Godzilla Minus One

# Godzilla Minus One

## Abstract

Godzilla Minus One (Japanese: ゴジラ -1.0 （ マイナスワン ）, Hepburn: Gojira Mainasu Wan) is a 2023 Japanese epic kaiju film written, directed, and with visual effects by Takashi Yamazaki. Produced by Toho Studios and Robot Communications and distributed by Toho, it is the 37th film in the Godzilla franchise, Toho's 33rd Godzilla film, and the fifth film in the franchise's Reiwa era. Set in postwar Japan, the film stars Ryunosuke Kamiki as a former kamikaze pilot suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after encountering a giant monster known as " Godzilla ". The ensemble supporting cast includes Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki.

Following Shin Godzilla (2016), Toho was unable to produce another live-action Godzilla film until 2020, owing to a contract with Legendary Entertainment. Producer Minami Ichikawa appointed Yamazaki to create the movie upon the completion of The Great War of Archimedes (2019). Principal photography was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving Yamazaki three years to work on the script, taking inspiration from previous Godzilla movies and the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Steven Spielberg. In February 2022, Robot Communications publicized that Yamazaki would soon direct an untitled kaiju movie. Filming occurred in Chūbu and Kantō from March to June 2022 on a reputed $10–15 million budget. Shirogumi 's Chōfu studio spent eight months creating the visual effects. The film was revealed to be an installment in the Godzilla series in November 2022, and its title was announced in July 2023.

Godzilla Minus One premiered at the Shinjuku Toho Building on October 18, 2023, and was released in Japan on November 3, to celebrate the franchise's 70th anniversary. Toho International later released the film in North America on December 1. Many Western critics praised it as one of the best films of 2023 and among the greatest in the Godzilla franchise. The film grossed $116 million worldwide, becoming the third-highest-grossing Japanese film of 2023 and surpassing Shin Godzilla as the most successful Japanese Godzilla film. It also attained numerous accolades, including a leading 12 nominations at the 47th Japan Academy Film Prize (winning eight) and winning Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards.

## Plot

In 1945, near the end of World War II, kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima lands his Mitsubishi A6M Zero for repairs at the Japanese base on Odo Island. Lead mechanic Sōsaku Tachibana deduces that Shikishima is feigning technical issues to flee from his duty. That night, Godzilla, a large dinosaur-like creature, attacks the garrison. Tachibana tells Shikishima to fire at the monster from his plane, but he panics, fails to shoot, and is knocked unconscious. When he awakes the following day, he finds Tachibana is the only other survivor, who is furious at him for failing to act.

Shikishima returns home to find his parents were killed in the bombing of Tokyo. Plagued by survivor's guilt, he begins supporting a woman, Noriko Ōishi, whose parents also died in the bombing, and an orphaned baby, Akiko, whom Noriko rescued. He finds employment aboard a minesweeper tasked with disposing of naval mines from World War II. Meanwhile, Godzilla is mutated and empowered by the United States' nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll; it sinks the USS Redfish and destroys several other ships en route to Japan. Owing to tensions with the Soviet Union, the U.S. offers no help save for a few decommissioned Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) vessels approved by General Douglas MacArthur. The Japanese government, concerned about inducing panic, does not notify the public about the danger.

In May 1947, Shikishima and his minesweeper crew travel to the Ogasawara Islands and are tasked with stalling Godzilla's approach to Japan. They release a mine into Godzilla's mouth and detonate it, causing significant damage, but it quickly regenerates. The heavy cruiser Takao then engages Godzilla, but is destroyed when the monster unleashes its heat ray. After returning to Tokyo, Shikishima opens up to Noriko about his encounters with Godzilla. Days later, Godzilla makes landfall in Japan and attacks Ginza, where Noriko works. She narrowly survives the initial attack and reunites with Shikishima. Enraged by tank fire, Godzilla obliterates much of the district with its heat ray, killing tens of thousands. Noriko pushes Shikishima to safety, but is caught in the blast and presumed dead. Devastated by the loss, Shikishima vows revenge.

Former naval engineer Kenji Noda, one of the minesweeper's crew, becomes frustrated by the government's inaction. He devises a plan to destroy Godzilla by luring it out to Sagami Bay before surrounding it with Freon tanks and rupturing them, sinking the monster, and letting the resultant water pressure crush it. Should the plan fail, balloons will be inflated under Godzilla to force it back up, killing it through explosive decompression. To enact his plan, Noda has recruited navy veterans to crew disarmed IJN destroyers. Shikishima recruits Tachibana to repair a broken-down Kyushu J7W Shinden fighter. He plans to kill Godzilla in a suicide attack by flying into its mouth and detonating explosive charges on board. He leaves Akiko in the care of his neighbor Sumiko before Godzilla resurfaces.

As Shikishima lures Godzilla to the trap set by two destroyers, Sumiko receives a telegram intended for Shikishima. Godzilla survives the initial plunge and then breaks free before being forced back up, sustaining serious injuries from the resultant decompression -induced barotrauma. With the help of a fleet of tugboats organized by Mizushima, another crewmate from the minesweeper, the ships haul Godzilla to the surface. Enraged, Godzilla prepares to destroy all the vessels with its heat ray, but Shikishima crashes the plane into Godzilla's mouth and destroys its head, causing the energy of the heat ray to tear its body apart. The crew celebrates as Shikishima ejects before the explosion and parachutes to safety, using an ejection seat that Tachibana installed in the Shinden, imploring him to let go of his guilt and continue living.

Upon returning home, Sumiko gives Shikishima the telegram, which leads him to a hospital where he reunites with Noriko, who survived the destruction but has a black bruise creeping up her neck. Meanwhile, a chunk of Godzilla's flesh begins to regenerate as it sinks into the ocean.

## Cast

- Ryunosuke Kamiki as Kōichi Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot

- Minami Hamabe as Noriko Ōishi, Shikishima's girlfriend

- Yuki Yamada as Shirō Mizushima, a young crewman aboard the Shinsei Maru

- Munetaka Aoki as Sōsaku Tachibana, a former Navy Air Service mechanic

- Hidetaka Yoshioka as Kenji Noda, a former Naval weapons engineer

- Sakura Ando as Sumiko Ōta, Shikishima's neighbor

- Kuranosuke Sasaki as Seiji Akitsu, captain of the Shinsei Maru

- Sae Nagatani as Akiko, Ōishi and Shikishima's adopted daughter

- Miou Tanaka as Tatsuo Hotta, captain of the destroyer Yukikaze

- Kisuke Iida as Akio Itagaki, a Tōyō Balloon employee

## Production

### Development

According to Godzilla Minus One producer Kenji Yamada, the successful Japanese release of Shin Godzilla (2016) led to the proposal of numerous live-action Godzilla follow-ups, but Toho executives rejected all of these. In 2017, Shin Godzilla co-director Shinji Higuchi stated that the company would not be able to produce another Godzilla film until after 2020. This is attributed to their contract with Legendary Pictures —who were producing the MonsterVerse —forbidding them from releasing their potential Godzilla films in the same year as Legendary's films. The ensuing year, Toho executive Keiji Ōta imparted that Shin Godzilla would not receive a sequel and expressed interest in a potential shared universe Godzilla series akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In 2019, Toho began a "Godzilla Room" division, devoted to planning new Godzilla projects. Following the completion of his film The Great War of Archimedes that same year, producer Minami Ichikawa appointed renowned filmmaker Takashi Yamazaki to make Toho's next Godzilla film. Godzilla Minus One ultimately became Yamazaki's third time working on a production utilizing Godzilla. His 2007 film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 features the monster in a dream-like opening sequence, and he created the motion simulator attraction Godzilla the Ride: Giant Monsters Ultimate Battle (2021) for Seibu-en during pre-production.

On February 18, 2022, Robot Communications announced the film under the working title Blockbuster Monster Movie (超大作怪獣映画, Chōtaisaku Kaijū Eiga), via a casting call on its official website. Robot stated Yamazaki would direct and that Toho would present the film. The next day, HuffPost writer Kenji Ando mentioned that fans on social media were conjecturing that it would be a remake of the original 1954 Godzilla film, and cited Yamazaki's comments from an interview regarding his depiction of Godzilla in Always: Sunset on Third Street 2: "You can't have Godzilla unless it's the Shōwa era ".

Yamazaki's unnamed kaiju project was declared to be a Godzilla film on November 3, 2022, at an event hosted by Toho celebrating the franchise's 68th anniversary, known as "Godzilla Day". The company also reported that the film had completed filming and had entered post-production with a targeted release date of November 3, 2023. Yamazaki was named the film's writer and visual effects supervisor. On December 13, 2022, Toho's head of planning, Hisashi Usui, implied that the movie is connected to Godzilla (1954).

### Writing and influences

The script initially took a year to develop based on an outline from March 2019. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the crew to postpone filming for a few years, resulting in work on the screenplay taking roughly three years. The worldwide anxiety and perceived government unreliability during the pandemic became one of his major inspirations for the story and Yamazaki hoped these events would be reflected clearly in the finished film. He steered clear of setting the movie in modern Japan and having to draw inspiration from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster as he believed it would become too similar to Shin Godzilla (2016). Instead, Yamazaki decided to set Godzilla Minus One in postwar Japan, having already depicted that period in a handful of his previous films. He also took this opportunity to include the heavy cruiser Takao, Shinden fighter, destroyers Yukikaze and Hibiki because he was a fan of military history and had never depicted them before.

Yamazaki was inspired by Shusuke Kaneko 's Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)—which he has cited as one of his favorite Godzilla films —while writing the screenplay for Godzilla Minus One. He reflected in a discussion with Kaneko: "I had forgotten the contents of GMK for a while, but it seems like I self-consciously thought about it when writing the scenario for. Without realizing it, I was under considerable influence". Godzilla Minus One was also heavily influenced by the 1954 film, Shin Godzilla (2016), Steven Spielberg 's Jaws (1975) and War of the Worlds (2005), and the films of Hayao Miyazaki. Godzilla (2014) director Gareth Edwards identified Spielberg's films Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Jurassic Park (1993), and Christopher Nolan 's Dunkirk (2017) as other evident influences on the film.

