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President Donald Trump lauded Liberian President Joseph Boakai for speaking “excellent” English before asking him where he learned the language. Libera’s national language is English.

On July 9, Trump hosted the leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal for a multilateral lunch at the White House.

He told them he was shifting the American approach to the continent from aid to trade and that his country is a better partner for Africa than China.

During the meeting, Boakai thanked Trump for the opportunity to meet.

“Mr. President, we thank you for this opportunity to be here,” he told the U.S. president. “Liberia is a longtime friend of the United States, and we believe in your policy of making America great again.

“And we also go a long way with you with your diplomacy that has to do with economic development and commercial friendship. Liberia has a lot of minerals,...

Talib Kweli and J. Rawls appeared on The Tonight Show to perform “Native Sons” with the help of house band the Roots. The song comes off the pair’s joint LP, The Confidence Of Knowing, out today.

Kweli and Rawls dropped “Native Sons” last month. The song pays homage to the Native Tongues collective, which featured the Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, Black Sheep, and Chi Ali.

“This one goes out to the legendary Native Tongues crew,” the rappers spit on the track before name-checking several members.

Anticipating the holiday season, OneRepublic have released a Christmas number and the video for it.

With its retro touch, this catchy Christmas track’s sing along, karaoke-ready, visualizer invites us to get into the season spirit.

About OneRepublic:

Grammy® nominated OneRepublic, is comprised of singer/songwriter and lead vocalist Ryan Tedder, guitarists Zach Filkins and Drew Brown, keys Brian Willett, bassist and cellist Brent Kutzle, and drummer Eddie Fisher. The band released their debut set Dreaming Out Loud in 2007. The release included the 20mm selling smash single “Apologize,” which shattered digital sales and airplay records worldwide and received a Grammy nomination. The band’s sophomore album, 2009’s Waking Up, produced the hit singles “All the Right Moves,” “Secrets” and “Good Life.” The certified-platinum album Native followed in 2013, featuring the No.1 hit and 41 million selling single “Counting Stars.” OneRepublic released Oh My My, their fourth full-length album in 2016. OneRepublic has amassed...

Warning: Major spoilers below for The Walking Dead: Dead City episode 5 below!The Walking Dead: Dead City episode 5 "Stories We Tell Ourselves" reveals The Croat (Željko Ivanek) isn't necessarily running New York, teasing how season 2 might play out. Dead City was probably one of the most anticipated of The Walking Dead spinoffs that were announced in the wake of the main series ending. That's because it paired audience favorites Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), two characters who have a famously messy history together.

The Walking Dead: Dead City's premise sees Maggie forced to turn to Negan for help when her son Hershel is kidnapped by a new villain called The Croat, who runs New York. The Croat is a former Savior who was one of Negan's best men before they had a falling out due to his brutal torture and murder of a young girl. A...

Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo have a routine they’ve done at parties that kills. They perfected it at Sundance in the early 2000s, in a condo dance-off with two Navajo guys. “Taika would strike this Michael Jackson pose with his hand pointing in the air and unbutton the pearl button on his shirt,” says Harjo, the Seminole-Muskogee director with whom Waititi would go on to co-create the FX comedy series Reservation Dogs in 2019. “And I was the wind in his shirt.” The duo also delivered a full-throated karaoke version of Queen’s “Under Pressure,” for which they still get requests.

Before he became a global acting-writing-directing star with an Oscar and a Marvel résumé, Waititi, a Maori-Jewish filmmaker from New Zealand, found community in the U.S. among Native American filmmakers like Harjo. “One of the things we all connected on was our disdain for how we appear onscreen in white productions,...

