Jacob Batalon, a 20-year-old actor born to Filipino parents and raised in Hawaii, is playing the character of Ned Leeds, Peter Parker's high school best friend on the forthcoming film Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Batalon has appeared in all of the film's trailers, including the third one released last week. His character of Ned Leeds was introduced by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko back in 1964, in The Amazing Spider-Man #18 comic book, as a Daily Bugle reporter. In the 2008 animated television series The Spectacular Spider-Man, Ned Leeds was portrayed as an Asian character renamed Ned Lee.
Batalon said in an interview with USA Today, "Ned understands Peter's life and he thinks he's the one who can help him deal with being a crimefighter."
Spider-Man: Homecoming is only Batalon's second film project after appearing in Anthony Raus's horror feature North Woods last year. He is expected to return for another Spider-Man film due in 2019. Batalon has also been cast in Chris Poche's forthcoming film adaptation The True Don Quixote, playing the role of Sancho Panza, Don Quixote's squire.
After finishing high school in Hawaii in 2014, Batalon enrolled in a two-year programme at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. "Singing and playing the ukulele really was my thing," Batalon told the Star-Advertiser in an interview. "My mother would make me go up and sing in front of everyone all the time, and I didn't particularly enjoy it so much as a child because I thought it was torture. But in retrospect, I think that's what helped me get over my fear of being in front of people."
Spider-Man: Homecoming is scheduled for release in the UAE on July 6. Directed by Jon Watts, the film also features actors Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Donald Glover, Robert Downey Jr and Zendaya.
Actress Devon Seron to star in Filipino-South Korean film
Filipino actress Devon Seron has been cast to star opposite South Korean actors Kim Hyun-woo and Jin Ju-hyong in a feature film titled You with Me.
Seron, 24, started her showbiz career in Manila back in 2010 after appearing in a teenage edition of the reality television franchise Big Brother.
In You with Me, she plays Kim, a girl who moves to Korea to work as an English tutor. She meets Hyun-woo and Ju-hyong, who both become her romantic interests.
Filipino actress Hazel Faith dela Cruz also appears in the movie, playing Seron’s best friend.
Directed by Filipino filmmaker Rommel Ricafort, You with Me is a co-production between Gitana Productions and the Korean Film Commission. It begins filming in South Korea this month, with a few scenes also set in Manila. The film is scheduled for release in late September.
Chinese short film edited by Filipino wins Palme d’Or
Filipino filmmaker Carlo Francisco Manatad edited Chinese director Qiu Yang's A Gentle Night, which won the Palme d'Or for best short film at this week's Cannes Film Festival.
A Gentle Night tells the story of a mother searching for her lost daughter during Chinese New Year.
Manatad, 29, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he met Yang several years ago at film festival in France. "I worked on the film in Manila, and Qiu flew in during the editing process," he said.
Manatad was in Cannes this week not only for A Gentle Night but also for his own short film Jodilerks dela Cruz, Employee of the Month, which competed in the International Critics' Week section.
Though it did not win a prize, the film was acquired by the French production studio Stray Dogs. Jodilerks dela Cruz is currently available for streaming on the film website Festival Scope, along with other movies that competed in the International Critics' Week section.
Filipino films to screen in Shanghai festival
Two Filipino feature films have been selected to screen in the Shanghai International Film Festival in China, which will be held from June 17 to 26.
Saving Sally, directed by Avid Liongoren, is a live-action animated film headlined by Rhian Ramos and Enzo Marcos.
Bradley Liew's Singing in Graveyards stars Filipino rock icon Pepe Smith as a 68-year-old rock impersonator.
Both films will screen as part of the festival’s international section called The Belt and Road.
artslife@thenational.ae
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Tuesday's fixtures
Kyrgyzstan v Qatar, 5.45pm
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
