title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: The most influential evangelical of the Second Great Awakening was Charles Grandison Finney. He is best known for preaching from 1825 to 1835 in Upstate New York, which experienced a population boom after the Erie Canal opened in 1825. Though ordained by the Presbyterian Church, Finney deviated from traditional Calvinism. Finney taught that neither revivals nor conversion occurred without human effort. While divine grace is necessary to persuade people of the truth of Christianity, God does not force salvation upon people. Unlike Jonathan Edwards, who described revival as a "surprising work of God", Finney taught that "revival is not a miracle" but "the result of the right use of the appropriate means." Finney emphasized several methods to promote revival that became known as the "new measures" (even though they were not new but had already been in use among the Methodists): mass advertising, protracted revival meetings, allowing women to speak and testify in revival meetings, and the mourner's bench where potential converts sat to pray for conversion. Finney was also active in social reforms, particularly the abolitionist movement. He frequently denounced slavery from the pulpit, called it a "great national sin," and refused Holy Communion to slaveholders.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Evangelical views on eschatology (the doctrine of the end times) have also changed over time. The Puritans were premillennialists, which means they believed Christ would return before the Millennium (a thousand years of godly rule on earth). But the First Great Awakening convinced many evangelicals that the millennial kingdom was already being established before Christ returned, a belief known as postmillennialism. During the Second Great Awakening, postmillennialism (with its expectation that society would become progressively more Christianized) became the dominant view, since it complemented the Arminian emphasis on self-determination and the Enlightenment's positive view of human potential.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: This "postmillennial optimism" inspired a number of social reform movements among northern evangelicals, including temperance (as teetotalism became "a badge of honor" for evangelicals), abolitionism, prison reform, and educational reform. They launched a campaign to end dueling. They built asylums for the physically disabled and mentally ill, schools for the deaf, and hospitals for treating tuberculosis. They formed organizations to provide food, clothing, money, and job placement to immigrants and the poor. In order to "impress the new nation with an indelibly Protestant character," evangelicals founded Sunday schools, colleges, and seminaries. They published millions of books, tracts, and Christian periodicals through organizations such as the American Tract Society and the American Bible Society. This network of social reform organizations is referred to as the Benevolent Empire.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Postmillennialism also led to an increase in missionary work. Many of the major missionary societies in the U.S. were founded around this time (see Timeline of Christian missions). Missionary efforts by northern evangelicals included the influential American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), founded in 1810, which sent missionaries overseas, placed missionaries with American Indian tribes in the Southeastern United States, and had established missions among the Cherokee, for example, by 1820. The ABCFM fought against U.S. Indian removal policies in general, and against the Indian Removal Act of 1830 in particular. In 1836 the ABCFM sent Marcus and Narcissa Whitman west to preach to the Cayuse people in Oregon Country.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: The spread of "dispensationalism" in late 19th-century America led many Evangelicals to return to the more pessimistic premillennialist point of view, however.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: John Nelson Darby was an austere 19th-century Anglo-Irish Bible teacher and former Anglican clergyman who devised and promoted dispensationalism, a new and controversial method of interpretating the Bible that was incorporated into the development of modern Evangelicalism, and which does not reconcile easily with findings from recent mainstream archaeological and textual research.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: According to Mark Sweetnam, dispensationalists are evangelical, premillennialist and apocalyptic, insist on a literal interpretation of Scripture, identify distinct stages ("dispensations") in God's dealings with humanity, and expect Christ's imminent return to rapture His saints. As B. M. Pietsch notes, their leaders have built intricate new methods of text analysis to "unlock" the Bible's meaning.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: First taught in the 1830s by Darby and the Plymouth Brethren in England, dispensationalism was introduced to American evangelical leaders during Darby's missionary journeys to the U.S. and Canada in the 1860s and 1870s. The Niagara Bible Conference was organized in 1876 to teach dispensationalist ideas; these ideas came to dominate the fundamentalist movement within a few decades.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Dwight L. Moody played a key role in this transformation. In the latter half of the 19th century, Moody became the most important evangelical figure of the era, weaving ideas from business and religion into a compelling new form of evangelical Protestantism and reaching very large audiences with his powerful preaching.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Focused on the city of Chicago and active in the Sunday School movement and Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) from 1858 in his early ministry, Moody had relentlessly sought financial contributions from rich evangelical businessmen such as John Farwell and Cyrus McCormick. Moody's approach was rough, blunt and unconventional, but wealthy philanthropists could see he truly cared for the urban poor and he found effective ways to improve their lot. During an 1867 visit to England, Moody became acquainted with a group of pragmatic Bretheren dispensationalists who shared many of his own concerns and approaches to charitable work.