Let's get this out of the way first. Diego Luis Buñuel is annoyingly good-looking and charming. Worse, he seems like a nice bloke and even has the grace to appear faintly embarrassed when his attention is drawn to the thousands of (mainly) female fans who flutter around him on the internet.
But only faintly. As a child of the modern media and a grandson of one of cinema's most celebrated directors, he understands fully not only the need to engage with tomorrow's viewers/readers/subscribers, but also the power of personality and image in doing so.
These are two concepts neatly bundled together in the series Don't Tell My Mother, now airing in Arabic on the National Geographic Abu Dhabi channel, and summed up in a comment by Mary, one fan on the Facebook discussion topic "Diego Buñuel is too sexy for this topic to go un-started", who says: "First you look at his report coz he is cute and then you learn interesting things."
Quite. It is, says the 34-year-old Buñuel during a recent visit to Dubai, "bizarre, and yet then again very enjoyable, because the reality of the comments that are made - except for the few, you know, 'You're so cute, blah blah' - is that I am engaging young people in looking at their world in a different way".
The idea for the show grew out of an office joke when Buñuel was working as a reporter for the French television news agency CAPA. "Don't tell my mother I am in Afghanistan," he would tell colleagues as he headed off to the latest trouble spot. His mother's fear of such places, he realised, was created largely by the one-dimensional agenda of the evening news channels, and he wanted to tell the world a different story.
"My mother would be freaking out watching CNN or the BBC whenever I was in the field. I would go to the Congo and she would see a mass of rapes and murders, which is true, but it is not the only thing. That represents one per cent or less of the population and that means we know nothing about 99 per cent of the country."
Four years after the September 11 attacks and as the veteran of a working tour of the world's trouble spots, "I was tired of doing all the 'if it bleeds, it leads' stories. I would see these other stories around me and call the newsroom and they would say: 'Are you crazy? Just do the story with the bearded guys.'"
In 2006, at the age of 31, he pitched his vision to National Geographic and got the chance to tell those other, human stories behind the headlines in such places as Colombia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
His audience, he says, is the young disconnected. "They are not people who read The New York Times. This is the Facebook, video-game, 15-to-35 generation that I think is lost because of this constant entertainment drivel that's on every screen we have.
"My goal is to show them that there is a world out there that is open and not a scary place; if you show them there are a lot of exciting places and interesting people to meet, you can touch them and give them hope that our world can change."
The son of two film directors and the grandson of the surrealist filmmaker and Oscar-winner Luis Buñuel, his own childhood, he concedes, was "very privileged". There were "always interesting people at the table", including the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Umberto Eco and George Cukor, though this had its downside.
"I was a very solitary kid for many years, because I grew up in this adult world that was fascinating," he says. "For me the discussion at the table, even if I didn't understand half of it, was so much more interesting than the drivel at school."
But among the actors, thinkers and directors who passed through his parents' salon in Paris, there were also foreign correspondents, big names from papers such as The New York Times and the Washington Post, and, in the house of surrealism, a seed of realism was sown.
"I was 14 and they'd tell me about Lebanon, about Vietnam ... I grew up in a world of fiction and suddenly I had these guys telling me crazy stories, but it was reality. It really got me interested in finding out exactly what reality was."
At one point, it had been accepted that the young Buñuel would go into the family business. "Yes, that was the planned career: actor. I thought I would be in the movies at one point. So did my parents. But I wanted to be in journalism."
Leaving Paris, he enrolled at Northwestern University just outside Chicago to study journalism and political science. After graduating in 1997, the first of his many internships was with the Times Picayune in New Orleans, where he worked the crime beat: "It was really interesting, very wild; a lot of murders- my first interaction with the brutality of real life."
After experience on newspapers including the San Francisco Examiner, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald and Chicago Tribune, he landed a job in Miami where, as a crime reporter on the Sun Sentinel, his fluency in Spanish came in handy.
And then, one day in 2000, the telephone rang. "It's the French army calling, saying 'You're drafted'," he explains. "I said, 'Are you joking?' They weren't. It was the last year of national service in France.
"I could have got out of it but I decided to do it for the experience," says Buñuel. With the rank of corporal, he was sent to Bosnia to work with Nato's media affairs division. "It was interesting to see how the military played the media; it gave me a very good insight."
When he had served his time, his job was still waiting in Florida, but by now love was calling in Paris, in the shape of a Croatian girlfriend. His first thought was to re-enter print journalism, "but my spelling in French is not very good, so I started in TV at the CAPA news agency. That's where I learnt my trade as a TV journalist".
