REVIEW: Netflix’s French thriller ‘Ad Vitam’ fails to pick a lane
Updated 24 January 2025
Adam Grundey
JEDDAH: It’s hard to know quite what to make of “Ad Vitam.” Maybe because its creators don’t seem to have decided quite what they were making.
Co-writer Guillaume Canet stars as Franck Lazarev, whose wife Leo is just days away from giving birth to their first child. Franck is working a civilian job checking historical buildings for structural cracks (which makes for some stunning opening shots of Paris). A few days after finding their apartment has been ransacked, they are attacked by masked intruders, who kidnap Leo and tell Franck that unless he hands over “the key,” she will die and he will be framed for her murder. It all makes for a gripping 30 minutes.
Then the story goes back a full decade. Leo and Franck are trainees for the GIGN (essentially the French police’s anti-terrorist unit). They become ace agents, bond with certain colleagues, fall in love… you get the picture. It’s a montage — but one that takes around 20 minutes when it could have taken two. It throws off the momentum considerably.
Next, we jump ahead nine years to find Franck leading a team of agents who are called to a hotel where gunshots have been heard. Things escalate rapidly. Two perpetrators are killed, but so is Franck’s best friend, and his protégé is seriously wounded. Franck is fired.
But he can’t let it go. He gets his friend’s badge tested for DNA (explaining a notable focus on badges in the earlier flashback sequence) and discovers that one of the two perps was actually a government agent. A conspiracy begins to unravel. The key demanded by the kidnappers opens the locker where Franck has stashed the evidence.
Back to the present: Franck rushes to save Leo, and we’re back to frantic action, this time with mediocre parkour scenes and a paragliding sequence that is hilarious (unintentionally). Canet clearly fancies himself an all-action hero in the Tom Cruise mold. He doesn’t pull it off. Like the film itself, Canet is best when playing it small and gritty.
Credit to the makers for taking some big swings, but they don’t come off. And while “Ad Vitam” is entertaining enough, it’s also instantly forgettable.
Zimbabwe is full of elephants and conflict with villagers is growing. A new approach hopes to help
Updated 16 May 2025
AP
HWANGE: When GPS-triggered alerts show an elephant herd heading toward villages near Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, Capon Sibanda springs into action. He posts warnings in WhatsApp groups before speeding off on his bicycle to inform nearby residents without phones or network access.
The new system of tracking elephants wearing GPS collars was launched last year by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. It aims to prevent dangerous encounters between people and elephants, which are more frequent as climate change worsens competition for food and water.
“When we started it was more of a challenge, but it’s becoming phenomenal,” said Sibanda, 29, one of the local volunteers trained to be community guardians.
For generations, villagers banged pots, shouted or burned dung to drive away elephants. But worsening droughts and shrinking resources have pushed the animals to raid villages more often, destroying crops and infrastructure and sometimes injuring or killing people.
Zimbabwe's elephant population is estimated at around 100,000, nearly double the land’s capacity. The country hasn’t culled elephants in close to four decades. That's because of pressure from wildlife conservation activists, and because the process is expensive, according to parks spokesman Tinashe Farawo.
Conflicts between humans and wildlife such as elephants, lions and hyenas killed 18 people across the southern African country between January and April this year, forcing park authorities to kill 158 “trouble” animals during that period.
“Droughts are getting worse. The elephants devour the little that we harvest,” said Senzeni Sibanda, a local councilor and farmer, tending her tomato crop with cow dung manure in a community garden that also supports a school feeding program.
Technology now supports the traditional tactics. Through the EarthRanger platform introduced by IFAW, authorities track collared elephants in real time. Maps show their proximity to the buffer zone — delineated on digital maps, not by fences — that separate the park and hunting concessions from community land.
At a park restaurant one morning IFAW field operations manager Arnold Tshipa monitored moving icons on his laptop as he waited for breakfast. When an icon crossed a red line, signaling a breach, an alert pinged.