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: After the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 destroyed his church, his home and the Chicago YMCA, Moody left local church work for a new career as a traveling revivalist. Convinced now that the world would be changed not by social work, but by Christ's return and the establishment of His millennial kingdom on Earth, Moody abandoned his own previous postmillennialist views. His revivals accelerated the spread of dispensationalist beliefs, and he was influential in preaching the imminence of the Kingdom of God that was so important to dispensationalism.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Enlisting philanthropic support from the business community was one of several enduring innovations Dwight Moody introduced into the conduct of revival campaigns. Like many clergymen in the Gilded Age (1870–1900) that followed soon after the Civil War, Moody supported the business community's values. He helped forge the union between the evangelical mind and the business mind that came to be a hallmark of later popular revivalists. Moody's religious individualism fit neatly with the rugged individualism of Gilded Age businessmen. Moody radiated optimism when he spoke about how Christian conversion would impact a poor man's life. He believed Christian conversion would make lazy, poor men into energetic men who would then work hard and prosper. At his revival meetings Moody would look around at the wealthy men who sat on the platform with him, such as William E. Dodge, Cyrus McCormick, and John Wanamaker, comment that they were all devout church members, all 'born again' Christians, and say that few of the poor in the slums of Chicago, London, or New York attended church services. Moody also viewed industrialism and its ills through the same lens of Christian conversion. As he saw it, the fix was simple and obvious: believe in God, and the problems will vanish soon.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: American evangelical minister and Moody associate Cyrus Scofield also promoted the spread of dispensationalism, starting with a pamphlet published in 1888, then by weaving extensive interpretive commentary into prominent notes on the pages of his ambitious Scofield Reference Bible. First published in 1909, the Scofield Bible became a popular one-volume reference used widely by independent Evangelicals in the United States. It did much to popularize dispensationalism early in the 20th century, as Evangelicals sought to make sense of calamities like World War I, the 1918 influenza pandemic, the 1929 stock market crash, the Great Depression and Dust Bowl in the 1930s, and World War II. By 1945, more than 2 million copies had been published in the United States.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Evangelicals also launched a network of independent Bible institutes, which soon became the nucleus for the spread of American dispensationalism. Notable examples include the Moody Bible Institute (1886) and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (1908). By the early 1930s there were as many as fifty such Bible institutes serving fundamentalist constituencies.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: In the late 19th century, the revivalist Holiness movement promoted the doctrine of entire sanctification, and while many adherents remained within mainline Methodism, new denominations, such as the Free Methodist Church and Wesleyan Methodist Church, were formed by those associated with it. In urban Britain the Holiness message was less censorious, and did not face as much opposition.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: From the 1850s to the 1920s, a more advanced theological perspective came from the Princeton Theologians, such as Charles Hodge, Archibald Alexander, and B. B. Warfield, who strove to defend traditional doctrines they found in the Bible against rival claims from other learned scholars, including claims based on higher criticism.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: By the 1890s, most American Protestants belonged to evangelical denominations, except for high church Episcopalians and German Lutherans. In the early 20th century, a divide opened up between fundamentalists and the mainline Protestant denominations, chiefly over inerrancy of the Bible. After 1910, evangelicalism was dominated by fundamentalists, who rejected liberal theology, emphasized inerrancy of Scripture, and taught a dispensationalist interpretation of the Bible to support their views of human history and mankind's future.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Pastors, theologians, and ordinary Protestants all shaped the course of early fundamentalism, but wealthy businessmen also played a crucial role. For example, Union Oil co-founder Lyman Stewart was instrumental in establishing the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. He also anonymously funded publication and distribution of "The Fundamentals" (groups of essays by multiple authors published quarterly in twelve volumes from 1910 through 1915), which became the foundation document of Christian fundamentalism, published as a set in 1917, and he ensured that its many individual authors promoted premillennialist dispensationalism. The essays were written by sixty-four different authors, representing most of the major Protestant Christian denominations. It was mailed free of charge to ministers, missionaries, professors of theology, YMCA and YWCA secretaries, Sunday school superintendents, and other Protestant religious workers in the United States and other English-speaking countries. Over three million volumes (250,000 sets) were sent out.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Dispensationalism led fundamentalist evangelicals to see the world as a battleground in a deadly conflict between God and the Devil that would sweep all unbelievers to perdition very soon, so that they must focus on saving souls, with reform of society as a strictly secondary concern. Adoption of this "lifeboat" theology also made the fundamentalists' message more welcome among American groups and communities who opposed reform of their own cherished institutions (such as violent enforcement of racial segregation by local authorities and by self-appointed vigilante groups) and business practices (ruthless exploitation of industrial workers, redlining, and the Jim Crow economy).