Then fate stepped in. In the aftermath of September 11, thanks to his American passport, he was on the first flight out of France to land in New York. "I realised there and then that things were going to start happening rapidly. Anything that happened after 9/11, I was in it; Afghanistan, then the invasion of Iraq."
In 2003, following French opposition to the invasion of Iraq and the resurrection of the Simpsons taunt, "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", being a French reporter was "a real challenge if you wanted to be embedded in the US Marines", says Buñuel.
But, "after working like hell for three weeks in Kuwait" and having the good luck to run into a US officer he had met in 2001 at ground zero in New York, he bagged a seat on a convoy bound for Baghdad. His CAPA cameraman was not so lucky and so, after an overnight crash-course in filming, Buñuel found himself hefting his own hardware and following in his grandfather's footsteps in a way neither could have envisaged.
Did the Marines give him a hard time? "Of course. And having been a soldier in the French army didn't help much."
By 2004, his work unearthing feature stories that dug deeper than the average news segment was attracting attention and he had become not only the teller of stories, but the subject of a few. According to a review in the Los Angeles Times in May 2004, he was responsible for "some of this year's most memorable reporting from Iraq".
As a man who uses a camera to focus attention on the realities of the world, the irony of the juxtaposition with his famous surrealist grandfather is not lost on him. Yet both he and Buñuel senior, the auteur of such classics as Belle de Jour (1967) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), share humour as a stock in trade.
"He used humour to criticise religion, hypocrisy, the bourgeoisie and so forth in a surreal environment; I use humour to criticise dictatorship, violence and oppression in hyper-real situations. So in a way we both took humour as a sword to fight against things that hurt people."
He remembers his grandfather, who died in 1983, when Diego was eight years old: "Unfortunately, that is too young; when you have a guy of that calibre in your family you wish that he were around a little longer. That will be the tragedy of my life."
And, as his famous forebear sought to break out of the straitjacket of cinematic tradition, so Buñuel rejects the protocols of traditional TV news, seeking to re-engage with viewers and help them to identify with the people behind the clichés.
"In this media culture of good guys and bad guys," he says, "you can't be subtle, you have to be black and white. But the world is grey.
"What is Afghanistan? It's burkas, Taliban and opium. What is Colombia? Cocaine, kidnappings and Farc. The world has been reduced to three basic ideas per country. Media coverage, instead of opening us to the world, has closed us off and has frightened us more than reassured us."
His job, he says, "is to try to find unusual small stories that tell of a bigger picture", to bypass the formats that govern so much of the news and deaden the sensitivities of so many of the people who watch it.
"For example, in Baghdad, I can go film another car bombing, but we've seen a million of them and, as Stalin said, a million deaths is a statistic. So how do you bring it down to a level so that people in their homes in the West can understand the realities?"
Buñuel's answer was to tell the story by pointing his lens not at shattered bodies, but at the unclaimed clothes left behind in a Baghdad dry-cleaner's. It makes for a haunting image, "an entire room filled with clothes - the clothes of children, women, men, clerics; people who have never come back to get them. So in going to the dry-cleaner's you understand what death is all about in Iraq.
"That is my job: to try to bring harsh realities back to a level that you can understand and feel for. To help people to understand the hopes, and plight or successes of other people in a more innovative way than just saying, 'Today, a thousand people died and it was terrible.' Yes, it was terrible, but if that is the only thing you have to say about it then you're not saying anything."
The bad news for Buñuel's young female fan base is that more than a year ago he married his girlfriend, Maggie Kim, a Korean-born rock musician who grew up in New York. ("He has a wife?" writes Isabella on Facebook. "That sucks.") The good news is that, despite having fathered a daughter - Dae, now seven months old - he has no plans to stop visiting the world's most dangerous places, and telling the humanising stories of the people who live there.
"On the contrary," he says, "having a child I want to show her the place she has arrived in: the world."
Don't Tell My Mother- I'm in Congo is on National Geographic Abu Dhabi at 10pm on March 19.
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Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale
Starring: Nayanthara, Vignesh Shivan, Radhika Sarathkumar, Nagarjuna Akkineni
Director: Amith Krishnan
Rating: 3.5/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Kanguva
Director: Siva
Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
Profile Idealz
Company: Idealz
Founded: January 2018
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Size: (employees): 22
Investors: Co-founders and Venture Partners (9 per cent)
The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Wicked
Director: Jon M Chu
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
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Ain Dubai in numbers
126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure
1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch
16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.
