Culture

From Power Ballads to Pyrotechnics: Europe Takes the Stage at Eurovision

This is Beirut 17/05 12:35 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Eurovision Europe Contest Sweden Culture Music

In a blaze of laser lights, artists from 26 countries were preparing to rip the roof off at Saturday's Eurovision Song Contest final, the world's biggest live music television event. An estimated 160 million people across Europe and beyond are expected to tune in for the TV extravaganza, where kitsch, drama, pyrotechnics and histrionics take ...

Rushdie's Attacker Sentenced to 25 Years in US Prison

This is Beirut 17/05 11:10 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Salman Rushdie US Iran Freedom Culture Writer

Hadi Matar, the American-Lebanese man who stabbed Salman Rushdie in 2022, was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison in the United States. Rushdie, a symbol of freedom of expression, sustained serious injuries in the knife attack. Matar, 27, who grew up in the U.S., was found guilty in February of attempted murder and assault by a jury following ...

Eurovision 2025: Will Celine Dion Return?

This is Beirut 16/05 17:10 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Celine Dion Eurovision Prague Culture Music Art

As excitement builds for Saturday's Eurovision final, one question looms large: could superstar Celine Dion, now in fragile health, make a show-stopping appearance, 37 years after winning the competition? Dion became a global music icon, selling albums by the millions and staging groundbreaking sell-out concerts around the world. But she has ...

SpotlightCannes: A Festival Rooted in Defiance of Fascism

Bélinda Ibrahim 16/05 17:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Cannes Film Festival Cinema Fascism Freedom France Cannes 2025

It was the late 1930s. The Venice Mostra, founded in 1932, was the world’s first international film festival. But by 1938, as global tensions mounted, it had turned into an ideological showcase for fascism. Under joint pressure from Hitler and Mussolini, the jury was compelled to award the festival’s top prize, the Mussolini Cup, to two ...

Eurovision Returns to Switzerland: A Legacy of Song Evolution

This is Beirut 16/05 15:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Eurovision Switzerland Europe Music Culture Art

Switzerland is hosting Eurovision for the third time, with the extravaganza a world away from when it staged the inaugural competition in 1956—and also from 1989 when Celine Dion starred. The 2025 edition on May 17 in Basel will draw an expected TV audience of around 160 million, with viewers worldwide casting their votes. Here is a look back ...

Salman Rushdie’s attacker to be sentenced this Friday

This is Beirut 16/05 10:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Salman Rushdie Writer Iran Culture Art Justice

Hadi Matar will be sentenced on Friday for trying to kill novelist Salman Rushdie in a 2022 knife attack at a New York cultural center. Hadi Matar, 27, faces up to 25 years in prison after being convicted of attempted murder and assault charges in February this year. During the trial, Rushdie told jurors about Matar "stabbing and slashing" him ...

New Cannes Festival Policy Bans Actor Accused of Rape

This is Beirut 15/05 18:15 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Cannes 2025 Film Celebrity Women Agresssion Culture

The Cannes film festival barred an actor in a prominent French film from the red carpet on Thursday because of sexual assault allegations, unveiling a new policy under pressure from lawmakers and activists. Theo Navarro-Mussy plays a police officer in a supporting role in the film Dossier 137 by Dominik Moll, which is to premiere on Thursday in ...

12 Points to Politics: The Eurovision Score You Don’t See

This is Beirut 15/05 16:25 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Eurovision Votes Politics Music

Groans and giggles typically greet votes at the annual Eurovision Song Contest, loved and mocked for its kitsch music and seemingly partisan outcomes. But over time, what are the voting patterns, and what external factors help explain them? Ahead of Saturday's final in Basel, AFP analyzed all points distributed among around 2,300 possible pairs ...

Eurovision 2025: Spotlight on the Second Semifinal’s 16 Competitors

This is Beirut 15/05 14:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Eurovision 2025 Music Semi-Final 2 Switzerland Culture

Sixteen countries are competing in the Eurovision Song Contest's second semifinal on Thursday, with viewers deciding which 10 go through to the grand final. Saturday's showpiece event takes place at the St Jakobshalle in the Swiss city of Basel. Ten countries have already qualified from Tuesday's first semifinal. The so-called ...

Tom Cruise’s Death-Defying ‘Mission’ Lights Up Cannes

This is Beirut 15/05 10:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Tom Cruise Cannes Cannes Film Festival France Culture Cinema

Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning made its big grandstand premiere at the Cannes Film Festival Wednesday, with the first reviews saying it more than lives up to its steamroller hype. "What a rush!" The Guardian declared in its five-star love letter to Cruise's $400-million behemoth, calling him a modern "superhuman action ...

Top chef Georgiana Viou: blending cuisine across continents

This is Beirut 14/05 19:25 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Benin Food Michelin Bistronomy France Culture Georgiana Viou

Georgiana Viou calls herself a "UFO", championing free and daring cuisine straddling two continents, from Cotonou's lively street markets to the kitchens of her Michelin-starred restaurant in Nimes, southern France. In the alleys of the historic Saint-Michel market in Benin's bustling economic capital, unchanged since her childhood, Viou goes ...

Explainer‘To Exist Is to Be Different:’ Creativity as Self-Affirmation

David Sahyoun 14/05 18:00 - Reading : 6 minute(s)

Psychoanalysis Exist Creativity Self-Affirmation Culture

For philosopher Jean Baudrillard, consumption is far more than an economic act – it is a system of communication and social control. We don’t consume merely to meet our needs; we consume to be like others, to belong to the collective. Behind the apparent abundance of choice hides an insidious conformity: you need to have this object to be ...