DUBAI: Singer Jennifer Lopez and actor Ben Affleck have married in Las Vegas, media reported on Sunday, after the celebrity couple rekindled a romance almost 20 years after they first got together.
Lopez wore two gowns on the big day, and revealed in a newsletter to her fans that the second look was by Lebanese couturier Zuhair Murad, whom she has worked with on a number of occasions.
Lopez’s dress featured long sleeves with a sweetheart neckline. It also boasted a corset bodice and a long train, along with a veil trimmed with lace.
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The couple announced their matrimony in a newsletter from Lopez revealing that they flew to the desert city in Nevada to gain a marriage license and wed at a chapel late Saturday, according to People Magazine.
“Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient. Exactly what we wanted,” Lopez said in the newsletter, the outlet reported.
The newsletter was signed “Mrs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck,” The Los Angeles Times reported, denoting a name change for the award-winning entertainer.
A representative for Affleck could not immediately be reached for comment. Phones rang unanswered at Lopez’s talent agency Creative Artists Agency.
A marriage license was obtained in their name from Clark County dated Saturday, July 16, according to document details posted online by the county clerk’s office.
Lopez posted a photo on social media depicting her in a bed while sporting a silver wedding ring.
Affleck and Lopez, a glamorous duo widely known as “Bennifer,” got back together last year after almost 20 years. They got engaged in April of this year.
In 2002 Affleck gave Lopez a large 6.1-carat pink diamond engagement ring, but they abruptly called off their wedding in 2003 and split up a few months later.
Reuters contributed to this report.
DUBAI: Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram is making waves internationally as her new hit single “Sah Sah” becomes the first Arab song to debut on the American Billboard Dance Charts. Coming in at No. 38, the singer-songwriter has created herself a spot on the Dance/ Electronic Songs Chart with American DJ Marshmallo, who collaborated on the track.
According to Soundcharts, a music analytics tool, “Sah Sah” reached the Top 10 on the US iTunes electronic charts after peaking at number 9. The track also topped the iTunes electronic category in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
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Taking to social media to celebrate the hit song’s success, Nancy Ajram thanked listeners for their “mind-blowing feedback.”
Ajram first teased the collaboration with Marshmello at the beginning of July on social media. The superstar took to Instagram to share a picture of herself with the DJ, who was in his usual custom white helmet resembling a marshmallow, in a recording studio.
Marshmello also shared a short clip on Instagram of him playing the stringed qanun instrument.
LONDON: A group of 100 Saudi fashion designers will this month descend on US fashion capital New York City to showcase their creations in a fortnight-long exhibition.
The Saudi 100 Brands project, which brings together 100 clothing and accessory designers from throughout the Kingdom, will see the artists creating a piece that best reflects the country’s heritage and culture, according to the Saudi Fashion Commission.
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The group traveling to the Big Apple to showcase their designs were picked from a field of 1,500 artists.
The exhibition will be split into eight categories of ready-to-wear, modest, concept, premiere, demi-couture, bridal, handbags, and jewelry and forms part of a more extensive, year-long program aimed at mentoring Saudi designers and providing them with opportunities for displaying their work.
It is with Joy that I share being part of the 100 Saudi Brands Exhibition held in NYC between July 26th and August 7th Get your free ticketshttps://t.co/dPn3mVQczL pic.twitter.com/7nFXDiPpOF
Throughout the year, the chosen designers receive advice from fashion experts from around the globe with one-on-one mentorship and informative workshops on topics such as design, innovation, marketing, and sales strategy.
The exhibition will take place from July 26 until Aug. 7 in New York’s Flatiron district.
DUBAI: Iranian-American actress Yara Shahidi is set to star in a brand new advertising campaign for Rouge Dior Forever, alongside Israeli-American star Natalie Portman, according to a report in Women’s Wear Daily.
Rouge Dior Forever is the stick version of Dior’s best-selling Rouge Dior liquid lipstick.
“Rouge Dior Forever pushes the boundaries further by offering a lipstick that combines the convenient gesture of a stick and the no-transfer wear of a liquid formula,” said Laurent Kleitman, president and CEO of Parfums Christian Dior.
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In the new spot, directed by Arnaud Uyttenhove, Portman and Shahidi are filmed against a barren, desert landscape. The actresses are seen wearing flowing red dresses to match the crimson lipstick shades.
The “Grown-ish” actress has also starred in another Dior Forever campaign, shot at the Salk Institute alongside “The Queen’s Gambit” actress Anya Taylor-Joy. The advert — directed by Damien Krisl and photographed by Camilla Akrans — is expected to debut in January 2023.