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Dispensationalism also led fundamentalists to fear that new trends in modern science were pulling people away from what they saw as essential truth, and to believe that modernist parties in Protestant churches had surrendered their Evangelical heritage by accommodating secular views and values.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Among these fundamentalist evangelicals, a favored way of resisting modernism was to prohibit teaching evolution as fact in public schools, a movement that reached a peak in the Scopes Trial of 1925. The sting of this public embarrassment led fundamentalists to retreat further into separatism. Protestant modernists criticized fundamentalists for their separatist self-isolation, and for their rejection of the Social Gospel that had been developed by Protestant activists in the previous century. By this time, modernists had largely abandoned the term "evangelical," and tolerated evolutionary theories in modern science and even in Biblical studies.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: In the 1930s, fundamentalist pastors and parishioners who rejected modernist viewpoints put forward by their own denominations turned more and more to the dispensationalist Bible institutes for guidance and community. As the largest of these schools, the Moody Bible Institute set the pace, providing a wide variety of fundamentalist outreach services, from guest speakers and extension courses to Bible conferences, magazines and radio programs.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: During and after World War II, white evangelicals formed new organizations and expanded their vision to include the entire world. There was a great expansion of Evangelical activity within the United States, "a revival of revivalism." The new doctrine of dispensationalism, with its intense focus on End Times and the Rapture, continued to be a major theme. Many earlier evangelists had preached in tents to small-town audiences on the "sawdust trail," but the new evangelicals sought ways to save souls in the big cities that had come to dominate American life. Youth for Christ was formed in 1940 to help make the evangelical message attractive to soldiers, sailors, and urban teenagers; it later became the base for Billy Graham's post-war revival crusades. The National Association of Evangelicals was formed in 1942 as a response to the mainline Federal Council of Churches, which had been organized in 1908. Charles Fuller had started broadcasting the "Old-Fashioned Revival Hour" in 1937; by 1943 it had a record-setting national radio audience, with twenty million weekly listeners.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: But a split also developed among evangelicals in this era, as they disagreed among themselves about how a Christian ought to respond to an unbelieving world. Many evangelicals urged that Christians must engage contemporary culture directly and constructively, and they began to express reservations about being known to the world as fundamentalists. As Kenneth Kantzer put it at the time, the name "fundamentalist" had become "an embarrassment instead of a badge of honor".


