Star Trek Beyond: 13 reasons to get excited about the new trailer

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After a goofy teaser trailer, the second preview of the upcoming sci-fi sequel has enough mystery, hardware and aliens to get fans excited

The Beastie Boys were not invited. After a teaser trailer that featured 90s rap-metal and leaned heavy on goofy action (Captain Kirk doing motorcycle jumps?) a second, longer trailer for the next Star Trek film came correct.

Debuting after a pep rally-like event in Los Angeles that included a lively Q&A with members of the cast, a hardcore round of deep dive trivia and the gracious renaming of a street on the Paramount lot for the late Leonard Nimoy, the latest and probably last movie in the reboot trilogy got the marketing blitz it deserved.

The music begins as a moody, piano-led minimalist variant of Michael Giacchinos terrific score, as if to say: OK, were sorry, were taking this seriously now.

Which isnt to say this trailer lacks pop and excitement. Its a whirlwind of dazzling images but, as with the best of all previews, it doesnt actually tell you squat about the story. Weve got a hazy understanding of what goes on this movie we know the Enterprise gets destroyed much as it did in the last Star Trek III but why is still a complete mystery. And may remain that way until opening night.

Nevertheless, a Star Trek fanatic will look for clues wherever we can find them (its not like were going to go out and ride our bikes or anything, despite the pleas from our parents). To that end, as some of us like to call this Star Trek XII, here are the 13 most striking images from the newly released trailer.

1

A man will tell his bartender things hell never tell his doctor. The first Bones once said that to the Captain of the Enterprise. No, it wasnt Dr Leonard McCoy to Captain Kirk, it was Dr Philip Boyce to Captain Christopher Pike (Star Trek is complicated). But clearly the sentiment crosses numerous timelines.

Chris Pines James T Kirk has the blues for some reason, and his pal Bones (Karl Urban) has poured him a little brown liquor (Saurian brandy?) to get him chatting. If the rest of the trailer is any indication this is one of the few scenes that isnt played at lightspeed.

STB

For 50 years the makers of Star Trek have found nifty ways of showing something that literally can not be viewed: faster-than-light travel. Were either in the ship, looking out at some sort of tunnel, or were watching the ship zoom off, leaving behind a warp trail. In Star Trek Beyond, director Justin Lin gives us something new. What we see here is a side-view of the warp bubble that (if I understand it correctly) carves out spacetime to create what is known as subspace. Traveling through subspace is what enables the Enterprise to traverse vast distances in short periods of time. For serious Trek dorks this image is a long time coming, though Im sure someone is on a message board right now saying this isnt what it actually would look like.

STB

1979s Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a divisive film but most fans agree the lengthy sequence of the Enterprise in spacedock is a glorious sight. Star Trek Beyond gives us a playful tweak, making the view of the shipyard more interesting than the ship. Look for the little rectangle of red thats the back of the Enterprise caught up in this enormous tube on a space station.

STB

Here they are: the troika. Captain James T. Kirk flanked by his id and superego, Bones and Spock. This image apes Communist propaganda, which is funny considering the original Star Trek reflected interventionist Kennedy-style American Cold War policy (lets not forget the time Captain Kirk read the Constitution!)

STB

I respect Justin Lin for finding new ways to shoot the Enterprise. It took me a few minutes to figure out if the ship was coming or going in this shot. Its from the front, just a very odd angle. Moreover, the departure from spacedock feels very tactile, almost jarring in a way. Any doubts that the Fast & Furious director wouldnt make his mark are quickly being erased.

STB

The swarm ships from the last trailer are back, but now they are coming in for the deflector dish. We still dont know if these are mini sentient spacecrafts, nor do we know what they want, but it becomes clear they mean business. Like space piranhas, they tear into the Enterprise, forcing an evacuation.

STB

But not before our gang puts up a fight! Heres Uhura kicking ass against some of the baddies that board the ship (its still unclear if these nasty guys come out of the swarm ships, or if the swarm ships clear a path for a larger transport vessel). Either way, it must be said that the villains that Uhura is fighting in this image kinda-sorta resemble the Breen, those enigmatic aliens who wore temperature-controlled suits with glowing green helmets. Im sure they arent, as these reboot films have had very few callbacks to lesser-known creatures from the show, but a fan can hope.

