#irish festival sydney

[thenextrush]

St. Patrick's Day FREE Outdoor Movie Screenings

The Irish Film Festival have announced a program of three free Movie Nights at the Sydney St. Patrick’s Day Festival 2023. WHEN: Thursday 16th, Friday 17th & Saturday 18th MarchGates open 4:30pm for a 5pm startWHERE: Cadmans Cottage (Next to the MCA), The RocksPRICE: No tickets are required to attend the screenings Among the highlights for the very first Free Outdoor Irish Film Festival is The…

[dear-indies]

hi there! i hope you're well! i have a lot of muse for a vampire character as of late but i'm unsure what kind of fc i'd like to go for. do you have any fcs you can recommend and/or would love to see used in a vampire role? i have a reference for women as i usually write them, but i'm open to any ethnicity, age and the like. thank you so much in advance!

Shohreh Aghdashloo (1952) Iranian.

Ming-Na Wen (1963) Macanese, part Malaysian.

Lucy Liu (1968) Chinese.

Carla Gugino (1971)

Poorna Jagannathan (1972) Indian - has spoken up for Palestine!

Kim Seo-hyung (1973) Korean.

Mahershala Ali (1974) African-American - is going to play Blade so he has to have a mentioned - has spoken up for Palestine!

Dominique Jackson (1975) Afro-Tobagonian - is a trans woman.

Danai Gurira (1978) Shona Zimbabwean.

Jaime Murray (1976)

Yao Chen (1979) Chinese.

Maggie Q (1979) Vietnamese / White.

Janina Gavankar (1980) 75% Indian 25% Dutch.

Angelica Ross (1980) African-American - is a trans woman - has spoken up for Palestine!

Kim So-yeon (1980) Korean - vibes in Penthouse.

Miyavi (1981) Japanese / Korean-Japanese.

Krysten Ritter (1981)

Beth Ditto (1981) - is queer - more fat muses and more fat vampires please - has spoken up for Palestine!

Yetide Badaki (1981) Nigerian - is bisexual.

Mahesh Jadu (1982) Indo Mauritian.

Du Juan (1982) Chinese.

Riz Ahmed (1982) Pakistani - has spoken up for Palestine!

Dichen Lachman (1982) Nepalese Tibetan / White.

Billie Piper (1982) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Amir Eid (1983) Egyptian - has spoken up for Palestine!

Michael Malarkey (1983) part Palestinian - also played a vampire in The Vampire Diaries.

Jena Malone (1984) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Asia Kate Dillon (1984) Ashkenazi Jewish / Unspecified - is non-binary and pansexual (they/them) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Rahul Kohli (1985) Punjabi Indian - uses he/they - vibes in The Fall of the House of Usher - has spoken up for Palestine!

Nathalie Kelley (1985) Argentinian, Peruvian [Quechua, possibly other].

T'Nia Miller (1985) Afro Jamaican - is a lesbian - has spoken up for Palestine!

Natalie Morales (1985) Cuban - is queer - has spoken up for Palestine!

Diane Guerrero (1986) Colombian - vibes in Doom Patrol - has spoken up for Palestine!

Alba Flores (1986) Romani, Spanish [including Andalusian] - is a lesbian - has spoken up for Palestine!

Michaela Coel (1987) Ghanaian - is aromantic, boycotted the Sydney Festival 2022 for Palestine.

Lee Soo-hyuk (1988) Korean - also played a vampire in The Scholar Who Walks the Night.

Sonoya Mizuno (1988) Japanese / English, Argentinian.

Cody Fern (1988) - vibes in American Horror Story.

Morfydd Clark (1989) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Mishel Prada (1989) Puerto Rican, Dominican Republic, and Mexican [Spanish, Portuguese, African, Indigenous], some French - has spoken up for Palestine!

Luke Baines (1990) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Kiowa Gordon (1990) Hualapai and White - vibes in Blood Quantum - has spoken up for Palestine!

Kelly McCormack (1991) - is queer - has spoken up for Palestine!

Vico Ortiz (1991) Puerto Rican - non-binary (they/them) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Tanya Reynolds (1991) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Paloma Elsesser (1992) African-American / Chilean, Swiss - has spoken up for Palestine!

Yumi Nu (1996) Japanese / White.

Blu del Barrio (1997) Argentinian - is non-binary (they/them) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Jessica Alexander (1999) - has spoken up for Palestine!

Lizeth Selene (1999) Mexican [Unspecified Indigenous, Black and White] - is genderfluid and queer, uses she/they.

Odessa A'zion (2000) Ashkenazi Jewish, English, some Irish, Northern Irish, Welsh, German - has spoken up for Palestine!

Rachel Zegler (2001) Colombian / White - has spoken up for Palestine!

Hey anon! I replied to an ask like this HERE which has woman listed from mid twenties to early thirties, here are some suggestions not from that list though!

Please let me know if you'd like something more specific!

[hividsmarttv]

Australian Film

Australia has a rich and diverse film culture that has produced some incredible movies over the years. From sweeping epics to gritty dramas, Australian films are known for their unique voice and perspective. In this article, we will explore the different types of films made in Australia, major film festivals occurring in Australia, and prominent Australian actors.

Types of Films Made in Australia

Australian films cover a wide range of genres, from comedy to horror, and everything in between. One of the most well-known types of Australian films is the "outback western," which typically features a lone hero taking on the harsh Australian landscape. Examples of this genre include "The Proposition" and "The Tracker."

Another popular type of Australian film is the coming-of-age story, which often explores themes of identity, family, and community. Examples of this genre include "The Black Balloon" and "Looking for Alibrandi."

Australia is also known for producing high-quality horror films, such as "Wolf Creek" and "The Babadook." These films often use the Australian landscape to create a sense of isolation and unease.

Major Film Festivals in Australia

Australia is home to several major film festivals, including the Sydney Film Festival and the Melbourne International Film Festival. The Sydney Film Festival, which has been running since 1954, showcases the best of Australian and international cinema. The Melbourne International Film Festival, which has been running since 1952, is one of the oldest film festivals in the world and features a diverse range of films from around the globe.

Prominent Australian Actors

Australia has produced a number of talented actors who have achieved international success and acclaim. One of the most well-known of these actors is Nicole Kidman, who has starred in a variety of films, including "Moulin Rouge!," "The Others," and "The Hours." Kidman has won numerous awards for her work, including an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in "The Hours."

Another prominent Australian actor is Hugh Jackman, who is perhaps best known for his role as Wolverine in the "X-Men" film series. Jackman has also appeared in a variety of other films, including "Les Misérables," "The Prestige," and "The Greatest Showman." He has been recognized for his work with numerous awards, including a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his role in "Les Misérables."

Other notable Australian actors include Cate Blanchett, who has appeared in films such as "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "The Aviator," and Geoffrey Rush, who has appeared in films such as "Shine" and "The King's Speech." These actors have helped to put Australia on the map in the global film industry, and their work continues to inspire and entertain audiences around the world.

Indigenous Actors in Australia

Australia has a long and complex history when it comes to the treatment of its Indigenous population, and this history is reflected in the country's film industry. Over the years, there have been many films that explore the experiences of Indigenous Australians and highlight the issues faced by these communities. There are also many talented Indigenous Australian actors who have made a significant impact in the industry.

One of the most well-known Indigenous Australian actors is David Gulpilil, who has appeared in a number of films, both in Australia and internationally. Gulpilil is a Yolngu man from Arnhem Land and has been acting since the 1970s. He has appeared in films such as "Walkabout," "The Last Wave," and "Charlie's Country," and has been recognized with numerous awards and accolades for his work.

Another prominent Indigenous Australian actor is Aaron Pedersen, who is of Arrernte and Arabana descent. Pedersen has appeared in a variety of films and television shows, including "Mystery Road," "Jack Irish," and "Water Rats." He has also been recognized for his work with numerous awards, including the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actor in a Television Drama.

In addition to these actors, there are also many Indigenous Australian filmmakers who are making important contributions to the industry. One of these filmmakers is Warwick Thornton, who is a Kaytetye man from the Northern Territory. Thornton's films often explore the experiences of Indigenous Australians and the impact of colonization on their communities. His film "Samson and Delilah" won the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009.

Other notable Indigenous Australian films include "The Tracker," "Ten Canoes," and "Sweet Country," all of which explore the experiences of Indigenous Australians in different ways. These films often highlight issues such as dispossession, racism, and the ongoing struggle for Indigenous rights and recognition.

Overall, the Indigenous Australian film industry is a vital and important part of the country's cultural landscape. Through the work of talented actors and filmmakers, these films are helping to shed light on the experiences of Indigenous Australians and raise awareness about the issues they face. As the industry continues to grow and evolve, it is important that Indigenous voices remain at the forefront, shaping the stories that are being told and ensuring that their perspectives are heard.

[celtic-cd-releases]

https://kejafi.com/

https://www.facebook.com/kejafi/

https://kejafi.bandcamp.com/album/the-road

[qnewsau]

Andrew Scott wisely dips after penis question on red carpet

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/andrew-scott-wisely-dips-after-penis-question-on-red-carpet/

Andrew Scott wisely dips after penis question on red carpet

A reporter for the BBC has been roasted online for a cringeworthy moment with out actor Andrew Scott on the red carpet of the BAFTA Awards.

The winners of the UK’s top movie awards were announced this morning (AEST). Gay fantasy romance drama All Of Us Strangers scored six nominations, though the film sadly didn’t win any.

Irish actor Andrew Scott is the lead of the film and was outrageously snubbed for a BAFTA for his work. (Castmates Paul Mescal and Claire Foy were nominated.)

On the red carpet, Andrew stopped for a chat with a BBC reporter, who asked the out actor questions about fellow Irish star Barry Keoghan’s nude scene in Saltburn instead of Andrew’s own film.

“Do you know Barry well?” the reporter asked him, with Andrew replying that he does.

“Your reaction when you first saw the naked dance scene at the end of Saltburn?” he then asks, as the actor sighs.

“I won’t spoil it for anybody … it was great, it was great,” Scott replied.

The reporter then asks, “There was a lot of talk about prosthetics, so how well do you know him?”

Andrew then dismisses the question and turns to walk away from the interview.

“Too much? Too much?” the reporter called after him.

The cringeworthy exchange went viral online and didn’t go down well.