“We’re going to be able to see the interactions between wildlife and people,” Tshipa said. “This allows us to give more resources to particular areas."
The system also logs incidents like crop damage or attacks on people and livestock by predators such as lions or hyenas and retaliatory attacks on wildlife by humans. It also tracks the location of community guardians like Capon Sibanda.
“Every time I wake up, I take my bike, I take my gadget and hit the road,” Sibanda said. He collects and stores data on his phone, usually with photos. “Within a blink,” alerts go to rangers and villagers, he said.
His commitment has earned admiration from locals, who sometimes gift him crops or meat. He also receives a monthly food allotment worth about $80 along with internet data.
Parks agency director Edson Gandiwa said the platform ensures that “conservation decisions are informed by robust scientific data.”
Villagers like Senzeni Sibanda say the system is making a difference: “We still bang pans, but now we get warnings in time and rangers react more quickly.”
Still, frustration lingers. Sibanda has lost crops and water infrastructure to elephant raids and wants stronger action. “Why aren’t you culling them so that we benefit?” she asked. “We have too many elephants anyway.”
Her community, home to several hundred people, receives only a small share of annual trophy hunting revenues, roughly the value of one elephant or between $10,000 and $80,000, which goes toward water repairs or fencing. She wants a rise in Zimbabwe's hunting quota, which stands at 500 elephants per year, and her community's share increased.
The elephant debate has made headlines. In September last year, activists protested after Zimbabwe and Namibia proposed slaughtering elephants to feed drought-stricken communities. Botswana’s then-president offered to gift 20,000 elephants to Germany, and the country’s wildlife minister mock-suggested sending 10,000 to Hyde Park in the heart of London so Britons could “have a taste of living alongside elephants.”
Zimbabwe's collaring project may offer a way forward. Sixteen elephants, mostly matriarchs, have been fitted with GPS collars, allowing rangers to track entire herds by following their leaders. But Hwange holds about 45,000 elephants, and parks officials say it has capacity for 15,000. Project officials acknowledge a huge gap remains.
In a recent collaring mission, a team of ecologists, vets, trackers and rangers identified a herd. A marksman darted the matriarch from a distance. After some tracking using a drone and a truck, team members fitted the collar, whose battery lasts between two and four years. Some collected blood samples. Rangers with rifles kept watch.
Once the collar was secured, an antidote was administered, and the matriarch staggered off into the wild, flapping its ears.
“Every second counts,” said Kudzai Mapurisa, a parks agency veterinarian.
Downtown Design Riyadh runs May 20-23 at JAX District
Updated 16 May 2025
Jasmine Bager
DHAHRAN: Downtown Design, a contemporary design fair that has run in the UAE for the last decade, will debut in Saudi Arabia from May 20 to 23 at JAX District, marking the Kingdom’s first official event dedicated to original, high-quality design.
“Downtown Design Riyadh, with its thoughtfully curated program and blend of local and global expertise, reflects our vision to build a dynamic design community that embodies the Kingdom’s rich and diverse cultural identity,” Sumayah Al-Solaiman, CEO of the Architecture and Design Commission, wrote in a statement.
The multi-day activation will be held in partnership with the Architecture and Design Commission under the Ministry of Culture.
(Supplied)
Mette Degn-Christensen, director of Downtown Design, expressed her enthusiasm for the inaugural edition in the capital.
“I think you’re going to experience something that’s been really thoughtfully selected for this fair, with the unique setting of the location,” she told Arab News. “I’m very excited about the venue. It’s very historic, and it’s just a great way to kind of juxtapose the more modern and the historic, at the same time. If you think about it, nowhere in the world has an event of our nature in that kind of venue.
“I’m really kind of overwhelmed with how amazing it is to get to do a design fair literally on the terraces of the UNESCO heritage site (in Diriyah),” she added. “I think that’s really special.”
