all about Madonna

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Pop star Madonna has said she may adopt another child from the poor southern African country of Malawi despite the controversy surrounding an earlier adoption.

Critics accused the government of skirting laws that ban non-residents from adopting children in Malawi, which has been badly hit by the AIDS epidemic, after Madonna took on David Banda.

“Many people — especially our Malawian friends — say that David should have a Malawian brother or sister,” she said in response to emailed questions from Malawi’s the Nation newspaper.

“It’s something I have been considering, but would only do, if I had the support of the Malawian people and the Government.”

A Malawian court approved the adoption of David last year.

Madonna has said the controversy had been difficult to deal with but she was happy to be involved in a case that might pave the way for more adoptions in Malawi. An estimated one million children in the country have been orphaned by AIDS.

Madonna, who began adoption proceedings in 2006, took David when he was 13-months-old after his father had placed him in an orphanage following the death of his wife.

David is growing up in the high-flying life of a leading popstar, worlds away from his village of Lipunga, where Banda’s relatives eat staple food like maize meal from simple bowls and meals are cooked on open fires.

Madonna said she wanted to keep him connected to his homeland.

“It is a big priority for me to educate my son about the world, but always to stay connected to his Malawian culture,” she said.

“He has a big map of Africa in his room with lots of arrows pointing to Malawi.”

Madonna said her divorce from film director Guy Ritchie would not deprive their children of either parent.

“I believe in family. So, everything between us is very amicable…we both agree that our children should always feel a deep connection with both their parents. It is our responsibility to give them that foundation,” she said.”

source : reuters

Some showbiz cliches exist for a reason.

For nearly a quarter of a century, Madonna, who turned 50 this year, has been a music megastar, a pop culture provocateur and a global brand name. But what she really wants to do is direct.

“I’ve been in relationships with a lot of filmmakers,” she said with a laugh in a recent interview. (Long before Guy Ritchie, her soon-to-be ex, there was Warren Beatty, and before him, Sean Penn, not yet a director at the time.) “I’ve been awfully envious of them. I guess I got tired of just wishing I was doing something and decided to do it.”

Madonna was speaking in her Upper West Side apartment, at the start of a week that was shaping up as a media perfect storm. It was the day after she completed the sold-out New York run of her Sticky & Sweet Tour, a few hours before the downtown premiere of her directorial debut, “Filth and Wisdom,” and two days before news of her split from Ritchie made tabloid front pages around the world.

In a lavender-walled drawing room overlooking Central Park and filled with photographs of her children, she sat beneath an angular nude by the Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka and discussed her new incarnation as scrappy indie auteur. Madonna, it goes without saying, is a take-charge interviewee: by turns gracious and brisk, easily amused by herself and actually quite funny. Irony is not part of her repertoire, though, nor is self-deprecation. Her sense of humor seems to revolve around an almost gleeful sense of her imperiousness. She speaks in clipped, semiformal cadences and she has a habit of finishing her interviewer’s questions.

Madonna’s turns in front of the camera — in hall-of-infamy disasters such as “Shanghai Surprise” and “Swept Away” — have long been the stuff of punch lines. But the leap to directing is perhaps not such a huge one for the high priestess of the music video. This pop star’s great talent — some would say her greatest — is as a maker and manipulator of images. Who would deny that she is a visual artist in her own right? In the heyday of MTV, no one could match her flair for iconographic reinvention, whether channeling Marilyn Monroe in the “Material Girl” clip (directed by Mary Lambert) or playing the dominatrix queen of a “Metropolis”-like kingdom in “Express Yourself” ( David Fincher).

When the conversation turned to her music videos, she declared theatrically, “I discovered David Fincher.” Madonna has long sought out arty up-and-comers to direct her promos (Mark Romanek, Chris Cunningham, Jonas Akerlund), but she made clear that her involvement did not stop with hiring them. “I take at least 50 percent of the credit for directing and coming up with concepts,” she said.

When she decided to write a screenplay, she said, “I would try and pick Guy’s brain. He said, ‘Just write what you know,’ which was simple and good advice. The fact of the matter is that all the work I do is very autobiographical, directly or indirectly, because who do I know better than me?”

“Filth and Wisdom,” which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and opens in Los Angeles on Friday, is indeed proudly Madonna-centric, but it looks back on a distant chapter of her life — you could call it a drama of the Madonna origin myth. Just as her last two albums, “Hard Candy” (2008) and “Confessions on a Dance Floor” (2005), summoned the electro beats of her early-’80s club-going days, this scruffy roommate comedy — although set in a drably anonymous present-day London — is a sweet-tempered ode to her bohemian youth in New York.

The aspirations of the film’s three friends — singing, dancing, charity work in Africa — broadly represent the Madonna career project. At its center, though, is a seemingly un-Madonna-like figure: the Ukrainian-born indie rocker and poet-philosopher Eugene Hutz, ringleader of the Gypsy-punk troupe Gogol Bordello, basically playing a version of himself.

After hearing Hutz’s music and seeing him in Liev Schreiber’s 2005 film “Everything Is Illuminated,” Madonna detected a kinship. “I connect to people who I recognize as having gone through the struggle,” she said.