A novelization of the film, written by Yamazaki, was published in Japan by Shueisha on November 8, 2023. The novel features a scene set on Odo Island that Yamazaki proposed for the film but was left unfilmed since Toho refused to allow him to do pick-ups.

### Casting

Yamazaki sought to cast talented individuals who were able to give convincing performances of people living during the Shōwa period and could make Godzilla's presence in the film seem more realistic. His casting decisions were influenced little by the previous Godzilla films, since this movie was about the lives of ordinary Japanese in the 1940s rather than politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, and the Self-Defense Forces. The reason for this was that Yamazaki wanted audiences to empathize with and connect with the characters despite the post-war setting.

During preproduction, producer Minami Ichikawa offered Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe to play the film's leads, Kōichi Shikishima and Noriko Ōishi, prior to them playing similar roles in the NHK drama series Ranman (2023). According to Yamazaki, the media criticized this casting, believing it would be too similar to their roles in Ranman, when it was disclosed the two would star in the film at a press conference on September 4, 2023. Yamazaki also revealed that he cast Kuranosuke Sasaki as Captain Seiji Akitsu because of his performances in Asadora such as Hiyokko (2017), which had a major influence on him. One of the producers approached Sakura Ando about playing the role of Shikishima's neighbor before the COVID-19 outbreak, but she had to wait several years to play the role. However, when she finally got the chance to act, the producer suggested that she choose between playing in the film or Hirokazu Kore-eda 's Monster since they were being filmed simultaneously. Refusing to make an appearance in just one of the films, Ando said she "fought for it and in the end got to be in both".

Ōishi and Shikishima's adopted daughter Akiko was originally planned to be a boy. After meeting two-year-old child actress Sae Nagatani, however, Yamazaki decided to change this in order for her to play the role. When questioned how he managed to get Nagatani to cry for some scenes, the director responded "I found a genius".

### Creature design

The design of Godzilla in Minus One is a variation of the one in Godzilla the Ride. Inspired by the Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack design, Yamazaki initially envisioned his design having "half-moon shaped eyes", but modeling head Kosuke Taguchi gave it "almond-shaped" ones instead, with the final design having "golden, almond-shaped eyes". Yamazaki also elaborated that since the crew created this Godzilla in digital form: "it allowed for much more detail than what was possible with any type of handcrafted version. So we were able to increase the resolution of the scales, for example, and make them feel really, really sharp and give it this aggressive texture. And in terms of the bottom half of Godzilla, we made it feel very heavy and dense in a way that made the viewer feel like this mountain and triangular silhouette was walking and moving through a space."

Yamazaki attempted to make this Godzilla the most horrifying version yet. The crew designed Godzilla to be ferocious, violent, and dynamic, with a static, god-like aspect. Its dorsal fins were made more "spiky and ferocious" than the incarnation in Godzilla the Ride, as if its regenerative energy had become disorderly. Yamazaki stated that the team also tried to make Godzilla the "deadliest in history" adding that it is "discerning today, experiencing the freshness and fear felt by audiences at the time".

### Filming

Principal photography took place on location in the Chūbu (in the Aichi and Nagano prefectures) and Kantō regions of Honshu, starting on March 17, 2022, and wrapping circa June 11. Robot declared in February that, due to the film's post-war Japan setting, there would be restrictions on the extras' costume sizes, hairstyles, and hair colors (with hair dyeing being prohibited) for extras participating in filming. The maritime sequences were filmed at Lake Hamana and in the Enshū Sea. Between April and June 2022, several community businesses near the Tenryū River helped the crew modify and maintain boats to shoot navy scenes in Enshū. Other shooting locations included the City Hall in Okaya, Nagano, the Tsukuba Naval Air Group Memorial Museum in Kasama, the Former Kashima Naval Air Base Site in Miho, and the Shimodate General Sports Park in Chikusei.

Scenes featuring the Kyushu J7W Shinden were partly realized through the construction of a 1:1 scale replica of the aircraft, of which only a single example exists and is located outside Japan in the collection of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. Yamazaki noted that "Initially, the budget didn't allow for any portion of the to be built" but "thinking outside the box, having a plan B, we were able to find a museum that was willing to purchase the prop after the film was made, which offset the production budget it would have taken to produce the plane in the first place". Thus, following the completion of shooting, the replica was transported to and put on display at the Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum in Chikuzen, Fukuoka in July 2022. Toho donated the replica under anonymity, only revealing their involvement in the construction of the model after Godzilla Minus One released.

### Post-production

#### Visual effects

All 610 of the film's visual effect shots were handled by a crew of 35 artists at Shirogumi 's Chōfu studio, under the supervision of Yamazaki and direction of Kiyoko Shibuya. According to the Los Angeles Times, between a quarter and a third of the film's budget was spent on visual effects.

Eight months were spent on creating the visual effects. A TV Shinshu special about Yamazaki released in October 2023 indicated that the team began creating the effects for the film in July 2022. Shirogumi indicated by opening a recruitment call for visual effects designers and compositors in August 2022, that post-production had begun and visual effects were taking place from that same month until January 2023; they later changed the dates to between November 2022 and February 2023. Their website named the 3D animation software Houdini and Maya for design and Nuke for compositing. Yamazaki had made a 3D maquette design on ZBrush, with Taguchi augmenting the design by adding his own elements, including the insertion of polygons and rendering displacement maps using Redshift. Then, the team retopologized the maquette design and finalized the displacement maps with Mudbox. After the visual effects were finished, post-production concluded in late May 2023.

The ocean sequences were originally not intended to be as sizable in the film until compositor Tatsuji Nojima, who composes computer-generated water at home as a hobby, presented Yamazaki with some of his water simulations, inspiring the director to rewrite its climax and include more scenes set at sea. The team strived to create these sequences, especially Godzilla's destruction scene. Yamazaki reflected that "It put a huge strain on all of our rendering engines, so we created so much data in the process that when we added it all up it was easily over a petabyte. In the end, we erased the data from the scene where it was done, and made it while opening the hard disk."

Yamazaki informed Shinji Higuchi that the film's destruction sequences and on-screen deaths were inspired by the Shibuya sequence from Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris, in which Higuchi directed the effects. Some of the characters present on-screen during Godzilla's rampage were created using Houdini; around 60 extras were 3D scanned to be replaced by a digital duplicate. Yamazaki also paid homage to previous Godzilla films by not using any "muscle simulation" for the monster and employed miniatures to depict the post-war Tokyo townscape, which is a traditional Japanese special effect (or tokusatsu) technique.

#### Music and sound effects

Yamazaki's frequent collaborator Naoki Satō scored the film, drawing inspiration from Studio Ghibli 's anime movies for the poignant scenes and the music of Akira Ifukube to accentuate the kaiju sequences. Rambling Records released Godzilla Minus One Original Soundtrack, on CD in Japan on October 28, 2023, with a limited edition vinyl following on November 24. On January 19, 2024, Toho announced that Waxwork Records would release the score on vinyl overseas, with pre-ordering starting that same day.

Natsuko Inoue handled the sound effects. She felt it was her mission to recreate the original Godzilla's roar using a modern sound system. Having tried many methods to keep the sound intact, Inoue decided that it wasn't strong enough, so she opted to record outdoors and use the echoes to enhance it. She decided to play the roar at the ZOZO Marine Stadium to create the fresh sound effect she desired, believing it was the only stadium that could meet the requirements they needed as it had huge speakers, no ceiling, was spacious, and was slightly sloped. Reminiscing on enhancing the roar at the stadium, Inoue said "I'll never forget the emotion I felt when I played it from the biggest speaker behind the electronic bulletin board"; Yamazaki recalled, "I felt a shiver in the pit of my stomach when I thought that people who actually saw Godzilla would hear this sound." After the crew played the sound at the stadium, they received several complaints from nearby residents.

Producer Gō Abe stated that sound effects from the Ichibata Dehani 50 series were utilized for the scene where Godzilla attacks a 63 series train, as the crew sought to enhance the postwar setting through practical sounds.

#### Black-and-white edition

During post-production, colorist Masahiro Ishiyama was assigned to create a black-and-white version of the film, titled Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color (ゴジラ -1.0 （ マイナスワン ） ／ C （ マイナスカラー ）, Gojira Mainasu Wan/Mainasu Karā). Yamazaki proposed that Godzilla's atomic breath should remain in color for the black-and-white edition, similar to how Akira Kurosawa 's black-and-white crime film High and Low (1963) features colored smoke in one scene. However, this concept was rejected by the rest of the crew. In regards to the Minus Color version, the director said in a statement: "Rather than just making it monochrome, it is a cut-by-cut. I had them make adjustments while making full use of various mattes as if they were creating a new movie." This version was also the last credit for producer Shūji Abe, who died on December 11, 2023; Yamazaki and the visual effects team paid tribute to Abe in their acceptance speech at the 96th Academy Awards.

Toho released Minus Color in Japanese theaters on January 12, 2024, and in the United States on January 26, where it played until February 1.

## Thematic analysis

Godzilla Minus One addresses many themes derived from its post-war setting, including anti-nuclear, anti-war, trauma, hope, guilt, and redemption. According to Yamazaki, Godzilla symbolizes the Japanese perspective of nuclear holocaust during that period, akin to the original 1954 Godzilla film. He also remarked in regards to the monster's portrayal: "There is a concept in Japan called Tatari-gami; there are good gods, and there are bad gods. Godzilla is half-monster, but it's also half-god".

Esther Zuckerman, writing for The New York Times, noticed that the film is similar to Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron, which were also released in 2023 and set during and after World War II. She felt that—although the film and The Boy and the Heron never directly address the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki —they provided the Japanese point of view of this historical event which viewers of Oppenheimer would subsequently want to see. The thematic similitudes shared between Minus One and Oppenheimer were deemed "striking" by Yamazaki. He conveyed how both were released amidst increasing global tensions: "I think the threat of nuclear warfare is almost at its highest right now in recent years than in any other year that most of us have been alive".

