Some of Hollywood’s biggest names will be given accolades at the upcoming Monaco Streaming Film Festival’s Gala Awards ceremony, the only festival that is solely focused on video-on-demand content.
The 2nd Monaco Streaming Film Festival, running from 31st May to 2nd June at the Grimaldi Forum, is presenting a grand finale with the Streaming Awards Gala on Friday 3rd June at Le Meridien Beach Plaza Hotel.
The gala will feature some of Tinseltown’s biggest names, including Avatar writer and director James Cameron, who will be receiving the Reg Grundy Innovation Award, Bond-series producer Barbara Broccoli, celebrities Jeff Fahey, Victoria Smurfit, Mark Wahlberg, and Patricia Arquette, to name but a few.
As reported on by Monaco Life in April, the event, created by Tony Davis, is a powerful forum for the streaming content community, giving players a chance to network, communicate more easily and learn about the latest opportunities in this not-so-niche part of the entertainment industry.
Additionally, there will be free premieres and screenings to highlight some of the newest offerings in the streaming content world. Upward of a hundred films will be presented over the three-day period, made up of 20 feature length offerings and 80 shorts. There are also three black tie premiere evenings, which require advance tickets and include a cocktail event preceding the screening.
The festival itself will have a series of summits, conferences, keynotes and panel discussions with people in the know in video-on-demand (VOD) production and distribution, including talks on the future of Ad-based VOD (AVOD), Subscription VOD (SVOD) and Transactional VOD (TVOD) models.
The yearly urban painting event once known as UPAW is back in Monaco with a new name and a clear mission to support the Prince Albert Foundation and promote street art around the world.
Held from 17th to 20th June, the 6th annual Urban Painting Around the World (UPAW) is back, but with a new name that better encompasses the spirit of the event.
Now called UPAINT, the event is bringing together 14 of the world’s best street artists to create beautiful pieces infused with an air of “coolness”.
The concept was originally the brainchild of Alberto Coleman, who in 2013 saw a live art performance by legendary urban artist Mr One Teas and his partners Los Gringos. This spurred the idea of putting together a multi-day live art show to relay to the world the what street art has evolved into, as well as giving art collectors and enthusiasts a chance to own a piece of this cutting edge type of art.
The event has gone from being entirely artist-focused to becoming more participatory.
“We can tell that it is YOU who brings life to the event. It is about You, the performer, the audience, the collector… this strong connection between painting and you, each one of you – whether the artist, the art lover or a mere spectator – we wanted this “U” and “Paint” to become our message, our name, our identity… U PAINT!” say the organisers on their website. “The UPAW team designed UPAINT to become the new face of each future Festival, to visually symbolise our mission of bringing people together around this incredible form of art and supporting just causes, all around the world. Anywhere we go, the circle will start from YOU, and it will end with PAINT, coming from the most amazing urban painters.”
The tagline supports this enthusiastic message. U Come, U See, U Paint gives an all-inclusive vibe and even will be hosting interactive activities such as the Junior Challenge, which will showcase local secondary school kids’ creativity, an expo of works from previous festivals, and a wall that will let members of the public express their inner street artist.
The last day of the event at 6:30pm will feature an auction by Artcurial where fans can purchase their favourite pieces, in-person and, new this year, remotely by using the online auction space invaluable.com.
This edition will support the Prince Albert II Foundation’s Human-Wildlife Initiative, protecting wildlife in rural and mountainous areas in the South of France.
The UPAINT Monaco 2022 Crew of Artists are Alice Pasquini, Aura Aerosole & OLDHAUS, Bond Truluv, Bordalo II, Buff Monster, Curtis Hylton, Dan Kitchener, Dario Vella, Futura, Mr One Teas, Pez, Spok Brillor, The London Police, and Tim Marsh.
Photo source: Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation
Monégasque manufacturer ROKiT Venturi Racing bounced back from a difficult weekend on home soil to take consecutive podiums over two races in the German capital.
Key to their revival was Edoardo Mortara. The Swiss driver scored podiums in both races, including a victory from pole position on Saturday. Having expertly controlled the first-part of the race, Mortara was made to race in the second to ensure the lights-to-flag victory.
After taking his second boost, he fell behind Jean-Eric Vergne and Monaco winner Stoffel Vandoorne. Mortara made easy work of Vergne, before getting the job done on Vandoorne a couple of laps later to retake the lead.
Vergne, however, had a fan boost, and used it to good effect. The former F1 driver took a podium in Monaco a fortnight ago, but was looking for more in Germany. He launched an audacious move on Vandoorne and then on the leader Mortara. Although he made his first move stick, Vergne went too deep on the second and Mortara switched back on him to take the chequered flag. Vergne and Vandoorne rounded off the podium.