Degn-Christensen, a Danish design leader with more than 15 years of international experience, has directed Downtown Design in Dubai since 2021. She has helped expand the fair’s global reach and champion regional talent. She now brings that expertise to Saudi Arabia.
(Supplied)
“What excites me personally the most — and I think the team also — is this really genuine, encouraging energy in Riyadh,” she said. “I didn’t expect this welcome — it’s not easy to start a fair in a new country or a new market.”
For Degn-Christensen, one of the fair’s main goals is to “encourage you to maybe consider design more in your life and your work. And those are the things that we have been doing over the years. So I think (this is) almost, maybe, a fast-track version of that.”
And she believes the timing of the fair aligns with a growing appreciation among general society for thoughtful design.
“I think it’s the right time. There’s a shift in perspective of quality and of investing value into purchasing quality, sustainable long-lasting design,” she said. “(That’s true), I think, globally, but certainly in this region. I’m very excited about that kind of moment.
(Supplied)
“I think that it’s a good time for our fair also in terms of that there are fashion and luxury and art initiatives in the Kingdom, but when it comes to design and high quality, premium quality design, there isn’t really such an outlet yet,” she continued.
Downtown Design Riyadh will bring together a global roster of established brands, emerging designers and regional studios. Exhibitors include lighting innovators Tom Dixon, Brokis and Articolo, presented by Huda Lighting; Scandinavian furniture houses Audo Copenhagen, GUBI, and &Tradition, brought by The Bowery Company; and the regional debut of Scarlet Splendour, featuring bold brass pieces by designer Richard Hutten.
Kuwait-based Babnimnim Studio will present an architectural installation for Cosentino, exploring heritage and innovation, while Jotun Paints will stage a color-focused experience in collaboration with Saudi creatives.
French heritage brand Maison Louis Drucker will debut a digital collaboration with TRAME and Aranda\Lasch, “merging algorithmic design with traditional handcraft.”
A dedicated section of the fair will spotlight limited-edition and collectible works. Gallery COLLECTIONAL will showcase handcrafted furniture by Christophe Delcourt, sculptural lighting by Apparatus Studio, and vintage-inspired designs by Draga & Aurel. Venini’s artisanal glass, produced with Michele De Lucchi and Peter Marino, will be shown alongside luxury highlights from Visionnaire and Serafini.
In addition to the exhibits, Downtown Design Riyadh will also populate JAX District with pop-ups, creative interventions and a dynamic talks program. “Strata,” a modular outdoor installation by multidisciplinary studio Karim+Elias, made from locally-sourced sand and constructed using rammed-earth techniques, will merge traditional materials with contemporary design.
The talks series will bring together architects, developers, collectors and creatives to discuss “themes shaping design in the region and beyond.”
Downtown Design Riyadh reflects the Kingdom’s growing investment in culture and creativity under Vision 2030. The fair is set to become an annual platform supporting the Kingdom’s active interior-design market and connecting Saudi talent with global networks.
“It’s been a few years that we’ve been looking to start an initiative in Saudi and then we wanted to make sure that we did it at the right time, but also that we did it in the right way,” Degn-Christensen said. “There’s some overlap in the Dubai (team) and then there are some just from Riyadh — and it’s the same for suppliers and contractors. It’s certainly not a copy of what we’re doing in Dubai.”
Saudi artist Reem Al-Nasser discusses her Diriyah Art Futures Residency
Al-Nasser says she is inspired by area’s ‘natural beauty’
Updated 16 May 2025
Hams Saleh
DUBAI: Saudi artist Reem Al-Nasser has been selected for the inaugural Mazra’ah Media Arts Residency, a new initiative from Diriyah Art Futures.
The residency, which runs until July, brings together artists and scholars to explore emerging ecologies, speculative futures, and the evolving relationship between technology, nature and cultural heritage.
Organized by the Museums Commission under the Saudi Ministry of Culture, the residency supports experimental research and production in the field of digital and new media art.
