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Director: Oscar-nominated 'Past Lives' Was Inspired by Immigrant Experience

Cast members Greta Lee, John Magaro and Teo Yoo attend a photo call to promote the movie 'Past Lives' at the 73rd Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, February 19, 2023. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo
Cast members Greta Lee, John Magaro and Teo Yoo attend a photo call to promote the movie 'Past Lives' at the 73rd Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, February 19, 2023. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo
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Director: Oscar-nominated 'Past Lives' Was Inspired by Immigrant Experience

Cast members Greta Lee, John Magaro and Teo Yoo attend a photo call to promote the movie 'Past Lives' at the 73rd Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, February 19, 2023. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo
Cast members Greta Lee, John Magaro and Teo Yoo attend a photo call to promote the movie 'Past Lives' at the 73rd Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, February 19, 2023. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo

Korean-Canadian director Celine Song said her life as an immigrant inspired the Oscar-nominated film "Past Lives", speaking ahead of its release in South Korean cinemas on Wednesday.
Specifically, she drew on a conversation between her friend vising from South Korea and her husband at a bar in New York, Song told a press conference in the capital, Seoul.
"As a bilingual, I was translating between the two who couldn't communicate and it made me realize I was translating some parts of my identity and history," she added.
"That made me want to make this film."
The film, which centers on two old friends, Nora and Hae Sung, who reunite in New York decades after having parted ways as children in South Korea, has drawn critical acclaim since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last year.
It won a Best Picture nomination for this year's Academy Awards, competing against the likes of "Oppenheimer" and "Anatomy Of A Fall" as well as for Best Original Screenplay.
The film also won the award for best feature at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards.
Song was born and brought up in South Korea before moving to Canada at the age of 12, similar to the main character Nora.
It was a personal choice to make her first feature film autobiographical, she added.
"As one human being, I think it should be something that you deeply believe only you can do or you must do in order to make or write something worthwhile to watch," Song said.

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Long-awaited Ubisoft 'Star Wars' Game Hits Shelves

"Outlaws' is Ubisoft's first foray into the Star Wars universe. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File
"Outlaws' is Ubisoft's first foray into the Star Wars universe. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File
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Long-awaited Ubisoft 'Star Wars' Game Hits Shelves

"Outlaws' is Ubisoft's first foray into the Star Wars universe. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File
"Outlaws' is Ubisoft's first foray into the Star Wars universe. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File

After more than four years in the making, French video game designer Ubisoft on Friday released its much-anticipated "Star Wars Outlaws", an immersive spinoff from the famed saga.
The group's first foray into the universe created by George Lucas, "Outlaws" is an open-world adventure featuring Kay Vess, a young outlaw who travels the galaxy far away to pull off the heist of the century.
"This project is a childhood dream for many of us," the studio's creative director Julian Gerighty told AFP.
The game crafted by Sweden-based Massive Entertainment allows players to explore cities and space stations in a fictional planet truthful to the sci-fi epic.
While "Outlaws" is not the first Star Wars-themed game, Gerighty says his teams managed to design dense cities and ultra-realistic vessels thanks to the advent of state-of-the-art, powerful consoles.
"We created new planets, new moons, and characters that enter this universe," said Gerighty.
"Outlaws" is the product of a partnership struck with the company LucasFilms, the video game branch of the Disney-owned franchise.
Its creators were granted access to the entertainment giant's "exclusive library with all the details and design documents" of Star Wars -- the key to rendering an authentic atmosphere.
An odyssey without Jedis
Fans however should not expect Jedis -- members of the saga's mystical knightly order. Rather, "Outlaws" brings the galaxy's underworld into the spotlight.
The world features iconic characters and legendary locations, with planet Tatooine, where original hero Luke Skywalker was born, as its setting.
The "incredibly ambitious" project inserts itself between the events of the "Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi", said Gerighty.
Some of the adventure's protagonists could appear in other productions, he added, as Disney in recent years has scaled up spinoffs from the franchise.
"Outlaws" will be the first Star Wars game to be developed by a publisher other than Electronic Arts (EA), since an exclusivity contract between the brand and the US firm ended in 2021.
Some gamers who were granted early access reported a few bugs, which the creators have pledged to fix.
'A plethora of adaptations'
EA since 2013 has rolled out a number of titles, from shooting multiplayer "Star Wars Battlefront" to laser sabre combat "Jedi: Fallen Order" and "Jedi Survivor".
"These games have been key successes," said Mat Piscatella, an analyst for the industry-tracking firm Circana, who says Disney terminated its deal with EA to "maximize" revenue from the franchise.
The latest Star Wars video games have all ranked among the top 10 best-sellers in the US, according to Piscatella's figures -- the likely trajectory for "Outlaws".
"There has been a plethora of adaptations" since the late 1970s, said Thibaut Claudel, the author of "Star Wars - Disney and the legacy of George Lucas".
"As an entrepreneur and an artist, George Lucas has always been interested in gaming," which explains the "insane range" of games in the early 2000s, when the second trilogy came out, said Claudel.
"It's a lot of pressure on the creators," he added, pointing out that fans with high standards dissect every fresh release.
Once the "Outlaws" frenzy dies down, connoisseurs will shift their attention to "Star Wars Eclipse", a space epic by French studios Quantic Dream, who have yet to announce a release date.