9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.
5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place
192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.
Company%20Profile
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Baftas 2020 winners
BEST FILM
- 1917 - Pippa Harris, Callum McDougall, Sam Mendes, Jayne-Ann Tenggren
- THE IRISHMAN - Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, Martin Scorsese, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
- JOKER - Bradley Cooper, Todd Phillips, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
- ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD - David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, Quentin Tarantino
- PARASITE - Bong Joon-ho, Kwak Sin-ae
DIRECTOR
- 1917 - Sam Mendes
- THE IRISHMAN - Martin Scorsese
- JOKER - Todd Phillips
- ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD - Quentin Tarantino
- PARASITE - Bong Joon-ho
OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
- 1917 - Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Callum McDougall, Jayne-Ann Tenggren, Krysty Wilson-Cairns
- BAIT - Mark Jenkin, Kate Byers, Linn Waite
- FOR SAMA - Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
- ROCKETMAN - Dexter Fletcher, Adam Bohling, David Furnish, David Reid, Matthew Vaughn, Lee Hall
- SORRY WE MISSED YOU - Ken Loach, Rebecca O’Brien, Paul Laverty
- THE TWO POPES - Fernando Meirelles, Jonathan Eirich, Dan Lin, Tracey Seaward, Anthony McCarten
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
- THE FAREWELL - Lulu Wang, Daniele Melia
- FOR SAMA - Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
- PAIN AND GLORY - Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar
- PARASITE - Bong Joon-ho
- PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE - Céline Sciamma, Bénédicte Couvreur
LEADING ACTRESS
- JESSIE BUCKLEY - Wild Rose
- SCARLETT JOHANSSON - Marriage Story
- SAOIRSE RONAN - Little Women
- CHARLIZE THERON - Bombshell
- RENÉE ZELLWEGER - Judy
LEADING ACTOR
- LEONARDO DICAPRIO - Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood
- ADAM DRIVER - Marriage Story
- TARON EGERTON - Rocketman
- JOAQUIN PHOENIX - Joker
- JONATHAN PRYCE - The Two Popes
SUPPORTING ACTOR
- TOM HANKS - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
- ANTHONY HOPKINS - The Two Popes
- AL PACINO - The Irishman
- JOE PESCI - The Irishman
- BRAD PITT - Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
- LAURA DERN - Marriage Story
- SCARLETT JOHANSSON - Jojo Rabbit
- FLORENCE PUGH - Little Women
- MARGOT ROBBIE - Bombshell
- MARGOT ROBBIE - Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
- THE IRISHMAN - Steven Zaillian
- JOJO RABBIT - Taika Waititi
- JOKER - Todd Phillips, Scott Silver
- LITTLE WOMEN - Greta Gerwig
- THE TWO POPES - Anthony McCarten
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
- BOOKSMART - Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Katie Silberman
- KNIVES OUT - Rian Johnson
- MARRIAGE STORY - Noah Baumbach
- ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD - Quentin Tarantino
- PARASITE - Han Jin Won, Bong Joon ho
DOCUMENTARY
- AMERICAN FACTORY - Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert
- APOLLO 11 - Todd Douglas Miller
- DIEGO MARADONA - Asif Kapadia
- FOR SAMA - Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
- THE GREAT HACK - Karim Amer, Jehane Noujaime
OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
- BAIT - Mark Jenkin (Writer/Director), Kate Byers, Linn Waite (Producers)
- FOR SAMA - Waad al-Kateab (Director/Producer), Edward Watts (Director)
- MAIDEN - Alex Holmes (Director)
- ONLY YOU - Harry Wootliff (Writer/Director)
- RETABLO - Álvaro Delgado-Aparicio (Writer/Director)
ANIMATED FILM
- FROZEN 2 - Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho
- KLAUS - Sergio Pablos, Jinko Gotoh
- A SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE: FARMAGEDDON - Will Becher, Richard Phelan, Paul Kewley
- TOY STORY 4 - Josh Cooley, Mark Nielsen
CASTING
- JOKER - Shayna Markowitz
- MARRIAGE STORY - Douglas Aibel, Francine Maisler
- ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD - Victoria Thomas
- THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD - Sarah Crowe
- THE TWO POPES - Nina Gold
EE RISING STAR AWARD (voted for by the public)
- AWKWAFINA
- JACK LOWDEN
- KAITLYN DEVER
- KELVIN HARRISON JR.