This is frankly disgusting. Andrew Scott is there to support his multiple nominated film and THIS is what you ask? Then when he looks visibly uncomfortable the guy carried on. Truly horrid. #BAFTAs pic.twitter.com/42VEoBXRQi

— Alex Gilston 🔜 GFF 2024 (@PresenterAlex) February 18, 2024

Only a matter of weeks since Andrew Scott spoke out about this too 😬🤦 pic.twitter.com/Rx5Yvwz026 https://t.co/LYxL0H7wTS

— Josh Barton (@bartonreviews) February 18, 2024

I think I’ve just cringed into another dimension. Andrew Scott must have the patience of a saint to not tell this bloke to fuck off because that is an absolute shocker of a question to ask pic.twitter.com/gyyq2xMvfV

— Patrick J. Hurst (@InsertMontage) February 18, 2024

who the f*ck have they dragged off the street to interview andrew scott and why is he my mate’s drunk dad at a party https://t.co/SH7JIljPUy

— Callum Scott Howells (@callumshowells) February 18, 2024

As a palate cleanser, watch Mardi Gras headliner Sophie Ellis-Bextor perform her Saltburn bop Murder on the Dancefloor at the BAFTAs instead.

All of Us Strangers is still screening in select cinemas around the country. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favour. You can also catch it in Sydney at the Mardi Gras Film Festival next week.

Emerald Fennell’s very good Saltburn is also streaming in Australia now on Prime Video.

Read lots more on queer films:

Sophie Ellis-Bextor weighs in on Saltburn full-frontal scene

Watch the trailer for Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal’s beautiful All Of Us Strangers

Gripping queer thriller leads Mardi Gras Film Festival 2024 lineup

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[deepikapawar]

Sanskrit Language is finding its way back to People’s Tongues

The letters and akharas used for creating Sanskrit are the most precise. It has already been incorporated into the Brahmi and Devanagari scripts. This is a global acknowledgment of the language, which even the computational language has adopted. Sanskrit has long been employed for therapeutic purposes, whether psychological or spiritual. The Globe accepted it and incorporated it into their daily lives through their practice of yoga and meditation. Many people are enrolling for Sanskrit courses online, where they can learn every aspect of the language in any form of communication.

One thing that makes Sanskrit different from other languages is its clarity. The fact that Sanskrit is not an object-specific language is among its most significant characteristics in this regard. Aspirant can take up Sanskrit course online helping to gain the insight of the traditional language.

Use of Clear Language in Today’s Time

Sanskrit has numerous words for the same object. Most people believe that this makes learning Sanskrit challenging because there isn’t consistency among the different terms that could be used to refer to a specific object. Though, it clarifies and narrows the meaning.

One of the significant examples of how Sanskrit is back in today’s time is its use at NASA. Since Sanskrit adheres to strict grammar rules and has an ordered syntax, it will be much more appropriate for use in artificial intelligence (AI) for space communication. The meaning remains the same even if you rearrange the words in a Sanskrit sentence. NASA has long expressed interest in Sanskrit. As a result, there is less ambiguity, even though Sanskrit never asks about the topic of ambiguity because words and sentences always mean the same thing.

Use of Sanskrit in AI

In AI, natural language is developed to strengthen logical relationships with scientific accuracy. The deployment of the Lisp language in the operation of AI presented numerous difficulties. Sanskrit is an accurate language, and as AI evolves, much progress needs to be made. By now, the program ought to be finished. The addition of Sanskrit is flawless and will undoubtedly give the work an advantage. The comment raised by NASA Sanskrit Correction is accurate, even though the agency has not yet released an official statement. It still needs to be determined how AI evolved and how it came to function like a human.

Use of Sanskrit in Art

Not just science but art is also adopting Sanskrit as a part of communication. At the Habitat International Film Festival in Delhi, many movies were shown, including the Sanskrit movie Taya. The film about a Namboodiri woman was presented at the international film festivals in Bengaluru and Kolkata, receiving a lot of positive feedback.

A film festival specifically for Sanskrit movies has been developed in response to the increase of powerful movies in the language. Rashtriya Sanskrit Chalachitra Utsav (Film Festival), the first Sanskrit film festival, was held in Ujjain to promote and honor Sanskrit cinema. A Sanskrit translation of the Spanish epic Don Quixote was unveiled when Luis Garca Montero, director general of the Instituto Cervantes in Spain, visited Delhi in July this year. The novel explores idealism vs. materialism, life and death, and other universal themes. Sanskrit experts Nityanand Shastri and Jagaddhar Zadoo translated the text. Eight chapters from the book’s first section are translated into contemporary Sanskrit in the current edition.

India’s PM Narendra Modi, too, pressed on the Sanskrit language learning. He named Irish national Rutger Kortenhorst, a Sanskrit scholar who teaches Sanskrit in Ireland. He also named professor Shriman Boris Zakharin, a Sanskrit teacher at Moscow State University in Russia, who successfully published many books and research papers while also mentioning the Sydney Sanskrit School in Australia, where the language is taught.

Sanskrit studies are now offered at several prestigious institutions in the country where the language originated, including the IITs and Pandit Deendayal Energy University (PDEU).

Sanskrit — The Past and Future

One of the oldest languages still in use, Sanskrit has made a significant impact on the development of Indian culture and civilization. But even now, its elegance, reason, and nearly faultless construction have a worldwide allure. Sanskrit is used correctly in daily life and can give its user more imagination and creativity, clearer thinking, deeper attention, and better memory.

Sanskrit improves students’ ability and comprehension in science, math, and computers, as well as their self-awareness, speech clarity, language skills, and capacity for logical thought. Additionally, Sanskrit speaking course helps students develop a deeper understanding of who they are and the world around them. These are enduring traits.

Conclusion

One of the best ways to learn the deeper aspect of Sanskrit is by taking spoken Sanskrit classes from expert tutors. Sanskrit speaking course by Sanskrit Shiksha is the best medium to learn the language and bring it back in today’s time.

[curatedbyhatto]

Castlecomer - Fire Alarm (ft. Welshly Arms)

Hey! Castlecomer arrives this week to curated by hatto with their hit 'Fire Alarm' (this time featuring the US band Welshly Arms). Such a masterpiece. Anyway,

About the bands

Castlecomer

Castlecomer (named after the Irish city where 4 of the member's family emigrated from) is a band from Sydney (AU) formed somewhere around 2013 by four cousins and a friend, comprising

Bede Kennedy: vocals, guitar, shaker Tommy Kennedy: lead guitar, vocals Pat Kennedy: drums, vocals Joe Kennedy: bass, vocals Joe Neely: keys, synth, vocals

Castlecomer started playing around 2013. In 2017 they played at South by SouthWest (SXSW), 3 days in a row, which catapulted them to fame even more than they already were. They had previously moved to Nashville, Texas (US) and had a growing fanbase. They have shared the stage with bands such as The Score (which I'll probably cover soon)

In October 2018 they released their first album: Castlecomer

Welshly Arms

Welshly Arms is a band from Cleveland, Ohio (US), formed back around 2013 by:

Sam Getz: lead vocals, guitar Brett Lindemann: keyboard, vocals Jimmy Weaver: bass, vocals Mikey Gould: drums Bri Bryant: vocals Jon Bryant: vocals

Their music is featured in trailers for two films: The D Train (starring Jack Black) and The Hateful Eight (directed by Quentin Tarantino)

The band's song "Legendary" has also featured at the end of an episode of Shades of Blue and was also used in the menu soundtrack of the popular video game Asphalt 9: Legends, such a great and recognized game in the industry.

They have played on several festivals, and so far, all their material has been recorded in Cleveland. Keep it local folks.

Any meaning?

The song is a chant of the present youth to anybody that wants to hold them back: they will do whatever they want, and if they'll be judged anyway, might as well make it big.

[falkenscreen]

Film Fight Club S5E43: Sydney Film Festival Wrap

Where we wrap on Sydney Film Festival 2021 with The French Dispatch, Titane, Four Seasons in a Day, The Card Counter, The Swordsman and many, many more – Wednesdays 7:30PM on 2SER + subscribe to the podcast on iTunes & Spotify

Listen here

[scotianostra]

Singer Jean Redpath was born in Edinburgh on 28th April 1937.

Revered as a Scottish musical treasure for her knowledge, understanding and research into traditional music, and her uniquely sensitive interpretations of some of the great ballads, she made more than 50 records, including seven LPs of Robbie Burns’s songs, and was an authority on traditional song, LP’s are what we used to call albums by the way, meaning log players!

In the early Sixties she shared an apartment with Bob Dylan at the epicentre of the American folk revival in Greenwich Village.

Jean Redpath disliked the term “folk singer”, insisting: “I avoid it like the plague. In fact, I avoid putting a label on anything. I just like to sing – it’s an easier form of communication to me than talking.”

She had no formal training and said the best advice she ever received was when she sought the help of a singing coach, to be told that if she wanted to improve, the best thing she could do was go away and sing for 20 years the way she was doing already.

Jean spent a decade as a lecturer in Scottish folk song at Stirling University, as well as performing in venues across the including U.S. and to Canada, and played venues in South America, Hong Kong, and Australia’s Sydney Opera House, she also performed often at the Edinburgh Folk Festival. In 1996 she launched the Burns International Festival, and in 2011 was appointed artist-in-residence at the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies.

In 2014 Jean was diagnosed with cancer and died later that year in a hospice in Tucson, Arizona.

I love singers like Jean that kept Scottish song alive, I also the singers that can sing with no musical accompaniment, here Jean does this with Highland Harry’s back again, a song made famous by Robert Burns, who said of it he picked up the chorus of the song — ‘My Harry was a gallant gay’ — 'from an old woman in *Dumblane; the rest of the song is mine’. The song, like many of the ones Jean sang has Jacobite theme, listen to the musical warm in Jeans voice, it’s beautiful……….

I make  no apologies for posting my favourite song by Jean,  The Bonnie Lass O Fyvie  was the very first Scottish folk song I learned to sing, I think I was about 10 or 11 and it was at a concert at primary school, I have been a dan of the song ever since.

 There once was a troop o' Irish dragoons Cam marching doon through Fyvie-o And the captain's fa'en in love wi' a very bonnie lass And her name it was ca'd pretty Peggy-o There's many a bonnie lass in the Howe o Auchterless There's many a bonnie lass in the Garioch There's many a bonnie Jean in the streets of Aiberdeen But the floower o' them aw lies in Fyvie-o O come doon the stairs, Pretty Peggy, my dear Come doon the stairs, Pretty Peggy-o Come doon the stairs, comb back your yellow hair Bid a last farewell to your mammy-o The colonel he cried, mount, boys, mount, boys, mount The captain, he cried, tarry-o O tarry yet a while, just another day or twa Til I see if the bonnie lass will marry-o Twas in the early morning, when we marched awa And O but the captain he was sorry-o The drums they did beat o'er the bonnie braes o' Gight And the band played the bonnie lass of Fyvie-o Long ere we came to the Howe of Auchterless We had our captain to carry-o And long ere we won into the streets of Aberdeen We had our captain to bury-o Green grow the birks on bonnie Ythanside And low lie the lowlands of Fyvie-o The captain's name was Ned and he died for a maid He died for the bonnie lass of Fyvie-o I never did intend a soldier's lady for to be A soldier shall never enjoy me-o I never did intend to gae tae a foreign land And I never will marry a soldier-o It's braw, aye it's braw, a captain's lady for to be And it's braw to be a captain's lady-o It's braw to ride around and to follow the camp And to ride when your captain he is ready-o

[moremusic]

I heard this weeks guest on a Podcast. His music tells stories of what it is like living in this great country. Here is my interview with the great Matt Scullion.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

My name is Matt Scullion and I’m a well traveled Australiana-Folk singer/songwriter. As an artist I have two albums and a Golden Guitar award to my name.

