Films in the lineup of the Doha Tribeca Film Festival “may not seem outré to Western filmgoers, but they represent something of a cultural revolution for the region, where government censors citing cultural sensibilities cut sex scenes from the big screen, and multiplexes offer a steady diet of apolitical animated and action flicks.”
Tag: 10.23.09
Booksellers Ask Justice Dept. To Probe ‘Predatory Pricing’
The American Booksellers Association argues that Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target’s “steep discounting on 10 hardcover titles by authors including John Grisham, Stephen King and Barbara Kingsolver ‘is damaging to the book industry and harmful to consumers.'”
Miking Straight Plays: Good, Bad, Or Really Bad?
“Just as Bob Dylan was booed when he ‘went electric’ at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, the theater community is divided over the growing manipulation of sound on stage.”
Boston Book Festival Debuts With Emphasis On Technology
“Our town is the birthplace of the first American library, the first American newspaper, and the electronic ink used in Amazon’s Kindle and other e-readers. Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau were born in Massachusetts; today it’s home to cutting-edge institutions whose revolutionary technologies are reshaping the way those authors’ words will be read by future generations.”
Rescuing El Salvador’s Arts From Oblivion
“The country’s brutal 12-year civil war of 1980-92 not only claimed tens of thousands of lives and razed entire villages. It also ravaged the country’s heritage, fostering widespread amnesia about Salvadoran literature, music, indigenous culture and the performing arts.” Next week, a festival in Los Angeles “will try to salvage some of that missing past.”
NY City Opera Drops Amplification System
“Opera purists may be pleased to learn that the renovation of New York City Opera’s home at Lincoln Center, the David H. Koch Theater, has eliminated the amplification system for live voices that was installed in 1999.”