French actor Marion Cotillard and director Guillaume Canet announce split
French movie star Marion Cotillard and director Guillaume Canet have separated after nearly two decades together with 'mutual respect', the star couple announced on Friday. 'After 18 years together, Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet have decided to separate by mutual agreement,' said a statement released by their representatives. 'This decision was made with mutual respect,' it added.
Oscar winner Cotillard frequently collaborated on projects with Canet since their relationship began in 2007, including the 2010 comedy-drama 'Little White Lies' (Les Petits Mouchoirs). Cotillard, 49, and Canet, 52, who share two children together, said they hoped to avoid 'speculation, rumour, and misinterpretation' with the announcement.
'By being transparent through this statement, Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet also express their desire for their private lives, and especially that of their two children, to be respected,' the statement said.
Cotillard, one of the best-known faces of French cinema, won the Best Actress Academy Award for her role as Edith Piaf in 'La Vie en Rose' in 2008. Canet, who is also an actor, is best known to international audiences for his role alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in 2000's 'The Beach'.--AFP
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Kuwait Times
9 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
St. Bernards romp at unique Swiss theme park
Syrah walks slowly and deliberately on a treadmill submerged in a large water tank, as two therapists help keep her steady, and a crowd looks on in awe. The eight-year-old St. Bernard is receiving her regular hydrotherapy session, while visitors to the newly reopened Barryland theme park in the Swiss Alpine valley town of Martigny follow every move. 'We give hydrotherapy to older dogs or dogs that have undergone surgery,' Barryland director Melanie Glassey-Roth told AFP. 'Everything here is conceived for the wellbeing of our dogs.' Revamped from a smaller, 'living museum' focused on St. Bernards, after two years of work Barryland has morphed into a large, interactive theme park fully dedicated to Switzerland's national dog. Built in the shape of a paw print, the main building offers interactive experiences and virtual reality tours of the history and myths surround the St. Bernard, as well as the chance to interact with the big dogs themselves. The park is hoping to see its visitor numbers soar to potentially 200,000 a year, up from 83,000 before the renovation. Head of the breeding program Manuel Gaillard holds two puppies of the Saint Bernard dog breed during a press visit ahead of the inauguration of the Barryland museum and parc in Martigny, in the Swiss Alps.--AFP photos Two puppies of the Saint Bernard dog breed are photographed. A Saint Bernard dog receives care during a press visit ahead of the inauguration of the Barryland museum and parc in Martigny, in the Swiss Alps. A journalist films a video of a Saint Bernard dog during a press visit. A Saint Bernard dog mascot reacts during the inauguration of the Barryland museum. This photograph shows an old picture of a Saint Bernard dog and a priest taken at the Great Saint Bernard pass and diplayed at the Barryland museum and parc. A journalist takes a picture of a giant photograph showing a Saint Bernard dog and diplayed at the Barryland museum and parc. A Saint Bernard dog has exercise in a pool during a press visit. 'Emblematic' The St. Bernard breed, which reached a new level of stardom when it figured in the 1992 blockbuster Hollywood comedy film 'Beethoven', was cross-bred into existence centuries ago in the Swiss Alps, not too far from where today's theme park lies. It was originally bred from farm dogs indigenous to the region by a hospice monastery, perched 2,500 metres (8,200 feet) above sea level, to use for rescue work in the perilous Great St. Bernard Pass between Switzerland and Italy. 'This is an emblematic dog that represents the entire region,' said Jean-Maurice Tornay, head of the Barry Foundation, which runs Barryland. Barryland got its name from the most famous and heroic St. Bernard of all. Local lore holds that Barry, who lived from 1800 to 1814 and was credited with more than 40 rescues in his lifetime, carried a little barrel of alcohol around his collar, a welcome drink for weary travellers. In his honour, the monastery always had one dog named Barry -- a tradition that continues at Barryland today. The park's current Barry, a towering 7.5-year-old male weighing around 80 kilograms (176 pounds), is the largest and most decorated of its dogs. The Barry Foundation has 36 St. Bernards in all who live at a nearby kennel in Martigny. Some dogs spend whole summers up at the Great St. Bernard Pass. But with the reopening of Barryland, 16 dogs from the Martigny kennel will crowd into a large van each morning and be driven across to the theme park, ready to play stars. New mission At Barryland, the giant dogs, with their dark-ringed eyes and fur covered in reddish-brown patches, run around in spacious, grassy parks, lounge in large indoor enclosures and submit to grooming, massages and treatments. For Thursday's reopening, the park presented two new puppies, Xcell and Xaver, who tumbled enthusiastically around their mother Lio, nudging her until she sat down to let them nurse. Nearby, dog handler Sahel Robette encouraged Tosca, an eight-year-old female, to climb onto a large weighing scale. 'Sixty-five kilos (143 pounds)!' he exclaimed, as he began brushing her down, searching her fur for tics and inspecting her ears and nails. Once the heroes of the Swiss Alps, St. Bernards today are doing heroic work in other settings, Tornay said. With helicopters having taken over their rescue role, the St. Bernard has 'found a new social mission', he told AFP. The foundation's dogs make hundreds of visits each year to hospitals, nursing homes and prisons, where they are used for therapy and social training, 'sharing a little bit of kindness', he said. The St. Bernard is perfect for these missions, Glassey-Roth said, as one of the dogs laid its giant head on her lap. 'It has a quiet force; it is calm and very social.'—AFP