As a co-writer I’ve written with everybody from Lee Kernaghan to Cold Chisel and have had 25 number one songs to date.

I grew up on the South Coast of NSW in a little town called Ulladulla and have pretty much been infatuated with music since I can remember.

What/who inspired you to get into music?

My Mother’s record collection and our next door neighbours who were a very arty/hippie family. My first instrument was the Bass guitar which I bought off the fella next door. He gave me a couple lessons and I caught a bad case of the music bug which I still have.

How, if at all did the pandemic change your approach to your music?

It’s definitely forced me to think outside the box as far as where I book my shows. It also gave me time to learn the Banjo.

Have you got any new releases due to come out?

I have one more single to release called “From The Ashes” a song about resilience after the 2019/20 bushfires. It’s the 5th single off my current album Aussie As Vol II.

I also have a new album in the pipeline. I’ll be heading into the studio this February to record with Shane Nicolson. Shane has produced my last two albums and I totally trust him with my songs.

When you record, how does the process develop? Drums first followed by guitar etc?

We always start with me putting down a guide instrument/vocal track. Shane then builds the music around my groove. We tend to go for a more percussive approach than a full drum kit, so it’s quite a fun process finding things to bang on in the studio to come up with new sounds.

What is your career highlight so far?

Performing at the SCG. I got to sing my song “1868” to a sea of faces. It’s the story of the first Australian sporting side to tour internationally which was an all Indigenous cricket team.

Any upcoming gigs you want to promote?

I’m looking forward to all the shows I have lined up this year, but I’ll give a shout out to The Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival, Oct 14-16. It’s a wonderful festival with a top line up.

What do you think of the Australian/Adelaide music scene?

I can’t speak for the whole Australian music scene, but the circuit I tour in is alive and well. The Aussie Country Music scene has always been really well supported by community radio which is a great way to reach the rural areas, which is where I do most of my shows.

What are\were some of your favourite venues to play?

I haven’t really got a favourite, but I definitely have a soft spot for the Tamworth Country Music Festival.

Who are some other upcoming bands we should have a look at?

An Aussie Folk singer/songwriter named Michael Waugh and a wonderful traditional Irish group called Lynched.

What venues or tours are still on your bucket list?

I’d love to perform at the Sydney Opera House, it’s a beautiful intimate setting with amazing acoustics. Also the Big Red Bash out in Birdsville QLD, I’ve heard it’s a fantastic festival to perform at.

What are your long and short term goals?

Just to keep making music that matters and writing songs that connect with everyday Australians.

If you could only keep one album, what would it be?

That’s not fair!! Can I have two please? John Williamson (Warragul) and Paul Kelly (Greatest Hits).

Finally, where can people find you? Socials etc?

www.Instagram.com/mattscullionmusic

www.mattscullionmusic.com

[brian-in-finance]

He is back and forth between Belfast and England, where he has found work. But the taxman, as well as the Protestant heavies who require his "cash or commitment" to the sectarian movement, have started to run him down. This crushing weight is visible on Dornan's face and he carries it throughout the film in a performance that is uniquely physical and emotional. He is matched only by Balfe who stays in Belfast with the kids and tries to keep them out of harm's way.

Pa wants to leave Belfast, dropping brochures of Vancouver or Sydney, but Ma (a regal Caitriona Balfe) is adamant that this is their only home. She’s also frightened of stories of Irish immigrants being mistreated in other lands.

Jamie Dornan as Pa earns full forgiveness for his role in those execrable “50 Shades of Grey” movies. Here he plays a resolute man who’s being squeezed from all sides, trying to do the best he can. Buddy sees him as a hero, so that’s what he tries to be.

Jamie Dornan and Caitríona Balfe anchor much of the film, as the family debates their future in Belfast and ponder whether they would have better opportunities elsewhere. With Dornan away for periods of the film, Balfe excels at showing the strain placed on her in trying to keep the family safe.

Caitríona Balfe (Outlander) told Newsweek, she hoped Belfast would bring people together: "We have so many similarities than we do differences and the love of our family and our community is what we should be investing in and not trying to find what separates us."

Jamie Dornan, who stars opposite Balfe as Pa, a joiner with hopes of taking the family to London or Australia to escape The Troubles, told Newsweek: "[Pa] is a hard-working family man who has a wife and two young kids. He is a hard-working man from a working-class part of north Belfast who is working in England, trying to do right by his family and then they are thrust into this insane, unimaginable beginnings of war and he is trying to make the right decision for the better of his family."

Last night, Branagh said it was the silence of lockdown last year that spurred him to write a story .

Arriving at the premiere of the movie, entitled Belfast, at the BFI London Film Festival, he said: "I think lockdown triggered differences in lots of people. It certainly made us very introspective.

"I started being sort of possessed by it as I walked the dog and heard the silence.

"The planes weren't flying and the cars weren't driving, and in the sound of Belfast I've been hearing for about 50 years... as a famous composer once said when asked about how he wrote the music, he said, 'I listened and I wrote down what I heard', so that's what I tried to do.”

News reports appear occasionally; Harold Wilson is glimpsed on the TV before Buddy’s Ma (a tremendous Caitriona Balfe) swiftly turns it off. The ‘bigger picture’ exists in another realm, insulated as Buddy is by his parents, and grandparents, but it does edge ever closer. The why is perhaps of less concern than the what.

A decision has to be made: does the family stay in Belfast and fight it out or do they leave all they have known and start a new life elsewhere, potentially as far away as Sydney or Vancouver? With his Pa (Jamie Dornan, whose role and performance grows in stature as the film progresses) away for weeks at a time in England working as a joiner, attempting to pay off back taxes, deep-thinking conversations with Pop (Ciarán Hinds), visits to the theatre or pictures with Granny (Judi Dench) and watching Westerns on the TV fills Buddy’s time and attention.

The tension mainly stems from fear-filled conversations between Buddy’s parents, not to mention the presence of local ‘enforcer’ Billy Clanton (Morgan). Balfe’s Ma practically raises Buddy and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) with a headstrong attitude while Dornan’s Pa struggles with debts and the inability to both provide and protect his family in Belfast. With the riots increasing in intensity and Clanton targeting Pa via Buddy and Will, the idea of potentially leaving the city feeds the restlessness between them. Both Dornan and Balfe bring grounded performances, with the latter delivering a powerfully emotional resonance that coveys Ma’s conflict between survival and loyalty to the place she calls home.

Remember when the reviews provided a lot of reading?

[watusichris]

Rock Gunfight in the Antipodes

Listening today to the hot new Grown Up Wrong! comp by Sydney’s Lipstick Killers, whose lone officially released single was produced by Deniz Tek of Radio Birdman, it occurred to me that my old Music Aficionado faux faceoff between Australia’s pioneering bands of the ‘70s (all of which I dearly love) has disappeared into the online ether. It’s time to bring it back.

**********

By Chris Morris

The mid- to late ‘70s were fertile days for rock ‘n’ roll in Australia. Here and there across the vast but not terribly populous island continent, fires were started by several attitude-filled bands bent on doing things their own damn way. They all managed to make their way off the island, but if they hit the American consciousness, it was for little more than a nanosecond during their heyday.

Who were the truest Rock Wizards of Oz? For this Down Under face-off, I’ve selected three contenders: the Saints, Radio Birdman, and the Scientists. All of them had fairly slim discographies; ironically, the act probably least known in the U.S., the Scientists, recorded most prolifically, with their core line-up producing several magnificent albums and singles during a productive four-year stretch in the early ‘80s. But none of these bands ever stayed together long enough to make a deep impression among the Yanks.

So where’s the Birthday Party, you ask? There are a few things to consider. First of all, though the band and its precursor unit the Boys Next Door were in business from 1976 on, they didn’t release their first LP until 1980. Also, Nick Cave is well known enough that more (king) ink needn’t be spilled on him. Finally, I still resent the fact that Cave stole PJ Harvey away from me, so it’s personal.

On with the showdown…

HIT ME LIKE A DEATH RAY, BABY

The Saints, founded 1974 in Brisbane

The prime movers of the Saints were a pair of literal outsiders: vocalist Chris Bailey, born in Kenya to Irish parents, and guitarist Ed Kuepper, raised in Germany. Thus the otherness of their work is no surprise.

With schoolmate Ivor Hay – who over time would play drums, bass, and piano with them – the pair founded a combo originally known as Kid Galahad and the Eternals (borrowing their handle from a 1962 Elvis Presley picture), but they swiftly renamed themselves the Saints and began playing in their hometown on the northeast coast of Australia.

Listening to their records, which were made in something of a cultural vacuum, it’s difficult to get a handle on where the Saints’ distinctive, aggressive sound came from. To be sure they were aware of such homegrown precursors from the ‘60s as the Master’s Apprentices and the Missing Links (whose 1965 single they covered on their debut album). It’s safe to assume they were conversant with the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and Lenny Kaye’s 1972 garage rock compilation Nuggets. Yet they bred something utterly their own in the ocean air of Brisbane.

With Hay on drums and Kym Bradshaw on bass, Bailey and Kuepper mounted noisy local gigs that swiftly attracted the antipathy of the local constabulary; they wound up turning their own digs into a club to play shows. In 1976, they recorded and issued a self-financed single featuring two originals, “(I’m) Stranded” and “No Time.” These dire, ferocious songs were distinguished by venomous lyrics, unprecedented velocity, and guitar playing by Kuepper that sounded like a (literal) iron curtain being attacked with a chainsaw.

The record died locally, but a copy of its U.K. issue found its way into the hands of a critic at the English music weekly Sounds, which declared it the single of the week. This accolade got the attention of EMI Records, which signed the band and financed the recording of an album, also titled I’m Stranded, in a fast two-day Brisbane session.

The album, which was ultimately released in the U.S. by Sire Records, blew the ears off anyone who heard it, and it landed with a bang in England, where punk rock was lifting off in all its fury in early 1977. It was hurtling, powerful stuff that stood apart from punk in several crucial ways: While some of the songs were clipped and demonic in the standard manner, the Saints proved they could take their time on expansive numbers like the almost Dylanesque “Messin’ With the Kid” and the sprawling, hellriding “Nights in Venice.” And one has to wonder how British p-rockers took to their perverted take on Elvis’ squishy “Kissin’ Cousins.”