8

What you are seeing here is terrifying, but likely something of a misdirect. After Captain Kirk orders an abandon ship, we see Chekov (hey, love that guy!) and Sulu (love that guy, too!) get into escape pods. A number of pods fire out into the inky void, and then the camera lingers on one as a swarm ships swoops down and gobbles it up. Its more of a Mothra move than anything from typical Star Trek. Im quite sure it wasnt anyone we know in that pod, but Im certainly ready to bet he was wearing a red shirt.

9

Our crew gets scattered and along the way join forces with this woman named Jaylah. Whats her story? Not sure yet, other than shes ready to fight! Despite some similarities in look, she is probably not from Nibiru, the primitive planet seen at the beginning of Star Trek Into Darkness. Underneath the makeup, Jaylah is played by Algerian-French dancer and actor Sofia Boutella, who you may remember as the henchwoman with swords for legs in Kingsman: The Secret Service.

10

More space action! But look closely. That doesnt look like the Enterprise. Way too flat, more like Captain Archers NX-01. Some poking around tells me that it is probably the USS Franklin, as some design sketches for this ship have surfaced online. But any more than that is a mystery.

11

Oh yeah, Idris Elba, one of the best actors working today, is in this movie. Hes the one on the right! Yes, underneath a ton of reptilian makeup. So little is known about his character in this film, other than he is mean. Just look at him being a jerk to Uhura! Boo! His name is Krall and, based on soundbytes, he represents where the frontier pushes back.

This isnt that far removed from the concept of the Gorn, the laughably rubber lizard-man Kirk fought in the Original Series episode Arena. The Gorn were all ticked off at the Federation for having outposts too far into their sphere of influence. But if you watch the behind-the-scenes footage of J.J. Abrams 2009 Star Trek youll see there was a Gorn created for one of the early prison scenes that was cut. So Krall probably isnt a Gorn (plus, Gorn dont speak English, they hiss even with the Universal Translator operative).

12

Spock and Bones are down on the planet firing phasers, but there are two noticeable things. One, Spock is wearing overalls? I guess in the context of roughing it while marooned, it is logical. Second, he is clutching his abdomen. Usually in a movie any pronounced overture of being wounded usually means a character is going to croak. I dont know if I have it in me to watch another Spock die in a film, even though they have a tendency to come back to life later. Heres hoping he just had some bad Plomeek soup.

13

That mysterious ship has returned and this time it is headed to a space station inside some sort of sphere, possibly with an atmosphere. Star Trek has never shown us such a cool looking station before. Between this, images of Jaylah, Krall and those swarm ships, I can safely say that this is already the one of the most visually creative Star Trek films yet. Now we just need to figure out a way to warp to July 22 …

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/may/21/star-trek-beyond-13-reasons-to-get-excited-about-the-new-trailer

Syrian refugees give new life to struggling city of Malm

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Migrants fleeing war in the Middle East have brought a vibrant culture and a trade revival to Swedens third city

When Fisal Abo Karaa stepped off the train in Malms central station this time last year, exhausted after a long journey by train and boat, he looked like any other victim of Syrias terrible civil war.

It wasnt until April, when Malms main shopping street was filled with the sound of Syrian bagpipes, drums and dancing that he made his presence felt. The opening of Jasmin Alsham, his new restaurant, was the most visible sign yet of an unexpected injection of Syrian money hitting Swedens third city.

Abo Karaa and his partners have invested a rumoured five million Swedish kronor (400,000) converting what was once a Pizza Hut into a replica Damascene house. It is one of five Syrian restaurants to have opened in less than a year. There are people saying that the Syrians have come and want to buy up everything, says Ibrahim, a hairdresser and member of the Nahawand shisha smoking club, a meeting place for the citys established Arab businessmen.

Theres many, many Syrian people who want to move money to Sweden, says Maher Alkhatib, from Damascus, who opened a restaurant last year. I know people in the Emirates, they are asking me, Find a good project so we can invest money.

Abo Karaas family owned four factories in Homs exporting paper tissues all over the Arab world. We have lost in Syria millions of dollars, and many assets, his nephew Mohammed says.

At the Nahawand shisha club, sharp-suited businessmen sit with friends, wives and their families under ersatz oil paintings of Ottoman-era potentates, sipping freshly squeezed juices and listening to a cabaret singer, who switches between emotive, plaintive song and raucous humour.