The Austin Chronicle pointed out that the film's theme of having the protagonist decide whether to persist in living despite his intellect challenges or accepting death parallels Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952). The South China Morning Post ' s James Marsh asserted that the characters in Minus One unanimously condemn their government for persuading many to take their lives during World War II; regardless, some reviewers accused the movie of "pushing a pro-military agenda".

## Release

### Marketing and promotion

On June 12, 2023, the film's Twitter account began a daily countdown for all of Toho's live-action Godzilla films, starting with Shin Godzilla. On July 11, Toho divulged the title of its secret Godzilla film, Godzilla Minus One, alongside a poster featuring a visual of Godzilla primarily created by Yamazaki, teaser trailer, the U.S. release date, and a statement from the director. In the ensuing days, merchandise and a full-body shot of Godzilla were unveiled. A series of pre-release products and an exhibit promoting the film were at a display in Yamazaki's hometown of Matsumoto in Nagano, from July 15 to October 29.

Toho released the trailer for Godzilla Minus One alongside the poster and details on the central cast and staff members on September 4. During a press conference on that same day, the director clarified that its title has multiple meanings, explicitly referring to how Godzilla's destruction changed Japan's position from a "post-war zero situation" to a "minus". When explaining other possible reasons for the title, Yamazaki said that the film takes place before the 1954 film and that it emphasizes the theme of loss throughout. On September 14, 15 shots and a visual of Godzilla from the film were released, followed by ticket sales and flyers for its Japanese release. That same day, SciFi Japan reported that Godzilla Minus One had remained the top trending film on social media sites in Japan and the U.S., with the trailer accumulating over 9 million views on YouTube. In September 25, the mayor of Hamamatsu announced that they would promote the movie by making the nearby Lake Hamana—where some scenes were shot—a tourist attraction starting the next month. Television stations across Japan began airing a special featuring behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Yamazaki, Kamiki, and Hamabe in late October.

The premiere took place at Toho Cinemas ' theater inside the Shinjuku Toho Building on October 18, 2023. That same day, Yamazaki and the headliners attended the red carpet along Godzilla Street in Kabukichō, Shinjuku. This carpet was 50.1 meters long, proclaimed as the fictitious height of the film's titular monster. In addition, the "Godzilla Attack Truck" debuted there, and would later travel around Japan to promote the movie. On October 23, Yamazaki, Kamiki, and Hamabe attended the red carpet at the opening of the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival, and soft drink manufacture Cheerio began presales for a new Chūhai drink called the "Godzilla Energy Chu-hi ".

### Box office

Godzilla Minus One dethroned Shin Godzilla (2016) as the highest-grossing Japanese Godzilla film ever on December 29, 2023. In January 2024, Toho's CEO, Hiroyasu Matsuoka, stated that it exceeded the company's expectations at the worldwide box office and helped their yearly theatrical income exceed ¥100 billion ($680 million) for the first time. He also felt the film "benefited from less competition on release due to the strike in Hollywood ". According to Box Office Mojo, the film earned a worldwide total of $115.8 million with $56.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $59.4 million in other territories. However, the site ceased updating the film's Japanese box office after its 25th weekend (April 20-21, 2024), by which it had registered that the film had grossed $48.2 million there. In July 2024, The Japan Times reported that Godzilla Minus One grossed $116 million internationally.

#### Japan

Godzilla Minus One was the closing film at the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival on November 1, where it was shown with English subtitles. To celebrate the franchise's 70th anniversary, it was released nationwide in Japan on November 3, the same date as the first Godzilla film's wide release in 1954. In September, Toho stated in a press release that the film would be shown in over 500 theaters nationwide—including in IMAX, Dolby Cinema, 4DX, MX4D, and ScreenX formats—making it one of their largest domestic distributions to date. It grossed more than ¥1 billion (approximately $6.6 million) and sold 650,000 tickets during its initial three days. This included $1.2 million from 49 IMAX theaters, making it the largest opening for a live-action Japanese film in the format.

The film remained the number one film for three consecutive weekends, but was overtaken by Tonde Saitama ~Biwako Yori Ai o Komete~ in its fourth weekend. In January 2024, the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan reported that Godzilla Minus One was the fifth-highest-grossing Japanese film of 2023. It eventually became the highest-grossing live-action film to debut in Japan during 2023 and the 94th highest-grossing movie ever at the Japanese box office.

#### Other territories

The American premiere of Godzilla Minus One took place at the DGA Theater Complex in Los Angeles on November 10, with English subtitles. Toho's subsidiary Toho International distributed the subtitled print throughout the U.S. on December 1, becoming their first wide theatrical self-distribution in North America. After grossing $2.1 million from previews on Wednesday and Thursday, the film went on to debut in third place with $11 million from over 2,300 theaters, breaking the U.S. opening weekend record for a live-action Japanese film, and overtaking Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Swordsmith Village as the biggest debut for a foreign film in 2023. According to Deadline Hollywood, the opening weekend audience was 77% males and 63% people between 18 and 34 years old. Godzilla Minus One later set the American box office record for the highest-grossing Japanese-language film, and dethroned Bong Joon-ho 's Parasite (2019) as the third highest-grossing foreign-language film of all time domestically. Collider suggested that the film overperformed projections in the US, resulting in an extension to over 2,600 theaters there on December 15. Toho eventually pulled the film on February 1, 2024, allegedly because Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was being readied for release eight weeks thereafter.

Additionally, the film was released in several other Western countries in December 2023. The highest-grossing of these territories were Mexico ($5.5 million), the United Kingdom ($3.2 million), Australia ($1.3 million), and Spain ($228,000). During its opening weekend in Brazil and the UK, the film debuted at second place and earned £816,000 in the latter.

### Home media

Godzilla Minus One was released in Japan on Ultra HD Blu-ray, as well as regular Blu-ray and DVD formats, on May 1, 2024; the former format is also set to be distributed in the United States in September. The Ultra HD Blu-ray is a " deluxe edition " featuring both the color and black-and-white versions and multiple bonus features. Two days later, Amazon Prime Video began streaming it in Japan. On June 1, 2024, the film became available internationally on Netflix, along with several streaming services, in its original language and dubbed in numerous other languages. The black-and-white version later began streaming on Netflix on August 1.

## Reception

### Critical response

#### Japanese reviews

The film was met with a mixed critical reception in its native Japan. Tokyo-based film critic and journalist Mark Schilling wrote that Japanese critics frequently rebuke Yamazaki's body of work, partly because "most are left-leaning" and view some of them, including the war drama film The Eternal Zero (2013), as "nationalistic if not outright jingoistic ". Schilling further stated that Godzilla Minus One had an "element of soft nationalism", as well as quoted essayist and film historian Inuhiko Yomota as saying that it was a "dangerous movie".

Schilling appreciated the film's post-war setting for allowing the characters to defeat Godzilla using technology from that time, rather than "digitally generated miracles". Daisuke Satō of IGN Japan and Kazuo Ozaki cited Yamazaki's direction and visual effects as incomparable to his previous movies. Satō believed that the characters besides Kamiki's had "stereotypical Shōwa values", and subsequently perceived that Noriko and Sumiko were depicted in a sexist manner. The dialogue was "eye-roll-inducing stuff" for Matt Schley of The Japan Times.

Cinema Today later named Godzilla Minus One the best movie released in Japan during 2023 on their "Top 20 Movies" list, noting how it "has shown the world the potential of Japanese cinema". Contrarily, the Japanese film magazine Eiga Geijutsu ranked it the third worst on their list of "The Ten Best and Ten Worst Japanese Films of 2023".

#### International reviews

Internationally, Godzilla Minus One garnered widespread critical acclaim and was listed among the top films of 2023. According to The Hollywood Reporter, American critics favored the film over recent Hollywood productions, lauding its drama, low-budgeted visual effects, and usage of " kaiju as a metaphor for social critique". On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 204 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "With engaging human stories anchoring the action, Godzilla Minus One is one kaiju movie that remains truly compelling between the scenes of mass destruction." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". American audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, and polls by PostTrak gave it a 92% overall positive score, with 83% recommending it.

James Berardinelli and the Daily Express, among others, praised Minus One as one of—if not the best—in the Godzilla franchise. A few critics also felt it achieves contemporizing the original 1954 film. Deadline Hollywood described it as "a Godzilla for the ages, a Godzilla art film ". Screen International and Time Out found Yamazaki's depiction of Godzilla in the film to be frightening. IGN said that it was "more swell" albeit not as terrifying as Shin Godzilla. Variety, The Washington Post, and Deadline concurred that one of the film's highlights was its largely emotionally-driven storyline. The Washington Post compared it favorably to Top Gun: Maverick (2022), commenting that these were reminders of the importance of movies that combine "concise and creative action with emotionally resonant characters". Screen International and The Washington Post also wrote that Satō's score was "booming".

Many reviewers complimented the characters. Deadline Hollywood and the Daily Express agreed that they were fully developed. According to Dana Stevens, "Kamiki's anguished, vulnerable performance is one crucial part of what makes this protagonist so memorable". In contrast, RogerEbert.com was critical of the supporting cast, singling out the performances of Hidetaka Yoshioka and Munetaka Aoki.

### Controversies

I want to say in Toho's defense, the budget was less than $15 million, but that's a pretty high-budget film for Japanese production standards.

— Takashi Yamazaki, MovieMaker (January 2024)

Upon the film's release, its budget became a topic of wide discussion. Boston.com and LaSalle Ishii noted that, despite a relatively meager budget, many viewers felt the film delivered visual effects that were superior in quality compared to many of Marvel Studios ' $200 million productions. It reportedly had a budget under 10% of that held by the previous Godzilla film, Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), produced by American studio Legendary Entertainment. On November 14, 2023, Yamazaki denied that the movie cost ¥1 billion, stating that its budget was higher. Starting that same month, multiple websites—including Variety, IGN, The Times, Slate, and The Hollywood Reporter —asserted that the film's budget was $15 million (roughly ¥2.2 billion). However, Yamazaki also denied this figure, and specified that the film cost less. The Hindustan Times reported the budget to be $10 million, and Yamazaki later confirmed that the budget was within $10–15 million. Subsequently, The A.V. Club cited it as $10–12 million, adding that the number is "on the higher end for the Japanese film industry". Video game designer Hideo Kojima also claimed during an interview with Yamazaki that the film's budget was under ¥1.5 billion. Regardless, neither Toho nor Yamazaki divulged the film's actual budget figure, with the latter refusing to out of fear that "everyone's gonna want me to make a movie for that number".