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Fuller Theological Seminary founding president Harold Ockenga coined the term "neo-evangelicalism" in 1947 to identify a distinct movement he saw within fundamentalist Christianity. This new generation of evangelicals sought to pursue a more open, non-judgmental dialogue with other traditions. They also called for greater application of the gospel to sociology, politics, and economics. Many fundamentalists responded by separating their opponents from the "fundamentalist" name, and by seeking to distinguish themselves from the more open group, which they often characterized derogatorily by Ockenga's term "neo-Evangelical", or simply "evangelicals".


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: The end of World War II in 1945 and the onset of the Cold War by 1948 provided new opportunities for evangelical expansion. The Second World War ended in August 1945 after the U.S. used two nuclear bombs to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even nonreligious people groped for religious language to express those bombs' nearly unimaginable destructive power. And the end of the war affected almost everyone in America: millions of men returned from the armed forces, while millions of women left their temporary wartime industrial jobs. The marriage rate and the birth rate soared, accelerating a baby boom that had begun while the war was still being fought. As young American families crowded into new churches, their ministers, priests, and rabbis led them in fervent prayers for a world in upheaval.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: No one in the U.S. voiced fears for the world's future with more fervor than evangelical and fundamentalist preachers. A key element in their preaching had always been that the Second Coming of Christ could happen at any moment, and that everyone must be ready for the end of the world.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: In September 1949, 30-year-old evangelist Billy Graham set up circus tents in a Los Angeles parking lot for a series of revival meetings. A tall, handsome, spellbinding preacher from North Carolina with a piercing gaze, Graham aimed to fill his listeners first with dread that they were lost sinners in a world rushing headlong into disaster, then with a deep longing to turn their lives around, trust Jesus, and be saved. The crusade started on September 25, 1949, and it was scheduled to last three weeks, from September 25 to October 17.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Two days before the start of the revival, in a statement released on September 23, 1949, President Truman revealed to the public that the Soviet Union had built and successfully detonated its own nuclear bomb on August 29th. Six days after the revival started, mainland China fell to Mao Zedong's communist Red Army. Newspaper headlines that reported these shocking Cold War events put much of the nation into an anxious, apocalyptic mood.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Then in October, media tycoon William Randolph Hearst sent a telegram to all editors in his conservative Hearst chain of newspapers: "Puff Graham." As a result, within five days Graham gained national coverage. Planned to last three weeks, the event ran for eight weeks. Graham became a national figure, with heavy coverage from the wire services and national magazines, and he went on to become the most influential American evangelist of the twentieth century.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Evangelicals' international missionary activity also expanded in the postwar era. White evangelicals found new enthusiasm and self-confidence after the nation's victory in the world war. Many came from poor rural districts that had struggled during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but wartime and postwar prosperity had dramatically increased the funding resources available for missionary work. Overseas missionaries began to prepare for their postwar role, in organizations such as the Far Eastern Gospel Crusade. After Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had been defeated, the newly mobilized evangelicals now prepared to combat perceived threats from atheistic communism, secularism, Darwinism, liberalism, Catholicism, and (in overseas missions) paganism.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: While mainline Protestant denominations cut back on their missionary activities, from 7,000 overseas workers in 1935 to only 3,000 in 1980, evangelicals tripled their career foreign missionary force in the same period: from 12,000 in 1935 to 35,000 in 1980. At Youth for Christ's 70,000-person rally on Memorial Day 1945 in Chicago's Soldier Field football stadium (seating capacity 74,000), soldiers and nurses marched along with missionary representatives who paraded in costumes representing all the nations still awaiting the dispensationalist gospel. North Americans had sent out only 41% of all the world's Protestant missionaries in 1936, but their contribution rose to 52% in 1952 and 72% in 1969.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Denominations expanding their overseas missionary efforts after the war included the United Pentecostal Church International, formed in 1945, and the Assemblies of God, which nearly tripled from 230 missionaries in 1935 to 626 in 1952. Southern Baptist missionaries more than doubled from 405 to 855, as did those sent by the Church of the Nazarene, from 88 to 200.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: The post-war period also saw growth of the ecumenical movement and the founding of the World Council of Churches (1948), which was generally regarded with suspicion by the evangelical community. During the 1950s, the number of church members in America grew from 64.5 million to 114.5 million. By 1960, more than 60 percent of the nation belonged to a church.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Following the Welsh Methodist revival, the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 began the spread of Pentecostalism in North America. The Charismatic Movement began in the 1960s and led to Pentecostal theology and practice being introduced into many mainline denominations. New charismatic groups, such as Newfrontiers and the Association of Vineyard Churches, trace their roots to this period. (See also the British New Church Movement.)


