Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) has launched HPA ALL, a foundational program that will drive HPA-led initiatives for outreach, education, and networking focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion within the industry. Under the leadership of ALL co-chairs and HPA board members Kari Grubin and Renard Jenkins, HPA ALL is designed to highlight career pathways and create opportunities for contributions by and visibility for underrepresented groups, which in turn, strengthens the media and entertainment community.
The committee that will support the HPA ALL initiative includes representatives from HPA Women in Post (WIP) and HPA Young Entertainment Professionals (YEP), as well as a full commitment from the HPA board of directors and staff.
HPA ALL launches with ALL IN, a week of education, connection, and honors May 24-27. Open to everyone with free registration, the event schedule includes a live session with transformational coach and diversity, equity, and inclusion speaker Rajkumari Neogy and social and networking events.
Seth Hallen, HPA president, commented, “At our very core, HPA is about community–recognition, education and connection–and we see a need to create an action-oriented initiative that transforms our community, and opens the doors to all who are interested in the media and entertainment technology. Our efforts to build a diverse and inclusive industry, which began some time ago, have been some of the most important work the organization has ever undertaken. We did not want to roll out a plan of empty words, but rather, a plan of action.”
The week-long event culminates in the HPA League Honors which recognize diverse members of the HPA community who shine as examples of innovation and leadership. HPA League Honors will be awarded to five groundbreaking individuals on May 27. Details for the HPA League Awards will be announced shortly.
“It’s exciting to see HPA’s commitment to true inclusion and equity in this industry,” said Jenkins. “We’re already working with a number of organizational partners and through HPA ALL IN and events like it, we intend to weave equity and inclusion through the fabric of HPA and the industry at large. I’m confident our efforts will yield real change.”
“HPA’s commitment to WIP and YEP over the years laid the groundwork for ALL’s ambitious scope,” said Grubin. “The ALL IN event in May, culminating in the HPA League Honors, is just the first step in integrating the work of ALL into the knowledge exchange, recognition, and community goals of the larger organization.”
Review: Director John Crowley’s “We Live In Time”
It's not hard to spend a few hours watching Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield fall and be in love. In "We Live In Time," filmmaker John Crowley puts the audience up close and personal with this photogenic British couple through the highs and lows of a relationships in their 30s.
Everyone starts to think about the idea of time, and not having enough of it to do everything they want, at some point. But it seems to hit a lot of us very acutely in that tricky, lovely third decade. There's that cruel biological clock, of course, but also careers and homes and families getting older. Throw a cancer diagnosis in there and that timer gets ever more aggressive.
While we, and Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh), do indeed live in time, as we're constantly reminded in big and small ways — clocks and stopwatches are ever-present, literally and metaphorically — the movie hovers above it. The storytelling jumps back and forth through time like a scattershot memory as we piece together these lives that intersect in an elaborate, mystical and darkly comedic way: Almut runs into Tobias with her car. Their first chat is in a hospital hallway, with those glaring fluorescent lights and him bruised and cut all over. But he's so struck by this beautiful woman in front of him, he barely seems to care.
I suppose this could be considered a Lubitschian "meet-cute" even if it knowingly pushes the boundaries of our understanding of that romance trope. Before the hit, Tobias was in a hotel, attempting to sign divorce papers and his pens were out of ink and pencils kept breaking. In a fit of near-mania he leaves, wearing only his bathrobe, to go to a corner store and buy more. Walking back, he drops something in the street and bang: A new relationship is born. It's the... Read More