Today, Bavc Media (formerly Bay Area Video Coalition) announces their 2023 MediaMaker Fellowship cohort, comprised of emerging and mid-career artists embarking on social documentary projects. All seven participants will receive $10,000 in unrestricted funding as well as mentorship, feedback sessions and workshops during a nine-month period. The fellows are Paige Bethmann (Remaining Native), Aurora Brachman (Dear You), ilana coleman, Tommy Franklin (You Don’t Know My Name), Cyrus Moussavi (Somebody’s Gone), Hannah Myers (Daddy) and tashi […]

The post Bavc Media Announces 2023 MediaMaker Fellows first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Today, Bavc Media (formerly Bay Area Video Coalition) announces their 2023 MediaMaker Fellowship cohort, comprised of emerging and mid-career artists embarking on social documentary projects. All seven participants will receive $10,000 in unrestricted funding as well as mentorship, feedback sessions and workshops during a nine-month period. The fellows are Paige Bethmann (Remaining Native), Aurora Brachman (Dear You), ilana coleman, Tommy Franklin (You Don’t Know My Name), Cyrus Moussavi (Somebody’s Gone), Hannah Myers (Daddy) and tashi […]

The post Bavc Media Announces 2023 MediaMaker Fellows first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Documentary studio Xtr is in production on “Lakota Nation vs. United States,” the first film to chronicle the Lakota Indians’ fight to reclaim control of the Black Hills. Oglala Sioux Jesse Short Bull and “MLK/FBI” editor Laura Tomaselli direct the feature documentary, with Benjamin Hedin producing.

“Lakota Nation vs. United States” will investigate how the sacred land was stolen in violation of treaty agreements and feature interviews with Indigenous citizens.

The film is executive produced by Mark Ruffalo, author and activist Sarah Eagle Heart, Kathryn Everett and Bryn Mooser from Xtr. Sales will be handled by Cinetic Media, who are also working on the film’s financing.

Short Bull is a 2016 Sundance Institute Native American and Indigenous Program Development Grant recipient and a board member of the Black Hills Film Festival. Interview subjects include Nick Tilsen and Krystal Two Bulls, activists who founded South Dakota’s #landback movement.

“It...

The North Carolina Film Critics Association has announced this year’s winners, with A24’s “Minari” nabbing best picture — its first prize of the awards season. The film took four awards overall, including best supporting actress (Youn Yuh-jung), original screenplay (Lee Isaac Chung) and the Ken Hanke Memorial Tarheel Award for actor Will Patton.

“Nomadland” filmmaker Chloé Zhao continued her winning streaking, taking best director, in addition to adapted screenplay. At this current state, the Searchlight Pictures feature is the one to beat in the top categories, including best picture, although there are many other movies that could rival it down the line.

Sacha Baron Cohen won his first award for best supporting actor for his work in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” Although fellow nominee Paul Raci leads in critics’ prizes for “Sound of Metal,” five different actors have picked up supporting actor statuettes from the 10 awards announced thus far.

(Warning: This post contains spoilers for Wednesday’s “The Masked Singer.”)

And another one bites the dust. The fifth episode of “The Masked Singer” Season 4 aired Wednesday, ending with another celebrity contestant being booted from the competition and having their secret identity revealed in the process.

On tonight’s episode, fans saw the first performances from Group C contestants — Broccoli, Jellyfish, Mushroom, Squiggly Monster and Lips — while both Group A and Group B wait to move on to their respective finals in the coming weeks.

After those five Season 4 contestants performed, it was time for panelists Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger, Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke, along with the “Masked Singer” super fans voting from home to pick their favorites to stay and choose the “weakest” competitor for elimination.

They selected Lips, who had performed Odyssey’s “Native New Yorker.” She was voted off and unmasked to reveal daytime talk show host Wendy Williams.

At the top of Wednesday’s Masked Singer, host Nick Cannon promised “a reveal that will break the Internet.” Since you’re reading this, safe to say, it did not.

But the episode did introduce Group C, a new batch of performers that included Mushroom, Lips, Squiggly Monster, Broccoli and Jellyfish. Read on to see how their performances went and to find out who said hello and goodbye within their very first episode.

More from TVLineLatest Un-Masked Singer Reveled in Keeping Secret From Her Staff: 'Oh My Gosh, They're Going to Gag'The Masked Dancer: Craig Robinson to Host Fox's...

Regional fund established in response to Covid-19 crisis.

The UK’s Liverpool Film Office (Lfo) has revealed the first 15 projects to benefit from a new fund, created in response to the Covid-19 crisis.

More than £158,000 worth of funding has been awarded to a mix of established producers in the region as well as projects from burgeoning female and Bame-led companies. The money comes from the Lfo’s Film and TV Development Fund, which was set up a month into lockdown, using resources from Liverpool City Region’s (Lcr) strategic investment fund.

