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    ‘Women of the White Buffalo’ Review: Speaking Out on the Reservation

    This documentary sheds light on the destitute conditions in two South Dakota reservations through the stories of the communities’ women.The documentary “Women of the White Buffalo” explores the myriad challenges experienced by Indigenous people on reservations, as well as the historical roots of these social maladies. The story is told through Lakota women living on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian reservations in South Dakota, where rampant alcoholism, drug addiction, poverty and violence threaten the Lakotas’ way of life and future generations.The director Deborah Anderson features first-person interviews with nine women (and one man), ranging in age from 10 to 98, who are trying to heal generations of trauma in their communities. And though the film lacks a clear narrative arc, put together, these stories draw a line between the historical genocide and displacement suffered by Indigenous people and the present destitution on reservations.Vandee Khalsa-Swiftbird is a survivor of sex trafficking who now works on behalf of other victims and fosters a young girl whose troubled mother could no longer care for her. Julie Richards founded the nonprofit Mothers Against Meth Alliance after her own daughter became addicted to methamphetamine. And SunRose IronShell is a high school teacher who helps her students process their traumas through art.Children are featured prominently throughout the film, whether riding horses or dancing in traditional garb. This choice helps plant the documentary firmly in the present, illuminating the past but not dwelling on it. Indeed, the Lakota women appear more interested in solutions and in instilling in Native children a sense of self-worth and self-determination. The way forward, they seem to agree, is to return to their spiritual roots. Delacina Chief Eagle, a young woman who became addicted to meth after her brother died, said of her recovery: “I found myself, through my culture, through my family, through the children.”Women of the White BuffaloNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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    ‘Sabaya’ Review: Light Breaking Through Darkness

    This intrepid, immersive documentary follows the men and women who rescue Yazidi girls kidnapped and held by Islamic State fighters in a Syrian refugee camp.In the black of night in northeastern Syria, two men drive their rickety jeep deep into Al Hol, a refugee camp for families of fighters for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. The men rifle through tents and argue with hostile residents before finding their target: a Yazidi teenage girl kidnapped years ago and held as a “sabaya” or sex slave. As the rescuers make their way out of the camp with her, they dodge speeding cars and bullets.All of this happens in the first 20-or-so minutes of Hogir Hirori’s “Sabaya.” Mahmud and Ziyad, volunteers at the Yazidi Home Center in Syria, will make several more such trips over the course of the film, and hundreds more after the cameras stop rolling. Their task is enormous, and it demands a stoicism that Hirori’s intrepid, immersive filmmaking mirrors.Shooting with a hand-held camera, Hirori (who also edited the film) stitches together glimpses of the men’s daily lives at the Center — smoke breaks, meals with family, endless phone calls with relatives of the captured girls — into a portrait of unsentimental routine. This is in part a protective tactic: To dwell on the tragedy of the 7-year-old rescued after six years in captivity, or the girl whose family refuses to accept her son because his father is an ISIS fighter, is to open up to debilitating horror.Which makes the courage of the former sabayas who embed themselves in the camp as informers all the more remarkable. As I watched them enter the camp in niqabs, Hirori following closely with his camera, my heart fluttered with both fear and hope. In a film about the light that breaks through the darkest of darknesses, these women shine the brightest.SabayaNot rated. In Kurdish and Arabic, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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    Parents Who Never Stopped Searching Reunite With Son Abducted 24 Years Ago