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A brother and sister share a shisha pipe at Nahawand Shisha. Photograph: Malin Palm for the Observer

Among its members are some of the biggest success stories from three decades of Arab immigration into the city. Some 43% of Malms 317,000-strong population now have a foreign background, with the 40,000 Iraqi-born citizens and their descendants forming the largest single group. Together they have transformed a city which in the early 1980s was in such a deep slump after the collapse of its shipbuilding industry that one in seven inhabitants packed their bags and left, bringing the population as low as 230,000. Malm in the 1990s was a totally depressing place: everybody was miserable, remembers Christer Havung, whose caf, Brd och Vnner, sits next to Ibrahims salon.

The new arrivals have created an alternative city centre around Mllevng Square, with a busy vegetable market and shops selling Iranian, Iraqi and Lebanese goods. Malm has changed completely, says Jassim Almudafar, an Iraqi who has worked for the last 14 years for Almi, a state-run bank that gives loans to immigrants starting businesses. When I came to Sweden, there was no one who sold falafel, there was only sausage and hamburger. Now you have hardly anyone selling sausages, but maybe 50 or 60 falafel restaurants.

The statistics are grim, however. The unemployment rate for foreign-born men between 16 and 64 in Malm is 30%, compared with 8% nationally. For foreign-born citizens between 18 and 24 it is 41%. The average annual income in 2014 for citizens born in Iraq was 53,000 kronor (4,000), according to Statistics Sweden, compared with 285,000 kronor (23,000) for those born in Sweden.

Almudafar is sceptical. Many of those he has backed over the past 14 years have gone from nothing to owning major businesses, he points out. Greg Dingizian, a property developer who is one of Malms richest men, came to Sweden as a child from Baghdad. Officially unemployed people have jobs in the black economy, while many businesses under-report earnings to avoid Swedens punitive taxes.

Immigrants create growth think how many start businesses, Almudafar stresses. He is particularly bullish on the latest wave of immigrants from Syria. Theyre a little different, he says. They have ambition. After just a few months in Sweden they already want to set something up.

He has funded more than 50 new Syrian businesses and is in talks to fund hundreds more. There is a woman who wants to set up a factory making Syrian cheeses. There are bakeries, sweet-makers, dentists, IT consultants, building firms, a market gardener who plans to grow Syrian vegetables under glass, even a shop selling ouds, a sort of Arab lute.

In October, Mohaymen Selim, a 22-year-old Iraqi, launched Hello Shisha, whose delivery vans ferry water pipes packed with fragrant tobacco anywhere in the city. The business, powered by a busy Facebook page and a website blasting out electro house, is booming.

One of Almudafars clients, Sabah Akkou, who opened Damaskus, a small backstreet restaurant near Mllevng, with her daughter Salma in April, says that Malms restaurant boom is something she has seen before. It was the same thing in Egypt, as soon as the Syrians came there, restaurants and bakeries started opening up everywhere, she laughs. Akkou was a marketing manager for one of the biggest textile companies in Aleppo at the time the war broke out, but left almost everything behind when she fled to Egypt. She got the money to open the restaurant from her son, a research scientist at Mainz University in Germany.

You will notice that Syrian people are very different from other nationalities, because we like to work, she says. We dont like to take anything from the government.

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A live performance at Nahawand Shisha. Photograph: Malin Palm for the Observer

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/21/malmo-syrian-refugees-new-life-sweden

Modern African Women Don Their Ancestors’ Clothing In Gorgeous Photos

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“Resilience is the ability to return to the original form after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity,” photographer Joana Choumali told The Huffington Post.”The ability to recover readily from adversity.”

This idea of strength in plasticity is at the core of Choumali’s photography series “Resilients.” The concept was inspired by her grandmother, who passed away two years ago. The artist realized upon her grandmother’s passing just how much of her story had gone with her. 

She resolved to embark on a project that would document young, contemporary African women and their relationships to past generations. Through the photos, Choumali hoped to convey that the past is never truly lost. “I was hoping to convey the fact that African women mutate through the generations while remaining anchored to their roots and traditions, able to remain true to themselves, just like the earth from which they came,” she said. “Elasticity that turns into resilience.”

Joana Choumali
Selena Souadou, 21, is from Guinea. She essentially lives in Ivory Coast and Senegal. She studies international relations with a specialization in international development and economics in the United States. Guinean and Malian, she is from both Fulani and Sarakoe tribes.