Some Western journalists claimed that the film's low budget and low amount of animators reflected harsh working conditions in the Japanese film industry. According to Yamazaki, the visual effects team was not mistreated. They avoided working long hours on the film and installed a kitchen in the studio to make it "more comfortable and cozy". Moreover, he explained there are two categories of animation studios in Japan: "white" and " black ", with "black" studios being the exploiters; the name of the film's visual effects studio, Shirogumi, literally means "white team" in Japanese.

Shortly after its Netflix premiere on June 1, 2024, the film provoked controversy in South Korea. On June 12, The Chosun Ilbo reported that some accused the film of "glorifying kamikaze pilots" with the scene where its protagonist, Kōichi Shikishima, rams his plane into Godzilla's mouth to kill the monster. South Korean viewers reportedly also attacked the depiction of Godzilla, believing its defeat to represent a "mental victory" for Japan because the monster symbolizes a nuclear weapon. Similar condemnations were previously made against writer-director Takashi Yamazaki for his 2013 film The Eternal Zero, which also depicts a kamikaze pilot.

### Accolades

Godzilla Minus One won Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards, becoming the first non-English language film in Academy Awards history to do so. It was the first Godzilla film to be nominated for an Academy Award, as well as the first Japanese film ever to receive a nomination in the Best Visual Effects category. Yamazaki also became the second director (after Stanley Kubrick), and Kiyoko Shibuya became the first woman of color, to win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

At the 19th Austin Film Critics Association Awards, Godzilla Minus One was selected as the sixth best film of 2023 and won Best International Film. The film received nominations for three Asian Film Awards (winning two; Best Visual Effects and Best Sound), four Blue Ribbon Awards (winning three; Best Film, Best Actor for Kamiki, and Best Supporting Actress for Hamabe), four Critics' Choice Super Awards (winning two: Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie and Best Villain in a Movie for Godzilla), and four from the Seattle Film Critics Society (winning three; Best International Film, Best Visual Effects, and Villain of the Year). Godzilla Minus One won eight of its leading twelve nominations at the 47th Japan Academy Film Prize, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for Sakura Ando, making it the most-awarded film at that year's ceremony.

## Post-release

### Later reception

Godzilla Minus One remains the fourth highest-rated movie of 2023 on Rotten Tomatoes, and, as of the release of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in 2024, maintains the highest certified critical rating for a Godzilla film. It was ranked second on Variety 's list of the best Godzilla movies of all time, third on Vulture 's, sixth on IndieWire's, and fourth on Entertainment Weekly 's. In July, Far Out named it the best monster movie of the 21st century, and CBR ranked it No. 1 on their list of the "10 Scariest Creature Features From the Last 5 Years". The film was also added to Eiga.com 's list of the 1200 greatest films of all time.

### Cultural impact

According to Toho, Godzilla Minus One was a "global phenomenon", with fans making it "propel to the forefront of pop culture". In February 2024, Gavin J Blair of The Hollywood Reporter suggested that Godzilla Minus One is a significant contributor to the recent revival of Japanese popular culture in the West, alongside Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron, the first season of Netflix's live action adaptation of One Piece, and the FX television series Shōgun (2024). Collider claimed that Godzilla Minus One "helped the Godzilla series become more popular than ever before" and Variety implied that the film had gained a legendary status by April 2024. Amidst the film's popularity, Yamazaki and the visual effects team were assigned to create another kaiju film, the web short Foodlosslla: What Should Humanity Do!? (2024). In May, Yamazaki was included in Gold House 's annual list of 100 Most Impactful Asians as a result of Godzilla Minus One 's achievements.

As a tribute to Godzilla Minus One, director Adam Wingard and visual effects supervisor Alessandro Ongaro recreated a shot of the ground bursting beneath Godzilla's foot for the Rome sequence in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024). The positive word-of-mouth Yamazaki's movie generated is also believed to have helped Godzilla x Kong achieve several box office milestones, including becoming the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2024.

### Potential sequel

Hypothetically, if there is a Godzilla sequel, then I would like to date it with how long it's been in our timeline as to what the characters have gone through. So, if we film it three years from now, I would set it three years from Godzilla Minus One.

— Takashi Yamazaki, Collider (February 2024)

In January and February 2024, Yamazaki confirmed that no discussions of a sequel had transpired but expressed interest in directing one. He elaborated his desire to proceed with following the same characters' lives thereon and have Godzilla battle an antagonizing kaiju. In an interview with Mono Magazine, Yamazaki implied that a sequel would explore the curse Godzilla left behind on Japan, similar to that of the Tatari-gami in Princess Mononoke (1997). Hamabe remarked when interviewed by the same publication: "If there is a next series, I might be the one stepping on and crushing people". On another occasion, Ando told the Daily Express that she wants her character to encounter Godzilla in a sequel to the film, joking that she would like to be "jumping like this Spider-Man -type woman taking down Godzilla".

The possibility of a sequel was largely discussed at a stage greeting held after a screening of the film's black-and-white version in Tokyo on January 12, 2024. Several cast members were in attendance, and Yamazaki attended remotely from the United States; the latter signified wanting the characters to return to the sea for the sequel. Yamada proposed the idea of using Noriko as the key to locating Godzilla since, according to his interpretation, she possesses the monster's "cells". During a February 2024 Q&A with Collider, Yamazaki announced that he had begun developing a new movie, and denied that it would be a sequel to Minus One.

Producer Minami Ichikawa believed that Toho would take their time to produce the next live-action Godzilla film since they want "great ideas, an excellent script, a talented director, and the right cast to work on it carefully" because "Godzilla deserves to have that level of intentionality".


Europeans United for Democracy

# Europeans United for Democracy

## Abstract

Europeans United for Democracy – Alliance for a Europe of Democracies, formerly known as EUDemocrats, was a Eurosceptic and self-described Eurorealist alliance of parties and movements from 15 European countries. It operated as a transnational party at the European level (European political party), according to Regulation (EC) No 2004/2003. It sought a radical decentralization or a complete abolition of the EU. It incorporated members from both the right and the left political spectrum; however, it was dominated by left-wing parties and represented ideologically left-wing faction of Euroscepticism. It functioned between 2005 and 2017.

The party was set up under Danish law on 7 November 2005 and founded as a European Party in Brussels on 8 November 2005. Its first congress was held on 24 February 2006. Former Danish MEPs Jens-Peter Bonde and Hanne Dahl inspired the EUD's creation and first years. In January 2009, Swedish economist and former MEP Sören Wibe succeeded Bonde as President of the EUD. Following Wibe's sudden death in December 2010, former Irish Green MEP Patricia McKenna was named president of the EUD and Lave Knud Broch from People's Movement against the EU as vice president.

The founding parties of the party included the Danish June Movement from Jens-Peter Bonde (who also became the first president of the party), the Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland, the June List from Sweden and the Danish People's Movement Against the EU. The party had to rely on the assistance of individual Members of Parliament in order to reach the representational threshold of seven member states — these members included Roger Helmer, UK Conservative Daniel Hannan, Igor Grazin from the Estonian Reform Party, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan from Arise the Republic, Sandor Leszak and Andras Ptiski from FIDESZ, Irish independent Kathy Sinnott, Klaus Buchner from the German Ecological Democratic Party and Iveta Grigule from the Latvian Farmers' Union. These parties and members came from all sides of the political spectrum and were united in their criticism of the EU, although in varying degrees.

Although the EUD's platform was not concerned with specific ideological matters, as it believed that such issues were best dealt with by national and regional parliaments under the democratic control of the people, the party itself was considered left-wing; David Hanley, head of the School of European Studies at Cardiff University, called it a "core statement of left-wing Euroscepticism". The EUD cooperated with other left-wing European parties. The party was committed to increasing transparency, subsidiarity, diversity and budgetary control in the European Union, wanting to limit the Union to a free-trade zone and a safeguard of social and environmentalist standards, with integration efforts being only optional and limited to the minimum. The EU was to be prohibited from dictating a common foreign, economic and security policy to all members, and elements of membership were to be elective, with member states able to choose to participate in the free-trade zone only, without partaking in other elements of the European Union.

In 2009, four of its affiliated MEPs were members of the Independence and Democracy group in the European Parliament. Also, two affiliated MEPs - Roger Helmer and Daniel Hannan, both British Conservatives - sat as independents. Hannan left EUD in October 2009 to join the newly formed Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, while Helmer defected from the British Conservatives to British party UKIP. From 2010 to 2014 EUD had one member in the European Parliament: Rina Ronja Kari (replaced Søren Søndergaard 5 February 2014), who sits as an associate member of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left Group. In the 2014 European Parliament elections two EUD members Rina Ronja Kari and Iveta Grigule were elected.

Ten members of national and regional parliaments from ten countries were also members of the EUD (as of 2014).

## Political platform

The political aim of the EUDemocrats was to reform the present structures of the European Union. According to its political platform, the EUD believed that decisions should be made at the lowest possible level (subsidiarity), thus giving an effective voice to the citizens of member states, regions and national minorities. It aimed to unite those who are critical of the EU for its undemocratic development and its ever-more centralising political features. The EUDemocrats wished to transform the European Union into a "free alliance among the nations of Europe", where countries were free to determine their level of integration and change it at will, as well as "safeguarding local democracy and pushing for decision making at the lowest possible levels."

The EUD opposed the centralisation of political power in the EU institutions, and demanded democratic oversight and control of EU institutional powers and actions by national and regional assemblies. The party believed that European integration must be stopped as it would transform Europe into a centralised unitary state, arguing that while the initial impulse for integration were perceived economic benefits, the drive for integration also spilled over into political and sociocultural consequences. The EUD criticized Europe's mainstream parties for passively going along with the integration, often in an undemocratic or misleading fashion. The party described the progressing European integration as the result of the "permissive consensus of furtive elites has once again pulled the wool over citizens’ eyes". " The party staunchly opposed centralizing tendencies within the EU, and proposed a radical and far-reaching decentralization that would prioritize safeguarding sovereignty of the EU members, and make integration strictly optional and reversible.

