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The organization that honors movies with the Academy Awards said Tuesday it will require films to meet new standards in order to promote diversity both on the screen and behind the scenes. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said the rules apply only to those films eligible for the best picture Oscar and will go into effect in 2024. Among the rules are requirements for the percentage or numbers of actors, production and marketing staff, and internships on a movie that must be filled by non-whites, women, people with disabilities or people from the LGBTQ community. “The standards are designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience,” the Academy said in a statement. The Academy has faced criticism in recent years for a lack of diversity among its Oscars honorees, including in 2016 when all of the nominees in the four acting categories were white.  
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Images of picture-postcard Paris rarely include its scruffy, heavily immigrant Goutte d’Or neighborhood. Many Parisians consider the area a no-go zone of prostitutes, drug dealers and petty criminals. It’s also seen clashes between youngsters and French police — and, in July, anti-discrimination protests, inspired by the Black Lives Matters movement in the United States.  Cameroon-born Jacqueline Ngo Mpii founded Little Africa walking tours, aimed to showcase the African side of Paris. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)But Jacqueline Ngo Mpii’s “Little Africa” walking tour instead showcases the talent and energy of the neighborhood’s African diaspora.”Barbes is one of the known names of the neighborhood by locals. People say I’m going to Barbes or Chateau Rouge. They never say, I’m going to La Goutte d’Or,” she said. “From what I was seeing externally — and also specifically in the press — the neighborhood had a very bad reputation, locally and internationally,” she added. “So I really wanted to change the narrative about that.”  Nigerian Bosun Ola and his partner Fay Latham recently opened the trendy Ola’s Cafe, offering another changing face of Goutte d’Or, in Paris. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Her tour winds through a kaleidoscope of African restaurants, book stores and night spots. And past a friendly and trendy new coffee shop run by Nigerian Bosun Ola and his French partner Fay Latham.  “We’re a cafe in the kind of British style,” Ola said. “We serve breakfast, lunch and gateaux. We do Jollof rice, which is an African dish.”  One of the last neighborhoods to become part of Paris in the 19th century, Goutte d’Or has always been home to low-income workers and immigrants from Italy, Spain and Poland. Now, it’s an African melting pot.  “You have the North Africans and you have the sub-Saharan Africans,” Ngo Mpii said. “And at Barbes, you clearly see … I don’t want to say division, but the two parts … the more you get deep inside the neighborhood, the more you see the sub-Saharan culture and Black people.”  That includes Ngo Mpii, who moved to France from her native Cameroon when she was 10 years old. Five years ago, she founded Little Africa, a company aimed to showcase the African side of Paris.  Her narrative emphasizes Goutte d’Or’s African cuisine and markets, which draw both foreigners and the African diaspora. And the fact that the neighborhood is becoming a fashion hub.  Goutte d’Or fashion designer Dyenaa Diaw has dressed superstar singer Beyonce — but she is staying put in the Paris neighborhood where she grew up. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Boutique Peulh Vagabond, with its chunky jewelry and elegant outfits, reflects designer Dyenaa Diaw’s Senegalese heritage. Diaw also uses traditional African weave — employing a cooperative of artisans from Burkina Faso. That’s another subtext in this walking tour — how this neighborhood’s creators are tapping Africa-based talent.  Diaw has gained an international reputation, partly because American superstar singer Beyonce has worn her creations. She could move her business to a more upscale neighborhood, but Goutte d’Or is home. If locals like herself don’t bring change to the neighborhood, she asks, who will?  Other Goutte d’Or residents have moved out, though many — like Louis Cantor — still come back to buy African spices or fashions or other colorful creations.  Cantor is of mixed Guadaloupean and Ivorian heritage. He said the neighborhood is becoming more multicultural, but he’s worried it will become too gentrified and chase out longtime residents. Ngo Mpii doesn’t think so.  Some people fear Goutte d’Or in Paris will gentrify, pushing out the local population. (Lisa Bryant/VOA)Like the rest of Paris’ tourism industry, her business has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. She’s lost one of her biggest clients— Black American tourists.  “What we’re bringing is the history of another Black population that they had no idea had a history here,” she said. “They only knew about themselves and their history in Paris — with Richard Wright, Josephine Baker and (James) Baldwin.”  For now, she’s giving tours to a more European and local audience. Maybe, Parisians might also venture beyond the standard tourist routes — and discover a part of their city that many do not know.  
 
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Prince Harry has repaid 2.4 million pounds ($3.2 million) in British taxpayers’ money that was used to renovate the home in Windsor intended for him and his wife Meghan before they gave up royal duties and moved to California.A spokesman for the couple said Monday that Harry had made a contribution to the Sovereign Grant, the public money that goes to the royal family. He said the contribution “fully covered the necessary renovation costs of Frogmore Cottage,” near Queen Elizabeth II’s Windsor Castle home, west of London.He said Frogmore Cottage will remain the home of Harry and Meghan, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, when they visit the U.K.Royal accounts for 2019 show that 2.4 million pounds was spent renovating the house, including structural work, rewiring and new flooring. Harry and Meghan agreed to pay back the money and start paying rent as part of the plans drawn up when they quit as senior working royals in March.They recently bought a house in Santa Barbara, California, and last week announced a deal with Netflix to produce a range of films and series for the streaming service.
 
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Jiri Menzel, a Czech director whose 1966 movie Closely Watched Trains won the Academy Award for the best foreign language film has died. He was 82.Menzel’s wife, Olga, announced his death late Sunday, saying he died the previous day. No details were given. Three years ago, Menzel underwent a brain operation and was kept in an artificially induced coma for several weeks after it.”Dearest Jirka, I thank you for each and every day I could spend with you. Each was extraordinary,” his wife said on Facebook.Menzel made some 20 movies and was one of the leading filmmakers of the new wave of Czechoslovak cinema that appeared in the 1960s. His movies represented a radical departure from socialist realism, a typical communist-era genre focusing on realistically depicting the struggles of the working class.Unlike colleagues such as Milos Forman, Jan Nemec and Ivan Passer, Menzel didn’t emigrate after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.Closely Watched Trains was his first feature movie. Based on a novel by Czech author Bohumil Hrabal, it tells the story of a dispatcher’s apprentice coming of age at a small train station during the Nazi occupation in World War II.His next collaboration with Hrabal, Larks on a String in 1969 was another tragicomic description of life under a totalitarian regime, this time under communism.The movie was immediately banned by the communist authorities. After the 1989 anti-Communist revolution led by Vaclav Havel, it won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin international film festival.Menzel’s other adaptations of Hrabal’s work include Cutting It Short (1980), The Snowdrop Festival (1984) and I served the King of England (2006).His 1985 comedy My Sweet Little Village was nominated for the Academy Award for best foreign film.A graduate of Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts in 1962, he was also known for directing plays and also as an actor.Among other awards, Menzel received the French Order of Arts and Literature. 
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