Choumali also wanted to celebrate African beauty in all its diverse manifestations. Her inspirations ranged from African portrait photographers like Malick Sidibe and Seydou Keïta to classical European painters like Rembrandt. For the set and lighting, she aimed to mirror representations of orthodox church icons, like the Black Madonna. “I wanted to present these modern African women as icons,” she said. 

The artist reached out to her subjects through word of mouth and social media. “I had a precise type of woman in mind, with a natural beauty, the type of beauty that could ‘time travel,” Choumali explained. “Women with beautiful skin, no matter the complexion.”

She also had a certain personality in mind. A modern woman in the world, someone who was educated, hardworking: a global citizen. And yet, someone with strong family values and ties, to whom their African heritage held paramount importance. “Most of them succeed in dealing with such a fragile balance between past and present, between Westernized habits and traditions. I think it makes them stronger. They adapt to these very subtle social and cultural changes.”

Joana Choumali
Faouzia is Ivorian. Her father is from the Bambara tribe. Hermother is Sudanese from North Sudan.

To create the images in “Resilients,” Choumali and her subjects would meet up and, firstly, talk, sharing memories about their mothers, grandmothers, hometowns and origins. Then they’d search for clothing items in their family history — a scarf from their mother, jewelry from their grandmother, to compile a vision composed of equal parts past and present. 

“I would always play some music, mostly African classics,” Choumali added. “It was like a ritual, an almost religious moment, a meditation. The process of makeup, the hairstyling, the wrapping of the rich traditional fabrics were very impactful on their attitudes. Their gestures and postures changed after getting dressed. Many of them said that wearing the jewelry and rich fabrics made them feel stronger, more elegant, almost royal.”

The photography process was a journey of self-discovery by looking backwards. Inspired by the poses of old African portraits, the subjects found themselves changing shape before the camera’s lens. “Some of the women told me that couldn’t recognize themselves in the pictures,” Choumali said. “Some felt stronger, some realized how beautiful they are.”

Joana Choumali
Sandrine Amah is a chemical engineer in cosmetics. She is from Akan. She spent herchildhood in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and Montreal (Canada).

Sandrine Amah, a chemical engineer from Akan, posed for Choumali while she was pregnant. She wore her grandmother’s clothing, once worn by the Royal family of Abengourou, as well as her wig. “I was happy to capture the moment in this angle,”Amah said of the shoot, “immortalize the transmission of my grandmother, through her clothes, in presence of my mother and my daughter in my belly.”

The project, which Choumali described as being “like therapy,” yields stunning portraits that are a perfect mashup of strength and adaptability, modernity and heritage, contemporary art and classical portrait. The photographer mentioned the importance of the idea of “sankofa,” a Twi word from the Akan people of Ghana that literally translates to “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.” This central idea, that both forward motion and past remembrance are of crucial import, give the already stunning images a timeless power. 

“I hope to communicate the idea that there is an indissoluble bond that associates us with the previous generations,” Choumali said. “The importance of rediscovering and keeping in touch with the roots is what fully builds our identity. I would like to start a conversation about gender, cultural heritage and identity in today’s Africa. I believe that this is not only for African people, it is also valuable for any culture in the world.”

  • Joana Choumali

    Sandrine is Ivorian and Senegalese. She lives in Abidjan.
  • Joana Choumali

    Soukeyna, 25, studied Marketing in Bordeaux (France).
  • Joana Choumali

    Danielle Niamke Asroumingoumin, 50, is a native of Grand-Bassam (southeast of the Ivory Coast) and belongs to the ethnic group N’zima.
  • Joana Choumali

    Rabiya al Adawiya , 28, is Ivorian-Sudanese, she lives and works in Ivory Coast. Rabiya is Malinke from Boundiali, but she feels closer to her Sudanese culture.
  • Joana Choumali

    Christelle Ahouefa Beninese is from the Popo tribe.
  • Joana Choumali

    Anifa Amari calls herself an Ivorian-Beninese. She is Fon from her father’s tribe, and Yoruba from her mother’s. She is from Abomey and Porto Novo.
  • Joana Choumali

    Naema Assassi is a real estate business developer. Her family is from the center of the Ivory Coast (Akan). Naema grew up in a multi cultural family in between Abidjan, and Bonn (Germany) where she used to spend her childhood summers with Marianne, her german paternal grandmother.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2016/05/19/modern-african-women-don-their-ancestors-clothing-in-stunning-photography-series_n_10064844.html