Made by musicians who never considered themselves “punks,” and who in fact abhorred the label, (I’m) Stranded is nevertheless one of the definitive statements in the genre, and it has maintained its force to this day.

Settling in England for the duration, the Saints decided to throw a curveball. One could not find a more profoundly alienated album than Eternally Yours (1978), a series of yowling protests, twisted prophecies, and savage put-downs, including the snarling second version of the single “This Perfect Day.” But, though the record was loud and for the most part swift, the group applied the brakes to their sound somewhat, and a couple of songs, including the caustic album opener “Know Your Product,” were dressed by a soul-styled horn section. Punk loyalists ran for cover.

By the time Prehistoric Sounds was issued in late ’78, the dejected Bailey and Kuepper were moving in different directions, and you can hear it in the grooves. The record is slow, almost listless at times, and its logy originals are complemented by incongruous Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin covers with none of the energy of earlier Saints soul-blasts. It is an album primarily for loyalists, and by then there were few in that number.

Kuepper exited the band on the heels of the third album’s release and returned to Australia, where he enjoyed a long career as leader of the Laughing Clowns; Bailey continued to perform under the Saints mantle with a shifting lineup that at last count numbered more than 30 players over the course of 37 years

Bailey and Kuepper reunited for one-off gigs in 2001 (at the ARIA awards ceremony) and 2007 (at Australia’s Queensland Music Festival).

THERE’S GONNA BE A NEW RACE

Radio Birdman, founded 1974 in Sydney

People who toss the “punk” handle around often throw Radio Birdman into the mix, but the sextet from Australia’s Southeast Coast may be best referred as the world’s youngest proto-punk band.

Its mastermind was guitarist, songwriter, and producer Deniz Tek, a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who emigrated to Sydney in 1971 to study medicine. As a teen, he got a chance to witness Detroit’s most explosive pre-punk bands – the MC5, the Stooges, and the Rationals; he would later wind up collaborating with important members of all those groups.

After apprenticing with and getting bounced from a Sydney band called TV Jones, Tek formed Radio Birdman (its name a corruption of a lyric from the Stooges’ “1970”) with singer Rob Younger; the lineup ultimately solidified with the addition of guitarist (and sometime keyboardist) Chris Masuak, bassist Warwick Gilbert, drummer Ron Keeley, and (on and off and then on again) keyboardist Pip Hoyle.

Rapidly acquiring a fan base made up of some of Sydney’s lowest elements, including members of the local Hell’s Angels, Radio Birdman ultimately took over a bar, re-dubbed (in honor of the Stooges, of course) the Oxford Funhouse, as their base of operations. The band’s severe Tek-designed band logo emanated fascist-style vibes for some; at a co-billed appearance in Sydney, the Saints’ Chris Bailey remarked from the stage, “We’d like to thank the local members of Hitler Youth for their stage props.”

Despite much antipathy and some attendant violence, the band maintained a loyal local following, and in 1976 it issued a strong four-song EP, Burn My Eye, via local studio-cum-independent label Trafalgar. This was succeeded the following year by a full-length debut album, Radios Appear.

Anyone looking for something resembling punk will likely be disappointed by that collection. The band wears its all-American hard rock/proto-punk influences on its dirty sleeve. Radios Appear is dedicated to the Stooges (whose “No Fun” was the lead-off track on the Aussie issue of the LP), and a song co-written by Tek and Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton, “Hit Them Again,” was cut during sessions for the record. Tek pays deep homage to MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer with his playing, and blatantly cops a signature lick from the 5’s “Looking at You” at one juncture. The album title was lifted from a Blue Öyster Cult lyric, and the Tek-Masuak guitar-bashing bows to their multi-axe sound. Finally, in both Younger’s sometimes Morrisonian vocalizing and Hoyle’s Ray Manzarek-like ornamentation, homage to the Doors in paid in full. Given that Sydney is a beach town, there’s even a frisson of surf music in the mix.

Bursting with power-packed originals like the apocalyptic “Descent into the Maestrom,” youth-in-revolt anthem “New Race,” the cryptic, insinuating “Man with the Golden Helmet,” and Tek’s autobiographical “Murder City Nights,” Radios Appear was a power-packed set that established Radio Birdman as Oz’s leading rock light.

However, renown did not equal success in Antipodean terms. In 1978, the band cut its second album, Living Eyes, at Rockfield Studio in Wales; it was a solid effort that included remakes of three Burn My Eye numbers (including the wonderful Tek memoir “I-94,” about the Michigan interstate) and excellent new originals like “Hanging On,” “Crying Sun,” and “Alone in the End Zone.” But, with success seemingly within their grasp, Sire Records – their American label, and the Saints’ as well – switched distribution and cut their roster, leaving their new work without a home. Within months of this catastrophe, Radio Birdman disbanded.

The principals scattered, to Younger’s New Christs and Tek and Hoyle’s the Visitors; Tek, Younger, and Warwick Gilbert later joined MC5 drummer Dennis Thompson and the Stooges’ Ron Asheton in the one-off New Race. Tek also later recorded with Wayne Kramer and Scott Morgan of Ann Arbor’s Rationals in Dodge Main.

Radio Birdman’s original lineup reunited for a 1996 tour; in August 2006 – after four of the original sextet regrouped to record a potent new album, Zeno Beach – the band played its first American date ever, at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theater. Your correspondent was there, and it was freakin’ incredible.

IN MY HEART THERE’S A PLACE CALLED SWAMPLAND

The Scientists, founded 1978 in Perth

Among the important Aussie bands of the ‘70s, the Scientists were among the first to be directly influenced by the punk explosion in New York.

As guitarist-singer-songwriter Kim Salmon – the lone constant in the Scientists’ lineup during their existence – wrote in 1975, “Reading about a far-off place called CBGB in NYC and its leather-clad denizens, all with names like Johnny Thunders, Richard Hell, and Joey Ramone, got me thinking…I immediately went searching for Punk Rock. What I found were The Modern Lovers and The New York Dolls albums.”

Salmon first dabbled in the new sound with a band bearing the delightfully punk name the Cheap Nasties. Cobbled together in Perth – the Western provincial capital of Australia – from members of such local acts as the Exterminators, the Victims, and Salmon’s the Invaders -- the early Scientists were as derivative as one might imagine. Their early songs, heard on their self-titled LP (the so-called “Pink Album”) and an early single and EP, sport original songs authored by Salmon and drummer-lyricist James Baker, the backbone of shifting Scientific crews through 1980. The tunes range from straight-up Dolls/Heartbreakers rips (“Frantic Romantic,” “Pissed On Another Planet,” “High Noon”) to buzzing romantic pop-punk in a Buzzcocks vein (“That Girl,” “She Said She Loves Me”).

Not terribly promising stuff, but, after the departure of Baker for the Hoodoo Gurus in 1981 and a brief stint in a trio called Louie Louie, Salmon assembled a new Scientists who would prevail for nearly four years. That outfit – Salmon, guitarist Tony Thewlis, bassist Boris Sujdovic, and drummer Brett Rixton – promptly relocated to Sydney and started making the noise they are noted for.

By that time, Salmon had begun cocking an ear to the Birthday Party (and no doubt paid careful attention to the sordid noise on the Melbourne group’s 1982 album Junkyard), had discovered the miasmic voodoo of the Cramps, and started grooving to the dissonant, slide guitar-dominated racket of Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. In short order, he would also absorb the bluesy downhome assault of Los Angeles’ roots-punk outfit the Gun Club.

The Sydney-based Scientists hooked up with indie label Au Go Go, which issued a devastating run of careening, mossy records by the band in 1982-83 – the vertiginous singles “This is My Happy Hour”/“Swampland” and the corrosive “We Had Love” (backed by a faithful cover of Beefheart’s “Clear Spot”), and the heart-stopping mini-album Blood Red River, which bore the churning “Set It On Fire,” “Revhead,” and “Burnout.” Others were essaying a similar style, but the Aussie youngsters were beating their elders at their own game.

Eying the big time, the band moved to London in 1984. Some opportunities presented themselves initially: The band got European tour slots with the Gun Club and early Goth act Sisters of Mercy. But their deal with Au Go Go fell apart acrimoniously; while they made a pair of fog-bound albums, You Get What You Deserve (1985) and The Human Jukebox (1987) for Karbon Records (and a set of re-recorded songs, Weird Love, was issued in the U.S. by Big Time Records), they scraped by in Britain.

Defections from the ranks commenced in ’85, and by early 1987 the depleted Salmon used money from a housing settlement to move back to Australia, where he founded a new band, the Surrealists.

Still valued among the cognoscenti, Salmon, Thewlis, Sujdovic, and latter-day drummer Leanne Chock appeared, at the invitation of Seattle’s Mudhoney, at London’s All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in 2006. Earlier this year, Chicago-based archival label the Numero Group issued a comprehensive four-disc box of the band’s original recordings.

So, at the end of the day, who is the all-time champeen of ‘70s Oz rock?

Scoring on points, the Saints are tops for Being Punk First with additional wins in the Pure Noise and Weltzschmerz categories, Radio Birdman takes the Technical Ability and Old-School Attitude slots, and the Scientists prevail in the Loud Young Snot and Grunge Thug division.

And the championship belt goes to…the Saints!

Of course, that could all change tomorrow, but that’s rock ‘n’ roll for ya.

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian-born American actor during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Considered the natural successor to Douglas Fairbanks, he achieved worldwide fame for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, as well as frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland. He was best known for his role as Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938); his portrayal of the character was named by the American Film Institute as the 18th-greatest hero in American film history. His other famous roles included the eponymous lead in Captain Blood (1935), Major Geoffrey Vickers in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), as well as the hero in a number of Westerns, such as Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940) and San Antonio (1945). Flynn also stirred controversy for his reputation as a womaniser and hedonistic personal life.

Errol Leslie Flynn was born on 20 June 1909 in Battery Point, a suburb of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. His father, Theodore Thomson Flynn, was a lecturer (1909) and later professor (1911) of biology at the University of Tasmania. His mother was born Lily Mary Young, but shortly after marrying Theodore at St John's Church of England, Birchgrove, Sydney, on 23 January 1909, she changed her first name to Marelle. Flynn described his mother's family as "seafaring folk" and this appears to be where his lifelong interest in boats and the sea originated. Both of his parents were Australian-born of Irish, English and Scottish descent. Despite Flynn's claims, the evidence indicates that he was not descended from any of the Bounty mutineers.

