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MELBOURNE, Australia — A woman has sustained severe injuries to an arm when she was attacked by a lion at an Australian zoo.

The Darling Downs Zoo in Queensland state said the 50-year-old woman was watching animal keepers working in the zoo’s carnivore precinct before opening hours Sunday morning when she was attacked.

She was flown by helicopter from the rural town of Pilton to the state capital Brisbane where she underwent surgery. Her condition was stable, the zoo said in a statement Sunday. Several news media reported the woman lost the injured arm.

The zoo said staff were working with government workplace safety investigators to determine how the incident happened. The state government confirmed an investigation was underway.

“Inexplicably, at this stage, one animal grabbed her by one arm and caused severe damage to it,” the zoo statement said.

“At no stage did this animal leave its enclosure and there was no risk at all to staff members or members of the public.”

The woman was not a staff member but a “much loved member” of the zoo’s “family,” the statement added.

She had watched keepers at work many times over the past 20 years and was “well versed in safety protocols around potentially dangerous animals,” the zoo said.

Staff at the 48-hectare (119-acre) zoo declined media interviews on Monday. The zoo planned to reopen Tuesday for the first time since the attack.

“The animal will definitely not be put down or punished in any way,” the statement said.

Five years ago, two lions mauled and critically injured a keeper inside their enclosure at the Shoalhaven Zoo in the state of New South Wales.

The Czech Republic has the third-largest Vietnamese diaspora in Europe, only behind Germany and France. In fact, the Vietnamese make up the third-largest ethnic minority in the country after Slovaks and Ukrainians. Now, this community is buzzing about its chance to be represented and make its presence felt on the silver screen. After all, Tuesday, July 8, marks the world premiere of Dužan Duong’s Summer School, 2001 in the Special Screenings program of the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF).

Or as KVIFF put it: “The long-awaited first Czech-Viet feature is finally here! This authentic portrayal of a community that has become an organic part of modern Czech history is brought to us courtesy of Dužan Duong, a standout, exceptionally talented representative of the first Vietnamese generation to grow up in the Czech Republic.”

Here is a synopsis of the movie: “The third millennium has hardly begun, and 17-year-old Kien with his crazy red hair returns to his family and their market stall in Cheb after 10 years spent in Vietnam. However, instead of the warm welcome he had anticipated, he finds an estranged father, a careworn mother, and a younger brother who doesn’t cut him any slack.”

Prague-based Duong, 34, wrote the screenplay for his feature directorial debut with Jan Smutný and Lukáš Kokeš. Duong and Kokeš are the producers of the movie. Its cast includes Đoàn Hoàng Anh, Lê Quỳnh Lan, Tô Tiến Tài, Bùi Thế Duong, Ngô Xuân Thắng, and Nguyễn Dũng.

“Told with lightness and wit, this story about cross-generational conflict and much else besides is an affectionate and bold milestone in the debate on cultural identity,” the KVIFF website touts.

Ahead of the world premiere of Summer School, 2001, Duong talked to THR about the inspiration for the film, showcasing the Vietnamese experience in the Czech Republic to a wider audience, pulling double duty in Karlovy Vary by also pitching an anime series idea, and what else he wants to do next.

Can you maybe share your family’s story and how your parents came to the Czech Republic?

My parents met in Germany during the Cold War. They were sent from Vietnam to Germany to work. They met in a factory. And they conceived me there. When that era ended, they had to go back to Vietnam. So I was born in Vietnam. After three, four years, we went from Vietnam to the Czech Republic. And this is the story of most of the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic. We have similar paths.

In Summer School, 2001, a young man returns to his family in the Czech Republic after years back in Vietnam. Can you talk about the role identity plays in the film?

When I was just a small kid, my parents had to go to this marketplace to earn money, because they had some debts in Vietnam. Because we went from Vietnam to the Czech Republic, they had to loan some money. So I had to grow up with a Czech nanny and Czech granddad, actually, and they were my substitute parents for a very long time. My parents had to work a lot during my childhood. So I was growing up with this old Czech couple. They made me the Czech person I am.

