by Sophie Smars Last Monday, Quo Vadis, Aida? was nominated for an Oscar for Best International Feature Film. The highly acclaimed movie directed by Jasmila Zbanik covers the events in July 1995 leading up to the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian war, through the eyes of Aida Selmanagic (Jasna Duricic) a translator working for the UN. 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed during this massacre by the Bosnian Serb…
Category: Culture
Ooga-Booga Journalism: The problem with Western media’s portrayal of Africa
Sophie-Jo Gavin The media is the lens through which we view the world, endowed with the power to curate our perceptions of other regions and influence political decision-making. This is particularly evidenced by the case of Africa, whose portrayal in Western media frequently lacks the depth of coverage of other regions, rendering its image restricted…
Film Review: I Am Not Your Negro
Daniel Symons A nauseating insight into the USA’s grossly discriminatory past, present and future. I Am Not Your Negro is in no sense an easy watch, and rightly so. The documentary portrays America’s deeply problematic past with institutionalised racism, and the attitudes and aggressions towards people of colour that this spawned in wider society, which…
Review: The Penalty
The Penalty (2017) Directed by: Mark Pizzey & Will Francombe For many Europeans, the death penalty can sometimes seem an unimportant issue. But while the death penalty has been banned in Europe, 2016 alone saw 3,117 death sentences and 1,032 executions worldwide. The USA, where the death penalty is still legal in as many as…
Aadishi’s Poetry Corner #2
Aadishi Agarwal UCL Laws student Hurricanes Hurricanes don’t trust people like me like I know you want to. Don’t trust that easy smile and carefree laugh that rumbles against your chest or that thoughtless humming as I’m flipping pancakes, because people like me, they’re not meant to be trusted. People like me are too well…
Mean Girls Review
Mark Barclay Masters (MSt) in Philosophical Theology Student at Worcester College, Oxford University Watching Mean Girls for the first time just weeks ago, I was struck by the sense that I had stumbled on a window into another world. Lindsay Lohan should consider herself lucky that she was charged merely with managing her social life…
Bordados por la Paz y la Memoria – Embroideries for Peace and Memory.
Ellioté Long Culture Editor Every Sunday afternoon, in the main square of Mexico City’s Coyoacán neighbourhood, you can find a group sitting to one side of the fountains, embroidering handkerchiefs. They are Fuentes Rojas (Red Fountains), the Mexico City branch of a global network of collectives embroidering for peace and memory. Members of these collectives…
Five Songs that reflect the Trump Era
Ellioté Long Culture Editor Nina Simone once said that it is an artist’s duty to reflect the times, and her affirmation is as important today as it ever was. Since the early days of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, we have seen some excellent responses to the racism, misogyny, trans-misogyny, ableism, islamophobia, homophobia and other rubbish…
Photoseries: Mexico City’s fight for love
Culture Editor and real life Indiana Jones, Elliote Long, shares these photos taken as she witnessed the equality march in Mexico City… Captions and photographs are the words and sentiments of Elliote Long
Step out and Check Out some of the most contemporary Art Exhibitions in London…
The Culture team wanted to demonstrate just how hip they are, by talking about some of their favourite art exhibitions… We’re an adventurous bunch here at the CD, so going to trendy galleries isn’t that much of a stretch for us. A while back, we headed down to the Natural Portrait Gallery (to help a very determined History of Art…
Culture Division- Get some perspective
We’re a pretty humble bunch at the Culture division, we let our work speak for itself(**cough** **cough** Human Interest). For far too long we’ve wrongly believed that the only way to truly understand global and domestic issues is through reading newspapers or watching the news… THERE’S SO MUCH MORE OUT THERE. We’re hoping that here…
The Cultured Activist: Malian music edition
In 2012, three groups of Islamist militia seized the northern two-thirds of Mali and imposed the most strict interpretation of Sharia Law and a destructively warped version of Islam. During the occupation, which lasted for over a year, the extremists waged war against the region’s moderate Islam and its rich cultural tradition. Mosques, mausoleums and other holy sites in…
The Amnesty 