Flynn received his early schooling in Hobart. He made one of his first appearances as a performer in 1918, aged nine, when he served as a page boy to Enid Lyons in a queen carnival. In her memoirs, Lyons recalled Flynn as "a dashing figure—a handsome boy of nine with a fearless, somewhat haughty expression, already showing that sang-froid for which he was later to become famous throughout the civilized world". She further noted: "Unfortunately Errol at the age of nine did not yet possess that magic for extracting money from the public which so distinguished his career as an actor. Our cause gained no apparent advantage from his presence in my entourage; we gained only third place in a field of seven."

From 1923 to 1925, Flynn attended the South West London College, a private boarding school in Barnes, London.

In 1926, he returned to Australia to attend Sydney Church of England Grammar School (known as "Shore"), where he was the classmate of a future Australian prime minister, John Gorton. His formal education ended with his expulsion from Shore for theft, although he later claimed it was for a sexual encounter with the school's laundress.

After being dismissed from a job as a junior clerk with a Sydney shipping company for pilfering petty cash, he went to Papua New Guinea at the age of eighteen, seeking his fortune in tobacco planting and metals mining. He spent the next five years oscillating between New Guinea and Sydney.

In January 1931, Flynn became engaged to Naomi Campbell-Dibbs, the youngest daughter of Robert and Emily Hamlyn (Brown) Campbell-Dibbs of Temora and Bowral, New South Wales. They did not marry.

Australian filmmaker Charles Chauvel was making a film about the mutiny on the Bounty, In the Wake of the Bounty (1933), a combination of dramatic re-enactments of the mutiny and a documentary on present-day Pitcairn Island. Chauvel was looking for someone to play the role of Fletcher Christian. There are different stories about the way Flynn was cast. According to one, Chauvel saw his picture in an article about a yacht wreck involving Flynn. The most popular account is that he was discovered by cast member John Warwick. The film was not a strong success at the box office, but Flynn’s was the lead role, and his fate was decided. In late 1933 he went to Britain to pursue a career in acting.

Flynn got work as an extra in a film, I Adore You (1933), produced by Irving Asher for Warner Bros. He soon secured a job with the Northampton Repertory Company at the town's Royal Theatre (now part of Royal & Derngate), where he worked and received his training as a professional actor for seven months. Northampton is home to an art-house cinema named after him, the Errol Flynn Filmhouse. He performed at the 1934 Malvern Festival and in Glasgow, and briefly in London's West End.

In 1934 Flynn was dismissed from Northampton Rep. after he threw a female stage manager down a stairwell. He returned to London. Asher cast him as the lead in Murder at Monte Carlo, a "quota quickie" made by Warner Brothers at their Teddington Studios in Middlesex. The movie was not widely seen (it is currently a lost film, but Asher was enthusiastic about Flynn's performance and cabled Warner Bros. in Hollywood, recommending him for a contract. Executives agreed, and Flynn was sent to Los Angeles.

On the ship from London, Flynn met (and eventually married) Lili Damita, an actress five years his senior whose contacts proved valuable when Flynn arrived in Los Angeles. Warner Bros. publicity described him as an "Irish leading man of the London stage."

His first appearance was a small role in The Case of the Curious Bride (1935). Flynn had two scenes, one as a corpse and one in flashback. His next part was slightly bigger, in Don't Bet on Blondes (1935), a B-picture screwball comedy.

Warner Bros. was preparing a big budget swashbuckler, Captain Blood (1935), based on the 1922 novel by Rafael Sabatini and directed by Michael Curtiz.

The studio originally intended to cast Robert Donat, but he turned down the part, afraid that his chronic asthma would make it impossible for him to perform the strenuous role.[19] Warners considered a number of other actors, including Leslie Howard and James Cagney, and also conducted screen tests of those they had under contract, like Flynn. The tests were impressive and Warners finally cast Flynn in the lead, opposite 19-year-old Olivia de Havilland. The resulting film was a magnificent success for the studio and gave birth to two new Hollywood stars and an on-screen partnership that would encompass eight films over six years. The budget for Captain Blood was $1.242 million, and it made $1.357 million in the U.S. and $1.733 million overseas, making a huge profit for Warner Bros.

Flynn had been selected to support Fredric March in Anthony Adverse (1936), but public response to Captain Blood was so enthusiastic that Warners instead reunited him with de Havilland and Curtiz in another adventure tale, this time set during the Crimean War, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936). The film was given a slightly larger budget than Captain Blood, at $1.33 million, and it had a much higher box-office gross, earning $1.454 million in the US and $1.928 million overseas, making it Warner Bros.' No. 1 hit of 1936.

Flynn asked for a different kind of role and so when ill health made Leslie Howard drop out of the screen adaptation of Lloyd C. Douglas' inspirational novel, Flynn got the lead role in Green Light (1937), playing a doctor searching for a cure for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.[22] The studio then put him back into another swashbuckler, replacing Patric Knowles as Miles Hendon in The Prince and the Pauper (1937). He appeared opposite Kay Francis in Another Dawn (1937), a melodrama set in a mythical British desert colony. Warners then gave Flynn his first starring role in a modern comedy, The Perfect Specimen (1937), with Joan Blondell, under the direction of Curtiz. Meanwhile, Flynn published his first book, Beam Ends (1937), an autobiographical account of his experiences sailing around Australia as a youth. He also travelled to Spain, in 1937, as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War.

Flynn followed this with his most famous movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), playing the title role, opposite de Havilland's Marian. This movie was a global success. It was the 6th-top movie grosser of 1938.[25] It was also the studio's first large-budget color film utilizing the three-strip Technicolor process. The budget for Robin Hood was the highest ever for a Warner Bros. production up to that point—$2.47 million—but it more than made back its costs and turned a huge profit as it grossed $2.343 million in the U.S. and $2.495 million overseas.

It also received lavish praise from critics and became a worldwide favorite that has endured for generations. In 2019, Rotten Tomatoes summarizes the critical consensus: "Errol Flynn thrills as the legendary title character, and the film embodies the type of imaginative family adventure tailor-made for the silver screen." In 1995, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.

The scene in which Robin climbs to Marian's window to steal a few words and a kiss has become as familiar to audiences as the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.[citation needed] Years later, in a 2005 interview, de Havilland described how, during the filming, she decided to tease Flynn, whose wife was on set and watching closely. De Havilland said, "And so we had one kissing scene, which I looked forward to with great delight. I remember I blew every take, at least six in a row, maybe seven, maybe eight, and we had to kiss all over again. And Errol Flynn got really rather uncomfortable, and he had, if I may say so, a little trouble with his tights."[30]

The final duel between Robin and Sir Guy of Gisbourne is a classic, echoing the battle on the beach in Captain Blood where Flynn also kills Rathbone's character after a long demonstration of fine swordplay, in that case choreographed by Ralph Faulkner. According to Faulkner's student, Tex Allen, “Faulkner had good material to work with. Veteran Basil Rathbone was a good fencer already, and Flynn, though new to the school of fence, was athletic and a quick learner. Under Faulkner's choreography Rathbone and Flynn made the swordplay look good. For the next two decades Faulkner's movie list as fencing double and choreographer reads as a history of Hollywood's golden years of adventure yarns [including Flynn's] The Sea Hawk (1940),[31]

The success of The Adventures of Robin Hood did little to convince the studio that their prize swashbuckler should be allowed to do other things, but Warners allowed Flynn to try a screwball comedy, Four's a Crowd (1938). Despite the presence of de Havilland and direction of Curtiz, it was not a success. The Sisters (1938) a drama showing the lives of three sisters in the years from 1904 to 1908, including a dramatic rendering of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, was more popular. Flynn played alcoholic sports reporter Frank Medlin, who sweeps Louise Elliott ( Bette Davis) off her feet on a visit to Silver Bow, Montana. Their married life in San Francisco is difficult, an Frank sails to Singapore just hours before the catastrophe. The original ending of the film was the same as the book: Louise married a character named William Benson. But preview audiences disliked that ending, and a new one was filmed in which Frank comes to Silver Bow to find her and they reconcile. Apparently audiences wanted Errol Flynn to get the girl, or vice versa. (Bette Davis preferred the original ending.)

Flynn had a powerful dramatic role in The Dawn Patrol (1938), a remake of a pre-code 1930 drama of the same name about Royal Flying Corps fighter pilots in World War I and the devastating burden carried by officers who must send men out to die every morning. Flynn and co-stars Basil Rathbone and David Niven led a cast that was all male and predominantly British. Director Edmund Goulding's biographer Matthew Kennedy wrote: “Everyone remembered a set filled with fraternal good cheer.... The filming of Dawn Patrol was an unusual experience for everyone connected with it, and dissipated for all time the legend that Britishers are lacking in a sense of humor.... The picture was made to the accompaniment of more ribbing than Hollywood has ever witnessed. The setting for all this horseplay was the beautiful English manners of the cutterups. The expressions of polite and pained shock on the faces of Niven, Flynn, Rathbone et al., when (women) visitors were embarrassed was the best part of the nonsense.”

In 1939, Flynn and de Havilland teamed up with Curtiz for Dodge City (1939), the first Western for both of them, set after the American Civil War.[34] Flynn was worried that audiences would not accept him in Westerns, but the film was a big hit, Warner Bros.' most popular film of 1939, and he went on to make a number of movies in that genre.

Flynn was reunited with Davis, Curtiz and de Havilland in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), playing Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Flynn's relationship with Davis during filming was quarrelsome; Davis allegedly slapped him across the face far harder than necessary during one scene. Flynn attributed her anger to unrequited romantic interest, but according to others, Davis resented sharing equal billing with a man she considered incapable of playing any role beyond a dashing adventurer. "He himself openly said, 'I don't know really anything about acting,'" she told an interviewer, "and I admire his honesty, because he's absolutely right." Years later, however, de Havilland said that, during a private screening of Elizabeth and Essex, an astounded Davis had exclaimed, "Damn it! The man could act!"

Warners put Flynn in another Western, Virginia City (1940), set near the end of the Civil War. Flynn played Union officer Kerry Bradford.

In an article for TCM, Jeremy Arnold wrote: "Ironically, the Randolph Scott role [as Captain Vance Irby, commandant of the prison camp where Bradford was a prisoner of war] was originally conceived for Flynn.... In fact, Virginia City was plagued with script, production and personnel problems all along. Shooting began without a finished script, angering Flynn, who complained unsuccessfully to the studio about it. Flynn disliked the temperamental Curtiz and tried to have him removed from the film. Curtiz didn't like Flynn (or costar Miriam Hopkins) either. And Humphrey Bogart apparently didn't care for Flynn or Randolph Scott! Making matters worse was the steady rain that fell for two of the three weeks of location shooting near Flagstaff, AZ. Flynn detested rain, and was physically unwell for quite some time because of it. As Peter Valenti has written, 'Errol's frustration at the role can be easily understood: he changed from antagonist to protagonist, from Southern to Northern officer, almost as the film was being shot. [This] intensified Errol's feelings of inadequacy as a performer and his contempt for studio operation.'" Despite the troubles behind the scenes, the film was a huge success, making a profit of just under $1 million.