They taught me the culture and everything. That’s the reason I feel somehow split in my personality – being Czech or Vietnamese. It’s very hard to be Vietnamese when you don’t get to meet your parents in everyday situations and spend most of your time with Czech people. So that’s the first step in my story about this broken relationship with one’s parents.

The members of the family in the film seem to experience this mix of emotions, including duty, respect, and love. Talk a bit about the many layers of these relationships in the film and how you approached them.

To be honest, it’s just my family and many other Vietnamese families packed into one film. We like to call it “auto-fiction,” because it all comes from the real world of the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic. So most of it is based on reality. But we added some drama for the film.

Can I ask how difficult it was to finance the film?

It actually wasn’t that hard, because we have a production company, and we specialize in shorts and commercials. So we had a base of people and didn’t need that much of money. We could rely on a lot of people with good intentions and good hearts who wanted to make this, I would say, milestone in Czech cinema. This kind of Vietnamese film from the Czech Republic has never been done before. So we were very lucky to be at the beginning of what will hopefully be this new wave.

What feedback have you received from the Vietnamese community in the country before people have even seen the film? What do they think of the idea that there will be a feature about their experience?

Oh, they love it. I really feel such huge support from the community. It’s not usual for a debut film to be hyped this much. The power of community! The film hasn’t premiered yet, so I’m quite nervous about it. I don’t want to make anybody unhappy when they finish watching the film. The stakes are high for us.

Will your family see the movie?

Yeah, most of my family will see it for the first time, wow. And I’m really looking forward to seeing their faces. In our family, and in general in Vietnamese families, communication is not the biggest thing. Our Vietnamese parents don’t know the Czech language that well. So this film is a way for me to tell them everything I’ve been through in my whole life. And I noticed during the shoot that many aspects of the film happen to be universal, because many young people from the cast were going through similar problems.

Dužan Duong, Courtesy of KVIFF

How long did you work on the movie?

It was really encouraging for me to finish the film after eight years. We were in the writing room for quite a while – five, six years. And once we got the first funding, I didn’t want to wait for anything. I went all in and persuaded the other producers that we needed to make it now, because I found a good cast, and its members were growing up. So if we had been waiting for another year, I would have had to find other actors.

Who are the people in the cast? Are they professional actors, and how did you find them?

The young boy in the family is from my neighborhood. I’ve known him since he was little. His family runs the grocery store right down from my apartment. He was always this communicative young boy who wanted to have fun. He reminded me of me a little bit, so I thought I’m going to cast him. I just went by heart. I didn’t want to have many options. Once I felt he was the right person, I went for him.

Most of the actors are first-time actors. I like to work this way. I’m always looking for someone who is authentic and who doesn’t need to “act.” He just needs to be reminded of his own traumas or his story. And he just needs to act it out in front of the camera.

Was there any particularly big challenge in making this movie?

To be honest, the biggest challenge was in the editing room. We made quite a big chunk of it happen in the editing room. Because non-professional actors don’t care if they look good on camera, we had some unique takes and had to find and put together the right material. We’ve been in the editing room for almost 13 months. It was quite painful, but I wouldn’t change that.

The three men in the family each get a chapter in the film. The mother doesn’t have her own chapter, but she is still always there. Can you explain that decision and the role of the mother?

For me, it’s a story about how to be a man, looking for manhood. And these guys are wild. Every one of them is wild. The only person who is somehow calm is the mother. She is the calm force trying to make sense of the mess that is happening. So she’s very important to the story. I wanted to keep this masculine point of view, but I used the female energy to make sense of it.

Tell me about your production company and the other key production firm on the film…

AZN kru is my production company. I run it with my wife. So, it’s a little family business. We’ve been doing commercials and everything, and now we are transitioning to features and fiction, and we want to make a splash in the Czech Republic. The other company is my friend’s and is called nutprodukce. They’re well established in the Czech Republic, so we can use their credit to get funding. All the creativity came from our side, including the Vietnamese aspect. And they provided the perfect dramaturgy and the know-how to fund a low-budget film. We brought the know-how of Vietnamese people, how to save money, and still have the production value.

