Gomorra, Film Poster

At the 2008 European Film Festival, in Sevilla, Spain, director Matteo Garrone’s film will be presented during the festival’s opening night.

The film, called “Gomorra”, is based on the book with the same name, written by the Italian journalist Roberto Saviano.

Underneath the fictional elements, the film shows the underworld of the Italian Mafia, and there is nothing pretty about it: no heroes, no pretty actors, nothing to hide the violence associated with this social phenomenon. The film shows reality as it is, and how the Camorra affects the lives of people living in Naples.

Garrone decided to make this film years ago, even before the book became a best-seller and even before the Camorra threatened to kill its author. He says the film is neither a critic, nor a praise. It just tells things as they are nowadays in Naples.

The film received the Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival and has been chosen to represent Italy at the Oscars, in the Best Foreign Language Film.

People Bidding at a Christie's Auction

If anyone needed one more piece of evidence that America is going through an economy crisis, they have it now.

The latest painting auction organized by the New York auction house Christie’s has been a major disappointment.

Famous paintings by Cezanne, Manet, Renoir and Klee have not found their buyers this time.
Out of the 30 paintings, 7 were not sold at all, and many of the others were sold at lower prices than they have estimated.

Composition métaphysique, by Giorgio de Chirico, was sold for the highest price, 6.1 million dollars. Christie’s was also happy with the price they got on L’empire des lumières, by Magritte, which was of 3.5 million dollars.

The same thing happened to Sotheby’s this week; they have registered the worst auction sale since May 2001, and they did not manage to sell more than one third of famous paintings by Modigliani, Van Gogh and even Picasso.

Studs Terkel, Pulitzer Prize Winner

The son of Studs Terkel – the Pulitzer award-winning American author- has announced that his father had passed away yesterday, in Chicago, at the age of 96.

He was born in 1912 in New York, and his family moved to Chicago eight years later.

Studs Terkel is famous for books such as “Working” and “Division Street: America”. He won the appreciation of a large audience through his personalized description of US history, and he won a Pulitzer prize in 1985 for his oral history called “The Good War”.

Most people have come to know him by listening to one of his radio shows that he hosted for more than forty years in Chicago.

He was a charming and charismatic presence, even tempestuous, but he knew how to live his life and that is how his loved ones like to remember him.

Barcelona Chair in Living Room

Contemporary interior design is more and more based on minimalism; the furniture, the accessories, the architecture, they all tend to be minimalist these days.

Also known as the ABC art, the minimalist art is an artistic movement initiated in the 20th century, which tries to reduce, as much as possible, the number of colours, shapes, lines and textures used in any form of artistic creation.
This modern style, based on simplicity, has greatly influenced the contemporary interior design tendencies. Inspired by Japanese simplicity, minimalist furniture proposes a simple space, clean , aired, and excludes all crowdedness, all the piling up of objects, thus managing to avoid that sense of pressure and suffocation.

The minimalist trend is increasingly more popular, with its combination of natural elements with modern ones, in shades of white, beige and grey, reminding of beaches, clouds and river stones.

The force of minimalism lies in its efficiency of using the minimum number of elements required in a room; that makes each and one of those elements extremely important.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created his work bearing in mind the principle “Less is more.”. He used it to explain why he eliminated the interior walls of a house, why he wanted a large open space, reducing the whole construction to the elegant exterior structure. He called this method of house remodelling a “skin and bone” architecture.

One of the most famous pieces of minimalist furniture is the Barcelona chair, created by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1929. Its structure is still extremely popular, but designers use many other materials now.

Taking the Barcelona chair as a reference point, designers have created the Barcelona watch, a fabulous interior design accessory, a wall watch made of leather in various warm colours. It can easily turn into one of the strong points of a room and it would make a great gift for someone who believes “God is in the details”.

Channel 4 Logo

One of the latest projects announced by Channel 4 has been the launch of three digital radio stations. This project seems to have come to its end earlier than expected and Channel 4 says it is because the sums of money companies pay for radio advertising have decreased very much in the last years.

Andy Duncan, Chief Executive of Channel 4, expressed his regret towards the making of this decision, especially that the first station was scheduled to start working early next year.

This cancellation will leave 15 people without their jobs, but Channel 4 officials have declared they will most likely be transferred to other departments.

Although they have not completely abandoned the idea and they will keep searching for ways to make it happen, Channel 4 admits that by not going through with it they will save approximately 10 million pounds only in 2009.  In 2007, the media group received a license to run a digital radio and had as partners BSkyB, Bauer Radio and Carphone Warehouse.

Argentinian Tango Dancers

It normally takes two to tango; but the TANGO PASION company has more than two members. Ever since they started their activity, more than ten years ago, this American group originally from New York, has been collaborating with the SEXTETO MAYOR orchestra (Latin Grammy Award winner in 2003).

They have recently started touring with their new show called ‘MARIA DE BUENOS AIRES’. The show is based on an opera work of Astor Piazzolla; it tells the story of Maria, a Buenos Aires prostitute who dies half way through the story but whose ghost continues to haunt the dark streets and the smoky bars she found her customers in.

The narrator will guide you through all the sides of that complex woman, suburban, mysterious, attractive, daring, a true femme fatale and at the same time you will experience the love and passion of tangos and milongas.

This year you can see the show between the 19th of December and the 08th of January at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, in Paris. If you miss them then, there is still a chance for 2009 in England, Portugal, Holland, France, and USA.

Negotiating

2008… Job, career, family life, personal life… for all these you have to negotiate in order to obtain them. Wife, kid, colleagues, neighbors, friends, bosses… with all these you have to negotiate on order to obtain the first ones.

What is negotiation after all? Well, nowadays negotiation has become an art, because this is one of the ways of getting what you want.Here are some tips to a successful negotiation:

1. Be realistic! Never ask for something that you, yourself, cannot do or obtain.
2. Express your interests and, with them, your feelings and opinions.
3. Listen to what your interlocutor has to say.
4. Understand the other one’s point of view. You will gain the respect of your interlocutor.
5. Don’t threat, blackmail or lie! All these could turn against you one day.
6. Admit when you are wrong. Your interlocutor will appreciate it.
7. Suggest more than one solution. If you think of only one solution, the other one will be more reserved in accepting it.
8. Don’t lie to yourself! Establish a fair goal!

Flower Shoe

Can art still be reinvented? Can we make art out of anything? Michel Tcherevkoff, a famous photographer, looks one day at the photo of a leaf that he uses in his photo shootings and says: “Hey, that looks like a shoe!” And so the fantasy began…

Little by little flowers began to take the shape of a shoe.
It has been called the “shoe-fleur” concept and it worked. Tcherevkoff’s hands brought to life fantasy shoes: shoes that can be worn by fairies and magic little creatures.
It takes more than a fabulous imagination to come up with such a concept. It takes even a greater ability to create them. And passion! For beauty and, why not, women. Tcherevkoff created for every shoe a matching handbag. And both of them from the same plant or flower.

“Shoe-Fleur” is organized into four collections: fall, spring, resort and bridal and the photos were included in an illustrative album that you can admire for yourself every time you want to delight your eyes with the sight of fantastic beauty. Just looking at Tcherevkoff’s art makes you think what wonders man’s hand can create. Has imagination any kind of limit?