Flynn’s next film had been planned since 1936: another swashbuckler taken from a Sabatini novel, The Sea Hawk (1940). However, in the end, only the title was used, and a completely different story was created.

A reviewer observed in Time Aug. 19, 1940, "The Sea Hawk (Warner) is 1940's lustiest assault on the double feature. It cost $1,700,000, exhibits Errol Flynn and 3,000 other cinemactors performing every imaginable feat of spectacular derring-do, and lasts two hours and seven minutes.... Produced by Warner's Hal Wallis with a splendor that would set parsimonious Queen Bess's teeth on edge, constructed of the most tried-&-true cinema materials available, The Sea Hawk is a handsome, shipshape picture. To Irish Cinemactor Errol Flynn, it gives the best swashbuckling role he has had since Captain Blood. For Hungarian Director Michael Curtiz, who took Flynn from bit-player ranks to make Captain Blood and has made nine pictures with him since, it should prove a high point in their profitable relationship." It was indeed: The Sea Hawk made a profit of $977,000 on that budget of $1.7 million.

Another financial success was the Western Santa Fe Trail (1940), with de Havilland and Ronald Reagan, and directed by Curtiz, which grossed $2,147,663 in the US, making it Warner Brothers' second-biggest hit of 1940.

In 1940, at the zenith of his career, Flynn was voted the fourteenth most popular star in the U.S. and the seventh most popular in Britain, according to Motion Picture Daily. According to Variety, he was the fourth-biggest star in the U.S. and the fourth-biggest box-office attraction overseas as well.

Flynn consistently ranked among Warner Bros.' top stars. In 1937, he was the studio's No. 1 star, ahead of Paul Muni and Bette Davis.[43] In 1938, he was No. 3, just behind Davis and Muni.[44] In 1939, he was No. 3 again, this time behind Davis and James Cagney.[45] In 1940 and 1941, he was Warner Bros.' No. 1 top box-office draw. In 1942, he was No. 2, behind Cagney. In 1943, he was No. 2, behind Humphrey Bogart.

Warners allowed Flynn a change of pace from a long string of period pieces in a lighthearted mystery, Footsteps in the Dark (1941). Los Angeles Times' Edwin Schallert wrote: "Errol Flynn becomes a modern for a change in a whodunit film and the excursion proves eminently worth-while... an exceptionally clever and amusing exhibit …" However, the film was not a big success. Far more popular was the military drama Dive Bomber (1941), his last film with Curtiz.

In later years, Footsteps in the Dark co-star Ralph Bellamy recalled Flynn at this time as "a darling. Couldn't or wouldn't take himself seriously. And he drank like there was no tomorrow. Had a bum ticker from the malaria he'd picked up in Australia. Also a spot of TB. Tried to enlist but flunked his medical, so he drank some more. Knew he wouldn't live into old age. He really had a ball in Footsteps in the Dark. He was so glad to be out of swashbucklers."

Flynn became a naturalized American citizen on 14 August 1942. With the United States fully involved in the Second World War, he attempted to enlist in the armed services but failed the physical exam due to recurrent malaria (contracted in New Guinea), a heart murmur, various venereal diseases and latent pulmonary tuberculosis.

Flynn was mocked by reporters and critics as a "draft dodger,” but the studio refused to admit that their star, promoted for his physical beauty and athleticism, had been disqualified due to health problems.

Flynn started a new long-term relationship with a director when he teamed with Raoul Walsh in They Died with Their Boots On (1942), a biopic of George Armstrong Custer. De Havilland was his co-star in this, the last of 12 films they made together. The movie grossed $2.55 million in the U.S. alone, making it Warner Bros.' second-biggest hit of 1942.

Flynn's first World War II film was Desperate Journey (1942), directed by Walsh, in which he played an Australian for the first time. It was another big hit.

The role of Gentleman Jim Corbett in Walsh's Gentleman Jim (1942) was one of Flynn’s favorites.[54] Warner Bros. purchased the rights to make a film of Corbett's life from his widow, Vera, specifically for their handsome, athletic and charming leading man.

The movie bears little resemblance to the boxer’s life, but the story was a crowd pleaser. Despite—or perhaps because of—its departure from reality, “Gentleman Jim” packed the theaters. According to Variety, it was the third Errol Flynn movie to gross at least $2 million for Warner Bros. in 1942.

Flynn eagerly undertook extensive boxing training for this film, working with Buster Wiles and Mushy Callahan. Callahan's remembrances were documented in Charles Higham's Errol Flynn: The Untold Story. "Errol tended to use his right fist. I had to teach him to use his left and to move very fast on his feet...Luckily he had excellent footwork, he was dodgy, he could duck faster then anybody I saw. And by the time I was through with him, he'd jab, jab, jab with his left like a veteran."

Flynn took the role seriously, and was rarely doubled during the boxing sequences. In The Two Lives of Errol Flynn by Michael Freedland, Alexis Smith told of taking the star aside: "'It's so silly, working all day and then playing all night and dissipating yourself. Don't you want to live a long life?' Errol was his usually apparently unconcerned self: 'I'm only interested in this half,' he told her. 'I don't care for the future.'"

In fact, Flynn collapsed on set on July 15, 1942, while filming a boxing scene with Ward Bond. Filming was shut down while he recovered; he returned a week later. In his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Flynn describes the episode as a mild heart attack.

In September 1942, Warners announced that Flynn had signed a new contract with the studio for four films a year, one of which he would also produce.

In Edge of Darkness (1943), set in Nazi-occupied Norway, Flynn played a Norwegian resistance fighter, a role originally intended for Edward G. Robinson. Director Lewis Milestone later recalled, "Flynn kept underrating himself. If you wanted to embarrass him, all you had to do was to tell him how great he was in a scene he'd just finished playing: He'd blush like a young girl and muttering 'I'm no actor' would go away somewhere and sit down."[63] With a box office gross of $2.3 million in the U.S, it was Warner Bros.' eighth biggest movie of the year.

In Warners' all-star musical comedy fund-raiser for the Stage Door Canteen, Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943), Flynn sings and dances as a cockney seaman boasting to his pub mates of how he's won the war in "That's What You Jolly Well Get," the only musical number that was ever performed by Flynn on screen.

In late 1942, two 17-year-old girls, Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, separately accused Flynn of statutory rape at the Bel Air home of Flynn's friend Frederick McEvoy, and on board Flynn's yacht Sirocco, respectively. The scandal received immense press attention. Many of Flynn's fans founded organizations to publicly protest the accusation. One such group, the American Boys' Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn—ABCDEF—accumulated a substantial membership that included William F. Buckley Jr.

The trial took place in late January and early February 1943. Flynn's attorney, Jerry Giesler, impugned the accusers' character and morals, and accused them of numerous indiscretions, including affairs with married men and, in Satterlee's case, an abortion (which was illegal at the time). He noted that the two girls, who said they did not know each other, filed their complaints within days of each other, although the episodes allegedly took place more than a year apart. He implied that the girls had cooperated with prosecutors in hopes of avoiding prosecution themselves. Flynn was acquitted, but the trial's widespread coverage and lurid overtones permanently damaged his carefully cultivated screen image as an idealized romantic leading player.

Northern Pursuit (1943), also with Walsh as director, was a war film set in Canada. He then made a film for his own production company, Thomson Productions, where he had a say in the choice of vehicle, director and cast, plus a portion of the profits. This picture had a modest gross of $1.5 million. Uncertain Glory (1944) was a war-time drama set in France with Flynn as a criminal who redeems himself. However, it was not a success and Thomson Productions made no more movies. In 1943, Flynn earned $175,000.

With Walsh he made Objective, Burma! in 1944, released in 1945, a war film set during the Burma Campaign. Although popular, it was withdrawn in Britain after protests that the role played by British troops was not given sufficient credit. A Western, San Antonio (1945), was also very popular, grossing $3.553 million in the U.S. and was Warner Bros.' third-biggest hit of the year.

Flynn tried comedy again with Never Say Goodbye (1946), a comedy of remarriage opposite Eleanor Parker, but it was not a success, grossing $1.77 million in the U.S. In 1946, Flynn published an adventure novel, Showdown, and earned a reported $184,000 (equivalent to $2,410,000 in 2019).

Cry Wolf (1947) was a thriller with Flynn in a seemingly more villainous role. It was a moderate success at the box office. He was in a melodrama, Escape Me Never (1947), filmed in early 1946 but not released until late 1947, which lost money. More popular was a Western with Walsh and Ann Sheridan, Silver River (1948). This was a hit, although its high cost meant it was not very profitable. Flynn drank so heavily on the set that he was effectively disabled after noon, and a disgusted Walsh terminated their business relationship.

Warners tried returning Flynn to swashbucklers and the result was Adventures of Don Juan (1948). The film was very successful in Europe, grossing $3.1 million, but less so in the U.S., with $1.9, and struggled to recoup its large budget. Still, it was Warner Bros.' 4th-biggest hit of the year. From this point on, Warner Bros. reduced the budgets of Flynn's films. In November 1947 Flynn signed a 15-year contract with Warner Bros. for $225,000 per film. His income totaled $214,000 that year, and $200,000 in 1948.

After a cameo in Warner Bros.' It's a Great Feeling (1949), Flynn was borrowed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to appear in That Forsyte Woman (1949) which made $1.855 million in the U.S. and $1.842 million abroad which was the 11th-biggest hit of the year for MGM. He went on a three-month holiday then made two medium budget Westerns for Warners, Montana (1950), which made $2.1 million and was Warner Bros.' 5th-biggest movie of the year, and Rocky Mountain (1950), which made $1.7 million in the U.S. and was Warner Bros.' 9th-biggest movie of the year. He returned to MGM for Kim (1950), one of Flynn's most popular movies from this period, grossing $5.348 million ($2.896 million in the U.S. plus $2.452 million abroad) making it MGM's 5th-biggest movie of the year and 11th biggest overall for Hollywood. It was shot partly in India. On his way home he shot some scenes for a film he produced, Hello God (1951), directed by William Marshall; it was never released. For many years this was considered a lost film, but in 2013 a copy was discovered in the basement of the surrogate court of New York City. Two of seven cans of the movie had deteriorated beyond hope, but five survived and are at the George Eastman House film archive for restoration.

Flynn wrote and co-produced his next film, the low-budget Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951), directed by Marshall and shot in France. (Flynn wrote articles, novels and scripts but never had the discipline to turn it into a full time career. Flynn wound up suing Marshall in court over both movies.