By “struggle” she means the plight of the artist who has not yet found an audience — a subject that is still dear to her heart. “She wasn’t born selling out Madison Square Garden,” Hutz said in a separate interview. Or, as she put it, “You must realize that I once was a struggling artist. I’m now a struggling filmmaker.”

“Filth and Wisdom” recasts in playful, romantic terms the creative drive that, in Madonna’s case, has often registered as careerist calculation (the Material Girl who once titled a tour “Blond Ambition” is herself partly responsible for the image). “Longing is such a charismatic thing,” Hutz said. “It speaks to dedication and passion.”

Given that Madonna has always been a genius of cool by association, it’s no surprise that “Filth and Wisdom” flaunts its aesthetic influences. “I didn’t think that I made a movie for the masses of America,” she said. “It has more of a European sensibility.”

At Berlin, she was mocked by some critics for name-dropping Jean-Luc Godard and Pier Paolo Pasolini in her press kit (it didn’t help that both names were misspelled), but the Godard comparison isn’t wildly off base, since “Filth,” with its jumpy energy and voice-over digressions, samples freely from the French New Wave playbook.

When Madonna talks about movies and cinephilia, she sounds like your typical earnest neophyte director. “I don’t have a memory of going to movies,” she said. “My father frowned upon it and thought it was a decadent indulgence.” But as a dance student at the University of Michigan, she discovered a local art house, and along with it, the French New Wave and the golden age of Italian cinema, from the neo-realism of Rossellini and Visconti to the more in-your-face poetics of Fellini and Pasolini. She once wrote to Fellini — “a begging letter and a fan letter,” asking him to direct the video for her 1993 single “Rain.” (He politely declined; she framed his response.)

The low-budget grubbiness of “Filth and Wisdom” is partly a matter of style, but it was also about minimizing expectations (overall, reviews for the film have been lukewarm at best). “I very deliberately kept it small and inexpensive,” she said. After the shoot she set up an editing suite in the basement of her London home. “My editors never got away from me,” she said, laughing. “I liked to do sneak attacks.”

In the past year Madonna has also written and produced a documentary (directed by Nathan Rissman, her former gardener) about the effect of AIDS on children in Malawi, called “I Am Because We Are.” Spurred by her experiences visiting the country and adopting her now-3-year-old son, David, the film reflects her belief that documentaries should take a stand rather than simply record reality.

“I got into an argument with someone at the Sundance festival who said I have to make a choice between being an activist and a filmmaker,” she said. “That’s rubbish. I’ve been an activist and an artist all my life.”

In this election season, those activist flourishes have included banning Sarah Palin from her tour (it’s shtick she’s worked into her act) and projecting a montage at her shows juxtaposing Barack Obama and Gandhi and John McCain and Hitler. “I’m allowed to have an opinion,” she said. “If Pasolini did it, I can too.”

Not only is Madonna a fan of Pasolini, the Italian provocateur with a gift for mingling the sacred and the profane, “Saló,” his anti-fascist screed adapted from the Marquis de Sade novel (complete with grueling scenes of humiliation and torture), was once a personal litmus test. “I used to sit people down and say, ‘Watch this movie and if you don’t like it we can’t be friends,’ ” she said. She used to do the same with a Frida Kahlo painting, “My Birth,” a bloody depiction of the artist’s emergence into the world.

But that was a younger, more judgmental Madonna. “I’m a little more compassionate and forgiving now,” she said.

She might even be looking to forgive and forget her own missteps. Not least for its creator, “Filth and Wisdom” is a fresh start in a less-than-distinguished movie career. “Trying to get into films through acting was a mistake,” she said. “Every time I would act in a movie I would get in these horrible arguments with directors about my vision. I would have to surrender to the idea that the director was the one with the vision. And that doesn’t fit with my personality.”

source : latimes

at AlloCine.fr

Madonna says criticism of her adoption of a Malawian boy hurt so much, she compared it to giving birth.

“It was painful, and it was a big struggle, and I didn’t understand it,” the 49-year-old singer told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday, where her documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” which shows poverty, AIDS and other diseases devastating Malawi’s children, was being shown.

“But in the end, I rationalized that when a woman has a child and goes through natural childbirth, she suffers an enormous amount,” she said. “So I sort of went through my own kind of birthing pains with dealing with the press on my front doorstep accusing me of kidnapping or whatever you want to call it.”

Madonna and her husband, Guy Ritchie, have been raising David Banda, now 2, since 2006. The singer met David while she was establishing charity projects in the southern African nation.

The couple have a 7-year-old son, Rocco, and Madonna has an 11-year-old daughter, Lourdes.

Critics have said she used her celebrity status to circumvent Malawian adoption laws – allegations she denies. Regulations only stipulate that prospective parents undergo an 18- to 24-month assessment period in Malawi, a rule that was bent when Madonna was allowed to take David to London.

The adoption still must be approved, and a judge in Malawi was expected to issue his ruling next week.

Madonna said she was “happy to be the guinea pig” for Malawian adoptions.

“Hopefully, after we get through this adoption, it will be easier for people to adopt children,” she said.

