It’s not unusual to find non-professional actors breaking out at the Cannes Film Festival. But those who do, don’t often come with a medical degree.
In De Son Vivant (Peaceful), the new film from French director Emmanuelle Bercot, a man refuses to accept his terminal illness. The cancer specialist who handholds him through this torturous process is played by real-life oncologist Dr Gabriel Sara, a Lebanese-born medic who has lived in New York for the past 40 years.
Acting opposite established French stars Benoit Magimel, who plays Benjamin, “a failed actor” with incurable stage four pancreatic cancer, and Catherine Deneuve as his controlling mother Crystal, the good doctor more than holds his own, playing his role with humanity and honesty.
At the premiere on Saturday at the festival’s plush Lumiere theatre, the film's cast and crew received a standing ovation. “First of all, I didn’t feel it was for me,” Sara explains, modestly. “I felt all along that we were a family on this movie. We feel so close to each other.”
He says he was delighted that “the real Eugenie”, the nurse he works closely with in his practice, got to meet actress Cecile de France, who plays his on-screen co-worker, with such empathy.
“Cecile has the same attitude and the same vibes,” he says. “When I was sitting next to her talking with my patients, I felt I had my real Eugenie next to me.”
Sara first met Bercot at a New York screening of her 2015 film Standing Tall, which also stars Deneuve. A film that deals with the judicial system in France, and the attempt to save a young delinquent, it immediately touched Sara.
“He came up to me,” remembers Bercot, “and said, ‘I saw such tremendous humanity in your film, I thought you might be interested because I work in the trenches.’”
Bercot was delighted, not least because she already had the seed of another movie idea: about a mother who loses her son to cancer. A year later, she began consulting with Sara on the film. But it wasn’t until the movie was deep into the casting process that she decided to ask Sara to play the part of Dr Edde.
Sara had to take a crash-course in acting. “It was tough at the beginning for me,” he admits. “I had to memorise my lines perfectly well, so I didn't have to think about them. And I learnt that being an actor is really living the emotion. It’s work on an emotional level, not on an intellectual level.”
Similarly, his co-stars were profoundly affected by working with Sara. Magimel calls it “an exceptional encounter for me in my career”.
Sitting in the Marriott Hotel in Cannes, Sara immediately radiates the same warmth as his character. He’s also a perfectionist, it seems, and realised that once those lines of dialogue had melted into him, he could become Dr Edde, a character close to his own personality.
“Once I understood that, it became easier for me. But still I was never perfect. I made mistakes. So many times I screwed up everything. They had done 10 times the same thing, and it was almost perfect and then I made a mistake. So that was not easy for me, realising I was the one delaying the whole movie.”
Some may question why a successful doctor with huge responsibilities would subject himself to this experience, but Sara felt a deep-seated need. “I know that Emmanuelle wrote the script, but I feel that I am part of it. In a way I’m responsible for giving this message.”
If anything, he feels the film is about truth and acceptance. Just as Dr Edde does with Benjamin at the outset of the film, a doctor should not pretend that a terminal illness is curable.
“I feel that when we don’t tell the truth, we are insulting and abandoning the patient. We are thinking: ‘He is not good enough to hear the truth.’ We infantilise him. When we don’t say the truth, we remove the chance for the patient to be treated with dignity and humanity.”
Sara received his early medical training in Beirut, before completing his doctorate of medicine in Paris. He moved to New York in 1981, and is now the senior attending physician in the Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai West.
“As an oncologist, I feel that we have to heal the souls of people,” he says. “We treat their cancer with chemo, with surgery, with radiation and all of this stuff. They may work. But who is trying to heal the soul of that person? Are we thinking about it? It’s a patient, not a machine or number. We have to really look at the whole person. I can’t treat a breast. I treat the patient and then the family as well.”
In the film, Dr Edde is seen playing music with his patients. It’s yet another nod to Sara's own innovative work. In 2005, he launched The Helen Sawaya Fund, named after the late wife of a close friend who died of cancer aged 36. The purpose of the fund is to help cancer patients through art, music, reflexology and even a travel programme. Using music to ease pain is a particular interest to Sara.
“Music can heal, music can repair things,” he says. “I have patients whose nausea disappeared with music. You have patients who have a stroke and it gets better with music. It doesn’t cure it but it improves it. So the power of music is huge.”
Sara has won awards and written books on the subject. He also loves to personally play music with his patients.
“I thought, ‘Why not be part of it myself?’ And it kills this idea of the doctor being this unreachable superman. I’m not superman. I’m like everybody else. And I want people to feel this way; I don’t want them to think that I’m different." He says he achieves this by allowing himself to be vulnerable, "removing that white coat aura, which I really think puts a distance between us and patients", he says. "And music makes us close to each other.”
Perhaps the same can be said for his work in De Son Vivant.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
LAST 16
SEEDS
Liverpool, Manchester City, Barcelona, Paris St-Germain, Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig, Valencia, Juventus
PLUS
Real Madrid, Tottenham, Atalanta, Atletico Madrid, Napoli, Borussia Dortmund, Lyon, Chelsea
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo
Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed
Power: 271 and 409 horsepower
Torque: 385 and 650Nm
Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000
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Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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Company profile
Name: Tratok Portal
Founded: 2017
Based: UAE
Sector: Travel & tourism
Size: 36 employees
Funding: Privately funded
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
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SQUADS
Bangladesh (from): Shadman Islam, Mominul Haque, Soumya Sarkar, Shakib Al Hasan (capt), Mahmudullah Riyad, Mohammad Mithun, Mushfiqur Rahim, Liton Das, Taijul Islam, Mosaddek Hossain, Nayeem Hasan, Mehedi Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Ebadat Hossain, Abu Jayed
Afghanistan (from): Rashid Khan (capt), Ihsanullah Janat, Javid Ahmadi, Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Asghar Afghan, Ikram Alikhil, Mohammad Nabi, Qais Ahmad, Sayed Ahmad Shirzad, Yamin Ahmadzai, Zahir Khan Pakteen, Afsar Zazai, Shapoor Zadran
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
If you go
- The nearest international airport to the start of the Chuysky Trakt is in Novosibirsk. Emirates (www.emirates.com) offer codeshare flights with S7 Airlines (www.s7.ru) via Moscow for US$5,300 (Dh19,467) return including taxes. Cheaper flights are available on Flydubai and Air Astana or Aeroflot combination, flying via Astana in Kazakhstan or Moscow. Economy class tickets are available for US$650 (Dh2,400).
