WITHOUT BORDERS FILM FESTIVAL : LIVE

Small festival that tackles major issues is going ahead despite Covid-19. Yes, it's a small festival, but the issues it tackle are major :

The 8th Without Borders Film Festival - International Film Festival in Bad Saarrow explores issues like human rights, human dignity and humanity, reported DW.

Bad Saarow is a village of 5,000 inhabitants on Lake Scharmiutzelsee in the eastern German state of Brandenburg. Once a year, the spa town becomes the backdrop for a film festival that presents local and international productions alike.

Bad Saarow Festival Challenges Xenophobia

the festival also sees itself as an integration project with the aim of ''reaching young people'', in particular with a migration background.'' said festival director Susanne Suermondt, pointing out that resentment towards foreigners is pronounced in the region, and that the far-right Alternative for Germany [AfD] party comes in a strong second in 2019 local elections.

So this year, the festival is showing Masks for all; a short film that looks at how the refugees and the locals coexist. It was filmed in neighbouring Storkow, and documents how Germans and refugees from Somalia and Syria got together to sew 3,000 masks that were then offered free of charge to the people of Storkow.

This willingness to act beyond their own needs is a sign of courage, said Suermondt.

Cross-border cooperation

Courage is the motto of this year's festival - the courage to ''always be prepared to take risk, to overcome one's own limits,'' Suermondt said. ''Courage has many faces,' the festival directors added.

Khatera, the protagonist in Sahra Mani's documentary of A Thousands Girls Like Me, is one of them. Khatera dared to fight against the systematic oppression of women in Afghanistan.

The story of a woman's struggle against Afghanistan's corrupt legal system is one of 13 films shown in the four-day festival.

The German and international productions all take a different look at courage, whether it is the courage to stand by oneself and one's body in the film Cocoon, to fulfill a long awaited drama in the movie Love Sarah or to make the world a better in But Beautiful.

Restriction due to coronavirus

The current situation made it very difficult to get the films at all, said Suermondt. For the first time ever, she said, she had to get funding in order to install a hygiene officer and implement a hygiene concept.

Now, instead of 300 guests per screening, 90 people can watch the festival selections, some of them open air.

The World Students Society thanks News Desk, The Express Tribune.

ENGLAND : RETURN OF FANS ?

LONDON : October return of fans faces delay. Move may come after new restrictions have now been brought in for second-wave of Covid-19 in the UK.

Plans for the controlled return of fans into UK sports stadiums from October 1. are set to be postponed, senior cabinet minister Michael Gove said on Tuesday as new restrictions are brought in to tackle a second wave of Covid-19.

''It was the case that we were looking at a staged programme of more people returning, it wasn't going to be the case that we were going to to have stadiums thronged with fans,'' Gove told BBC TV when asked if the Oct. 1 plan would go ahead.

''We're looking at how we can for the moment pause that programme.

''We've been plotting some open air venues and we do want to to be able in due course to allow people to return to watch Football and other sporting events but it is the case that we just need to be cautious at the moment and I think a reopening at this stage wouldn't be appropriate.''

The government had been planning to allow 25-33% capacities from October. 1, giving a sports a funding boost after months of empty stadiums.

Confirmation of the change of tack is expected to come later on Tuesday but local media reported sports' governing bodies are resigned to it and are preparing a request for more financial help.

The Rugby Football Union had helped to have around 20,000 fans at Twickenham for England's game against the Barbarians on Oct. 25 but have now suspended ticket sales.

Although the risk of spreading the virus sitting at outdoor stadiums is considered relatively low, the biggest concern is the amount of time crowds will be close together traveling to and from events., and entering the stadiums and refreshment areas.

''The virus is less likely to spread outdoors than indoors but then again it's in the nature of sporting events that there's a lot of mingling,'' Gove said.

''We also recognize that sport is a vital part of the life of this nation and we're looking at everything that we can do support our athletes, our great clubs through what will be a challenging time.'' [Reuters]

SPORTS : CYCLING'S FRESH TURMOIL

FRENCH Judicial authorities open preliminary investigation into potential doping at Arkea-Samsic.

