Culture

SpotlightNetflix Takes Center Stage at the Venice Film Festival

Bélinda Ibrahim 18:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Netflix Venice Film Festival Cinema Film Culture

For several years, Venice has served as the discreet yet decisive battleground between traditional cinema and streaming giants. In 2025, Netflix makes a striking return to the Lido, shaking up the hierarchy of studios and auteurs alike. Three high-profile world premieres in official competition, carefully crafted productions and a calculated ...

Cracker Barrel Logo Change Sparks Cultural Backlash Across U.S.

This is Beirut 13:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Culture Heritage U.S. Food Art

Cracker Barrel has a special place in the hearts of many Americans, offering homestyle American cuisine in a folksy "Old Country Store" setting complete with rocking chairs and occasional country music performances. But an attempt to rebrand the storied US chain has sparked a firestorm of opposition online and opened a new front in the culture ...

'KPop Demon Hunters' breaks Netflix records and hits theaters

This is Beirut 10:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Cinema Art Culture Animated musical Film KPop Demon Hunters

After shattering viewership records on Netflix and climbing to the top of global music charts, the animated musical KPop Demon Hunters is now making its big-screen debut. This summer hit follows a trio of young Korean pop stars who battle demons using high-energy songs and synchronized dance moves. Since its Netflix release on June 20, the film ...

ChronicleWith 'Mother', Mitevska Restores Mother Teresa’s Humanity

Bélinda Ibrahim 22/08 19:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Mother Teresa Film Cinema Venice Film Festival Culture

Who was the real Mother Teresa? In Mother, Macedonian director Teona Strugar Mitevska reexamines the legend to reveal a woman far beyond the clichés. Premiering in the Orizzonti section at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, the movie focuses on seven pivotal days in 1948 that forever changed Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, the woman who would become Mother ...

Norma Nolan, First Miss Universe from Argentina, Has Passed Away

This is Beirut 22/08 13:35 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Norma Nolan Miss Universe Argentina Death

A discreet yet iconic figure has passed away in Miami, Florida, at the age of 87: Norma Nolan, the first and only Argentine woman ever to win the Miss Universe crown in 1962, leaves behind a legacy of grace, determination, and inspiration for generations of young women. Born in Venado Tuerto, Argentina, on April 22, 1938, Norma Beatriz Nolan was ...

US R&B Singer Joins Russia’s Intervision Revival in Moscow

This is Beirut 22/08 13:00 - Reading : 1 minute(s)

Eurovision Culture Musique Art

An American R&B artist will take part in Russia's revival of a song contest billed as a rival to Eurovision, which has excluded Russian singers since the Ukraine offensive, organizers said Thursday. Brandon Howard, known professionally as B. Howard, is mostly famous for his resemblance to Michael Jackson—sparking media speculation in the past ...

Adidas Apologizes for Cultural Misstep Over Mexican Sandals

This is Beirut 22/08 10:30 - Reading : 1 minute(s)

Adidas Fashion Culture Art Mexico U.S.

Sportswear giant Adidas apologized to an Indigenous community in Mexico Thursday for using their traditional sandals as inspiration for a new design, after an outcry by officials and President Claudia Sheinbaum. Local authorities had complained that the Oaxaca Slip-On sandals were a reinterpretation of huarache sandals, particularly one found ...

SpotlightAgnès Varda’s Paris: Intimacy, Poetry, and Eternal Street Life

Marie-Christine Tayah 21/08 19:00 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Exhibition Paris Agnès Varda Culture Art Cinema

Paris’s backdrop transformed into a mirror, a playground, and a living studio for Agnès Varda, where life and art were inseparable. The exhibition Le Paris d’Agnès Varda, de-ci, de-là reveals Varda as a photographer, far from the film set yet already shaped by the eye that made her one of cinema’s boldest pioneers. At the heart of this ...

Vienna Artists Cool Heatwaves With Asphalt Painted Colors

This is Beirut 21/08 10:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Painting Vienna Art Colors

Equipped with an infrared thermometer, Austrian artist Jonas Griessler measures the sweltering heat in an inner courtyard in the center of Vienna. Thanks to his collective's artwork covering the black asphalt with a multitude of bright colors, the ground temperature has dropped from 31°C to 20°C. Initiated by the museum showing the private ...

SpotlightNeither Man nor Woman? Psychoanalysis and the New Faces of Gender

David Sahyoun 20/08 18:00 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Psychoanalysis Gender Sexuality Binarity Man Woman

For centuries, gender identity was regarded as self-evident. To be a man or a woman seemed obvious. Biological sex was expected to dictate one’s role, tastes, gestures, clothing, and even destiny. One was born a girl or a boy, and society vigilantly preserved this division. Early psychoanalysis did not escape this binary logic. Freud himself ...

Sweden Moves Iconic Arctic Church Amid Mine Expansion

This is Beirut 20/08 14:40 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Culture Europe Art Kiruna

A historic red wooden church considered one of Sweden's most beautiful buildings resumed its slow move across the Arctic town of Kiruna on Wednesday, inching toward its new home to allow Europe's biggest underground mine to expand. Kiruna's entire town center is being relocated because of the giant LKAB iron ore mine that dominates the region, ...

Fading Faces: Why Young Hindu Women in Pakistan Are Abandoning Traditional Tattoos

This is Beirut 20/08 10:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Art Culture Índia Tattoo Pakistan

Grinding charcoal with a few drops of goat’s milk, 60-year-old Basran Jogi peers at the faces of two young Pakistani sisters preparing for their first tattoos. The practice of elder women needling delicate shapes onto the faces, hands, and arms of younger generations stretches back centuries in the Hindu villages that dot the southern border ...