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: A 2018 report of polls conducted from 2003 to 2017 of 174,485 random-sample telephone interviews by ABC News and "The Washington Post" show significant shifts in U.S. religious identification in those 15 years, including a decline in the share of Americans who identify as Protestants (both evangelical and non-evangelical) and a rise in the share of Americans who say they have no religion.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: According to reports in the "New York Times", some evangelicals have sought to expand their movement's social agenda to include reducing poverty, combating AIDS in the Third World, and protecting the environment: "a push to better this world as well as save eternal souls." This has been highly contentious within the evangelical community, because evangelicals of a more conservative stance believe this trend compromises important issues, and values popularity and consensus too highly: "a 'capitulation' to the broader culture."


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Personifying this division in the early 21st century were the evangelical leaders James Dobson and Rick Warren. Dobson warned of dangers, from his point of view, of a victory by Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008. Warren declined to endorse either major candidate, on the grounds that he wanted the church to be less politically divisive and that he agreed substantially with both Obama and Republican Party candidate John McCain.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Anywhere from 6 percent to 35 percent of the United States population is evangelical, depending on how "evangelical" is defined. A 2008 study reported that in the year 2000 about 9 percent of Americans attended an evangelical service on any given Sunday. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey of religious life in the United States identified the evangelical percentage of the population at 25.4 percent, while Roman Catholics were 20.8 percent and mainline Protestants were 14.7 percent. But in 2020, mainline Protestants were reported to outnumber predominantly-white Evangelical churches.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: In 2007 The Barna Group reported that 8 percent of adult Americans were born-again evangelicals, defined as those surveyed in 2006 who answered yes to these nine questions:


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: In 2012, "The Economist" estimated that "over one-third of Americans, more than 100 million, can be considered evangelical," arguing that the percentage is often undercounted because many African Americans espouse evangelical theology but refer to themselves as "born again Christians" rather than "evangelical." As of 2017, according to "The Economist", white evangelicals overall account for about 17 percent of Americans, while white evangelicals under the age of 30 represent about 8 percent of Americans in that age group.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Wheaton College's Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals estimates that about 30 to 35 percent (90 to 100 million people) of the US population is evangelical. These figures include white and black "cultural evangelicals" (Americans who do not regularly attend church but identify as evangelicals). Similarly, a 2019 Gallup survey asking respondents whether they identified as "born-again" or "evangelical" found that 37% of respondents answered in the affirmative.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Sometimes members of historically black churches are counted as evangelicals, and at other times they are not. When analyzing political trends, pollsters often distinguish between white evangelicals (who tend to vote for the Republican Party) and African American Protestants (who share religious beliefs in common with white evangelicals but tend to vote for the Democratic Party).


