The blogosphere is in a tizzy over the news actor Idris Elba has tested positive for Coronavirus. The Golden Globe award-winning television and film star is asymptomatic and currently quarantined at home with his family.
The Golden-Globe winning star of BBC’s “Luther” is among a growing list of actors who have tested positive for the virus including Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko.
Elba said he was tested last Friday after someone he had been exposed to tested positive. On Twitter he wrote,
“This morning I tested positive for Covid 19. I feel ok, I have no symptoms so far but have been isolated since I found out about my possible exposure to the virus. Stay home people and be pragmatic. I will keep you updated on how I’m doing No panic.”
The actor went on to add:
“Look, this is serious,” Now is the time to really think about social distancing, washing your hands.”
This post was written by Nsenga K. Burton, founder & editor-in-chief of The Burton Wire. Follow her on Twitter @Ntellectual.
Reuters Africa is reporting 19 African nations have confirmed cases of Coronavirus. Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Guinea and Mauritania all confirmed their first cases of the new coronavirus on Friday, giving the disease a foothold in 19 countries on the African continent.
The article states:
“Africa had until now largely been spared the rapid spread of COVID-19, which has infected at least 135,000 people and killed around 5,000 worldwide.
Most of Africa’s reported cases were foreigners or people who had traveled abroad. Rapid testing and quarantines have been put in place to limit transmission.
But concerns are growing about the continent’s ability to handle the disease.
Cases have been reported in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia.”
This story is developing. Read the full story at Reuters.
Variety is reporting that one of the world’s most glamorous and famous film festivals will not be covered by insurance if it is cancelled due to the coronavirus. Shockingly, the film festival rejected an opportunity to purchase a buy-back option from its insurers (Circle Group) to cover cancellations due to a pandemic or epidemic, just ten days ago. France’s government has already passed a law forbidding the gathering of more than 1,000 people since the coronavirus outbreak. One of the most expensive film festivals in the world, the Cannes Film Festival typically draws a crowd of 40,000 people.
The film festival costs approximately $33 million and is paid for by French taxpayers and corporate sponsors. Although the public relations department of the Cannes Film Festival has refused comment about the matter, Pierre Lescure, president of the Cannes Film Festival, confirmed to French outlet Le Figaro that the festival is not insured for coronavirus. He added that the offer made by Circle Group ten days ago was “totally disproportionate,” which is why they declined the buy-back option.
BBC is reporting two extremely rare white giraffes have been killed by poachers in north-eastern Kenya leaving only one white giraffe alive. The third white giraffe is believed to be the only remaining white giraffe in the world.
Rangers found the carcasses of the female and her calf in a village in north-eastern Kenya’s Garissa County.
Their appearance is due to a rare condition called leucism, which causes skin cells to have no pigmentation. Watch the video below:
The poachers have not been identified and a motive is not clear at the time.
This story is developing.
For more information about this story, visit BBC.com.
SCAD aTVfest, Atlanta’s only festival dedicated to television kicks-off today and is now in its eighth year. It is Savannah College of Art & Design’s annual signature event celebrating the television industry which is held annually at SCADshow. This year’s festival runs February 27-29, 2020. Entertainment Weekly (EW) returns for the second year as Official Media Partner of SCAD aTVfest.
“This promises to be a fantastic aTVFest 2020 in Atlanta,” said Christina Routhier, Executive Director, SCAD aTVfest. “We are excited to have Entertainment Weekly return as our official media partner. We appreciate the amazing support from networks and studios that bring top shows, talent, and below the line artists to our festival. aTVFest is dedicated to showcasing the best industry artists working in television today, from showrunners, directors and writers to costume designers, production designers and casting agents. Once again, we are thrilled to continue to highlight female talent in front of and behind the camera.”
In addition to screenings, programming, events and panels, SCAD aTVfest presents awards to legends and newcomers in the television industry.
Producer/actress Kim Cattrall (FOX’s Filthy Rich) will receive the Icon Award; Eric McCormack (NBC’s Will & Grace) will receive the Impact Award; Tom Payne (FOX’s Prodigal Son) will receive the Discovery Award, Actor; Hunter Schafer (HBO’s Euphoria) will receive the Discovery Award, Actress; and the cast of NBC’s Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist will receive the Rising Star Cast Award. Honorees are scheduled to attend screenings and participate in conversations regarding their work.
The festival’s In Conversation Series includes talks with Eric McCormack, Malcolm Jamal-Warner, Hunter Schafer, Miss J Alexanderand Grown-ish costume designer Michelle Cole and actress Yara Shahidi.
Click here for more information about SCAD aTVfest.
This post was written by Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D., founder & editor-in-chief of The Burton Wire. Follow her on Twitter @Ntellectual or @TheBurtonWire.