PARIS : Cycling has been thrown into fresh turmoil after French judicial authorities opened a preliminary investigation into potential doping at French team Arkea-Samsic on Monday, a day after the Tour de France ended in Paris.

Two people had been taken into custody, Marseille prosecutor Dominique Laurens said, adding that the probe was targeting a ''small part of the team'' and that those in custody were part of the ''close entourage of the main rider'', without naming him.

Arkea-Samsic's leader on the Tour was Colombian Nairo Quintana, a two-time runner-up, and Vuelta and Giro d'Italia champion. He finished 17th overall on this year's Tour.

The team confirmed their hotel in Meribel was searched by OCLAESP, the Central Office for the Fight Against Environmental and Public Health Damage, after last Wednesday's 17th stage.

Laurena said the research had resulted in the ''discovery of many health products, including drugs and especially a method that can be qualified as doping''.

A source with the direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters that a ''saline solution'' and ''injection material'' had been found.

Injection material can only be in possession of doctors as per the ;no needle policy; in place in cycling since 2011.

Arkea-Samsic team manager Emmanuel Hubert said on Monday that the investigation did ''not target the team or its staff directly.

Quintana's management have not responded to Reuters request for comment.

This year's Tour was won by Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, who produced one of the most stunning performances in recent history in the final time trial last Saturday.

The 21-year-old is with Team UAE Emirates, which is managed by Mauro Gianetti and Martxin Fernandez, sports directors at Saunier Duval in 2008 when the team left the Tour in the wake of Ricardo Ricco's failed doping test.

The duo were also managing the Geox-TMC team when Spaniard Juan Jose Cobo won the Vuelta in 2011, only to be stripped of the title because of a ''violation of the anti-doping rules [use of a banned substance] based on irregularities found in his Athlete Biological Passport in 2009 and 2011''. [Reuters]

Headline, September 26 2020/ ''' HAND ''SHAKES'' HAND ''' : !WOW!

''' HAND ''SHAKES'' HAND ''' :

!WOW!

COVID-19 IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DEATH of the handshake. A human gesture of social connection has become the harbinger of disease. A corona-tainted handshake we are cautioned about can have lethal consequences.

Hindu tradition, if some proto-historians are to be believed, anticipated Covid-19 by inventing the  hand-folded namaste as an aseptic form of greeting. To them, it is clean, hygienic, and encourages social distancing.

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi found it particularly useful when handling [or not having to handle] her minions, in particular Jagjivan Ram, her untouchable Dalit defence minister.

George Bernard Shaw once deflected an overzealous admirer who wished to kiss his hand - the hand that had penned his literature - by telling her that the same hand had done a number of less savoury things.

The modern savant Stephen Fry, in his autobiography, recalls hosting the broadcaster Alastair Cooke at Cambridge.

''When the evening was over Alastair Cooke shook my hand to say goodbye and held it firmly, saying, ''This hand you are shaking once shook the hand of Bertrand Russell'' Fry expressed wonder.

''No, no,'' said Cooke. ''It goes further than that. Bertrand Russel knew Robert Browning. Russel's aunt danced with Napoleon. That is how close we all are to history. Just a few handshakes away. Never forget that.''

Royals are paid to shake hands. It is part of their job description. Persons invited to shake hands with modern royalty are alerted that they should expect only the tips of royal fingers, not the whole hand, to protect the dignitary from bone crushing enthusiasts.

Over time, royals have mastered the skill of shaking hands without causing themselves discomfort. In old news-reels of the Russian monarchy, for example, one sees Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna [wife of Czar Nicholas II] manage a prize distribution to over a hundred schoolchildren.

In a smooth mechanical movement, she held the prize in her palm and, while the recipient kissed the top part of the imperial hand, the czarina dropped the parcel into the child's hands. It was like a bomb being released from a plane's underbelly.

