Abused

Made with painstaking care and sensitivity, this debut feature from Belgian film-maker Emmanuelle Nicot is about a child victim of grooming and rape who takes the side of her abuser; this is a 12-year-old girl called Dalva (Zelda Samson), whose father is arrested at the start. It’s an intense film about trauma and its devastating consequences. Nicot ignores the perpetrator to focus on the victim, a decision that makes this film just about bearable; I can’t think of another movie I was so reluctant to watch, but after it…

“After Covid, don’t have any management. They have fired many employees. There aren’t many staffers to help out . Who do we take these issues to?” Matthew says. “At least before, there was a concerned office , now there is no concerned office. Everything is online.” Ola did not respond to questions sent by WIRED. Rathi from CIS says that a responsive grievance mechanism for gig workers is “completely absent” and continues to be “one of the top three demands” that workers have. “The firms are able to provide more…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeFlorence Pugh revealed the dark depths she went to in order to play a traumatised psychology student in Ari Aster’s 2019 horror, Midsommar.The A24 film follows Pugh’s character Dani on a trip to Sweden to attend a midsummer festival with her increasingly distant boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) and his friends.At the end of the movie, Dani is crowned the May Queen and chooses to…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeFlorence Pugh revealed the dark depths she went to in order to play a traumatised psychology student in Ari Aster’s 2019 horror, Midsommar.The A24 film follows Pugh’s character Dani on a trip to Sweden to attend a midsummer festival with her increasingly distant boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) and his friends.At the end of the movie, Dani is crowned the May Queen and chooses to…

Several game developers attending GDC 2023 have reported concerning and illegal behavior at the conference on social media. The allegations include drink-spiking, harassment, and assault.On Twitter, game developer Leena dan Deventer said that women at GDC were "belittled and undermined," harassed, and roofied. "Two women were even lured up to a hotel room by a man in a position of power for a 'pitch', where he then assaulted them," they said.Women at GDC this year have been belittled and undermined in…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeThe director of the documentary Leaving Neverland has argued that the upcoming biopic of Michael Jackson will “glorify” a child rapist. The 2019 documentary is a “brutally frank and explicit account of two abusive relationships,” British director Dan Reed wrote in a comment piece for The Guardian, published on Sunday. The documentary reveals that the pop star first raped a boy, Wade…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeArmie Hammer has given his first interview since being accused of abuse and sexual misconduct. The Call Me By Your Name star was accused in 2021 of rape by one woman, and of sexual misconduct by multiple others.Hammer was subsequently fired from forthcoming projects including the film Shotgun Wedding, Broadway play The Minutes and TV series The Offer.In an interview with Air Mail,…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeDances with Wolves star Nathan Chasing Horse has been arrested after police raided the home of the former actor turned alleged cult leader, who is accused of sexually assaulting young indigenous girls during a period spanning two decades.The Native American actor was taken into custody by Las Vegas police on Tuesday (31 January) near the home he shares with his five wives. SWAT…

A few days ago, speech AI startup ElevenLabs launched a beta version of its platform that gives users the power to create entirely new synthetic voices for text-to-speech audio or to clone somebody's voice. Well, it only took the internet a few days to start using the latter for vile purposes. The company has revealed on Twitter that it's seeing an "increasing number of voice cloning misuse cases" and that it's thinking of a way to address the problem by "implementing additional safeguards." While ElevenLabs didn't…

AI voice synthesis is getting more and more sophisticated, which also means it’s more open to abuse.Graphic: ArtemisDiana (Shutterstock)Who could have possibly seen this coming? AI image generators have been used to create non-consensual pornography of celebrities, but why would that same user base dare abuse a free AI text-to-speech deepfake voice generator? UK-based ElevenLabs first touted its Prime Voice AI earlier this month, but just a few weeks later it may need to rethink its entire model after users reported a…