The party's solution was to restore the principle of subsidiarity and regionalization in the union, stating that too the European Union had been given too much power that must now be "clawed back". The party's alternative was called "flexible integration", which would enable member states to use EU cooperation procedures only when all parties concerned wished to, without forcing any common policy on all members. The only issues to be decided at EU level were to be "truly cross-border issues", which the EUD classified as guaranteeing four fundamental freedoms (persons, goods, property and capital) and environmental policy.

The policy areas that the party wanted to exclude from EU competence were common trade policy, criminal justice, education and cultural policy. The party also wanted to abolish the Common Foreign and Security Policy, arguing that the EU should not be able to dictate a uniform foreign and security policy for its member states. According to the EUDemocrats, the EU was to simply guarantee "a set of minimum standards in security, health, workplace protection and environment" instead. It also proposed to replace the European Constitution with a cooperation agreement between states, with the possibility for a member state to only choose a basic free-trade agreement without participating in other EU components. In regards to the electoral system of the EU, the party sought to make European Commissioners be elected by national electorates.

Its four political core objectives were:

- enhancing transparency on all political levels, especially in the EU by giving citizens insight into all documents and meetings;

- strengthen real subsidiarity in the EU thus taking decisions at the lowest political level possible;

- improving democracy and accountability by reforming EU institutions and structures making them function more democratically;

- defending diversity in the EU by making it possible for member states to implement politics according to their national reality and by promoting flexible cooperation instead of fixed harmonisation.

The operational aim of EUD was to act as an effective political platform and campaigning organisation which is able to influence pan-European politics towards extending democratic structures in the EU. The EUD also sought to have candidates elected in European elections that shared its core Eurorealist political ideas and thus influence politics in the European Parliament itself.

The position of the party was described as a "minimalist Eurorealist position", as the EUD believed that while preferably the EU would not exist, some form of minimal integration had now become avoidable, but it should be constrained as much as possible. The EU was to be a free-trade zone with few, minimal supranational competences and minimized bureucracy.

The party was critical of the Lisbon Treaty and believed that many elements of it were breaching the political independence of the member states. It deeply opposed common defence and intelligence projects such as the European Union Foreign Service and European army, arguing that such projects "will undermine the member states foreign, security and defence policy".

Despite the diverse nature of its founding parties, the EUD was seen as a "core statement of left-wing Euroscepticism", as its platform incorporated strongly left-wing concerns about the EU, including concerns about parliamentary control and distrust of the EU's military role, combined with an emphasis on the need to ensure environmental and social standards. The EUD cooperated with and was ideologically close to other left-wing Eurosceptic EU parties, such as the Nordic Green Left Alliance and the Party of the European Left.

## Campaigns

In March 2011, the EUDemocrats launched a campaign against the idea of direct-tax income for the European Union (including a tax on citizens, the banking sector, or the air traffic sector. The campaign was launched as www.noeutax.com Archived 12 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine.

In an effort to bring balance to the euro debate in the Baltics, EUDemocrats has started a Latvian web information campaign at www.parlatu.lv Archived 17 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine.

## Membership

### Individual members, NGOs, and observers

Belgium:

- Michael Balter, Vivant group leader at the Parliament of the Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft Belgiens

Estonia:

- MP Igor Grazin, Estonian Reform Party (Eesti Reformierakond)

France:

- MP Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, Arise the Republic (Debout la République)

Germany:

- MP Klaus Buchner, Ecological Democratic Party (Ökologisch-Demokratische Partei)

Ireland:

- National Platform

- People's Movement (Gluaiseacht an Phobail)

- Independent TD Thomas Pringle

- Independent ID Kathy Sinnott

Hungary:

- MP Sandor Leszak, Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség)

- MP Andras Ptiski, Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség)

Italy:

- Euro Sceptics - Animal Environmentalist Party (Euro Scettici - Partito Animalista Ambientalista)

Latvia:

- MP Iveta Grigule-Pēterse, Latvian Farmers' Union (Latvijas Zemnieku savienība)

Slovakia:

- Direct Democracy (Slovakia) (Priama Demokracia - Hnutie Domova)

- Rudolf Kusy, member of the regional parliament of Bratislava

- Peter Kopecký, Agrarian and Countryside Party (Agrárna strana vidieka)

Slovenia:

- June List (Junijska lista)

- EUDemocrats Slovenia (EUDS)

- Gorazd Drevensek

United Kingdom

- Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, Green Party

- MP Daniel Hannan, Conservative and Unionist Party

- MP Roger Helmer, Conservative and Unionist Party


Settler

# Settler

## Abstract

A settler is a person who has immigrated to an area and established a permanent residence there.

A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer.

Settlers are generally thought of as people who travel to discover new land. Many times in history, it has not been like that. Most of the time in history, settlers are people who travel to a land that already belongs to someone else, forcing them out, and claiming the land as their own.

Settlers are generally from a sedentary culture, as opposed to nomadic peoples who may move settlements seasonally, within traditional territories. Settlement sometimes relies on dispossession of already established populations within the contested area, and can be a very violent process. Sometimes settlers are backed by governments or large countries. Settlements can prevent native people from continuing their work.

## Historical usage

One can witness how settlers very often occupied land previously residents to long-established peoples, designated as Indigenous (also called "natives", "Aborigines" or, in the USA, "Indians").

The process by which Indigenous territories are settled by foreign peoples is usually called settler colonialism. It relies upon a process of often violent dispossession.

In the figurative usage, a "person who goes first or does something first" also applies to the American English use of "pioneer" to refer to a settler – a person who has migrated to a less occupied area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area; as first recorded in English in 1605. In United States history it refers to Europeans who were part of settling new lands on Indigenous territories.

In this usage, pioneers are usually among the first to an area, whereas settlers can arrive after first settlement and join others in the process of human settlement. This correlates with the work of military pioneers who were tasked with construction of camps before the main body of troops would arrive at the designated campsite.

In Imperial Russia, the government invited Russians or foreign nationals to settle in sparsely populated lands. These settlers were called "colonists". See, e.g., articles Slavo-Serbia, Volga German, Volhynia, Russians in Kazakhstan.

Although settlers in the early modern era frequently made use of sea routes—significant waves of settlement could also use long overland routes, such as the Great Trek by the Boer - Afrikaners in South Africa, or the Oregon Trail in the United States.

### Anthropological usage

Anthropologists record tribal displacement of native settlers who drive another tribe from the lands it held, such as the settlement of lands in the area now called Carmel-by-the-Sea, California where Ohlone peoples settled in areas previously inhabited by the Esselen tribe (Bainbridge, 1977).

### Modern usage

In Canada, the term settler is currently used to describe "the non-Indigenous peoples living in Canada who form the European-descended sociopolitical majority," asserting that settler colonialism is an ongoing phenomenon. The usage is controversial to some.

In the Middle East, there are a number of references to various squatter and specific policies referred as "settler". Among those:

- Iraq – the Arabization program of the Ba'ath Party in the late 1970s in North Iraq, which aimed at settling Arab populations instead of Kurds following the Second Iraqi-Kurdish War.

- Israel – Israelis who moved to areas captured during the Six-Day War in 1967 (such as the Gaza Strip and West Bank) in the absence of a final peace agreement.

- Syria – In recent times, Arab settlers have also moved in large numbers to ethnic minority areas, such as northeast Syria.

- Cyprus – In the aftermath of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the Turkish government started settling farmers from the mainland in the newly declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Today it is estimated that these settlers constitute around half the population of Northern Cyprus.

## Causes of emigration

The reasons for the emigration of settlers vary, but often they include the following factors and incentives: the desire to start a new and better life in a foreign land, personal financial hardship, social, cultural, ethnic, or religious persecution (e.g., the Pilgrims and Mormons), penal deportation (e.g. of convicted criminals from England to Australia), political oppression, and government incentive policies aimed at encouraging foreign settlement.


The Pet Sounds Sessions

# The Pet Sounds Sessions

## Abstract

The Pet Sounds Sessions is a 4- CD box set by the American rock band the Beach Boys. Released on November 4, 1997, by Capitol Records, it compiles tracks from the group's 11th studio album Pet Sounds (1966) and its 1965–66 recording sessions. The entire album is included in its original mono mix, as well as a specially-created digital stereo mix. The set also contains instrumental tracks, vocals-only tracks, alternate mixes, and edited highlights from the recording sessions for many of the album's songs, along with several tracks not included on the album.

The box set was nominated for Best Historical Album at the Grammy Awards of 1999. In 2011, it was followed by The Smile Sessions, a similar compilation devoted to the recording of the Beach Boys' unfinished Smile project.

## Background

Original producer Brian Wilson writes in the liner notes to The Pet Sounds Sessions:

It was a heart and soul album; I worked very, very hard on it. The thing is, I’m glad we’re doing this new Pet Sounds reissue because the Pet Sounds box set is going to be very revealing to the public as to just what sort of music makers we really are.... When we were making Pet Sounds we were absolutely positive we were cutting a milestone record. Carl and I knew for sure we were into something heavier than hell, and we just went with it.

Compiler David Leaf explains the purpose of the new compilation: "The first three CDs of this box set are designed to give you a sense of how Brian and the studio musicians cut the tracks and also to give you a unique glimpse into the harmonic magic of the Beach Boys singing." He adds: "It is not hyperbole to say that for every pop and rock group that followed in the Beach Boys wake, Pet Sounds became an audio benchmark.... Since that time, nothing has really changed." Leaf had only a minor role in the set, with all creative work, including editing, mixing, and mastering. being done by lead producer Mark Linett.

## Stereo mix

Pet Sounds was first released in 1966 in monaural and duophonic formats. Overseen by Brian Wilson and produced and engineered by Mark Linett, the set includes the first stereo mix of Pet Sounds. These new mixes were made possible by the survival of the original Pet Sounds multitrack tapes. Advances in recording technology allowed the compilers to digitally sync multi-track stems that had been ping-ponged numerous times prior to their final mono mixdown.