Lucas Di Grassi, meanwhile, had a difficult qualifying and then didn’t finish in the race, but the Brazilian’s fortunes turned-around on Sunday. He was still out-performed by team-mate Edoardo Mortara, who secured second-place having qualified on pole.
Nyck de Vries, who made a first corner lunge to jump from third to first, controlled the race from start to finish to secure his second win of the season. Di Grassi was pipped to the final podium position by Vandoorne late-on as the Belgian snuck down the inside of Di Grassi, despite the Venturi driver’s best attempts to shut the door.
It was a hugely successful weekend for the Monégasque team, who move up to second in the Formula E Championship. Mortara is also back in the hunt for the Drivers’ Championship, but still has work to do to catch Vandoorne, who has a 12-point lead.
“This weekend has been phenomenal and I’m extremely proud of the entire team for what we’ve been able to achieve,” Team principal Jérôme D’Ambrosio said. “62 points from two races is an incredible achievement and, in a championship as close and competitive as Formula E, is one that doesn’t happen very often at all.”
Formula E next heads to Jakarta at the start of June, and at the halfway mark Venturi are well and truly in contention for both the constructors and drivers’ championships.
RAMOGE, the international cooperation agreement between Monaco, France and Italy, is hosting its biennial photo competition and this year it has a category for the “New Generation” and photos taken on mobile phones.
The international photo competition is now open to budding photographers with a love of the sea via the RAMOGE- L’Homme et la Mer (Man and the Sea) event as part of their awareness-raising programme.
From now until 30th September, photographers are invited to submit snaps showing the relationship between human activities and the Mediterranean in three categories for adults and one for young people under 21.
The three adult categories are Man and the Sea, RAMOGE Zone, dedicated to photos taken solely in the region between La Spezia and Marseille, and free style. The under-21s are free to submit any relevant photo under the theme Man and the Sea, the view of the New Generation, which allows for submissions taken on mobile phones, tablets or other digital devices.
The contest is free and open to anyone, and each photographer can present up to four images.
This year’s jury is made up of a distinguished list including Ricardo Busi, President of the International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP), Greg Lecoeur, “Nature Photographer of the Year” for National Geographic in 2016, and Sergio Pitamitz, “Environmental Photojournalist of the Year” for NPPA in 2016.
For each category, the winner will be awarded an FIAP medal, a €200 cash prize with an additional €100 cash prize going to the winner of the RAMOGE Zone theme. Second place winners will receive an FIAP medal and €150. Those in third will get an FIAP medal and €100.
Tucked away at the edge of Monaco, with nothing but the sound of lapping waves and the warmth of soul-enriching sunshine, Melanie Serre is busy adapting her recipes to the organic ingredients that she is now committed to using at Elsa.
“It is something that we have to do for our future, but it is a real challenge, the taste of everything is so different. I have had to adjust all the recipes I wrote in Paris,” the chef reveals to Monaco Life. “It is also very difficult to find all-organic produce, so I have had to make my own products like spices, etc. I never imagined that I would be doing this one day, but I am glad that I did.”
Melanie Serre is clearly not one to shy away from challenges. She trained in prestigious establishments like Eden Roc in St. Barts and the Hôtel Métropole Monte-Carlo under Christophe Cussac, and landed her first job as chef at L’atelier de Joël Robuchon Etoile in Paris, a restaurant with two Michelin stars, where she rose to executive chef within a year. In 2020, she spread her wings, joined the Parisian restaurant Louis Vins and won the Gault & Millau Young Talent prize.
The 36-year-old says she is now happy to be back in Monaco, where she can walk among the private fruit and vegetable gardens of the Monte-Carlo Beach, tasting the raw produce and be inspired by the possibilities. “In Paris, it is much more difficult to cook organically, so this is a real opportunity for me,” she says, adding that she loves to talk to local producers, “to learn about their approach, and what made them go organic.”
Melanie Serre defines her food as a mixture of “deliciousness and elegance”.
“I season a lot, so the dishes have character,” she says. “I have a big character, and I like food with character. That’s why I love pepper, chilli and spice.”
Carrots with cumin, carrot top pesto, fresh orange and ginger juice
Seated on the tranquil beachside terrace, surrounded by a bird-filled pine forest, we are presented with a three-course lunch menu, an official welcome to Chef Melanie Serre. It begins with an amuse-bouche of creamy courgette foam and dried fruits. It is a surprisingly flavourful start to a menu that travels from a bowl of sweet and salty carrots, exhilarated with pops of cumin, carrot top pesto, ginger and orange; to a classic Mediterranean dish of freshly-caught red mullet, potato gnocchi, and black garlic; and finishes with a refreshing plate of vervain-soaked red fruits, black pepper-speckled meringue, and strawberry sorbet.
Every dish is laden with the character that Chef Serre had promised, which is not an easy task in an eco-friendly restaurant like Elsa. There is often the risk that, when creating colourful wellness cuisine, flavour can be compromised. But there is no doubt here of the chef’s emphasis on seasoning.