- The Double Tree by Hilton in Novosibirsk ( 7 383 2230100,) has double rooms from US$60 (Dh220). You can rent cabins at camp grounds or rooms in guesthouses in the towns for around US$25 (Dh90).
- The transport Minibuses run along the Chuysky Trakt but if you want to stop for sightseeing, hire a taxi from Gorno-Altaisk for about US$100 (Dh360) a day. Take a Russian phrasebook or download a translation app. Tour companies such as Altair-Tour ( 7 383 2125115 ) offer hiking and adventure packages.
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SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20NOTHING%20PHONE%20(2)
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Game Changer
Director: Shankar
Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram
Rating: 2/5
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Results:
CSIL 2-star 145cm One Round with Jump-Off
1. Alice Debany Clero (USA) on Amareusa S 38.83 seconds
2. Anikka Sande (NOR) For Cash 2 39.09
3. Georgia Tame (GBR) Cash Up 39.42
4. Nadia Taryam (UAE) Askaria 3 39.63
5. Miriam Schneider (GER) Fidelius G 47.74
The Kingfisher Secret
Anonymous, Penguin Books
A new relationship with the old country
Treaty of Friendship between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates
The United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates; Considering that the United Arab Emirates has assumed full responsibility as a sovereign and independent State; Determined that the long-standing and traditional relations of close friendship and cooperation between their peoples shall continue; Desiring to give expression to this intention in the form of a Treaty Friendship; Have agreed as follows:
ARTICLE 1 The relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates shall be governed by a spirit of close friendship. In recognition of this, the Contracting Parties, conscious of their common interest in the peace and stability of the region, shall: (a) consult together on matters of mutual concern in time of need; (b) settle all their disputes by peaceful means in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.
ARTICLE 2 The Contracting Parties shall encourage education, scientific and cultural cooperation between the two States in accordance with arrangements to be agreed. Such arrangements shall cover among other things: (a) the promotion of mutual understanding of their respective cultures, civilisations and languages, the promotion of contacts among professional bodies, universities and cultural institutions; (c) the encouragement of technical, scientific and cultural exchanges.
ARTICLE 3 The Contracting Parties shall maintain the close relationship already existing between them in the field of trade and commerce. Representatives of the Contracting Parties shall meet from time to time to consider means by which such relations can be further developed and strengthened, including the possibility of concluding treaties or agreements on matters of mutual concern.
ARTICLE 4 This Treaty shall enter into force on today’s date and shall remain in force for a period of ten years. Unless twelve months before the expiry of the said period of ten years either Contracting Party shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the Treaty, this Treaty shall remain in force thereafter until the expiry of twelve months from the date on which notice of such intention is given.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned have signed this Treaty.
DONE in duplicate at Dubai the second day of December 1971AD, corresponding to the fifteenth day of Shawwal 1391H, in the English and Arabic languages, both texts being equally authoritative.
Signed
Geoffrey Arthur Sheikh Zayed
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
Honeymoonish
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Ways to control drones
Countries have been coming up with ways to restrict and monitor the use of non-commercial drones to keep them from trespassing on controlled areas such as airports.
"Drones vary in size and some can be as big as a small city car - so imagine the impact of one hitting an airplane. It's a huge risk, especially when commercial airliners are not designed to make or take sudden evasive manoeuvres like drones can" says Saj Ahmed, chief analyst at London-based StrategicAero Research.
New measures have now been taken to monitor drone activity, Geo-fencing technology is one.
It's a method designed to prevent drones from drifting into banned areas. The technology uses GPS location signals to stop its machines flying close to airports and other restricted zones.
The European commission has recently announced a blueprint to make drone use in low-level airspace safe, secure and environmentally friendly. This process is called “U-Space” – it covers altitudes of up to 150 metres. It is also noteworthy that that UK Civil Aviation Authority recommends drones to be flown at no higher than 400ft. “U-Space” technology will be governed by a system similar to air traffic control management, which will be automated using tools like geo-fencing.
The UAE has drawn serious measures to ensure users register their devices under strict new laws. Authorities have urged that users must obtain approval in advance before flying the drones, non registered drone use in Dubai will result in a fine of up to twenty thousand dirhams under a new resolution approved by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai.
Mr Ahmad suggest that "Hefty fines running into hundreds of thousands of dollars need to compensate for the cost of airport disruption and flight diversions to lengthy jail spells, confiscation of travel rights and use of drones for a lengthy period" must be enforced in order to reduce airport intrusion.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Ticket prices
- Golden circle - Dh995
- Floor Standing - Dh495
- Lower Bowl Platinum - Dh95
- Lower Bowl premium - Dh795
- Lower Bowl Plus - Dh695
- Lower Bowl Standard- Dh595
- Upper Bowl Premium - Dh395
- Upper Bowl standard - Dh295