Screen grab of the short film Hair Love (YouTube/SONY)
Screen grab of the short film Hair Love (YouTube/SONY)
Matthew Cherry’s animated short Hair Love won the 2020 Academy Award for Best Animated short, following in the footsteps of the late basketball star Kobe Bryant whose animated short film Dear Basketball won last year. Watch Matthew A. Cherry and Karen Rupert Toliver, executive vice president of creative for Sony Pictures Animation, accept the Oscar for Short Film (Animated) for HAIR LOVE at Oscars 2020:
“Hair Love was done because we wanted to see more representation in animation,” Cherry said during his acceptance speech. “We wanted to normalize black hair. There’s a very important issue that’s out there, the CROWN ACT and if we can’t help to get this passed in all 50 states it will help stories like DeAndre Arnold’s who’s our special guest tonight.” The CROWN Act ensures protection against discrimination based on hairstyles by extending statutory protection to hair texture and protective styles in the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and state Education Codes.
DeAndre Arnold is a Texas teen who was banned from attending his prom and graduation because of wearing his hair in dreadlocks, a natural black hairstyle.
Actresses Yara Shahidi and Keri Shahidi, Academy Award winner Jordan Peele and Harrison Barnes served as co-executive producers on the project with Hollywood actors Gabourey Sidibe, Gabrielle Union and Dwayne Wade signing on as associate producers in addition to Stephanie Frederic, Claude Kelly and N’Dambi Gillespie. Frank Abney and Andrew Hawkins served as executive producers of the film, which started as a Kickstarter project. Hollywood it-woman Issa Rae is the voice of the mother in the short film.
Watch the full version of the animated short film Hair Love below:
This post was written by Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D., founder & editor-in-chief of The Burton Wire. Follow her on Twitter@Ntellectual.
Famed actress Paula Kelly dies at 76.
(Photo: Google Images)
The blogosphere is reporting famed actress, singer and dancer Paula Kelly has died. Kelly was a staple in television and film during the 1970s and 1980s. The celebrated actress starred as Dahomey Queen in Ivan Dixon’s seminal 1973 film The Spook Who Sat by the Door. In the film, Kelly played a prostitute with a conscious who works with Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook) to help topple the United States government.
Famed actress Paula Kelly dies at 76. (Photo: Google Images)
The Juilliard trained actress’ other films included Trouble Man (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored (1995) and The Drop Squad (1994) among others. Kelly also had a robust television career appearing on Good Times,The Streets of San Francisco, the Carol Burnett Show, The Women of Brewster Place and The Richard Pryor Show. Kelly had a recurring role on the popular soap opera Santa Barbara.
The Jacksonville, FL born actress, was raised in Harlem and attended the world famous LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts. Kelly had a stellar careeer on Broadway where she starred in Sophisticated Ladies with Gregory Hines and Phyllis Hyman and Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity on the London stage. A trained dancer, she also starred in the film version of Sweet Charity (1969) and performed as a dancer at the 41st Academy Awards to the score of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968).
According to Heavy.com, Kelly was married briefly to Don Chaffey, and is survived by a daughter from that union. Kelly was 76.
Kobe Bryant at his last game in the Staples Center. (Google Images)
UPDATE: It is now being reported that five people died in the helicopter crash that claimed NBA legend Kobe Bryant’s life. One of the victims is his 13-year-old daughter Gianna a.k.a. Gigi Bryant.
TMZand Variety are reporting NBA legend Kobe Bryant has died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, CA Sunday. He was 41. Bryant owned a helicopter and would often take the helicopter to games from his Newport Beach, CA home to the Staples Center. Three other people also died in the helicopter crash. Their bodies have not yet been identified.
Bryant’s last tweet was a celebratory tweet to LeBron James.
Kobe Bryant’s last tweet on January 25, 2020.
Bryant played 20 seasons for the Los Angeles Lakers. His career averages were 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 4.7 assists in 1,346 regular season games. Bryant won 1 MVP Award and was selected to play in 18 All-Star Games.
In 2018, Kobe Bryant won an Academy Award for best animated short for his film Dear Basketball. Watch the film below:
Bryant was a first round draft pick in 1996. In 2016, Bryant scored 60 points against the Utah Jazz in a 101-96 win at Staples Center at his final game.
He is married to Vanessa Bryant with whom he shares four children. This story is developing.
Still from My Friend Fela (l-r)Carlos Moore with Fela Kuti--Photo Courtesy of Wide House
Season 12 of the critically-acclaimed television series AfroPop premiered Monday, January 20th on The WORLD CHANNEL, exploring the legacies of Afrobeat creators Fela Kuti and Tony Allen.
The AfroPoP season opener featured Joel Zito Araújo’s documentary film My Friend Fela about the African musical icon followed by Birth of Afrobeat, a short film from director Opiyo Okeyo telling the story of drummer Tony Allen. Produced by Black Public Media (BPM) and co-presented by distributor American Public Television (APT), AfroPoP has brought real stories of life, art and culture in the modern African Diaspora to public television audiences for more than a decade.