Where did you shoot?

My biggest dream was to shoot it in Cheb, the town where I grew up, near the border with Germany. But our budget didn’t allow that. So we had to fake everything in Prague. When you see Netflix and Amazon shooting these big TV shows in Prague, they can fake it. So we can fake it as well. We just faked the small town and shot 23 days in Prague and Slovakia and five days in Vietnam.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention about Summer School, 2001?

In the film, Kien is sent back to Vietnam by his parents and then is reunited with them after 10 years. I would highlight that this is a very common thing in Vietnamese immigrant culture. That’s the way parents have the time and their hands free to work.

During the shooting process, I realized that this idea of sending kids away was weird for Czech people. But for the Vietnamese people, it’s a common thing. It also happened to me when I was young, like 5 or 6 years old. But I was lucky that my Czech nanny somehow persuaded my father to bring me back after a couple of months.

You are not only premiering your first feature at the festival, but also pitching Lost Boys, an anime series that you are working on, again via AZN and nutprodukce. You are pitching that in the KVIFF Talents program. Congratulations on having the energy to present two projects in Karlovy Vary! And what can you share about Lost Boys and its inspiration?

The work ethic, I think, I inherited from my parents, because I don’t like to just stand still and do nothing. This is my next project. I have a little sister who is 18 years younger. She’s Gen Z, and I would say I’m a millennial. And I noticed that these kids are so reliant on technology and social media, and it’s consuming them. I think it’s the biggest problem for this generation, being stuck in technology. They don’t know what the offline world is. They only know the online.

Lost Boys is the story of a girl who’s trying to find her escape or exit from this matrix. She finds a group of boys who get into fights. They like to feel the realness of the fights. And she wants to join them, but they don’t accept her, because she’s a girl. “We accept only boys, because we are the Lost Boys.” And so she changes her outfit, and she becomes a boy. She becomes Kenny and wants to join the group so she can finally be happy and feel something. I would say it’s like Fight Club for Gen Z.

Lauryn Hill played to a largely empty stadium on Friday night as part of the 2025 Essence Festival of Culture, after taking the stage hours after scheduled.

While Hill has a bit of a reputation for late shows, this time it appeared out of her hands as Essence’s first day as a whole started late on Friday. Hill had been added to the lineup days prior — with the rest of Friday’s lineup including GloRilla, the Isley Brothers, Babyface and Maxwell. Coco Jones, who also stars on the Peacock show Bel-Air, was an unannounced performer. Singer Lucky Daye and Kandi Burruss’ girl group, Psiryn, were also early performers.

GloRilla ended her set when The Isley Brothers had been scheduled to end theirs, forcing the group to start at Babyface’s original time. After the Isleys’ hour, Babyface didn’t start until after midnight, with the the 19-time Grammy winner digging into his substantial songwriting catalogue delivering renditions of hits that included Bobby Brown (“Don’t Be Cruel,” “Every Little Step I Take”), Boys II Men (“I’ll Make Love to You,” “End of the Road”), TLC (“Baby-Baby-Baby,” “Red Light Special”), The Whispers (“Rock Steady”) and Toni Braxton (“Another Sad Love Song,” “Love Shoulda Brought You Home” from the film Boomerang).

Maxwell began performing mere minutes before 1 a.m. After delivering several of his hits from his debut album, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, the “Fortunate” singer cut his set short. Not long after Maxwell’s exit, Kenny Burns, an Essence Festival emcee, announced that Hill was in the building. As multiple workers took the stage to change the setup for the beloved star’s performance, time kept ticking away. Even as the stage appeared equipped for a performance, the delay continued. Technical difficulties were only announced about five to 10 minutes before Hill was announced to be finally coming to the stage.

“Family is family and around here we protect our own no matter what the PEOPLE have to say,” Essence Festival wrote in a statement on Instagram Sunday. “She arrived on schedule,” the fest continued, taking responsibility for the delay and defending Hill. “Let’s be very clear— WE don’t play about Ms. Lauryn Hill. She stepped on that stage, and delivered the kind of performance only a legend can. The delay? Not hers. We will take that. The moment? One for the books. The legacy? Still unmatched.”