Al-Nasser, one of three Saudi artists participating, described being selected as both an honor and a milestone in her artistic journey. (Supplied)
Participants are provided with a production budget and technical support, as well as access to labs and studios. The spring cohort includes artists and scholars from Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, France, Germany and the UK.
Al-Nasser, one of three Saudi artists participating, described being selected as both an honor and a milestone in her artistic journey.
“I felt immense happiness and deep honor,” she told Arab News. “Being chosen for such a prestigious residency was a validation of my artistic journey and gave me a sense of responsibility and excitement.”
The theme of the inaugural residency is “High-Resolution Dreams from the Sands.” Artists are encouraged to examine the intersections of land and technology. Al-Nasser’s interpretation of the theme centers on the flower known in Arabic as Al-Samh — a plant native to Saudi Arabia, which she uses as a symbol of resilience, healing and shelter.
Sketch of her upcoming work for the residency. (Supplied)
“I’m working on archiving the ancient behaviors associated with this flower as a symbol of defense and protection, incorporating its intricate details into digital artworks that simulate its essence,” she said.
Al-Nasser is developing a series of interactive digital installations that integrate visual projection, augmented reality and artificial intelligence to animate the symbolic qualities of the flower and bring them into a contemporary digital art context. Her goal is to create a multi-sensory experience that immerses viewers in the story of the flower, blending visual detail with conceptual depth.
“These tools allow me to present the intricate details of the Samh flower in a stunning and unprecedented way,” she said.
Al-Nasser often draws inspiration from traditional storytelling and behavioral patterns, using art to reframe these ideas through a modern lens. “My style is a blend of digital and physical media, with a focus on storytelling — restructuring and connecting ancient knowledge with modern elements,” she said. “Being in Diriyah opened my eyes to the importance of drawing inspiration from local elements and presenting them in a contemporary manner. It’s also encouraged me to experiment with modern techniques I haven’t used before.
Sketch of her upcoming work for the residency. (Supplied)
“Diriyah has also inspired me with its natural beauty, palm gardens and ancient forts, which have become a central focus in my work,” she continued. “The environment here encouraged me to deeply reflect on the relationship between nature and art and to celebrate its elements through technology. I hope people feel the profound connection between environmental science and the Desert Samh Flower and appreciate the power of nature in creating symbols that inspire art and creativity. I want them to reflect on the relationship between heritage and technology and how art can bridge the two.”
As the Kingdom invests more heavily in cultural infrastructure and platforms such as DAF, Al-Nasser believes local artists are increasingly positioned to shape the global conversation around digital and new media art.
“Saudi artists are producing remarkable works that are rooted in cultural heritage while integrating modern technologies,” she said. “They have the potential to revolutionize the global art scene by highlighting the beauty of local nature, like the Samh flower, in innovative ways.”
'Bakila Recipe,' 2024, presented in Paris. (Supplied)
Al-Nasser’s journey into art began in her teenage years, driven by a fascination with creative expression and storytelling. “Art became my way of understanding the world and sharing my perspective,” she said, adding that her creative inspirations often stem from historical and behavioral patterns.
“Ancient storytelling and understanding personal experiences were my primary sources of inspiration,” she explained. “I’ve always been fascinated by the beauty of subtle details in behaviors, their connection to time, and how art can highlight and center them in storytelling.”
Ibrahim Al-Hajjaj: from grunge gigs to Saudi cinema’s biggest laughs
The Saudi star discusses his latest movie, the action-comedy ‘Esaaf’
Updated 16 May 2025
Hind Al-Khunaizi
DHAHRAN: It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, not for Saudi actor, comedian, writer, and musician Ibrahim Al-Hajjaj anyway.
“Getting into acting was a coincidence,” he tells Arab News. “I used to be in a band. I played guitar and sang grunge rock and blues. But in 2012 a loss pushed me to stop music and look for something new.”