For Warners he appeared in an adventure tale set in the Philippines, Mara Maru (1952). That studio released a documentary of a 1946 voyage he had taken on his yacht, Cruise of the Zaca (1952). In August 1951 he signed a one-picture deal to make a movie for Universal, in exchange for a percentage of the profits: this was Against All Flags (1952), a popular swashbuckler. As early as 1952 he had been seriously ill with hepatitis resulting in liver damage.[80] In England, he made another swashbuckler for Warners, The Master of Ballantrae (1953). After that Warners ended their contract with him and their association that had lasted for 18 years and 35 films.

Flynn relocated his career to Europe. He made a swashbuckler in Italy, Crossed Swords (1954). This inspired him to produce a similar movie in that country, The Story of William Tell (1954), directed by Jack Cardiff with Flynn in the title role. The movie fell apart during production and ruined Flynn financially. Desperate for money, he accepted an offer from Herbert Wilcox to support Anna Neagle in a British musical, Lilacs in the Spring (1954). Also shot in Britain was The Dark Avenger (1955), for Allied Artists, in which Flynn played Edward, the Black Prince. Wilcox used him with Neagle again, in King's Rhapsody (1955), but it was not a success, ending plans for further Wilcox-Flynn collaborations. In 1956 he presented and sometimes performed in the television anthology series The Errol Flynn Theatre that was filmed in Britain.

Flynn received an offer to make his first Hollywood film in five years: Istanbul (1957), for Universal. He made a thriller shot in Cuba, The Big Boodle (1957), then had his best role in a long time in the blockbuster The Sun Also Rises (1957) for producer Darryl F. Zanuck which made $3 million in the U.S.

Flynn's performance in the latter was well received and led to a series of roles where he played drunks. Warner Bros. cast him as John Barrymore in Too Much, Too Soon (1958), and Zanuck used him again in The Roots of Heaven which made $3 million (1958). He met with Stanley Kubrick to discuss a role in Lolita, but nothing came of it.

Flynn went to Cuba in late 1958 to film the self-produced B film Cuban Rebel Girls, where he met Fidel Castro and was initially an enthusiastic supporter of the Cuban Revolution. He wrote a series of newspaper and magazine articles for the New York Journal American and other publications documenting his time in Cuba with Castro. Flynn was the only journalist who happened to be with Castro the night Batista fled the country and Castro learned of his victory in the revolution. Many of these pieces were lost until 2009, when they were rediscovered in a collection at the University of Texas at Austin's Center for American History. He narrated a short film titled Cuban Story: The Truth About Fidel Castro Revolution (1959), his last-known work as an actor.

Flynn developed a reputation for womanising, hard drinking, chain smoking and, for a time in the 1940s, narcotics abuse. He was linked romantically with Lupe Vélez, Marlene Dietrich and Dolores del Río, among many others. Carole Lombard is said to have resisted his advances, but invited him to her extravagant parties. He was a regular attendee of William Randolph Hearst's equally lavish affairs at Hearst Castle, though he was once asked to leave after becoming excessively intoxicated.

The expression "in like Flynn" is said to have been coined to refer to the supreme ease with which he reputedly seduced women, but its origin is disputed. Flynn was reportedly fond of the expression and later claimed that he wanted to call his memoir In Like Me. (The publisher insisted on a more tasteful title, My Wicked, Wicked Ways.

Flynn had various mirrors and hiding places constructed inside his mansion, including an overhead trapdoor above a guest bedroom for surreptitious viewing. Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood toured the house as a prospective buyer in the 1970s, and reported, "Errol had two-way mirrors... speaker systems in the ladies' room. Not for security. Just that he was an A-1 voyeur." In March 1955, the popular Hollywood gossip magazine Confidential ran a salacious article titled "The Greatest Show in Town... Errol Flynn and His Two-Way Mirror!" In her 1966 biography, actress Hedy Lamarr wrote, "Many of the bathrooms have peepholes or ceilings with squares of opaque glass through which you can't see out but someone can see in."

He had a Schnauzer dog, named Arno, which was specially trained to protect Flynn. They went together to premieres, parties, restaurants and clubs, until the dog's death in 1941. On 15 June 1938 Arno badly bit Bette Davis on the ankle in a scene where she struck Flynn.

Flynn was married three times: to actress Lili Damita from 1935 until 1942 (one son, Sean Flynn, 1941 – c. June 1971); to Nora Eddington from 1943 to 1949 (two daughters, Deirdre, born 1945, and Rory, born 1947); and to actress Patrice Wymore from 1950 until his death (one daughter, Arnella Roma, 1953–1998). Errol is the grandfather to actor Sean Flynn (via Rory), who starred in Zoey 101.

While Flynn acknowledged his personal attraction to Olivia de Havilland, assertions by film historians that they were romantically involved during the filming of Robin Hood[97] were denied by de Havilland. "Yes, we did fall in love and I believe that this is evident in the screen chemistry between us," she told an interviewer in 2009. "But his circumstances [Flynn's marriage to Damita] at the time prevented the relationship going further. I have not talked about it a great deal but the relationship was not consummated. Chemistry was there though. It was there."

After quitting Hollywood, Flynn lived with Wymore in Port Antonio, Jamaica in the early 1950s. He was largely responsible for developing tourism to this area and for a while owned the Titchfield Hotel which was decorated by the artist Olga Lehmann. He popularised trips down rivers on bamboo rafts.

His only son, Sean (born 31 May 1941), was an actor and war correspondent. He and his colleague Dana Stone disappeared in Cambodia in April 1970 during the Vietnam War, while both were working as freelance photojournalists for Time magazine. Neither man's body has ever been found; it is generally assumed that they were killed by Khmer Rouge guerrillas in 1970 or 1971.

After a decade-long search financed by his mother, Sean was officially declared dead in 1984. Sean's life is recounted in the book Inherited Risk: Errol and Sean Flynn in Hollywood and Vietnam.

By 1959, Flynn's financial difficulties had become so serious that he flew to Vancouver, British Columbia on 9 October to negotiate the lease of his yacht Zaca to the businessman George Caldough. As Caldough was driving Flynn and the 17-year-old actress Beverly Aadland, who had accompanied him on the trip, to the airport on 14 October for a Los Angeles-bound flight, Flynn began complaining of severe pain in his back and legs. Caldough transported him to the residence of a doctor, Grant Gould, who noted that Flynn had considerable difficulty navigating the building's stairway. Gould, assuming that the pain was due to degenerative disc disease and spinal osteoarthritis, administered 50 milligrams of demerol intravenously. As Flynn's discomfort diminished, he "reminisced at great length about his past experiences" to those present. He refused a drink when offered it.

Gould then performed a leg massage in the apartment's bedroom and advised Flynn to rest there before resuming his journey. Flynn responded that he felt "ever so much better." After 20 minutes Aadland checked on Flynn and discovered him unresponsive. Despite immediate emergency medical treatment from Gould and a swift transferral by ambulance to Vancouver General Hospital, he did not regain consciousness and was pronounced dead that evening. The coroner's report and the death certificate noted the cause of death as myocardial infarction due to coronary thrombosis and coronary atherosclerosis, with fatty degeneration of liver and portal cirrhosis of the liver significant enough to be listed as contributing factors. Flynn was survived by both his parents.

Flynn was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, a place he once remarked that he hated.

[faithfulfitness]

Top Latin and Dance Festivals and Congresses in 2020

For years, several festivals and congresses have always been held by various Latin nations. Depending on groups and regions, various Latin dances often take place on different dates of the years. If you are one of the enthusiasts of the Latin occasions or you would like to experience a Latin Dance Festivals and Congresses for the first time, endeavor to check some top Latin dance festivals that would hold during this year as follows:

Event information may be out of date due to the coronavirus (COVID-19). Confirm details with event organizers.

 Valentine dance festival (Germany) – February 6, 2020.

· Universal Kizz festival (Belgium) – February 13 2020.

· Love Like London or Kizomba festival (London, UK) – February 13, 2020.

· Salsa festival (Zurich, Switzerland) – February 14, 2020.

· 2020 Atlanta Salsa Bachata Festival (Atlanta, USA) – February 27, 2020.

· Kyiv dance festival 2020 (Kyiv, Ukraine) - March 5, 2020.  

· 13th Salsa Addicted Festival (Romania) – March 12, 2020.

· All you can dance Latin fest (England) – March 20, 2020.

· Istanbul dance festival 2020 9th edition (Istanbul, Turkey) – March 25, 2020.

· SaborLaino festival (Germany) – March 28, 2020.

· Bachateando Miami dance festival (Miami, USA) – April 1, 2020.

· Zouk Heat festival (Baltimore, USA) -April 3, 2020.

· Baltimore Salsa Bachata Congress 10th anniversary (Baltimore, USA) – April 9, 2020.

· Cebu International Beach Festival (Cebu, Philippines) – April 17, 2020.

· 6th World Stars Salsa Festival (Bulgaria) – April 24, 2020.

· Top Bachata Festival (Barcelona, Spain) - May 1, 2020.

· Costa Dorado Spa Tango (Barcelona, Spain) - May 7, 2020.

· 11TH Salsa Spring festival (Athens, Greece) – May 7, 2020.

· Spring Break Latino Corsica (France) – May 20, 2020.

· Los Angeles Kizomba and Afrobeats dance festival (Los Angeles, USA) – May 23, 2020.

· Festival Cuba in Tunisia (Tunisia) – May 31, 2020.

· 8th Fujairah Latin festival (Dubai) – June 2, 2020.

· Toque festival (Toronto, Canada) – June 5, 2020.

· Disco Americana (Philadelphia, USA) June 11, 2020.

· Irish Salsa Congress (Iceland) – June 19, 2020.

· Croatian Summer Salsa festival (Roving, Croatia) June 29, 2020.

· SawaSawa Kizomba Festival (Washington DC, USA) – July 2, 2020.

· 5th Annual Zouk Me SF (Czech Republic) – July 5, 2020.

· Costa Barcelona Spa and Zen Bachata Kizomba (Barcelona, Spain) – July 12, 2020.

· Tropical Summer festival (Plymouth, UK) – July 24, 2020.

· South Salsa festival 6 (Greece) -July 31, 2020.

· Salsa Week Marathon (Romania) – August 3, 2020.

· Latin Golden festival (Auckland, New Zealand) – August 7, 2020.

· Eiffel tower Kizomba festival (Paris, France) – August 14, 2020.

· Lviv Summer Dance festival (Ukraine) – August 21, 2020.

· DCBX 12 (Washington DC, USA) – August 27, 2020.

· Timba Cuba festival (Portorose, Slovenia) – August 28, 2020.

· Los Angeles BKS festival (Los Angeles, USA) – September 10, 2020.

· Bachata King festival (Greece) – September 16, 2020.