The new mixes created for the box set were made in January–February 1996. Linett wrote: "In mixing Pet Sounds in stereo, every attempt was made to duplicate the feel and sound of the original mono mixes. Vocal and instrumental parts that Brian left off the record in 1966 were noted and duplicated, as were the fades." To this end, a Scully model 280 4-track was used to transfer the analog reels to digital multi-tracks – the same model used for Pet Sounds. The mix was then processed through an original tube console from United Western Recorders in the 1960s.

Some exceptions remain, and so the stereo mix of Pet Sounds does contain some differences from the original mono mix. Among them, alternate vocal parts used for the bridge of " Wouldn't It Be Nice " and the end of " God Only Knows " due to the original tracks no longer existing. " You Still Believe in Me " features a single tracked vocal instead of the doubled vocal of the original due to a missing tape. In the mono version, chatter can be heard buried in various tracks; instances of them were omitted from the stereo version at Brian's request.

## Release

There was a minor controversy regarding a significant 18-month delay in the release of the box set (originally planned for May 1996 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the album's original issue). Reportedly, Mike Love was dissatisfied with the accompanying essays that allegedly understated his involvement in the album's making. The original liner notes had featured none of his comments, even though other band members were interviewed, and new notes were subsequently commissioned to Dennis Diken. Biographer Timothy White said that "The Beach Boys apparently didn't get the track selections until late in the production phase, and they all had misgivings about how Capitol envisioned it."

## Reception

AllMusic calls the compilation "a fascinating, educational listen, even if it's not necessarily indispensable." Q gave the "enlightening" box set a perfect score and wrote that "the backing music tracks sans vocals opens your ears to a bevy of awe-inspiring nuances previously obscured by singing. At the same time, the isolated vocal tracks are nothing less than spiritual in their emotive wallop." The New York Observer ' s D. Strauss called the stereo mix "pointless", adding, "I must admit that, as a music geek, listening to Mr. Wilson hold myriad consultations on when to beep the bicycle horn in 'You Still Believe in Me' carries a portentous thrill".

The compilation was pivotal to the inception of the Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, as director Bill Pohlad enthuses: "It's just so beautiful and impactful for me to listen to that. So the idea of trying to capture that on film was certainly a big part of my interest in making the movie."

## Track listing

Disc four: Pet Sounds Re-Mastered Mono Mix (same as tracks 1–13 of disc one)


Geni.com

# Geni.com

## Abstract

Geni is an American commercial genealogy and social networking website, founded in 2006, and owned by MyHeritage, an Israeli private company, since November 2012. As of 2024, MyHeritage has kept its genealogical website separate from Geni's website, though you can still match Geni profiles to trees on MyHeritage and to other family tree sites and digitized records.

The New York Times groups it with FamilyLink.com and Ancestry.com, "a vast and growing trove of digitized records". As of March 23, 2023, around 177,017,009 profiles had been created on Geni.

## Features

At the website users enter names and email addresses of their parents, siblings, and other relatives, as well as profiles with various fields of biographical information about themselves and their relatives. From there users may graphically manipulate sections of their connections network to create a complete personal family tree.

The service uses the contact information to invite additional members to join, and builds a social network database from the information collectively entered by members. For now users may only see information belonging to themselves, their connected "family group", and to people in their immediate network who have given them permission.

### Discussion forums and projects

Each family tree features a family discussion forum where messages can be posted and responses made. It can be used as such a digest for family news. There are also public discussions, profile specific discussions, and project discussions.

Projects are special interest groups organized around historical topics (e.g. "World War One - Casualties"), immigration patterns (e.g. "Norwegian American"), occupations (e.g. "Librarians"), place-names (e.g. "Christ Church, Oxford University"), or any other subject of general interest that will foster social discussion among members, as well as providing a portal to which biographical profiles may be linked.

### Importing and exporting

From 2008 until December 2010, Geni had a built-in feature that allowed users to import their family history using the GEDCOM file format. This facility was disabled for eight years because Geni found it was duplicating thousands of existing profiles, often with poor information quality as compared to the existing profiles.

In February 2019 a new GEDCOM file import feature became available that allows the import of profiles which didn’t exist before on Geni. Only a few generations of a tree are imported at a time, continuing only on branches where there are no matches to existing profiles on Geni.

Data from public records and family trees can also be imported from 13 supported web sites using an independently developed semi-automatic tool called SmartCopy, which is based on web scraping. Families are imported one at a time; the user can manually edit or verify the information before importing, and also choose between adding the information to existing profiles or creating new profiles. SmartCopy includes a consistency check feature that warns when data may be unreasonable. The user must ask for full access to the tool. SmartCopy is a third-party open source web browser extension that has been available since 2015.

### DNA information

Lists can be compiled of profiles that are expected to have the same haplogroup as a specific profile, since they are related on a strict male line or female line.

Genealogical DNA test results (autosomal tests, YDNA tests and MtDNA tests) can be imported from various test sites. The haplogroup of the test person is indicated and propagated in the family tree to all profiles that are expected to share it. Lists of tested people matching the DNA are presented.

### Automated consistency checking

A serious problem with online family trees is the inappropriate propagation of information from one ancestor or family line to another. This can happen if users make incorrect identifications between ancestors and others in the tree already. This can lead to strange results such as people born after their mothers have died or when their supposed parents were still small children. In 2019 Geni introduced automated consistency checking which alerts users to 28 types of such problems.

## Reception

By 2008, Geni was the chief website operating on the "one great family" collaborative model (now commonly known as "collaborative genealogy"), seen as the next step for genealogy in the digital era. Geni's model has been described as a new collaborative, resource-sharing alternative to the "corporate for-profit model" of genealogy research.

Scientists and academics have used Geni for genetic, anthropological, and sociological research. Due to its size and geographic spread, Geni has been cited as a "key social media website" by researchers. Educators have used Geni's visual and social media attributes as a way to get students interested in family history. Author A. J. Jacobs used Geni extensively for his 2017 book It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree and partnered with the company to host his 2015 "Global Family Reunion."

In 2017, a multinational team of scientists led by Yaniv Erlich used 86 million publicly available profiles from Geni, of which 13 million were connected into a single family tree, to study the structure of historical populations over the past 600 years, mostly from Western Europe and the United States. Their findings, published in Science, were used to analyze the genetics of longevity and familial dispersion.

Much like Wikipedia and other wikis, Geni was criticized in early years over users not citing sources, leading the site's staff and power users to push the community to use more documentation. As Geni profiles and projects have become more documented, Geni has been cited in academic journals, though some critics remain concerned about the accuracy of collaborative trees as a whole.


Connecticut Pride

# Connecticut Pride

## Abstract

The Connecticut Pride (from 1993 to 1994 the Hartford Hellcats) were an American professional basketball team based in Hartford, Connecticut, that was a member of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA). They played in Hartford from 1993 to 2000, primarily at the Connecticut State Arsenal and Armory, and also at the Hartford Civic Center and the University of Hartford Sports Center. Its final season, from 2000 to 2001, was played at the New Haven Coliseum.

The team was previously known as the Albany Patroons, Capital Region Pontiacs, and Hartford Hellcats. With the collapse of the CBA during the 2000/01 season, the team joined the International Basketball League.

## All-time roster

- Danya Abrams

- Cedric Ball

- Darrell Barley

- Derrick Battie

- Alex Blackwell

- Bernard Blunt

- Walter Bond

- Ira Bowman

- Derrick Brown

- Troy Brown

- Rick Brunson

- Keith Bullock

- John Coker

- Ken Conley

- Modie Cox

- Dan Cross

- Corey Crowder

- Jevon Crudup

- Muntrelle Dobbins

- Mario Donaldson

- Mark Donnelly

- Spencer Dunkley

- Brian Edwards

- Jay Edwards

- Roney Eford

- Brian Fair

- Isaac Fontaine

- Reggie Freeman

- Michael Evans

- Tate George

- Greg Grant

- Adrian Griffin

- Jermaine Guice

- Chris Harris

- Otis Hill

- Lucious Jackson

- Randell Jackson

- Ponce James

- Chris Jent

- Kannard Johnson

- Lamont Jones

- Shelton Jones

- Jeff Kent

- John Kimbrell

- Kirk King

- Rusty LaRue

- Todd Lindeman

- James Martin

- Johnny McDowell

- BJ McKie

- Rick Mickens

- Harry Moore

- Ricky Moore

- Jeff Myers

- Julius Nwosu

- Kevin Ollie

- Damian Owens

- Mike Pegues

- Jamie Peterson

- Jerry Reynolds

- Rumeal Robinson

- Tick Rogers

- Shawnelle Scott

- Tom Sheehey

- Willie Simms

- Carl Simpson

- Charles Smith

- Troy Smith

- Jarod Stevenson

- Justus Thigpen

- Charles Thomas

- Logan Vander Velden

- Antonio Watson

- Ennis Whatley

- Chuckie White

- Aaron Williams

- Brent Williams

- Theron Wilson

- A. J. Wynder


Anne Lister

# Anne Lister

## Abstract

Anne Lister (3 April 1791 – 22 September 1840) was an English diarist, famous for revelations for which she was dubbed "the first modern lesbian."

Lister was from a minor landowning family at Shibden in Calderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire, and had several lesbian love affairs from her schooldays onwards, often on long trips abroad. Muscular and androgynous in appearance, dressed only in black, and highly educated, she was later known, generally unkindly, as "Gentleman Jack". Her final significant relationship was with Ann Walker, to whom she was notionally married in Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, now celebrated as the birthplace of lesbian marriage in Britain.

Lister's diaries reveal much about contemporary life in West Yorkshire, including her development of historic Shibden Hall, and her interests in medicine, mathematics, landscaping, mining, railways, and canals. Many entries were written in code that was not decrypted until long after her death. These graphic portrayals of lesbian relationships were so frank that they were thought to be a hoax until their authenticity was confirmed.

