Entertainment
Red Deer film receives two awards at Central Alberta Film Festival (CAFF)
Red Deer film receives two awards at Central Alberta Film Festival (CAFF)
Power on Water takes Audience Choice and award for Best Short Documentary at CAFF awards ceremony Saturday, February 23.
RED DEER, February 26, 2019 – The 2019 Central Alberta Film Festival came to a conclusion Saturday night with a formal awards ceremony celebrating six winning films, with awards for Audience Choice and Best Short Documentary going to Red Deer filmmaker Rueben Tschetter for his film “Power on Water.”
“Of all the films screened at the great Carnival Cinemas facility this week, ‘Power on Water’ was singled out by both the judges and the audience as a superior film,” said Ranjit Mullakady, CAFF President, at an after-party on Saturday held at downtown restaurant Here to Mars. “We couldn’t be happier that a local film gets to be celebrated this way right here in Red Deer.”
“Power on Water” is a short film commissioned by the Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery that profiles Red Deer’s Tammy Cunnington, world class Paralympic swimmer. Cunnington was six years old when she was struck by an airplane at a Ponoka air show in April 1982, leaving her a paraplegic. “Power on Water” tells the story of Cunnington’s life, her passion, and her focus on getting to the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio.
Other films recognized at the CAFF Awards Ceremony, which was sponsored in part by 67th Street Dental and Troubled Monk Brewery, were Prairie Dog for Best Feature Narrative, RISE: The Story of Augustines for Best Feature Documentary, and “The Wall” for Best Short Narrative. Audience Choice awards for CAFF’s Smartphone and 48 Hour Film Challenges were given to “Marionette Man” and “Suzie.” CAFF Action Team volunteers were also recognized at the ceremony by Mullakady, who commented on the importance of teamwork in filmmaking and in life.
About Central Alberta Film Festival (CAFF)
Central Alberta Film Festival is a not-for-profit cultural organization with a mission to educate, support and promote cinematography and film making in Alberta and Canada. CAFF is a bridge between the audience, critics and the contemporary filmmakers who want to showcase and discuss their work. This festival is a platform to incubate Albertan, Canadian, and international talent. In a rapidly evolving film industry, CAFF is a catalyst to enhance cinematic experience with excellence, and support Canadian artistic values. The third annual Central Alberta Film Festival took place February 20-23, 2019.
Business
Donald Trump appoints Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone as special ambassadors to Hollywood
From LifeSiteNews
In a surprise post on Truth Social, Trump announced, ‘It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.’
In an unexpected move, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has selected Mel Gibson, along with Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight, to be “special ambassadors” to Hollywood in his next administration.
“It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social on Thursday.
Elaborating on his decision, Trump continued:
They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!
These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!
All three of the Hollywood stars are baptized Catholics and have, to varying degrees, professed and defended their beliefs both in God and in conservative principles more generally.
The appointments come just days after Gibson, who is well-known as an outspoken Catholic actor and director, appeared on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast, making headlines for defending the resurrection of Christ, talking about the post-Vatican II crisis in the Catholic Church, and speaking candidly about the important role his faith has played in his life. Gibson’s house was also one of many to have burned down in the fires ravaging Los Angeles, describing it as a form of “purification.”
Similarly, Stallone, who talked about his return to Christianity in the early 2000s after drifting away in his younger years, was also in the news recently for saying for the first time publicly that he is the survivor of abortion.
As for Voight, he was raised Catholic and attended the Catholic University of America, and is well-known for holding conservative views and talking openly about his belief in God. He is also the father of famous actress Angelina Jolie.
Censorship Industrial Complex
UNESCO’s New Mission: Train Influencers About Combatting Online “Misinformation”
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is now incorporating teaching influencers how to “fact check” into its activities.
UNESCO claims that influencers have become “primary sources of news and cultural information” around the world – which prompted it to carry out a survey into how these online personalities verify the “news” they present.
Citizens in UN member-countries may or may not be happy that this is how their taxpayer money funding the world organization is being spent these days. But UNESCO is not only conducting surveys; it is also developing a training course for said influencers (which are also interchangeably referred to as content creators in press releases).
It’s meant to teach them not only to “report misinformation, disinformation and hate speech” but also to collaborate with legacy media and these outlets’ journalists, in order to “amplify fact-based information.”
The survey, “Behind the screens,” was done together with researchers from the US Bowling Green State University. 500 influencers from 45 countries took part, and the key findings, UNESCO said, are that 63 percent of them “lack rigorous and systematic fact-checking protocols” – but also, that 73% said they “want to be trained.”
This UN agency also frames the results as showing that respondents are “struggling” with disinformation and hate speech and are “calling for more training.”
UNESCO is justifying its effort to teach influencers to “rigorously” check facts by referring to its media and information literacy mandate. The report laments that mainstream media has become “only the third most common source (36.9%) for content creators, after their own experience and their own research and interviews.”
It would seem content creators/influencers are driven by common sense, but UNESCO wants them to forge closer ties with journalists (specifically those from legacy, i.e., traditional media – UNESCO appears very eager to stress that multiple times.)
Related: United Nations Development Program Urges Governments to Push Digital ID
Under the guise of concern, the agency also essentially warns creators/influencers that they should be better aware of regulations and “international standards” that pertain to digital media – in order to avoid “legal uncertainty” that exposes them to “prosecution and conviction in some countries.”
And now, UNESCO and US-based Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas have launched a one-month course which is currently involving 9,000 people from 160 countries. The goal is to train them to “address disinformation and hate speech and provide them with a solid grounding in global human rights standards.”
The initiative looks like an attempt to get “traditional” journalists to influence the influencers, and try to prop up their outlets, that are experiencing an erosion in trust among their audiences.
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