoor plants – another passion of mine. It was like a meditation and stress relief overall. I am not at all pressuring myself.” The art collector, who also organizes art festivals in Qatar, believes there is a healing power in art. “Art itself is a healing force. Art is an ultimate form of meditation. It can work as a medicine. It can be an important tool in mental health treatment. Art is no doubt a therapy and it can de-stress you during the pandemic and resultant social isolation. My experience tells me that if you are an artist or creative individual, you will feel less stressed and have medium to de-stress yourself. “Some researchers say that you do not need to be an artist to benefit from art therapy. Simply being in close proximity to art and being involved in any creative activities – drawing, colouring or painting – will have better results. It can keep people motivated and stress free.” Rashmi asks people to use their hand in creating something. “Use your imagination. Try to have an idea in your mind and work on it. Then start putting the idea on a canvass. I think we need to explore an artist hiding inside us. Putting your inner thoughts on canvass or a piece of paper will have healing effects. We do not always need to have viewers appreciating our creative works. Primarily, we create for ourselves. We explore our emotions. It develops self-awareness and boosts self-esteem. People have been using art for thousands of years to communicate themselves. There are other medical benefits of art as proved by different researches.” The artists sees the these testing times as an opportunity. “The social distancing phenomenon is going to end soon. If we are able created something artistic during this time – expressing our fears, anxiety or our expenses – we will have look at it later and remember the challenging time with some sweet memories.”