## Biography

### Early life and education

Anne Lister was the second child and eldest daughter of Captain Jeremy Lister (1753–1836) who, as a young man in 1775, served with the British 10th Regiment of Foot in the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the American War of Independence. In August 1788, he married Rebecca Battle (1770–1817) of Welton in East Riding, Yorkshire. Their first child, John, was born in 1789 but died the same year. Anne Lister was born in Halifax on 3 April 1791. In 1793, the family moved to an estate named Skelfler House at Market Weighton. Skelfler was where young Anne spent her earliest years. A second son, Samuel, who was close to Anne, was born in 1793. The Listers had four sons and three daughters, but only Anne and her younger sister, Marian (born 13 October 1798), survived past 20 years old.

At the age of seven, Lister was sent to a school run by a Mrs Hagues and a Mrs Chettle in Agnesgate, Ripon. Between 1801 and 1804, Lister was educated at home by the Reverend George Skelding, the vicar of Market Weighton. On her visits to her aunt Anne and uncle James at Shibden Hall, the Misses Mellin gave her lessons.

While being educated at home, Lister developed an interest in classical literature. In a surviving letter to her aunt from 3 February 1803, a young Lister explains "My library is my greatest pleasure... The Grecian History had pleased me much."

### Relationship with Eliza Raine

In 1805, Anne Lister was sent to the Manor House School in York (in the King's Manor buildings), where Anne met her first love, Eliza Raine (1791–1860). Raine was the illegitimate, half-Indian daughter of an East India Company surgeon in Madras, brought to Yorkshire after his death and set to inherit a substantial amount of money. Lister and Raine shared a bedroom at the boarding school, but Lister was asked to leave after two years. Raine expected to live with Lister as an adult, but Lister began affairs with other women including Isabella Norcliffe and Mariana Belcombe. In despair and frustration, Raine became a patient at Clifton House Asylum, run by Belcombe's father, William, in 1814. Eliza Raine was later transferred to Terrace House in Osbaldwick and died there on 31 January 1860. She is buried in the Osbaldwick churchyard across the road.

### Shibden Hall

Lister inherited the Shibden estate on her uncle's death in 1826, but only controlled part of its income until both her father's and her aunt's deaths in 1836, when their shares of the income passed to her. Her wealth allowed her some measure of freedom to live as she pleased.

In addition to income from the agricultural tenancy, Lister's financial portfolio included properties in town, shares in the canal and railway industries, mining, and stone quarries. Lister used the income from this varied portfolio to finance her two passions, the renovation of Shibden Hall, and European travel.

Lister is described as having a "masculine appearance". One of her lovers, Mariana Lawton (née Belcombe), was initially ashamed to be seen in public with Lister because of the comments made on Lister's appearance. She dressed entirely in black (as was normal for gentlemen at the time) and took part in many activities that were not perceived as the norm for women of the time, such as opening and owning a colliery. She was referred to as "Gentleman Jack" in some quarters. Lawton and Lister were lovers for about two decades, including a period during which Lawton was married and to which her husband became resigned. In 1822, they visited the Ladies of Llangollen at Plas Newydd in Llangollen.

Although Lister had met her on various occasions in the 1820s, Ann Walker, who by 1832 had become a wealthy heiress, took on a much more substantial role in Lister's life. Eventually the women took communion together on Easter Sunday (30 March) 1834 in Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, and thereafter considered themselves married, but without legal recognition. The church has been described as "an icon for what is interpreted as the site of the first lesbian marriage to be held in Britain", and the building now hosts a commemorative blue plaque. The couple lived together at Shibden Hall until Lister's death in 1840.

Lister renovated Shibden Hall quite significantly to her own design. In 1838, she added a Gothic tower to the main house, to serve as her private library. She also had a tunnel dug under the building which allowed the staff to move about without disturbing her.

Throughout her life, Lister had a strong Anglican faith, and also remained a Tory, "interested in defending the privileges of the land-owning aristocracy".

### Travel

Lister greatly enjoyed travel, although her biographer Angela Steidele suggests her trips in later life were also a way to "evade the self realisation that she had failed at everything she set her hand to". She made her first trip to continental Europe in 1819, when she was 28 years old. She travelled with her 54-year-old aunt, also called Anne Lister, on a two-month trip to France.

In 1824, Lister returned to Paris and stayed until the following year. In 1826, she was returned to Paris with her Aunt Anne, where she resumed an affair from her earlier visit to the city with a widow named Maria Barlow. In 1827, she set out from Paris with Barlow on a tour of northern Italy and Switzerland, returning to Shibden Hall the following year. In 1828, she travelled extensively in Scotland with Sibella MacLean.

She left for the continent again in 1829. With Paris as her base, she visited Belgium and Germany before heading south to the Pyrenees. Here she did hiking as well as crossed the border into Spain. While in Spain she demonstrated both her strong adventurous streak and considerable physical fitness by ascending Monte Perdido 11,007 ft (3,355 m), the third highest peak in the Pyrenees.

Returning to Shibden Hall in 1831, she found life with her father and sister Marian so uncomfortable that she almost immediately left again, visiting the Netherlands for a short trip with Mariana Lawton. All in all, between 1826 and 1832, she only spent a short period of time at Shibden Hall, with travels around Britain and Europe allowing her to avoid her family at home.

In 1834, she again visited France and Switzerland, this time for her honeymoon with Ann Walker. Returning with Walker in 1838, she again headed south to the Pyrenees and completed the first "official" ascent of the Vignemale (10,820 feet; 3,298 m), the highest peak in the French Pyrenees. This required a ten-hour hike to reach the top and another seven hours to descend.

Her last and greatest trip began in 1839. Leaving Shibden Hall in June with Walker and two servants, they travelled in their own carriage through France, Denmark, Sweden and Russia, arriving in St Petersburg in September and in Moscow in October. With a reluctant Walker in tow, she left Moscow in February 1840 in a new Russian carriage and very warm clothing. They travelled south, along the frozen Volga river, to the Caucasus. Few West Europeans had visited this area, let alone West European women, in part because of unrest amongst the local population against the Tsarist regime. At times they needed a military escort. The two women were a source of great curiosity to the people they visited. As Lister noted in her diary, "The people coming in to look at us as if we were some strange animals such as they had not seen the like before."

### Death

Lister died on 22 September 1840, aged 49, of a fever at Koutais (now Kutaisi in Georgia) while travelling with Ann Walker. Walker had Lister's body brought back to the UK, where she was buried in Halifax Minster, on 29 April 1841. Her tombstone was rediscovered in 2000, having been covered by a floor in 1879.

In her will, Lister's estate was left to her paternal cousins, but Walker was given a life interest. After being declared to be of "unsound mind", Walker spent time briefly in Terrace House, a private house in Osbaldwick, and then in the London area with her sister and brother-in-law. Walker returned to Shibden Hall in 1845 and moved back to her family's estate in Lightcliffe in 1848. She died in 1854 at her childhood home, Cliff Hill in Lightcliffe, West Yorkshire.

More than 40 years after her death, while reporting on a dispute over the ownership of Shibden Hall, the Leeds Times in 1882 stated, "Miss Lister's masculine singularities of character are still remembered".

## Diaries

During her life, Lister wrote a five-million-word diary. It began in 1806 as scraps of paper, recording in secret code parcels sent to and from Eliza Raine, and eventually became the 26 quarto volumes, ending at her death in 1840. In addition to her handwriting being difficult to decipher, around one-sixth of the diary is encrypted in a simple code Eliza and she had devised, combining the Greek alphabet, zodiac, punctuation, and mathematical symbols, and it describes in great detail her lesbian identity and affairs, as well as the methods she used for seduction. The diaries also contain her thoughts on the weather, social events, national events, and her business interests. The majority of her diary deals with her daily life, and not merely her sexuality, and provides detailed information on social, political, and economic events of the time.

The cypher used in her diaries was deciphered by the last inhabitant of Shibden Hall, John Lister (1847–1933) and a friend of his, Arthur Burrell. When the content of the secret passages was revealed, Burrell advised John Lister to burn all the diaries. Lister did not take this advice, but instead continued to hide Anne Lister's diaries behind a panel at Shibden Hall.

The cypher is as follows:

Underlining or dotting a letter was used to double it; in the cases of ⟨ (⟩, ⟨) ⟩ and ⟨ + ⟩ the doubling line went through the letter (so that pp looked rather like ⟨ ǂ ⟩), and in the case of ⟨ ~ ⟩, the doubling line was vertical (so that tt looked a bit like ⟨ ɫ ⟩), but the following double letters had special forms: ee ⟨; ⟩, ff ⟨ Q ⟩, ll ⟨: ⟩, oo ⟨ ! ⟩, ss ⟨ ? ⟩. Mr was an ⟨ x ⟩, with single and double cross-bars for Mrs and Miss, so that Mrs looked rather like ⟨ 𝔛 ⟩.

In 2011, Lister's diaries were added to the register of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. The register citation notes that, while a valuable account of the times, it was the "comprehensive and painfully honest account of lesbian life and reflections on her nature, however, which have made these diaries unique. They have shaped and continue to shape the direction of UK Gender Studies and Women's History."

Lister's diaries have been described as part of a "trilogy of early 19th century diaries" by local women, covering the same period from different perspectives, along with those of Caroline Walker from 1812 to 1830, and Elizabeth Wadsworth from 1817 to 1829. In 2020, Ann Walker's own journal was discovered. Although brief, covering June 1834 to February 1835, it covers a pivotal period that weaves through the corresponding narratives in Lister's diary.

## Research

Work by Dorothy Thompson and Patricia Hughes in the late 1980s at Birmingham University 's Department of Modern History resulted in translation of much of the code, as well as discovery of the first juvenile Lister diaries and decoding of the other two Lister codes. Hughes self-published Anne Lister's Secret Diary for 1817 (2019) and The Early Life of Miss Anne Lister and the Curious Tale of Miss Eliza Raine (2015), both of which make extensive use of other materials in the Lister archives including letters, diaries, and ancillary documents.

Helena Whitbread published some of the diaries in two volumes (1988 and 1992). Their graphic nature meant at first they were believed by some to be a hoax, but documentary evidence has since established their authenticity. A biography by the British writer Jill Liddington appeared in 1994. In 2014, a conference held at Shibden Hall focused on Lister's life along with gender and sexuality in the 19th century.

