Industry

Originally published: June 8, 2021 (Reposted in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride Month) The freedom to be who you are - so many people take our right to self to actualize, to be our best selves, to love who we love - for granted, but what if who you are, who you love, how you dress or express yourself made you the target of discrimination, open to attack, ridicule, lawful inequity, even death? What if the very person you are allowed society to restrict your rights and freedoms? That has been the plight of the LGBTQ community, and in many places in the world self-expression as a lesbian, gay, bi, trans, or queer person has serious and dire consequences still today.  Entertainment has long been a field where the LGBTQ community has found a home, openly, in auxiliary fields like hair, makeup, and wardrobe, while having to stay closeted if working in front of the camera.

He won two Golden Globes for Best Foreign Film, in 2010 for The White Ribbon and in 2012 for Amour. The Austrian director, who is also fluent in French, shot many films in France and has won 10(!) prizes at the Cannes Festival, talks to HFPA-journalist Elisabeth Sereda about life, career and awards in his native language.

The crime. The mystery.

The last years of the 20th Century are expansive times - optimism reigns, hair is big and shoulders are strong. All the while, in silence at first, the terrible AIDS scourge wreaks havoc in the industry, cutting a path of destruction through friendships, families, and entire cities.

Born December 18, 1946, in Cincinnati Ohio, Steven Allan Spielberg made his way to Hollywood via a brief stint at CSULB and went on to direct a handful of short films and TV episodes before making his feature debut with The Sugarland Express. Now with 57 credits as a director and in honor of his 75th birthday, we chose ten early works, pre-2000, that define his career:The Sugarland Express, 1974This crime drama film is his third film – after two TV movies, one of them the now-classic Duel – and his theatrical feature directorial debut.

The Studio System has its last hurrah; social and cultural turmoil shakes the US and Europe, and a massive generation - the post-war Baby Boomers - demand new everything: cinema, music, fashion, customs. The Golden Globes shuttle between the Cocoanut Grove of the Ambassador Hotel and the Beverly Hilton, both hot spots of LA nightlife; the brand new Century Plaza is added to the circuit in the 1970s.

Launched in February of 1944 with an informal luncheon at 20th Century Fox Studios ( the winners received a scroll), the Golden Globes began finding their true style in the 1950s, hopping from Hollywood to Beverly Hills, then on to the Cocoanut Grove of the famous Ambassador Hotel, Casa del Mar in Santa Monica and Ciro's on the Sunset Strip. War was over, Hollywood was spreading its wings around the world and the Globes quickly began the best party of the year in a city that absolutely loves parties - Los Angeles.

As staunch proponents of winning the gold, we are all in on the Olympics. And like everyone else we are suffering from serious jetlag as we try to follow the Olympic action on NBC from the Tokyo Games.

The 2020 edition of the  Annual Foreign Language Film Series kicked off on August 29 with the first of four symposia with directors of Foreign Films qualifying for Golden Globe consideration: Valentyn Vasyanovych (Atlantis - Ukraine), Agnieszka Holland (Charlatan - Czech Republic), Linda Dombrovszky (Pilátus -Hungary), Klim Shipenko (Text - Russia).  Watch it again here.

Juneteenth 2021 It took 156 years but Juneteenth was finally made a Federal Holiday in 2021. In a rare show of bipartisan unity, Congress voted almost unanimously to consecrate the date in which Texas slaves were notified of the emancipation (two years after it had been promulgated).