Her once-removed nephew the future King Edward VIII, on a tour of Canada in the 1920s, was required to meet over a thousand guests at a garden party. 

He valiantly shook hands with all of them. By evening his hand was so swollen that it had to be put into a sling. Regardless of his condition, though, he was obliged the next day to shake another thousand hands, which he did, with his left hand.

Even within royals, handshakes [or the absence of them] can convey messages. In 1967, at the unveiling of plaque in memory of Queen Mary in Marlborough House, the normally courteous Queen Elizabeth  the Queen Mother could not bring herself to extend her gloved hand to her estranged sister-in-law the Duchess of Windsor.

They had nor met since the Duke's abdication as King Edward VIII in 1936, a 30-year-old family feud could have been healed with one gesture of reconciliation. Instead it festered until both died.

Perhaps the most absurd example of manual warfare is to be found in the US's relations with communist China.

In 1954, John Foster Dulles [then US secretary of state] refused to shake hands with Zhou Enlai at a conference in Geneva. This deliberate snub became policy with the State Department. Its officials were ordered not to shake hands with their communist Chinese.

To avoid doing so, US diplomats at officials receptions would nurse their drinks in their right hands.

To rectify that earlier slight, US president Richard Nixon made a symbolic gesture of contrition when he landed at Beijing airport in February 1972. He pointedly extended his hand first to the approaching Zhou Enlai. 

The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on State of past History and the  State of the World, continues. The World Students Society thanks author, F.S. Aijazuddin.

With respectful dedication to Mankind, Leaders, Grandparents, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers off the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! -The Ecosystem 2011 :

''' Folded - Hands - Namaste '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless

MOVIES ESSAY : DOCUMENTARIES WITH DECPETION

NONFICTION seldom means completely real. But that's a debate as old as cinema.

Last month, I found myself a dissenting voice on one of the summer's acclaimed films. ''Bloody Nose. Empty Pockets.''

At first glance, the movie appears to be a documentary about  the final days of a Las Vegas-area dive bar called Roaring '20s. But the directors, the brothers Bill and Turner Ross, never reveal that the setup was contrived.

Although the bar's patrons are real people, hanging out without a script, they were in effect cast by the directors, with the expectation [implicit or explicit] that they would behave as they would in that real situation. The actual Roaring 20s bar, which wasn't closing, was near New Orleans.

To the movie fans the deception is forgivable. ''Reviews hung up on documentary veracity are missing the point,'' tweeted my friend  Scott Tobias, who also contributes to The New York Times, adding, ''Authenticity and artifice coexist all the time in movies, and this film proves something special can come out of deliberately mingling the two.''

I don't disagree. In a sense, nearly all films balance competing factors : the camera lens, which carries at least the promise of capturing unmitigated reality; the situations, real or manufactured, that take place while that camera is rolling, the decidedly nonobjective people controlling what is shot; and additional manipulations - of editing, effects and and music - after shooting.

Critics tend to hand-wave deceptions when they like the results and to count them against a film if they don't. Debates about the virtues of fakery have triggered as long as cinema has existed, and it's worth taking a look at two ostensibly nonfiction films to understand the issue at play.

Robert J Flaherty remains best known for ''Nanook of the North'' [1922], a pioneering work both of cinematic ethnography and of suspect nonfiction filmmaking - an ostensible introduction to the lives of  Indigenous inhabitants of Northern Canada for which Flahery's Inuiot collaborators helped stage scenes.

Flaherty's later ''Man of Aran'' [1934], a portrait of life on the Aran Islands off Ireland's western coast, is worthy of similar skepticism. 

Still, its goals are poetic and expository : Real or staged, ''Man of Aran'' is simply one of the medium's most dazzling pictorial experiences, and confronted with the extraordinary contrast of its black-and-white photography - as waves pound the rocky coast in the violent weather of the finale - it is simply difficult to care about how the film was planned.

These are real people in a real boat, about to be swallowed by cresting waters or crashed against the cliffs.

The Essay continues into the future. The World Students Society thanks author Ben Keningsberg.