That something new didn’t come in the form of an epiphany or an elaborate five-year plan. It came quietly, like many meaningful changes do.
“In 2013, I came across an acting course, just by chance,” he recalls. “Then, in 2015, I took a workshop with Kevin Spacey in Sharjah. That’s when my career really started. That year was the true beginning.”
Ibrahim Al-Hajjaj (R) in 'Esaaf.' (Supplied)
Since then, Al-Hajjaj has become one of the most popular comedic actors in the Kingdom, known for his sharp wit, heartfelt roles, and endless commitment to culturally rooted storytelling. But the spark that lit it all was just as humble as his beginnings.
“The first time I acted on stage, my role was barely two minutes,” he said with a laugh. “I said a line, the actor in front of me responded, and suddenly I improvised. The whole theater burst into laughter. I turned to them, thinking, ‘What’s happening?’ Everyone looked so happy. At that moment, making people laugh was beautiful. I realized that comedy is like doing a good deed.”
That good deed would grow into 2023’s “Sattar,” a breakout hit and the highest-grossing film in the — admittedly short — history of Saudi cinema. But his new film, the action-comedy “Esaaf,” released last month, may challenge that. “We hope it breaks that record,” he says. “We’ve hit nearly 200,000 admissions.”
But for Al-Hajjaj, success is about more than numbers. “Success is defined by people,” he says. “It isn’t something artists define for themselves. If audiences are watching and enjoying your work, that’s success. At the end of the day, we make art for people to experience as a family. It has to be both meaningful and accessible.”
Set in Riyadh, “Esaaf,” helmed by British director Colin Teague, follows two incompetent paramedics — Omar (Al-Hajjaj) and Khalid (Mohammed Al-Qahtani) who unwittingly become entangled in a kidnapping plot.
The film saw Al-Hajjaj wearing many hats: co-writer, creative producer, and lead actor.
“I was on set for 14 hours daily, ensuring everything felt right: the dialogue, comedy, and the Saudi details. I was like the mother on set. It was exhausting but fulfilling.”
It’s clear that for Al-Hajjaj, storytelling is truly personal, and the stakes are high. One story in particular, from a nationwide meet-and-greet tour, stuck with him. “An11-year-old girl gave me a crumpled piece of paper with a black heart drawn on it. I went home and cried,” he recalls. “It reminded me that parents are trusting me with what matters most to them: their kids. And that trust means everything.”
And that’s what Al-Hajjaj wants to honor every time he walks on set.
“I hope always to make stories that are real, Saudi, full of heart, that families can enjoy together,” he says. “Because that’s what it’s really about; it’s about bringing people together and letting them laugh side by side. There’s nothing more beautiful than that.”
Mohammed Al-Turki attends ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ premiere at Cannes
Updated 15 May 2025
Arab News
DUBAI: Saudi film producer Mohammed Al-Turki was spotted at the red carpet premiere of “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday.
Al-Turki, who previously served as CEO of the Red Sea International Film Festival, wore a midnight blue Berluti ensemble for the occasion. His look featured a satin and Super 200s micro design wool three-piece tuxedo, styled with a matching midnight blue bow tie and cotton shirt. He completed the outfit with black patent leather loafers.
Al-Turki posed for photos alongside Egyptian actress Yousra before the film’s screening. (Getty Images)
He posed for photos alongside Egyptian actress Yousra before the film’s screening.
US actor Greg Tarzan Davis, US actress Angela Bassett, US actor and producer Tom Cruise, French actress Pom Klementieff, US film director, screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie leave after the screening of the film 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes. (Getty Images)
“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” stars Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell and Ving Rhames, continuing the story from 2023’s “Dead Reckoning – Part One.” The sequel follows Ethan Hunt and his team as they face off against the Entity, a rogue AI threatening global security. With the previous installment underperforming at the box office, this chapter is seen as a crucial release for the franchise.