    Guo Gangtang’s cross-country, decades-long search for his son inspired a movie. Now, there’s an ending fit for Hollywood.For nearly 24 years, the father crossed China by motorbike. With banners displaying photos of a 2-year-old boy flying from the back of his bike, he traveled more than 300,000 miles, all in pursuit of one goal: finding his kidnapped son.This week, Guo Gangtang’s search finally ended. He and his wife were reunited with their son, now 26, after the police matched their DNA, according to China’s public security ministry.In a scene captured by Chinese state television, the trio clung to each other tearfully at a news conference on Sunday in Liaocheng, Mr. Guo’s hometown in northern Shandong Province.“My darling, my darling, my darling,” Mr. Guo’s wife, Zhang Wenge, sobbed as she embraced the young man. “We found you, my son, my son.”“He’s been delivered into your hands, so you need to love him well,” Mr. Guo said, trying to comfort her even as his own voice shook.The apparent happy ending captivated China, where Mr. Guo has become something of a folk hero. His cross-country odyssey, during which he said he was thrown from his bike at least once and slept outdoors when he could not afford a hotel, inspired the 2015 film “Lost and Love,” starring the renowned Hong Kong actor Andy Lau.After the reunion, Chinese social media filled with congratulatory messages. Hashtags about the Guo family were viewed hundreds of millions of times. “Today, ‘Lost and Love’ finally has a real happy ending,” the movie’s director, Peng Sanyuan, said in a video on Douyin, a social media app.Child abduction is a longstanding problem in China. There are no official statistics on the number of children kidnapped each year, but officials at the Ministry of Public Security said this month that they had located 2,609 missing or abductedchildren so far this year. Various reports estimate the number of children abducted annually in China may be as high as 70,000.Historically, child abduction was linked, at least in part, to China’s one-child policy. At the height of the policy’s enforcement in the 1980s and 1990s, some couples resorted to buying young boys on the black market to ensure they would have a son, according to research by scholars at Xiamen University in Fujian Province. Chinese society has traditionally favored sons.Andy Lau and Jing Boran in the 2015 film “Lost and Love,” which is based on Mr. Guo’s story. “Today, ‘Lost and Love’ finally has a real happy ending,” said the movie’s director, Peng Sanyuan.China LionAs the central government began easing enforcement of the policy in the early 2000s — before ending it in 2015 — reported abductions fell sharply. Technological advances such as a nationwide DNA database of missing children, stiffer criminal penalties and greater public awareness of child trafficking have also helped curb the problem, said Zhang Zhiwei, executive director of an anti-trafficking center at the China University of Political Science and Law.Still, the threat of abduction continues to weigh on many Chinese. On Monday, several police departments in the eastern city of Hangzhou issued statements denying viral rumors about attempted kidnappings.Mr. Guo’s son, named Guo Xinzhen at birth, disappeared on Sept. 21, 1997. He had been playing at the door of his home while his mother cooked inside, according to interviews the elder Mr. Guo has given over the years.A frantic Mr. Guo and his wife, along with family, neighbors and friends, fanned out across the region to search for the boy. But after several months, the effort waned. That was when Mr. Guo attached large banners printed with his son’s photo to the back of a motorcycle and set out to find the boy on his own.“Son, where are you?” the banners said, alongside an image of the boy in a puffy orange jacket. “Dad is looking for you to come home.”Over the years, Mr. Guo wore out 10 motorcycles, traveling from Hainan in the south to Henan in the north, chasing down any tidbits of information, he has said. Once, on a rainy day, a rock slipped off a truck bed in front of him, sending his motorcycle toppling. He had so many near-miss traffic incidents that he lost count. But he always set out again.“If I’m at home, the human trafficker is not going to deliver him back to me,” he said in a 2015 interview with state television.In 2012, Mr. Guo founded an organization to help other parents find their missing children, and he said he has helped dozens of other families find their loved ones, even as his own search remained unsuccessful. His story rose to national prominence with the 2015 film. Earlier this year he also began promoting anti-trafficking awareness on the social media app Douyin, where he had gained tens of thousands of followers even before his son was found.The actor Andy Lau promoting the film “Lost and Love” in 2015. Mr. Guo’s search rose to national prominence when the movie came out.Visual China Group, via Getty ImagesThe latest development in Mr. Guo’s story also seemed like something straight out of a screenwriter’s imagination.In June, law enforcement officials in Shandong received notice of a potential match for Mr. Guo’s son in Henan Province, according to the public security ministry. It was not immediately clear how officials had identified him, though they said they had used “the newest comparison and search methods.” Further blood work confirmed that the 26-year-old man, who some local news reports said was working as a teacher, was Mr. Guo’s son.The authorities later said that they had arrested a woman surnamed Tang and a man surnamed Hu. According to the state news media, Ms. Tang snatched the boy and delivered him to Mr. Hu, who then sold him. CCTV, the state broadcaster, said the two had confessed.Ahead of the reunion, a dazed Mr. Guo and his wife bought more than 1,000 pounds of candy to distribute to neighbors in celebration. Mr. Guo also cleaned out his home, tossing out old belongings to commemorate a new beginning.In an interview ahead of the reunion with Chen Luyu, a talk-show host, the parents veered between jubilation and paralysis. Sitting at their dining table, Ms. Zhang, Mr. Guo’s wife, broke down several times, wondering if their son would blame her for not watching him closely enough.Mr. Guo said he bore no resentment toward the couple that had raised his son. How his son would treat that couple going forward was up to him, he said.“If the child wants to be filial to his adopted parents, then you just need to openly and sincerely accept that,” he said.State media reports said that the younger Mr. Guo had said he would continue living with the couple that had raised him, who he said had treated him well. But he said he would visit his birth parents often.The elder Mr. Guo told Ms. Chen, the television host, that he was content with whatever the future brought.“Our child has been found,” he said. “From now on, only happiness is left.” More

