French director of Nazi collaborator film rejects ‘historical gaslighting’ claims

Xavier Giannoli says criticism that Les Rayons et les Ombres invites sympathy for characters is ‘profoundly dishonest’ The director of a box office hit film about Nazi collaboration and its Oscar-winning star have described criticisms they have whitewashed wartime atrocities as dishonest and “a scandal”. Xavier Giannoli and the actor Jean Dujardin were responding to a bitter row that has divided French historians over the film Les Rayons et les Ombres (Rays and Shadows), which recounts the story of the wartime press baron Jean Luchaire. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/xCyd0Vg via IFTTT

‘One of the most vicious people of our century’: Maria Bakalova on Donald Trump – and playing Ivana in The Apprentice

Her breakout role in the Borat sequel grabbed attention after a scene with Rudy Giuliani on a bed. Now she’s playing Trump’s ex-wife in a controversial biopic – but insists it’s not a political film

The week Maria Bakalova was asked to consider playing Ivana Trump for the new film The Apprentice, she was in New York filming something else. With the meeting scheduled for her one day off, she spent the evening before trying to channel Donald Trump’s first wife. The film is set in the 70s and 80s, so she spent hours wading through photos of Ivana in that era. “A lot of makeup, a lot of hair,” she says. Bakalova laughs as she remembers spending the evening experimenting with a mushroom-like hairstyle and “heavy eyeliner with a lot of powder, like inches”, although she didn’t have an Ivana-esque wardrobe – “Am I gen Z or a millennial?” asks the 28-year-old. Either way, “We wear a lot of baggy clothes”, so she chose her most skintight outfit.

She met the director Ali Abbasi in the middle of the day, feeling a little clownish in her Ivana cosplay. They spoke for a couple of hours, “about people growing up in post-communist countries – because [Ivana] was from Czechoslovakia, and I was born and raised in Bulgaria – which shapes your inner world, your thoughts. We talked a lot about the similarities of our stories.”

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