Shahidi took to her Instagram account to share a look at the upcoming ad campaign with her 6.9 million followers. “A beautiful day,” she captioned the image of her and fellow Dior brand ambassador Taylor-Joy, walking toward the camera in Grecian-style gowns.
The French luxury maison appointed Shahidi as a global brand ambassador in July of 2021, tapping the 21-year-old to be the face of its fashion and cosmetics lines.
DUBAI: Twenty years ago, Mohamed Emam went to his father to tell him something he had long held in his heart: He, too, wanted to become an actor. His father, Adel, arguably the most popular actor in the Arab world, responded bluntly — “My son, you are making a mistake.”
“He told me not to do it! As we sat there, he said to me that it’s very, very difficult. In some ways, it’s the hardest job I could have picked. He told me to choose something else,” Emam tells Arab News. “But what could I do? It was my passion. I said, ‘I love it.’ And I went against his wishes. I had to follow my heart.”
Emam has no regrets about that decision now. How could he? The Egyptian actor has, over the last two decades, become one of the region’s premiere talents in his own right, boasting nearly 12 million followers on Instagram and headlining both action blockbusters and Ramadan comedies alike — some opposite his beloved father.
He’s speaking to Arab News on the day that his latest film, “3amohom” (Their Uncle), is set for its star-studded premiere in Dubai. The city is already festooned with posters of his likeness, a version of himself he sculpted intensively for a year to become a true action star.
The action comedy, in which he plays a boxer who discovers a printing press for counterfeit money, has already had a huge opening in Egypt and is primed to become the actor’s biggest opening in the Gulf ever, as he plans to turn his attention next to Saudi Arabia, with red carpets in Jeddah and Riyadh awaiting his arrival.
“I’m being completely honest when I tell you this is the most proud I’ve been in my career so far,” says Emam. “The fact that I’m taking a tour of the Arab world to open this film is something I always hoped I would have the chance to do some day.”
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Saudi Arabia is now front and center in the mind of Emam and the entire Egyptian film industry, as the emergence of the Kingdom as a cinema market has transformed not only the marketing of their movies, but their entire conception.
“We’re not just thinking about how things will play in Egypt anymore. From our first meetings, we’re thinking about how our stories will resonate in Saudi Arabia, and the greater Gulf. It’s been amazing, honestly. It’s encouraging us to work harder in every aspect of moviemaking, and it’s pushing us to make even more movies,” says Emam.
It’s a huge summer for Egyptian cinema. “3amohom” is opening opposite another blockbuster, the historical epic “Kira & El Gin,” which is aiming to smash the records set by its maker’s previous film, “The Blue Elephant 2.” It’s directed by someone that Emam knows well, Marwan Hamed.
“I wish my old friend the best of luck. Both of our films are packing cinemas, and rightfully so,” says Emam.
In some ways, Emam owes the trajectory of his career to Hamed. The director entrusted him with the lead role in the 2006 blockbuster film “The Yacoubian Building,” opposite a true megastar — his father Adel — despite the fact that Emam had only minor television credits to his name at that point.
“After I made that film, I spoke to my father again. He told me he loved my performance. Since then, he’s told me he loves all my movies. He’s always saying to me how proud he is, even now,” says Emam.
That’s not to say Emam’s rise to fame has been easy. In some ways, Emam is still living his father’s shadow, knowing that while he has had privileges as Adel’s son, he has also had to work extra hard to prove that he deserves the spotlight.
“It’s very difficult to become an actor when your father is the biggest actor in the world. It was a big, big struggle at first. Slowly people grew to understand that I love cinema, that I don’t do this just because my father is a big actor,” says Emam. “To this day, I’m still just trying to do my best, and to please people.”
Not surprisingly, Emam’s love for cinema began on the sets of his father’s films, watching not only his father, but the dozens of people around him all focused on different tasks to make the film a success.
“I was amazed by what I saw. I wanted to join them immediately. I knew in my heart right then — from four years old — that I wanted to be an actor,” says Emam.
Like his legendary father, Emam has excelled at comedic acting — something he does not take for granted.
“Comedy is harder than anything else, to be honest. It’s very hard to make the Egyptian people laugh. It’s very hard to make them accept you. I thank God that after doing a lot of comedy movies, the people have come to appreciate me in that role,” says Emam.
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For “3amohom,” however, Emam didn’t want to lean only on his wit. He had always wanted to play a boxer and while the film features only a few boxing scenes, Emam trained as if he was scheduled for a debut fight.
“I trained very intensively for eight months. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever put myself through. And because we filmed off and on for a year and a half, I had to keep myself in that peak condition the entire time. Not to mention keeping my hair bleached blond — which I’m not sure my head has forgiven me for,” says Emam.
“The training did come in handy outside of the boxing ring, of course. It was a very hard shoot. In one scene, I had to do a fight with 20 different guys. I’d never pushed myself to that degree.”
