Taylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter. She is known for narrative songs about her personal life, which have received widespread media coverage. At age 14, Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house and, at 15, she signed her first record deal.
Her 2006 eponymous debut album was the longest-charting album of the 2000s in the US. Its third single, "Our Song", made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and perform a number-one song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in 2008.
Buoyed by the pop crossover success of the singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", it became the US' best-selling album of 2009 and was certified diamond in the US. The album won four Grammy Awards, and Swift became the youngest Album of the Year winner.
Alternativa Film Project Looks to Bolster Impactful Cinema in Central Asia and Beyond, Supporting ‘Fresh Voices’ From Underserved Regions
variety.comChristopher Vourlias Siberian-born entrepreneur Arsen Tomsky is not your typical tech mogul. The CEO of the California-based technology company inDrive got his start far from Silicon Valley, when he designed a ride-hailing app in his native Yakutsk to compete with the cartels that controlled the local taxi industry.
One decade later, Tomsky launched the Alternativa Film Project, a non-profit initiative aimed at supporting emerging filmmakers from under-developed regions, particularly countries struggling with inequality, human rights issues and other societal ills.
The first edition, which wrapped with an award ceremony on Dec. 2 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, cast a spotlight on the cinema of Central Asia, with Tomsky underscoring his hopes that the initiative will become a “nomadic event” that has an impact around the world, “especially in countries where a lot of social injustice exists.” With a focus on the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, Alternativa Film Project head Liza Surganova said the initiative was looking to address a “huge gap” in knowledge of a region that’s little-known in much of the world, even among devoted cinephiles looking for the next big discovery. “What we are seeing right now is a young and very devoted and very talented generation of filmmakers who have fresh voices, who are not afraid to pick up difficult subjects,” she says.
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