Kuwait Times
17 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
After ‘Dune,' Denis Villeneuve to helm next James Bond film
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Kuwait Times
a day ago
- Kuwait Times
Capes, tailcoats and cravats: Dior gets its teeth into Dracula chic
For the last few days Dior's new creative director Jonathan Anderson has been dropping clues on social media about the contents of his first collection for the fabled French house. And the most eagerly awaited show of Paris Men's Fashion Week Friday certainly didn't disappoint, with a galaxy of stars descending on Les Invalides including 'Bond' star Daniel Craig, Robert Pattinson, singer Sabrina Carpenter, tennis legend Roger Federer and K pop stars Mingyu and Beomgyu. A heavily pregnant Rihanna -- for whom Anderson has made several stage costumes -- also arrived fashionably late with her husband ASAP Rocky. Anderson had led fashion fans on a virtual version of Hansel and Gretel in the run up to the show, expertly teasing them with little peeks of what was in store for them when he finally lifted the curtain. They included a Dior Book Tote emblazoned with 'Dracula' in blood-red letters in a nod to Dublin writer Bram Stoker. The gothic 19th-century inspiration was clear in the show, with capes, tailcoats and tweeds, waistcoats and Victorian high collars and cravats. 'Obsessed' 'I've always been obsessed by Dracula,' the designer told reporters. 'I never realized when I was young that Bram Stoker was Irish and I used to walk past his house without knowing.' The show opened with a male take on one of Christian Dior's most iconic dresses, La Cigale from 1952, which was in turn inspired by the decadence of the 18th-century French royal court at the Palace of Versailles. Anderson kept the aristocratic dandy theme going throughout the show, taking in Irish rakes and dashing English dukes, their dickie bows slightly askew after a long night on the tiles. He had posted two rather endearing videos of French football star Killian Mbappe before the show putting on a tie and trying -- and laughingly failing -- to knot a dickie bow. The designer said he saw some of the spirit of Christian Dior in the striker. British actor Robert Pattinson. British actor Daniel Craig. Emirati twins, Mohammed and Humaid Habdan from Dubai. Models present creations by Dior Homme for the Menswear Ready-to-wear Spring-Summer 2026 collection as part of the Paris Fashion Week in Paris.--AFP photos Mbappe's 'amazing smile' 'Mbappe has this amazing smile and a kindness to him,' Anderson said. 'Coming out of the war, the greatest attribute Dior had was empathy. That is quite rare in a couturier... (and yet) after the war he changed everything for everyone and for France.' Anderson told reporters before the show that he did not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater after being given unprecedented free rein over the brand. 'Some of my heroes, the greatest designers in history, have done Dior, and I don't want to be chopping it all down,' he said. Rather he wanted to 'decode and recode Dior without discarding all the great designers' who had worked for the label. Indeed, his 'Dracula' and 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' Book Totes were a continuation of the 'amazing bag' his predecessor Italian Maria Grazia Chiuri had done, he said. The mixing up of clothing codes also had something of the Haitian-American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whom the designer had called an 'epitome of style' in an Instagram post in the run-up to the show. Anderson's arrival at Dior had been flagged for months after he turned around the rather fusty Spanish label Loewe, which is also owned by the French luxury giant LVMH. Just weeks after he was named to head Dior Homme, he was also appointed creative director of the Dior's women's collections and its haute couture. Changing of the guard With the luxury sector's once bumper profits plummeting, Anderson's appointment is an attempt to renew the fashion house after nine years under Chiuri. It also comes amid a major changing of the guard, with Belgian Matthieu Blazy, 41, taking over French rivals Chanel and iconic fashion editor Anna Wintour saying Thursday that she was stepping away from American Vogue to move upstairs in its parent group Conde Nast. Anderson, the son of former Irish rugby captain Willie Anderson, said that change was maybe no bad thing. 'The fashion industry is like a bonsai that might have gotten too big. We need to purify, to go back to what we like about it, which is making clothes,' he told the French daily Le Figaro. Trained at the London School of Fashion, his first big break was landing a job in Prada's marketing department before launching his own brand, JW Anderson, in 2008. 'I think he is one of the most gifted talents of his generation,' said Alice Feillard, men's buyer at Galeries Lafayette, Europe's biggest department store group. 'We saw what he achieved at Loewe -- a really remarkable and brilliant body of work.' 'There is something childlike yet very intellectual' about his collections, Adrien Communier, fashion editor for GQ France, told AFP. They are 'very cheeky, very bold... and really intriguing', he added.— AFP