While he plans to do more action films, and action comedies in particular, as he believes he thrives in fight sequences, there is still one role that Emam dreams of playing more than any other — to star as his father in an Adel Emam biopic.
“I think I could do it. I really intend to try,” says Emam. “There’s another side to him that people don’t see: The father. The man that I know best. Really, I love him so much. I truly admire him. He’s my idol. I would love to be able to tell that story myself.”
FORMENTERA: “We’ve spent the last two years looking at the cultural identity in the Arab world from a sociological perspective,” says Mona Al-Abdallah, co-curator of “Re-composing,” an exhibition at the Palazzo Bembo in Venice dedicated to Saudi-based artists. Al-Abdallah, her sister Maya (the other co-curator of “Re-composing”) and their mother co-founded the 369 Art Gallery in Jeddah in 2014, which is moving to Riyadh this year.
“We chose to look at Saudi-based artists for this exhibition because Saudi Arabia is alive and has a voice. It’s both ancient and new. I’m 41 years old and there are artists who are only 18 in this show. I’m amazed by their proximity to Saudi’s process of becoming and what this says about the regeneration of Arab culture.”
While it can often seem like the same handful of artists constantly appear in Saudi biennials, many of the artists participating in this exhibition are lesser known, such as the pop-culture-influenced Saudi millennial who goes by the name Rexchouk, whose “Pass the Bukhoor” (2022) places lime-green, wide-eyed men and women in traditional garb against a palm tree-lined setting, where they cleanse themselves with ‘bukhoor,’ the scent burner used at home and in ritual gatherings across the Arabian peninsula.
Then there’s Mariam Almesawi, an artist who is also a “braille language practitioner and mental health disability specialist,” according to her statement, but who you will be hard-pressed to find anything about online. Her deceptively simple video “Folkor Al-Arab” (2022) depicts a rotating female figure wearing a plain, white djellaba with black braids covering her face.
Obaid Alsafi, who emerged last year with a Misk Art Grant, combines new media, artificial intelligence and Arabic poetry in his art practice. His work “Desert Insight” (2022) is an imaginary clock framed with a circle of sand. At its center is a programmed monitor showing figures in kaleidoscopic form — an evocation of both geological time and what the artist calls “virtual time.” Meanwhile, in a comment on rapid urban development and migration within the Kingdom, Saeed Al-Gamhawi’s “My Mother’s Rug” (2021), an intricate projection which was exhibited at Noor Riyadh 2021, digitizes an old family rug in an effort to preserve time.
The theme of “Re-composing” evokes an ephemeral idea of fluid identities or the sense of a musical arrangement, and re-arrangement, but there’s a strong sense of materiality and material culture in the exhibition. “Agar” (2022), by filmmaker Deyaa Youssef, for example, is a haunting, textural video with a devotional quality, featuring a woman wearing an embroidered abaya, touching on water as sacred, while Khulod Albugami’s sculpture “Terhal” (2021) is a woolly figure on wooden legs, inspired by tent structures and desert adaptation. Albugami — among the more established artists in the show — draws from her Bedouin cultural heritage. In a similar vein, Swiss-Syrian-Moroccan Houda Terjuman creates a miniature palm tree floating above a green bed using copper plaster sponge and sawdust wire (“Uprooted Palm,” 2021).
There are some dramatic sculptural aesthetics on show. Abha-born Syrian artist Hatem Al-Ahmad ties tongue depressors together in a wall-sized flowing sculpture called “Shlonak” (2022), indexing illness (in the 19th century, depressors were used as a sign of the plague).
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“This was a deeply collaborative process,” Al-Abdallah explains. “We thought that the work needed to be a fluid form, like a tongue that reflects the fluidity of language.” Interestingly the question, “Shou lonak?” - meaning what is your color — which developed as a colloquialism during that time has evolved into “Shlonak?” (How are you?)
In “Connection” (2019), Hmoud Al-Attawi evokes pixelated fingers touching, inspired by Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam.” He uses Islamic rings that measure the number of prayer beads, since the work represents a connection to the divine through fingers and counting. “Al-Attawi and Saad Howede, who share Wasm studio in Riyadh, are very research-driven,” Al-Abdullah says. “Sometimes they work on a project conceptually for a year before executing it. We believe in them and think they are going to be the next big thing.”
In “Tola Petroleum” (2019), Howede creates a grid consisting of rows of oud bottles filled with petroleum, a sharp look at traditional signifiers of Arabian culture and their interchangeability. It is a neat encapsulation of how this exhibition — as a snapshot of contemporary art practice in Saudi Arabia — indicates that ancestral traditions form a significant part, existing side-by-side with cultural change.