The projects include the first foray into TV drama for Hurricane Films,...

The 69th Berlin International Film Festival has wrapped. On February 17 — “Berlinale Pubic Day” — movie-goers flocked to cinemas a last time to experience the highlights from the different sections of this year’s festival. With 335.000 tickets sold and its wide-ranging program, the Berlinale was again a smash with audiences. The Award Ceremony at the Berlinale Palast on February 16 brought the industry event to an end.

For all awards, click here.

At the Closing Gala, Nadav Lapid’s film Synonymes (Synonyms) was awarded the Golden Bear for Best Film. During the ten days of the festival, the Honorary Golden Bear was awarded to actor Charlotte Rampling, and Berlinale Cameras to director Agnès Varda, producer Sandra Schulberg, director Herrmann Zschoche, and long-time head of the Panorama Wieland Speck.

With the Berlinale 2019, Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick bid farewell after 18 years as Festival Director. To summarize the accomplishments of his...

The 2017 Sundance Film Festival is coming to a close with tonight’s awards ceremony. While we’ll have our personal favorites coming early this week, the jury and audience have responded with theirs, topped by Macon Blair‘s I don’t feel at home in this world anymore., which will arrive on Netflix in late February, and the documentary Dina. Check out the full list of winners below see our complete coverage here.

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary was presented by Larry Wilmore to:

Dina / U.S.A. (Directors: Dan Sickles, Antonio Santini) — An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door-greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story.

The U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented by Peter Dinklage to:

I don’t feel at home in this world anymore. / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Macon Blair) — When a depressed woman is burglarized, she...

Following February’s successful World Premiere at the Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival, Native, starring Rupert Graves (Di Lestrade in BBC’s Sherlock TV series) and Ellie Kendrick (Game Of Thrones and iFeatures backed ‘The Levelling’), gets its European Premiere at the East London Film Festival.

Native is the debut feature film for Liverpool born director and co-writer Daniel Fitzsimmons and his producer/co-writer Neil Atkinson (known to 1000s of football fans as the boundless host of the multi-award winning, independent Liverpool Fc podcast ‘The Anfield Wrap’).

Native is a stylish and cerebral Sci-fi drama about two travellers through space tracking a signal from the other side of the universe. They look like us, but they’re from a race of people who function without a need for feelings, emotions or for experience. Over the course of this arduous journey Native challenges you to consider what it might mean to be human.

Full programme revealed for this year’s East End Film Festival.

Hellboy star Ron Perlman and Suffragette director Sarah Gavron have joined the jury of the 15th East End Film Festival (June 23 – July 3).

It marks a return to the East End for Us star Perlman, who attended Eeff in 2014 when Dermaphoria - in which he starred - opened the festival.

Ivy director Tolga Karaçelik, who won best feature at last year’s festival, returns as the 2016 director in residence and jury chair alongside Perlman and Gavron.

Also awarding the Best Feature prize will be film writer and producer Kaleem Aftab and Bangladeshi film-maker Mostofa Sarwar (Television).

This year’s country focus will be Turkey, with screenings including the UK premiere of Emin Alper’s Turkey-France-Qatar co-pro Frenzy.

Opening film

The festival will open with the world premiere of Ian Bonhote’s Alleycats, with a cast that includes Screen Stars of Tomorrow Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark) and Sam Keeley ([link...

After braving the wilds of Westeros for Game Of Thrones, Ellie Kendrick is dealing with some drama a little closer to home. She’s signed on to star in a new British film called Levelling.Hope Dickson Leach has written and is directing the film, which is set in the aftermath of the dramatic flooding in Somerset last year. Kendrick will be a young woman who returns to her family’s dairy farm after the tragic death of her younger brother. Funded by iFeatures, which helps make low-budget films, it’ll mark Dickson Leach’s feature-length directorial debut after several successful shorts. She’s shooting now on location in Somerset and the film will wrap at the end of the month.Kendrick has several films on the way, including sci-fi pic Native and Love Is Thicker Than Water. She’s also worked on Gilles MacKinnon’s remake of Whiskey Galore,...