While some fans were giving her grief online over the late start, several others came to her defense.

Or, let’s post what actually happened.

It’s very easy to get Lauryn Hill trending with false narratives.

Let’s provide the facts. The entire festival was pushed back.

This was literally not her fault.

Me on the other hand, I would have gone home. Contract or not. Bye. https://t.co/F5JUeXUbQv

— ERIC LAMONT (@EricUnedited) July 5, 2025

Fans who stuck around for Hill’s performance got a treat. A robust band of more than 10 members played as Black history montages filled the background screens. Hill emerged in a blue polka dot full-length dress wearing a gele atop her head and a low-hanging statement necklace showcasing what appeared to be fertility figurines.

While Hill rarely performs songs as arranged on her critically acclaimed The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the sped-up versions she typically opts for live landed exceptionally well. Her rendition of “Ex-Factor” packed an emotional punch. So did “To Zion.”

Hill’s voice was fierce and clear as she subtly recounted the pressures she faced within the music industry not to carry her first child. “Essence Festival — 27, 28 years ago, I sang that song about this young man right here. I need you to make some noise for Zion Marley. Come on!” she commanded.

After Zion performed a couple of songs, Hill resumed in extremely personable fashion. She later brought out another of her sons, YG Marley, and demanded the audience give him a proper greeting. He rewarded them with a robust but brief performance of reggae songs like his hit “Marching to Freedom,” reminiscent in tone of those of his iconic grandfather Bob Marley. Hill returned after his performance with even more force, delivering an impassioned rendition of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” in tribute to Roberta Flack, as photographs of the iconic singer who died in February flashed behind her.

Asking for permission to do one more song, Hill issued a request to the crowd, declaring that “I need y’all to get low, come on,” before asking for the Fugees fans in the venue and performing their hit “Fu-Gee-La,” amazingly high-spirited as she rhymed furiously and only making the song truly recognizable with the “Fu-la-la” chorus.

“Thank you. Good night y’all. God bless you,” Hill said as she ended the show in the early morning. It was arguably one of her best performances in recent memory, and she delivered it as if the house was packed, even as only the very faithful few remained.

Pick of the week
Mistresses

Jameela Jamil and Dr Kate Lister host this podcast dedicated to the untold tales behind “history’s so-called sidechicks”, with interludes from TikTok’s History Gossip, AKA Katie Kennedy. If you prefer a more strait-laced approach then this isn’t the show for you: it’s a tongue-in-cheek riot, kicking off with Louis XIV’s paramour Madame de Montespan, and her fall from grace via a poisoning scandal. Hannah J Davies
Audible, all episodes out now

Trapped History

“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them,” said James Baldwin. This podcast aims to tease out those often unspoken histories, and is now on its fifth series. It begins with a frank conversation with broadcaster Nihal Arthanayake on the work of human rights campaigner Helen Bamber. HJD
Widely available, episodes weekly

Shadow World: The Grave Robbers

In this troubling series, journalist Sue Mitchell – who has previously investigated power of attorney arrangements for the Shadow World series – meets families who have had their inheritances pilfered by gangs using fake wills. Stealing from strangers’ estates is, it seems, the tip of the iceberg for the criminals running such scams. HJD
BBC Sounds, first episode out now, then weekly from Wednesday 9 July

The Making of a Fugitive

It isn’t heartstoppingly tense true crime, but if you’re interested in the psychology of why criminals do the things they do, then BBC Radio Wales’s podcast will likely appeal (Richard Harrington narrates). Why go on the run? And how bad is it, really? As one former conman attests, “the truth is – it was really awesome”. HJD
BBC Sounds, episodes weekly

State of Terror

Twenty years ago this week, fear and panic rippled across London, and the UK at large, following four suicide bombings in the capital. This new series sees the BBC’s Dominic Casciani consider how 7/7 changed the face of counterterrorism – and how it must change once again to keep up with developing threats. HJD
Monday 7 July, 11am, Radio 4