Forty years after it started submitting films to the Oscars, Lebanon got its first nomination for best foreign language film
Political Artwork archive on Democracy Chronicles
These Political Artwork articles reflect the strong relationship between the arts and politics, particularly between various kinds of art and power, occurs across historical epochs and cultures. As they respond to contemporaneous events and politics, the arts take on political as well as social dimensions, becoming themselves a focus of controversy and even a force of political as well as social change. Also see our main section on Political Art or our extensive articles on World Protest.
Influential Chilean ‘anti-poet’ Nicanor Parra dies
Nicanor Parra revolutionized Latin American literature and won the Spanish-speaking world’s highest literary honor
South Korea’s Defector TV is Showcase For Peninsula’s Challenges
The ‘Defector TV’ formula takes a reality TV approach – putting asylum seekers on the air and exploring what their lives
For African-Americans, celebrity and politics has always mixed
Black celebrities of the 1930s and 1940s weren’t simply entertainers; they were living proof that African-Americans didn’t need to succumb to stereotypes
Kosovo Serbs to stage strongman Milosevic musical
A Serbian theatre group in Kosovo is set to stage a musical about the life of Serbia’s late 1990s strongman Slobodan Milosevic and his influential wife. The “Slobodan Show” is due to open in February in Gracanica, a large ethnic Serb enclave in central Kosovo. The country of 1.8 million people is predominantly ethnic Albanian. […]
A Woman and Her Hijab: Symbols of Iranian Protest
As protests continue across Iran for the seventh day, one woman is being hailed as a “hero” after a video of her removing her hijab in an apparent protest was posted on a social media site. The footage shows the woman standing on a box, waving the hijab at the end of a stick like […]
Artist ‘released’ in China after Liu Xiaobo tribute
An artist that could not be reached for more than a week after he painted a politically charged mural in southern China wrote on Twitter Monday that he has been “released”. “I was released a few days ago and we are in my hometown now,” the Twitter account of painter Hu Jiamin read days after […]
Strong Reaction to Trump Likeness at Disney’s Hall of Presidents
It’s got his orangish hair, too-long tie, and trademark unbuttoned jacket. But is that robo-guy at Disney’s Hall of Presidents really supposed to be Donald Trump? If you go by the chorus of tweets out there ranging from puzzled to horrified, the facial likeness of the animatronic figure unveiled Tuesday is a botch job. The […]
New film tells the story of Swiss women’s suffrage
When did women win the right to vote in prosperous, stable, civilized Switzerland? Many people would be surprised to learn that Swiss women didn’t win the right to vote until 1971.
Fear of a Black Flag: The Islamic State’s Propaganda and Future
Al Qaida’s dull Osama-lectures in Arabic never had the pizazz of IS’s sleek magazines and certainly not the charisma of their reality-tv snuff films. Their gruesome short films are filmically excellent.