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    Marilyn Manson Accused of Sexual Assault in Suit Filed by Esmé Bianco

    The lawsuit also accuses Manson’s former manager, Tony Ciulla, of violating trafficking laws.Esmé Bianco, an actress known for her work on “Game of Thrones,” filed a lawsuit Friday in which she accused the singer Marilyn Manson of sexual assault and sexual battery and described a series of violent incidents when they lived together in 2011.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, said that Marilyn Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, had used “fraudulent offers of movie and music video roles to convince Ms. Bianco to travel to Los Angeles, whereupon Mr. Warner then made threats of force and performed violent sexual acts on Ms. Bianco to which she did not consent.”The suit also named Mr. Manson’s longtime manager, Tony Ciulla, and his management company, accusing Mr. Manson and Mr. Ciulla of violating trafficking laws.Ms. Bianco flew to Los Angeles in 2009 for a video shoot that, the lawsuit said, turned into a multiday assault during which she was whipped and suffered electric shocks. The footage was never released, the suit said. She and Mr. Manson later began a consensual relationship, it said, and in 2011 he convinced Ms. Bianco, who is British, to live with him in Los Angeles “while he helped her secure a visa and launch her career in the United States.” During that time, the lawsuit said, she endured “constant abuse” at his hands, and he raped her.A lawyer for Mr. Manson, Howard King, called the claims against him “provably false” and said they were “based on conduct that simply never occurred.” In a statement, he accused Ms. Bianco and her lawyer of a shakedown attempt. “We will vigorously contest these allegations in court and are confident that we will prevail,” he said in the statement.The lawsuit comes almost three months after Mr. Manson was accused by another ex, the actress Evan Rachel Wood, of domestic abuse, rape and assault.After Ms. Wood, the Emmy-nominated star of “Westworld,” detailed her experiences on Instagram, and more people came forward with similar accusations against Mr. Manson — including Ms. Bianco — he was dropped by his record label and agents, cut from various TV guest roles and eventually jettisoned by Mr. Ciulla, who had represented him for 25 years.Mr. Ciulla is also known for representing acts including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and First Aid Kit. In a statement, Edwin F. McPherson, a lawyer for Ciulla Management, said that naming the company in the lawsuit “is not only legally meritless but also offensive and absurd. We look forward to formally contesting these completely frivolous allegations.”The actress Esmé Bianco said in a lawsuit that she was sexually assaulted by Marilyn Manson after he lured her to live with him with “fraudulent offers of movie and music video roles.”Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse, via Getty ImagesIn February, when Ms. Wood, a longtime advocate for survivors of sexual and domestic abuse, named Mr. Manson as her abuser, he denied her claims broadly in an Instagram post: “Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” he wrote. “My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”The Special Victims Bureau of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office began investigating the domestic violence allegations against Mr. Manson in February, it said in a statement.Ms. Bianco, who played Ros on “Game of Thrones,” was promised a starring role in a film Mr. Manson said he was making when she moved from London to Los Angeles in 2011 to be with him, the suit said. Instead, the suit said, he began to control her movements, kept her awake for days at a time, forbade her from receiving visitors at his home and threatened to interfere with her visa process. She eventually escaped, the suit said, while he was sleeping.Mr. Ciulla and others around Mr. Manson knew of or witnessed his abuse of Ms. Bianco, according to the lawsuit, which called them “complicit” in the conduct: “Mr. Warner’s management had a vested interest in supporting his violent tendencies to encourage the creation of his ‘art’ and the promotion of the brand of Marilyn Manson.”Ms. Bianco said the relationship left her with post-traumatic stress disorder and panic attacks, and disrupted her career. Like Ms. Wood, she has become an advocate for survivors. Both women helped sponsor the Phoenix Act, California legislation which took effect last year. It lengthens the statute of limitations for domestic abuse felonies to five years, and expands training for officers working on domestic violence cases.In a statement, Ms. Bianco said that, even as she worked to amend the legal system on behalf of survivors, “I am also pursuing my right to demand my abuser be held to account, using every avenue available to me.”“For far too long my abuser has been left unchecked, enabled by money, fame and an industry that turned a blind eye,” Ms. Bianco said in the statement. Her hope, she added, is that by coming forward, “I will help to stop Brian Warner from shattering any more lives and empower other victims to seek their own small measure of justice.” More