Hollywood
LA Femme International Film Festival extends entry dates
NEW DELHI : The LA Femme International Film Festival, a premier festival that focuses on platforming women filmmakers “by women, for everyone”, has extended the last date for receiving entries to 16 August and may also accept exceptional films till 23 August.
The Festival was started in 2005 when it became apparent that there was a need to enhance women behind the camera as directors, producers and writers. This year, it will be held from 16 to 19 October in Los Angeles.
LA Femme International Film Festival is more than a festival. It is an emergence of artistic, professional women who can make a difference in the entertainment community by creating productions that speak to a worldwide audience. It is the only festival of its kind to not only give a platform for existing films and artists but will also assist in distribution and mentoring of such films and their artists.
The organisers ensure that filmmakers get seen and are pro active in helping them achieve their dreams.
Sections include features made in the United States or internationally which are directed, produced or written by a woman of any ethnicity.
Documentaries, competition films can be international or domestic in origin and they must be directed, produced or written by a woman.
The screenplays section is a separate category in addition with the other Feature Film categories. This can be a screenplay, stage play or teleplay.
The shorts category is for a woman who has directed, produced or written a short film. There is a commercials/music videos category, a category of mid-length films of forty to sixty minutes, mobisodes, websisodes, games, animation shorts, and special documentary of focus.
The special documentary of focus (feature or short) category is for those films that have a specific subject of: animal rights / activism/ awareness (dog, cat, wild animals), nature, green plant, ocean. All others should submit to the regular documentary categories.
Hollywood
Remembering Chuck Norris: the man, the myth, the legend at 86
From martial arts legend to internet folklore, fans honour his final level up
KAUAI: The world lost a legend on 19 March 2026, when Chuck Norris died aged 86. For a man long treated as immortal in internet folklore, the news felt almost unreal. Yet in true Norris fashion, the farewell has been less about mourning and more about myth-making.
Just days before his passing, on his 86th birthday, Norris shared a video from Kauaʻi, Hawaii, showing him sparring under the sun. His caption was characteristically wry: “I don’t age. I level up.” It now reads like a final wink to fans who had spent years elevating him to near-superhuman status.
His death followed a sudden medical emergency while on holiday. He passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, who described him not just as a global symbol of strength, but as a devoted husband, father and grandfather.
Online, grief quickly gave way to tribute in the language Norris helped popularise. Social media filled with one last wave of “Chuck Norris Facts”, the tongue-in-cheek myths that turned him into a digital demigod. The jokes wrote themselves, as always. Death did not take Norris, it finally dared to meet him.
Behind the humour, however, lies a formidable real-world legacy.
Long before the memes, Norris was Carlos Ray Norris, a decorated martial artist. After serving in the US Air Force, he rose to become a six-time world professional middleweight karate champion. His on-screen duel with Bruce Lee in Way of the Dragon remains one of cinema’s most iconic fight sequences.
Through the 1980s, he became the face of action cinema with films such as Missing in Action and The Delta Force, embodying a stoic, no-nonsense hero. In the 1990s, he reached living rooms worldwide as Cordell Walker in Walker, Texas Ranger, blending Western grit with martial arts flair.
Off-screen, his work carried equal weight. His foundation, Kickstart Kids, continues to teach martial arts to at-risk youth, focusing on discipline and self-worth. He also founded Chun Kuk Do, a martial arts system that trained thousands.
What made Norris unique was not just his strength, but his willingness to laugh at it. When the internet transformed him into an exaggerated symbol of invincibility, he embraced the joke. In doing so, he bridged generations, from cinema-goers to meme-makers.
His passing marks more than the loss of an action star. It signals the fading of a rare cultural crossover, where genuine athletic prowess met Hollywood heroism and early internet humour.
For many, remembering Chuck Norris means recalling a time when heroes were simple, punches were decisive and the internet still felt like a playground of shared jokes.
And if the myths are to be believed, this is not quite the end. It is simply Chuck Norris moving on to his next level.