- MICHEAL WARD
CINEMATOGRAPHY
- 1917 - Roger Deakins
- THE IRISHMAN - Rodrigo Prieto
- JOKER - Lawrence Sher
- LE MANS ’66 - Phedon Papamichael
- THE LIGHTHOUSE - Jarin Blaschke
EDITING
- THE IRISHMAN - Thelma Schoonmaker
- JOJO RABBIT - Tom Eagles
- JOKER - Jeff Groth
- LE MANS ’66 - Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker
- ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD - Fred Raskin
COSTUME DESIGN
- THE IRISHMAN - Christopher Peterson, Sandy Powell
- JOJO RABBIT - Mayes C. Rubeo
- JUDY - Jany Temime
- LITTLE WOMEN - Jacqueline Durran
- ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD - Arianne Phillips
PRODUCTION DESIGN
- 1917 - Dennis Gassner, Lee Sandales
- THE IRISHMAN - Bob Shaw, Regina Graves
- JOJO RABBIT - Ra Vincent, Nora Sopková
- JOKER - Mark Friedberg, Kris Moran
- ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD - Barbara Ling, Nancy Haigh
SOUND
- 1917 - Scott Millan, Oliver Tarney, Rachael Tate, Mark Taylor, Stuart Wilson
- JOKER - Tod Maitland, Alan Robert Murray, Tom Ozanich, Dean Zupancic
- LE MANS ’66 - David Giammarco, Paul Massey, Steven A. Morrow, Donald Sylvester
- ROCKETMAN - Matthew Collinge, John Hayes, Mike Prestwood Smith, Danny Sheehan
- STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER - David Acord, Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio, Stuart Wilson, Matthew Wood
ORIGINAL SCORE
- 1917 - Thomas Newman
- JOJO RABBIT - Michael Giacchino
- JOKER - Hildur Guđnadóttir
- LITTLE WOMEN - Alexandre Desplat
- STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER - John Williams
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
- 1917 - Greg Butler, Guillaume Rocheron, Dominic Tuohy
- AVENGERS: ENDGAME - Dan Deleeuw, Dan Sudick
- THE IRISHMAN - Leandro Estebecorena, Stephane Grabli, Pablo Helman
- THE LION KING - Andrew R. Jones, Robert Legato, Elliot Newman, Adam Valdez
- STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER - Roger Guyett, Paul Kavanagh, Neal Scanlan, Dominic Tuohy
MAKE UP & HAIR
- 1917 - Naomi Donne
- BOMBSHELL - Vivian Baker, Kazu Hiro, Anne Morgan
- JOKER - Kay Georgiou, Nicki Ledermann
- JUDY - Jeremy Woodhead
- ROCKETMAN - Lizzie Yianni Georgiou
BRITISH SHORT FILM
- AZAAR - Myriam Raja, Nathanael Baring
- GOLDFISH - Hector Dockrill, Harri Kamalanathan, Benedict Turnbull, Laura Dockrill
- KAMALI - Sasha Rainbow, Rosalind Croad
- LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD IN A WARZONE (IF YOU’RE A GIRL) - Carol Dysinger, Elena Andreicheva
- THE TRAP - Lena Headey, Anthony Fitzgerald
BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION
- GRANDAD WAS A ROMANTIC - Maryam Mohajer
- IN HER BOOTS - Kathrin Steinbacher
- THE MAGIC BOAT - Naaman Azh
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Friday (UAE kick-off times)
Cologne v Hoffenheim (11.30pm)
Saturday
Hertha Berlin v RB Leipzig (6.30pm)
Schalke v Fortuna Dusseldof (6.30pm)
Mainz v Union Berlin (6.30pm)
Paderborn v Augsburg (6.30pm)
Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund (9.30pm)
Sunday
Borussia Monchengladbach v Werder Bremen (4.30pm)
Wolfsburg v Bayer Leverkusen (6.30pm)
SC Freiburg v Eintracht Frankfurt (9on)
UAE v Gibraltar
What: International friendly
When: 7pm kick off
Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City
Admission: Free
Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page
UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)
Company%20profile
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Company profile
Date started: 2015
Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki
Based: Dubai
Sector: Online grocery delivery
Staff: 200
Funding: Undisclosed, but investors include the Jabbar Internet Group and Venture Friends