· 5th Annual Maui Salsa Bachata Congress (Hawaii) – September 24, 2020.

· Isle of Man Salsa festival 3rd edition (UK) – September 25, 2020.

· Australian Bachata Championship (Sydney, Australia) – October 2, 2020.

· Berlin Salsa Congress (Berlin, Germany) – October 8, 2020.

· Taiwan Salsa Carnival (Taipei, Taiwan) – October 16, 2020.

· Guatemala Salsa Congress (Guatemala) – October 21, 2020.

· Hot Salsa Weekend (Sweden) – October 29, 2020.

· San Francisco Salsa Bachata Kizomba Congress (San Francisco, USA) – October 30, 2020.

· Uni Salsa Camp (Regensburg, Germany) – November 5, 2020.

· Aventura Dance Cruise Miami (Miami, USA) – November 8, 2020.

· Connecting Afro and Latin festival (Denmark) – November 12, 2020.

· Brisbane Zouk festival (Brisbane, Australia) – November 19, 2020.

· Paris Bachata festival (Paris, France) – November 27, 2020.

· Hot Ice Kiz festival (Latvia) – December 3, 2020.

· Never-ending Kizomba festival 4th edition (Barcelona, Spain) – December 20, 2020.

· Like Frankfurt 4-Kizomba SEMBA edition (Frankfurt, Germany) – December 4, 2020.

· Latin festival Germany (Germany) – December 4, 2020.

· Luxembourg Unified Dance festival (Luxembourg) – December 17, 2020.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you have figured out a few Latin dance festivals and congresses from our top lists. Feel free to have fun and spend some quality time together with your loved ones.

[chaletnz]

Ring of Kerry tour

On my middle day in Cork, a grey sky between two sunny days, I woke up early to walk into the city to a small cafe called Filter. I was one of the first customers for the day and chatted to the barista over his customised Black Eagle coffee machine as he made my flat white and recommended places to job hunt in Galway. I wanted cash for my tour and visited 3 ATMs that only had €50 bills and nothing smaller, luckily the 4th ATM had €20s but not a €10 in sight!

The tour guide was named Marie, a soft spoken, mid 40s, stocky woman who would be taking us through the Ring of Kerry today. As we drove out of the city we learned that Cork was named by St Finbarre and translates from Irish (Gaelic) to mean "marshy land". Cork city is home to 125,000 people, however the county is home to 400,000 and is the second largest county in Ireland. Strangely enough, the Cork harbour is the second largest natural harbour in the world after Sydney. Our tour would trace the River Lee all the way back from Cork to its roots in county Kerry. Ireland experiences 30% more rainfall on average than any other country in Europe hence the nickname the Emereld Isle. A big dairy country, 40% of Ireland's exports are comprised of dairy products and have created over 400,000 jobs. After an hour or so we arrived in Killarney which is the tourist town at the entrance of the national park. Although it began to drizzle lightly I loved walking around and looking at all the small shops and admiring all the shiny coffee machine investments made in the cosy cafes. I couldn't resist a flat white and French toast with bacon at the Curious Cat cafe. They had a Black Eagle there too and yet I was the only person in the cafe the entire time! Back on the bus our drive began on the Ring of Kerry passing by the Hotel Europe and Michael Fassbender's home. The first notable town we passed through was Killorglin which hosts a street festival each year to celebrate a goat called King Puck (how quirky) and shortly afterward we arrived at the bog village. Bogs indicate watery land and grow rushes which are used to craft the St Brigid's Cross originally used to protect houses from fire. Nowadays people just peddle them to tourists and it made sense as the bog village and pub was a total tourist trap. We were all invited in to use the bathrooms and conveniently inside was a table lined with shots of Irish whiskey and bartenders ready to make Irish coffees for extravagant prices. Marie learned that somehow we had accidentally left 2 people behind in Killarney and after making arrangements for them we carried on driving to the Caragh Bridge scenic lookout and the Dingle Peninsula lookout. Both were impressive but grey skies disappointed us. We passed Daniel O'Connell's birthplace Caherciveen and his namesake memorial church, the only one in Ireland not named after a saint. O'Connell was a Catholic member of parliament representing the rights of Catholics in Ireland. We stopped for lunch in Waterville, the holiday destination of Charlie Chaplin, and the sun came out for a brief time while we watched the waves and wandered around. After lunch we reached the Ring of Kerry lookout point that was so windy I could barely open me peepers. It was top-of-Icelandic-waterfall level wind! I was very interested to learn that in the 1900s there was only a 1% forestry cover in Ireland, compared to 11% at present day. 1900s Ireland must have looked similar to present day Iceland with 1.5% cover. We took a short rest in Sneem for an ice cream as it is apparently a popular spot for just that! We drove om past several lookout points without stopping until eventually our driver pulled in so we could take a glimpse of Muckross Lake and Lough Leane at Ladies View before arriving back into Killarney National Park and visiting the Torc Waterfall in the middle of a mossy forest. This concluded our tour and we were subjected to the hits of ABBA and Rod Stewart for the next hour or so on the bus until we arrived in Macroom and I hopped off early to grab a bite with one of my old colleagues from Amsterdam, Fionn, his partner Danielle, their baby son Harry and dog Chica. We ended up at Val's fast food diner as it was the only place open and I enjoyed a Philly cheesesteak (Macroom castle was the home of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania in the USA hence the connection!) and the Irish family shared some fish and chips. Later we took Chica out for a run around in the woods and then Fionn drove me back to Cork.

[landedinaverycommoncrisis-505]

Touring Oz Is 'A Holiday With Gigs Attached To It' For Catfish & The Bottlemen

Catfish & The Bottlemen's Van McCann and Johnny Bond tell Anthony Carew about the crowd's going "apeshit" in the rain during their 2016/17 Falls stint, and finding 'The Balance'.

When Catfish & The Bottlemen say they can’t wait to come back to Australia, it’s not just lip service. For the increasingly huge Brit rockers, their previous local tours have brought good times, wild shows and sweet memories. “Every time we get there it just feels like a holiday,” says guitarist Johnny ‘Bondy’ Bond. “A holiday with gigs attached to it. Great gigs."

“There was one festival we did, Falls [in 2016/7], in Byron Bay, and it got rained out,” recounts frontman Van McCann. “Just as we were about to walk on stage, we got told we can’t go on, because there was this torrential rain, comin’ right through the roof, onto drums and onto microphones and everything. So, we head back to the dressing room, and after half an hour we got a tap on the shoulder, sayin’, ‘The crowd’s still there.’ They’d stayed there the whole time. It was like they got even wilder.

"As the weather got worse, they started enjoying it more. When we came out for what, a 20-minute set, they were just goin’ fuckin’ nuts."

“They were already as wet and a muddy as they were gonna get," Bond chips in, "so they just went apeshit, sliding down the hill in the mud. There was this crazy atmosphere in the air.”

For McCann, there’s also a personal connection. “Australian shows always mean so much to us,” he offers. “My folks got married over there, so it’s always a big thing to be able to ring home and be like, ‘Guess what, we’ve sold out Perth,’ or Sydney, or wherever it is.”

It’s a similar thrill to when Catfish & The Bottlemen get to play “back home”, McCann enthuses. “The [shows] close to where we all grew up, that’s always big. There was one [show] we played where it was 15 minutes away from my grandad’s house, up in Liverpool Arena. To do that for the family, with all of them there, that was amazing.”

“I remember when we got announced, last year, in Newcastle,” Bond offers, of his own hometown. “Doing a big outdoor one up there, aside from the guestlist being an absolute nightmare, once that was sorted, it was great. I’d look down the River Tyne, and know that I was playing for family and friends.”

Their latest Australian tour follows the release of the third Catfish & The Bottlemen LP, The Balance. The album builds on the sound minted on their 2014 debut, The Balcony, and polished on their second record, 2016’s The Ride: big riffs, rock’n’roll swagger, and a sound seemingly built to fill stadiums. With Jacknife Lee serving as its producer, The Balance was recorded in Grouse Lodge, a rural studio located in the Irish Midlands. “We knew we wanted to record it somewhere freezin’, ’cause we made the last one out in LA,” McCann says, with a laugh.

The band lived at the studio, literally, while making the record. That didn’t feel entirely new: “We’ve never, like, live lived together, like, in a home, where we’ve gone out together to do the weekly shop,” McCann says, “but we’ve spent so much time together on the road.” Still, living in the studio together did cement a bond between them and colour the resulting record.

“It was a nice experience, to have that isolation,” says Bond. “It made the days have a certain nice quality, where you were either recording or just sat around chatting for hours. There was no Wi-Fi signal, no want or need for it. There was a beautiful simplicity to that, and it was an experience that bought us all closer together.”

“[We were] engulfed in it the whole time,” McCann says. “Our bedrooms were above the studios, so every day when you woke up, on your way to breakfast or whatever, you’d pass the studio, and get excited first thing. I think you can hear that excitement on the songs... We were just havin’ a laugh making it. There was never some bit where it was like, uhh, bangin’ our head up against a wall, can’t come up with something. The first thought that everyone was comin’ up with is what you’re hearing.

"Recording is always a fun thing for us, because you know what’s coming at the end of it. You know you’re gonna get to play those songs for the people, live. You know you’re gonna get out there. So, you know how with [Bob Dylan’s] Blonde On Blonde you can hear the band’re havin’ a good time, they’re enjoying themselves, I think that [this] album sounds like one o’ those, to us. We sit around and listen to it and laugh our heads off about it.”

Part of the excitement of recording, for Catfish & The Bottlemen, is knowing that they’ll get to follow it up with touring. Where many musicians see touring as a grind, for this band it’s a joy. McCann remembers the early tours, as a teenager, “travellin’ to play maybe 20 minutes of music, for petrol money for the next gig”. And before he joined the band, Bond worked stacking shelves in a supermarket. So, no matter how big Catfish & The Bottlemen have gotten, they’ve managed to maintain perspective.

And they’ve gotten plenty big: The Ride debuted at #1 in the UK, and cracked the Australian top ten. Shows, in turn, have grown in size. This reflects that, unlike a self-effacing indie-rock outfit, Catfish & The Bottlemen are genuinely ambitious, openly harbouring biggest-band-in-the-world dreams.

“I don’t know why we’ve always been so ambitious, it’s just always felt natural to us,” McCann offers. “There’s always that feeling where, like, you’re going to America for the first time. And you’re lookin’ ’round, thinkin’: ‘Wait, we’re out here making music, and the reason that we got put on this plane was that song?’ The ambition comes from that. Like, you do something you’ve always dreamt of doing, and, then, there’s something else you see, like, there’s this arena across the road, and wouldn’t it be great to come back and do that? With what we’re doing, there’s so much to be ambitious about.”

Source: The Music | By Anthony Carew