Madonna was at Cannes to show her documentary, which she produced and narrated, and to attend a gala benefit dinner for the American Foundation for AIDS Research. The film was screened outside the official festival.

“I Am Because We Are” was directed by Nathan Rissman, a first-time filmmaker who has worked for Madonna as a gardener and a caregiver for her children.

“He’s a great nanny,” she said.

“It’s `manny,”‘ Rissman joked.

Rissman said Madonna “loves to give people opportunities” and that he always tried to do his best at whatever task he was assigned.

“And I noticed,” she said.

source : ap

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Timbaland and the Neptunes are so dominant as producers, they can sometimes upstage the artist they’re working with … unless that artist is Madonna.

On her new album, “Hard Candy,” Madonna made sure that she wasn’t a guest star on her own album.

“I thought of it as a true and equal collaboration. … I like to think that when you listen to the record, you don’t just go, ‘Oh, that is a Timbaland record or that’s Pharrell (of the Neptunes).’ That you hear it and you go, ‘There is something new and different about it.”

Finding something new and different is the approach that’s kept Madonna on top for most of her 25-year recording career — and made her a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.

The 49-year-old pop queen is once again dominating music airwaves, but she’s also making her mark far away from the celebrity spotlight, in Malawi. The impoverished African nation, from which she found David, the young child she is in the process of adopting, is the subject of her new documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” and her charitable efforts.

Madonna sat down with The Associated Press recently and chatted about her new musical path, life in Malawi and raising kids in the eye of the paparazzi, among other things

AP: You recently signed a deal with Live Nation and “Hard Candy” is your last on Warner Brothers Records. What do you hope to accomplish with the deal?

Madonna: No. 1, coming up with new interesting ways of releasing music. Finding new ways to get music to people, that is one thing. Two is being an equal partner on my records which I have never been before. I have always been signed to a label and I get a percentage of what I earn and now it is 50/50, which is great, and three, is all the great shows I plan on doing.

AP: Would you ever do a pay for play with your music similar to Radiohead?

Madonna: No … I don’t know. I am not sure I like the idea of saying pay whatever you want for it. I think it is good to be specific. … Put a value on it.

AP: Your film, “I Am Because We Are,” is about Malawi, a country that has been ravished by AIDS and poverty. Is it difficult to find hope in such depressing circumstances?

Madonna: I did find hope there because in spite of all of the hardships that people have to endure there, as I say in the film, I saw so much happiness there. I saw that people with so little had so much appreciation for life and so much joy. It gave me a real sense of appreciation for what I have and it made me, it put things in perspective for me. … We have so much and we can often get caught up in our little stupid problems. The kids have nothing to play with. They get plastic bags and bunch them together in what looks like a ball with twine and that is their soccer ball. They are happy. It is fine. You get a real sense of appreciation there.

AP: Do you think the documentary will help to silence some of your critics?

Madonna: It helps explain a lot of the story and the mystery to people. People will have a better perspective. It is always good to know the whole story before you jump to conclusions. The movie isn’t just about the adoption, but I hope it will fill in some blanks for people.

AP: What is the hardest thing you had to endure while making this documentary?

Madonna: I think the hardest thing is watching parents lose their children. I think that is a pain that is unendurable, to bury your children. It is supposed to be the other way around.

AP: Would you adopt again from Malawi?

Madonna: I would like to. They are still trying to finesse the laws and make it so it is not such a long waiting period, which would be good. I would prefer that.

AP: How are you going to balance your projects in Malawi with promoting this album?

Madonna: Not that I have very much free time, but I have a lot of ongoing projects in Malawi. I am building a girls school, and orphan care center. I am refurbishing an orphanage. I have lots of kids to look after on scholarship funds, so I have relationships with people and I want to go back and check in on everybody.

AP: How do you deal with the paparazzi always taking pictures of your children?

Madonna: I don’t like it when they get in their face. It is scary and frightening especially if you are not used to it and you are a kid. I think Lola is a little bit more familiar with it now. My son (Rocco) is still seriously irritated by it.

AP: You, Prince and Michael Jackson turn 50 this year. Will you be throwing a big, joint party?

Madonna: If there is, I am not throwing it. I am tired of throwing parties!

AP: Maybe you all could do a Rolling Stone cover together.

Madonna: Really? (smiles) I don’t know. Ask them. I am a little bit tired of being the one who always has to ask everything. You are going to have to go to them.

source : worldstarhiphop.com

She’s like a fine bottle of wine; she gets better as time progresses. Not only is she one of the BADDEST entertainers in the business, but she’s also one of the BEST! International superstar, Madonna stopped by BET’s 106 & Park to promote her new album, Hard Candy and BOY was it a sight to see.

While Madonna chopped it up with Terrance and Rocsi, we all (mainly me) stood there in AMAZEMENT as this cougar (a term for extremely attractive older women) displayed an effortless cool like NO OTHER. Yea I sound like a groupie right now, but I dare you to catch an in person glimpse of this blonde bombshell and act too cool for school….I DARE YOU!

There really isn’t more to say, except I am now OFFICIALLY in love! Catch Madonna on the 106 couch today at 6pm Eastern Time.

source : bet.com