The Sundance Film Festival opened with a Howl. A sold-out house applauded the premiere of the film by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, which turned the clock back to the 1950s, when Allen Ginsberg published the experimental poem of the same name, and subsequently weathered a trial in San Francisco on charges of obscenity.
If there is one theme that stands out at Sundance 2010, it is cultural archaeology. A biography such as Howl, innovative in its blend of live action and animation, celebrates cultural heroes, something Sundance has always done.
Other films re-examine cultural figures. Tamra Davish's documentary The Radiant Child revisits the life of the 1980s graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose career soared and crashed before he died of a drug overdose at the age of 27 in 1988. (The writers who died young in Ginsberg's crowd survived until at least their forties.)
The son of a Haitian accountant, the Brooklyn-born Basquiat gave a film interview in 1982, when he was 22. The conversation became a 21-minute film that has circulated around museums and cinema societies.
At the time, Basquiat was a rising star in the art world, noted for his ascent from street art to the rarefied galleries of Soho in New York. Today's interest in Basquiat is logical enough. Collectors are vying to acquire his paintings of skulls, dogs and crowns, one of which set an auction record for the artist in 2008 at $14.6 million (Dh54m) - higher than the prices for paintings by his peers such as Julian Schnabel and Keith Haring. Now an ensemble of interviews with Basquiat and those contemporaries has been assembled into a portrait of his life and times.
A series of portraits is also created in Smash His Camera, Leon Gast's reversal of the lens on the paparazzo Ron Galella. Marlon Brando famously broke the photographer's jaw in 1973. Robert Redford, the founder of the Sundance festival, was another actor who figured among Galella's targets. At the Egyptian Theater in Park City on Thursday, Redford grimaced and then described trying to outrun the intrusive photographer. Redford recalled wearing a wig and a moustache disguise during the filming of Three Days of the Condor in Manhattan in 1974 to throw Galella off his trail. "That one time," Redford said proudly, "it worked."
Another veteran of media culture comes under scrutiny in Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg. Rivers is notorious for her sharply barbed observations on the careers and clothes of celebrities who walk the red carpet at awards ceremonies. Stern and Sundberg show in their documentary that this has been a long march for Rivers, now 76, who toiled in comedy clubs before she found niches on television, in Las Vegas and on pre-awards shows.
The wisecracking Rivers, who would find much to ridicule in the clothes filmgoers wear to keep warm in Utah, may seem like an odd subject for the documentary duo, who previously investigated a man wrongly convicted of murder in North Carolina and the Sudanese government's role in the wars in Darfur. Rivers has "a misunderstood story that has never fully been told", the co-directors say. "And she's funny." Not to mention solidly commercial.
In the festival's dramatic competition, Obselidia, a first film written and directed by Diane Bell, deals with a librarian's struggle against progression. George (Michael Piccirilli) dresses in vests and collarless shirts, types out an encyclopaedia of obsolete items and records interviews with Luddite mentors on a video camera that "cost $50 and still works".
Living in an apartment that resembles a museum, George stands alone against the passage of time, even admitting that libraries such as his are now frequented mostly by people who check out DVDs and use the computers. In a festival fuelled by hi-tech sponsors, Obselidia represents a step in the other direction.
Sometimes archaeology is just archaeology, however improbable it may be. In the documentary Wasteland, directed by Lucy Walker, the Brazilian artist Vik Muniz travels from Brooklyn to the world's largest rubbish dump, Jardim Gramacho, outside Rio de Janeiro. There, Muniz enlists rubbish pickers, called catadors, to salvage trash. He photographs them and their works of arte povera, objects created from materials that were thrown away. Muniz creates photographic collages that incorporate depictions of the rubbish pickers and the rubbish itself.
"The moment when one thing turns into another is the most beautiful moment," he said.
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
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.
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Sustainable Development Goals
1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its effects
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development
How the bonus system works
The two riders are among several riders in the UAE to receive the top payment of £10,000 under the Thank You Fund of £16 million (Dh80m), which was announced in conjunction with Deliveroo's £8 billion (Dh40bn) stock market listing earlier this year.
The £10,000 (Dh50,000) payment is made to those riders who have completed the highest number of orders in each market.
There are also riders who will receive payments of £1,000 (Dh5,000) and £500 (Dh2,500).
All riders who have worked with Deliveroo for at least one year and completed 2,000 orders will receive £200 (Dh1,000), the company said when it announced the scheme.
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In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Types of fraud
Phishing: Fraudsters send an unsolicited email that appears to be from a financial institution or online retailer. The hoax email requests that you provide sensitive information, often by clicking on to a link leading to a fake website.
Smishing: The SMS equivalent of phishing. Fraudsters falsify the telephone number through “text spoofing,” so that it appears to be a genuine text from the bank.
Vishing: The telephone equivalent of phishing and smishing. Fraudsters may pose as bank staff, police or government officials. They may persuade the consumer to transfer money or divulge personal information.
SIM swap: Fraudsters duplicate the SIM of your mobile number without your knowledge or authorisation, allowing them to conduct financial transactions with your bank.
Identity theft: Someone illegally obtains your confidential information, through various ways, such as theft of your wallet, bank and utility bill statements, computer intrusion and social networks.
Prize scams: Fraudsters claiming to be authorised representatives from well-known organisations (such as Etisalat, du, Dubai Shopping Festival, Expo2020, Lulu Hypermarket etc) contact victims to tell them they have won a cash prize and request them to share confidential banking details to transfer the prize money.
* Nada El Sawy