· March, 2012

Stories about Arts & Culture from March, 2012

Armenia: Eurovision propaganda fiasco

Unzipped comments on a call by Armenian singers to boycott this year's annual Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, Azerbaijan. Armenia and Azerbaijan remain deadlocked in a conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh and the call to boycott was ostensibly made in protest at the killing of an Armenian...

Brazil: Pay TV Giant Campaigns Against New Act

  6 March 2012

Act 12.485/1, approved by Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff on September 2011, establishing new rules for pay television, has already created controversy among satellite television providers, subscribers and independent producers. Satellite TV provider, SKY, created a campaign to end the act, and several people in the industry have not been pleased with it.

Macedonia: Animated Hitler Meme as a Free Resource

As a reaction to the corporate efforts to enact an even more draconian legislation and in response to the attempts of the distributor of the film Downfall to take down the Hitler meme on copyright grounds, Ribaro published [mk] an animated parody of the iconic scene, free for download and...

Azerbaijan: Singer-Activist calls for Eurovision Boycott

News and Noise! calls for a boycott of this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan by featuring an interview with activist and singer-song writer Cirttan (Azer Mamedov) seeking asylum in the Netherlands. The post also includes a clip, produced by the NIDA civil movement in Azerbaijan, parodying a promotional video...

Angola: Documentary “Death Metal Angola”

  3 March 2012

New York-based producers of a documentary called “Death Metal Angola”, about the emerging metal scene in Angola and a rock festival in the city of Huambo, are raising money for post-production costs on crowdfunding platform IndieGogo. The film's tagline: “The hardest hardcore is Angolan hardcore.”

Colombia: Film Festival Award Goes to Indigenous Film

  2 March 2012

The Cartagena International Film Festival [es] awarded one of its India Catalina awards in the category of New Creators in Short Films to the documentary short Mu Drua (My land) by Mileidy Orozco Domicó of the University of Antioquia [es]. The documentary, in the Embera tongue, follows the struggles of...

Angola: Young video blogger goes off on what's “no good”

  2 March 2012

Young video blogger @DelvisBoy (Delvino Funetil) has started a series of video rants about Angolan pop culture called “Não Ta Bom#” (It's no good#). His simple rant about Facebook posted only days ago has had over 11,000 views – but he has ambitions of reaching a million.

Global Voices Podcast: Remembering Our School Days

  1 March 2012

In this edition we’re going back to school! From extreme teaching on the Niger River, to the fondest or most memorable educational moments of Global Voices contributors around the world. Plus: How Ethan Zuckerman learned to type so fast.

Trinidad & Tobago: Cost of Carnival

  1 March 2012

“With the post Carnival cool down over, it’s back to real life and figuring out the bills”: Rishi Sankar posts a spreadsheet that proves how expensive participating in Trinidad Carnival can be.