A biography by Angela Steidele in the German language was published in 2017, and published in English in 2018. In 2022 Russian researcher Olga Khoroshilova published a book about Lister's final and dramatic journey in Russia. In a 2013 Journal of Lesbian Studies paper, by Chris Roulston, she was described as "the first modern lesbian".

## Popular culture

The first episode of the 1994 BBC Two series A Skirt Through History, titled "A Marriage", features Julia Ford as Anne Lister, and Sophie Thursfield as Marianna Belcombe.

On 31 May 2010, BBC Two broadcast a production based on Lister's life, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, starring Maxine Peake as Lister. Revealing Anne Lister, a documentary featuring Sue Perkins, was broadcast on the same night on BBC Two.

Chamber folk duo O'Hooley & Tidow included a song about Anne Lister, "Gentleman Jack", on their 2012 album The Fragile.

The 2019 BBC - HBO historical TV drama series Gentleman Jack, starring Suranne Jones as Lister, depicts her life as "the first modern lesbian". The series is billed as "inspired by" two books about Lister by Jill Liddington, Female Fortune and Nature's Domain. Liddington also acted as a consultant for the series. O'Hooley & Tidow's "Gentleman Jack" serves as the series' closing theme music. In 2019 Penguin Books published a companion volume by the series' senior consultant, Anne Choma, which includes newly transcribed and decoded entries from Lister's diaries.

In 2022 a second series of Gentleman Jack aired, first on the BBC One between 10 April and 29 May, and then on HBO between 25 April and 13 June. Shortly after the second series ended a campaign was started to renew the show, which then transformed into an effort to save the show as on 7 July it was announced that Gentleman Jack had been cancelled by HBO.

## Plaque

In 2018, a blue plaque was unveiled at Holy Trinity Church in York to honour Lister; it was York's first LGBT history plaque (or rainbow plaque). The plaque had rainbow edging, and read " Gender-nonconforming entrepreneur. Celebrated marital commitment, without legal recognition, to Ann Walker in this church. Easter, 1834". The wording was criticised for not mentioning Lister's sexuality, and in 2019, it was replaced with a similar plaque with the wording "Anne Lister 1791–1840 of Shibden Hall, Halifax / Lesbian and Diarist; took sacrament here to seal her union with Ann Walker / Easter 1834".

## Sources

- Choma, Anne, Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister. (Penguin Books & BBC Books, 2019)

- Green, Muriel, Miss Lister of Shibden Hall: Selected Letters (1800–1840). (The Book Guild Ltd, 1992)

- Hughes, Patricia, Anne Lister's Secret Diary for 1817. (Hues Books Ltd 2006)

- Hughes, Patricia, The Secret Life of Miss Anne Lister and the Curious Tale of Miss Eliza Raine. (Hues Books Ltd 2010)

- Khoroshilova, Olga, Gentleman Jack in Russia. (in Russian, Moscow, Mann, Ivanov & Ferber 2022)

- Liddington, Jill, Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax, 1791–1840. (Pennine Pens, 1994)

- Liddington, Jill, Female Fortune: Land, Gender and Authority: The Anne Lister Diaries and Other Writings, 1833–36. (Rivers Oram Press, 1998)

- Steidele, Angela, Gentleman Jack. A Biography of Anne Lister: Regency Landowner, Seducer and Secret Diarist. (Serpent's Tail, London 2018). First published as Anne Lister. Eine erotische Biographie. (Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2017)

- Vicinus, Martha, Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778–1928. (University of Chicago Press, 2004)

- Whitbread, Helena, I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister 1791–1840. (Virago, 1988)

- Whitbread, Helena, No Priest But Love: Excerpts from the Diaries of Anne Lister. (NYU Press, 1993)


Mount Molar, Queensland

# Mount Molar, Queensland

## Abstract

Mount Molar is a rural locality in the Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, Mount Molar had a population of 117 people.

## Demographics

In the 2016 census, Mount Molar had a population of 115 people.

In the 2021 census, Mount Molar had a population of 117 people.

## Education

There are no schools in Mount Molar. The nearest government primary schools are Back Plains State School in neighbouring Back Plains to the west, Nobby State School in neighbouring Nobby to the north-west, and Clifton State School in Clifton to the south-east. The nearest government secondary school is Clifton State High School in Clifton.


The Staircase (French miniseries)

# The Staircase (French miniseries)

## Abstract

The Staircase (French: Soupçons, lit. ' 'Suspicions' '; also known as Death on the Staircase) is a 2004 French-produced, English-language documentary television miniseries directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade about the trial of Michael Peterson, convicted of murdering his wife, Kathleen Peterson.

Following from de Lestrade's Oscar-winning Murder on a Sunday Morning, filming began soon after Peterson's indictment. Camera crews were given access to the accused's extended family, the defense attorneys, and the courtroom.

An abbreviated version was broadcast as a special two-hour presentation of American news show Primetime Thursday on July 22, 2004. The miniseries was completed in September 2004, and premiered in October on Canal+, from January 10–14, 2005, on BBC Four (as part of its Storyville documentary series), and from April 4–25 on Sundance Channel.

Lestrade returned to film Peterson and his family in 2012–2013, covering developments in the case that were released as a two-hour sequel. Three new episodes with further updates were later made for Netflix, and in 2018, the streaming channel added all 13 episodes to its catalog, making it available as one series.

## Synopsis

In December 2001, war novelist Michael Peterson called emergency services to report that his wife Kathleen had fallen down a set of stairs in their Forest Hills mansion and died. The authorities disbelieved Peterson's story that Kathleen had fallen while drunk and concluded instead that he had bludgeoned her to death, most likely with a fireplace tool called a blow poke (a gift from Kathleen's sister, which appeared to be missing from the house). Peterson was soon charged with murder. The documentary series detailed the ensuing case from the point of view of Peterson and his legal-defense team, led by attorney David Rudolf.

During the trial, it was revealed that while the Petersons were living in Germany, his dear friend (his best friend's widow and the mother of his future adopted daughters) had died ostensibly from an intra-cerebral haemorrhage, followed by the body falling down stairs after collapsing, which resulted in head injuries similar to those sustained by Peterson's second wife. An investigation by German police and U.S. military authorities concluded that the death was accidental (a subsequent exhumation and autopsy disputed the claim of accidental death). The prosecution introduced this death into the trial as an incident that may have given Peterson the idea of how to fake the true cause of Kathleen's death. During the trial, Peterson's two adopted daughters supported their father's version of the death, while Kathleen's daughter from a first marriage, as well as Kathleen's two sisters, soon grew suspicious, and split from the family.

The prosecution argued that Kathleen discovered Michael's bisexuality and pursuit of sexual liaisons with men, leading to an argument that ended in Michael bludgeoning his wife to death.

Peterson claimed that his wife knew intuitively about his sexuality, frequently teased him indirectly about it, understood that was part of who he was, and would have been fine with his arranging to have sex with anonymous men. He claimed to have been outside, by the pool, when Kathleen fell down the stairs and injured herself. A defense team re-creation claimed that Peterson could not hear his wife's cries for help from such a distance.

The jury ultimately convicted Peterson, and he was sentenced to life in prison. However, the verdict was later overturned in 2011, when the judge ruled that one of the prosecution's main witnesses lied under oath. In 2017, while awaiting his new trial, Michael Peterson entered an Alford plea, in which he accepted a charge of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to time served, allowing him to end his time in prison and walk away a free man.

## Reception

Reviews of The Staircase are generally positive. It won a Peabody Award in 2005. It also won an IDA award for the Limited Series category in 2005.

## Additional Episodes

In April 2012, it was announced that Lestrade was working on a two-hour follow-up film to The Staircase for French broadcaster Canal+, after Michael Peterson was released from jail, pending a retrial. The sequel, subtitled "Last Chance," premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in November 2012. It aired on Canal+ on January 30, 2013, and on BBC Four's Storyville on February 4. Sundance Channel aired a shorter alternative cut, presenting "Last Chance" as two new episodes of the original miniseries, airing March 4 and March 11, 2013.

On November 23, 2015, Lestrade announced a second follow-up film at the IDFA Forum. Originally announced as Staircase III, the film documents the story of Peterson's final trial, set for early 2016. The film was commissioned by Canal+. Last Chance producer Matthieu Belghiti of What's Up Films was also attached. It was later picked up by Netflix to be released as three new episodes of the miniseries, together with the previous 10 episodes, on June 8, 2018. The first of the new episodes premiered on April 28, 2018, at the Tribeca Film Festival.

All 13 episodes of the series were released on Netflix on June 8, 2018.

## Legacy

The first season of the 2017 sitcom Trial & Error parodies this documentary and the details of the case.

A dramatic limited series adaptation of the docuseries, co-produced by Annapurna Television and HBO Max, was announced in March 2021. Titled The Staircase, it premiered on May 5, 2022. It stars Colin Firth as Michael Peterson; Toni Collette as Kathleen Peterson, Michael's wife; Sophie Turner as Margaret Ratliff, one of the Petersons' adopted daughters; Odessa Young as Martha Ratliff, the Petersons' other adopted daughter; Dane DeHaan as Clayton Peterson, Michael's eldest son from his first marriage; Patrick Schwarzenegger as Todd Peterson, Michael's youngest son from his first marriage; Rosemarie DeWitt as Candace Hunt Zamperini, Kathleen's sister; Michael Stuhlbarg as David Rudolf, Michael's lawyer; and Parker Posey as Durham county prosecutor Freda Black. Juliette Binoche as Sophie Brunet, the editor of the original documentary. Antonio Campos is credited as series creator and serves as co- showrunner with Maggie Cohn.


Bob Dylan Center

# Bob Dylan Center

## Abstract

The Bob Dylan Center is a museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, dedicated to the life and works of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.

The museum opened to the public on May 10, 2022.

In 2016, Dylan sold his archive to the Tulsa-based George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa. The foundation also operates the nearby Woody Guthrie Center, also located within the Tulsa Arts District.