Still from My Friend Fela (l-r)Carlos Moore with Fela Kuti–Photo Courtesy of Wide House
In My Friend Fela, director Joel Zito Araújo follows Carlos Moore as he explores the many unknown aspects of the legendary musician’s life. A close friend and the official biographer of Fela and friend to major, international black figures like Malcolm X and Maya Angelou, Araújo sets out to counter the popular narrative of Fela as the “eccentric African pop idol of the ghetto,” with photos, archival interviews and Moore’s own personal conversations with Fela’s wives, family and bandmates. My Friend Fela brings viewers a seldom seen side of the revolutionary artist’s life and music. As Moore delves into the Nigerian political strife during Fela’s life and the Pan-African theories which shaped his beliefs and bled into his music, a nuanced profile of a musical revolutionary and champion of the people emerges.
Tony Allen as seen in Birth of Afrobeat, photo courtesy of Opiyo Okeyo_restinbeats.com
The premiere episode concluded with the short film Birth of Afrobeat. The live-action and animation hybrid captures the story of iconic drummer Tony Allen as he records the album What Goes Up with the American band Chicago Afrobeat Project in 2017 and discusses how he and Fela pioneered the Afrobeat genre.
“Season 12 launches with two films that pay tribute to the enduring legacy of two cultural trailblazers and the music they created which has done so much to unite people around the world around political struggles and shared realities,” said Black Public Media Executive Director and Leslie Fields-Cruz.
Check out the trailer below:
Other episodes in season 12 of AfroPoP include Aminaby Kivilcim Akay (January 27), a moving look at the life of a Senegalese immigrant living in Turkey and trying to pursue her dreams in the face of growing obstacles; Daddy and the Warlordby Shamira Raphaëla and Clarice Gargard (February 3), which follows Gargard on a trip to postwar Liberia to uncover the truth about her father’s involvement with the infamous war criminal Charles Taylor; Gilda Brasileiro: Against Oblivion from Viola Scheuerer and Roberto Manhães Reis (February 10), a profile of one woman’s quest to challenge a culture wishing to ignore its ties to slavery after she discovers documents exposing an illegal 19th century slave-trading post in the Brazilian rainforest.
The season finale episode (February 17) includes Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela,director Thomas Allen Harris’s personal documentary profiling his stepfather, B. Pule Leinaeng (“Lee”) and his fight against apartheid as a foot solider in the African National Congress, paired with Spit on the Broomby Madeleine Hunt-Erlich, an experimental short film on the United Order of Tents, a clandestine organization of Black American women organized in the 1840s during the height of the Underground Railroad.
Each episode of season 12 of AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange airs at 8 p.m. ET/10 p.m. on the original air date. The programming will also be available for streaming on worldchannel.org beginning on the day of its broadcast premiere.
AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange is co-executive produced by Leslie Fields-Cruz and Angela Tucker. The program is produced and directed by Duana C. Butler with the generous support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Author E.R. Braithwaite dies at age 104.
(Photo: Google Images)
Author E.R. Braithwaite dies at age 104. (Photo: Google Images)
The New York Times reported E. R. Braithwaite, a Guyanese author, diplomat and former Royal Air Force pilot whose book “To Sir, With Love,” a memoir of teaching in London’s deprived East End, was adapted into a hit 1967 film starring Sidney Poitier, passed away last month in Rockville, Md.
Sewell Chan writes:
“Mr. Braithwaite, who became a diplomat and represented Guyana at the United Nations and in Venezuela, wrote several books, many about racism in countries like South Africa and the United States, where he lived much of his life. But he is best known for “To Sir, With Love” (1959).
The book chronicled his efforts — as a courtly, Cambridge-educated military veteran who had been denied employment as an engineer because he was black — to motivate a group of unruly adolescents raised in a slum in early-1950s Britain, which was still slowly recovering from the austerity of the war years.”
Braithwaite wrote of America: “There, when prejudice is felt, it is open, obvious, blatant; the white man makes his position very clear, and the black man fights those prejudices with equal openness and fervor, using every constitutional device available to him.”
He added: “The rest of the world in general and Britain in particular are prone to point an angrily critical finger at American intolerance, forgetting that in its short history as a nation it has granted to its Negro citizens more opportunities for advancement and betterment, per capita, than any other nation in the world with an indigent Negro population.”
In the 1960s, Braithwaite served as a human-rights officer at the World Veterans Federation and UNESCO lecturer and consultant in Paris. From 1967 to 1969, he also served as the first permanent representative of Guyana to the United Nations. He was later the country’s ambassador to Venezuela.
In addition to his work as a writer, Braithwaite taught at Howard University, New York University and Florida State University.