Red mullet with potato gnocchi, peppered arugula, and black garlic
I’m excited to try the other dishes on the menu, perhaps the creamy burrata from Puglia with crunchy peas and almond milk, the blue lobster bisque spiced with citrus zest, or the beef tenderloin marinated in sweet spices served with beet curry.
It is understandable why Danièle Garcelon, Monte-Carlo Beach General Director, is so excited to have Serre at the helm of the Elsa kitchen.
“I am happy to have a young woman amongst the stars like Alain Ducasse, Yannick Alléno and Marcel Ravin,” says Danièle Garcelon. “I like her savoir faire and her experience, and I am sure she will meet our client’s high expectations.”
Monte-Carlo Beach has kicked off the season in style
It is an exciting time for the Monte-Carlo Beach. Just last week, they hosted the Chanel runway and Cruise Collection launch. It was “an exceptional start to the season”, says Garcelon. “We are very proud to have Chanel choose us, it was an unexpected opportunity to show who we are, how we work, and to showcase the best profile of Monte-Carlo Beach.”
Monte-Carlo Beach was also recently awarded the first ‘Hotel & Lodge Green’ special prize, a new award recognising it’s zero-plastic and waste recycling policy and its energy and water management.
This year, it welcomes the first ecological, ethical, organic and made in France luxury skincare brand Paoma, an approach that is “completely consistent with that of Monte-Carlo Beach, where taking care of yourself and the environment is a natural part of everyday life,” says Danièle Garcelon.
And Monte-Carlo Beach has just launched its first 100% electric shuttle service between hotels.
Meanwhile, coinciding with the season-opening of Elsa and its new chef, the Monte-Carlo private beach itself is now open to the public.
It all just makes for a very planet-friendly day; a place to enrich the body, mind and soul, and smile gratefully throughout all of it.
Top photo of Melanie Serre by Monaco Life. All other photos by Monte-Carlo SBM
CSM researchers publish game-changing study on cancer and stem cells
A team at the Scientific Centre of Monaco is behind exciting new research that shows brain cancer stem cells can be reprogrammed to better respond to treatment. It could transform therapies for not only children suffering from the disease, but also a range of cancers in adults.
The Paediatric Oncology and Neurogenesis team at the Scientific Centre of Monaco, led by Dr Vincent Picco, has been studying cellular reprogramming to counter medulloblastomas, or brain tumours, in children.
The work by Dr Doria Filipponi has just been published in the scientific journal Cancers, and could pave the way for the development of a new strategy to thwart the role of cancer stem cells (CSCs) involved in the development of brain cancer, their ability to resist treatment by chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and their involvement in the risk of recurrence and metastatic development.
According to the research, CSCs show all the characteristics of embryonic nerve stem cells that support brain development. Their capacity for self-renewal and resistance to therapies are central in the phenomena of relapses, which are fatal in almost all cases. The objective, therefore, is to reprogram these tumour cells to make them more vulnerable to treatment and thus reduce the risk of recurrence of the disease.
“The principle of cellular reprogramming is a very innovative therapeutic approach, so far never implemented in the treatment of paediatric brain cancers,” explains Dr Doria Filipponi. “It consists of characterising the CSCs from the analysis of very fine genetics to differentiate them from embryonic nerve stem cells and then targeting them with specific, appropriate actions.”
Medulloblastomas are rapidly growing brain tumours that mainly effect children aged five to nine. They are responsible for around 20% of paediatric brain and spinal cord cancers. While the treatment is often effective – the average five-year survival rate is 80% – it also has significant, permanent consequences on the health of the child.
That’s why the CSM team is looking to find ways of developing new targeted therapeutic pathways.
This new principle treatment that they propose opens up prospects not only in the fight against medulloblastomas and paediatric brain cancers, but also for possible applications to other types of cancer in both children and adults.
For Dr. Vincent Picco, “…this innovation in diagnosis and treatment opens up very new prospects for treatment by combining genomic analysis and identification of tumour cell informatics and biological research. This procedure can be applied to other forms of cancer. For paediatric brain cancers, validation through preclinical analysis of our results will make it possible to delimit the conditions under which this approach could be implemented in the management strategy for these cancers.”
Dr. Doria Filipponi was the winner of the 2021 Best Researcher Award given by The International Research Awards on Oncology and Cancer Research, an award that honours and encourages researchers and their research organisations for their significant contributions to the advancement of research in their area of expertise. In recent years, the work of Dr. Doria Filipponi led to a paradigm shift in the field of resistance therapy and tumour relapse, and made it possible to offer totally innovative therapies in patient care.
Dr. Filipponi’s study received financial support from the Flavien Foundation, which supports several research programs on paediatric cancers at the Scientific Centre of Monaco, for more than six years.