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Evangelical political influence in America was first evident in the 1830s with movements such as the prohibition movement, which closed saloons and taverns in state after state until it succeeded nationally in 1919.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: The Christian right is a coalition of numerous groups of traditionalist and observant church-goers of every kind: especially Catholics on issues such as birth control and abortion, Southern Baptists, Missouri Synod Lutherans, and others.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Since the early 1980s, the Christian right has been associated with several nonprofit political and issue-oriented organizations including the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, and the Family Research Council.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Most African Americans who identify as Christians belong to Baptist, Methodist or other denominations that share evangelical beliefs, but they are firmly in the Democratic coalition, and (with the possible exception of issues involving abortion and homosexuality) are generally liberal in politics.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: In the 2016 presidential election, exit polls reported that 81% of white evangelicals voted for New York billionaire Donald Trump. Notable conservative evangelicals see this as a betrayal of evangelical Christian principles, however.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Evangelical political activists are not all on the right. There is also a small group of liberal white Evangelicals.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Evangelicals are often stereotyped as Christians who reject mainstream scientific views out of concern that those views contradict traditional "young earth" chronologies and certain verses in the Bible. This is true for many Scofield-inspired dispensationalists, and for other fundamentalists who also reject evolution in favor of creation science and flood geology (both of which contradict the scientific consensus and the well-established geologic time scale). Their influence has led to high-profile court cases over whether public schools can be forced to teach either creationism or intelligent design (the claim that the complexity and diversity of life can only be explained by the direct intervention of God or some other active intelligence).


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: However, many other evangelicals have found evolution to be compatible with Christianity. For example, prominent evangelicals such as Billy Graham, B.B. Warfield, and John Stott believed the theory could be reconciled with Christian teaching. Careful study by the American Scientific Affiliation, an organization for evangelicals who are professional scientists, led it to reject "strict" creationism in favor of theistic evolution, encouraging acceptance of evolution among evangelicals. The Biologos Foundation is an evangelical organization that advocates for evolutionary creation, a belief that God as Creator brings about His plan through processes of evolution. "BioLogos" expresses the belief that God is the source of all life, and that life expresses the will of God. "BioLogos" represents the view that science and faith co-exist in harmony.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: At Wheaton College, the private Evangelical Christian liberal arts college in Illinois that hosts the Billy Graham Center, the Biology Department "introduces students to the concepts and characteristics of nature as part of God's creation. Students who major in Biology are expected to comprehend and integrate biological principles at the molecular, cellular, organismal, population, and ecosystem levels. The Department of Biology aids students in the development of both Christian and biological perspectives for their careers and practices as stewards of God’s creation." Required courses for a bachelor's degree in Biology include 'BIOL 243 (4 credits) - Processes of Life: Ecology and Evolution'.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Since 1980, a central issue motivating conservative evangelicals' political activism has been abortion. The 1973 decision in "Roe v. Wade" by the Supreme Court, which legalized abortion, proved to be decisive in bringing Catholics and evangelicals together in a political coalition, which became known as the Religious Right when it successfully mobilized its voters behind presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: In the United States, Supreme Court decisions that outlawed organized prayer in public schools and restricted church-related schools (for example, preventing them from engaging in racial discrimination while also receiving a tax exemption) also played a role in mobilizing the Religious Right.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: Survey data indicate that "between 31 and 39 percent do not favor a 'Christian Nation' amendment," but that 60 percent to 75 percent of Evangelicals consider Christianity and political liberalism to be incompatible.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: A study conducted in May of 2022 showed that the strongest support for declaring the United States a Christian Nation comes from Republicans who identify as Evangelical or born-again Christians. Of this demographic group, 78% are in favor of formally declaring the United States a Christian nation, versus only 48% of Republicans overall.


title: Evangelicalism in the United States

text: The Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI) is a campaign by US-American church leaders and organizations to promote market based mechanisms to mitigate "global warming". The Evangelical Climate Initiative was launched in February 2006 by the National Association of Evangelicals, who worked with the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School to bring scientists and evangelical Christian leaders together for the project.


title: Buzkashi

text: Buzkashi (Pashto/) is a traditional Central Asian sport in which horse-mounted players attempt to place a goat or calf carcass in a goal. It is played primarily in Afghanistan. Similar games are known as kokpar, kupkari, and ulak tartysh in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.


title: Buzkashi

text: Buzkashi began among the nomadic Asian tribes who came from farther north and east spreading westward from China and Mongolia between the 10th and 15th centuries in a centuries-long series of migrations that ended only in the 1930s. From Scythian times until recent decades, buzkashi has remained a legacy of that bygone era.


title: Buzkashi

text: During the first reign of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, buzkashi was banned as they considered the game immoral. After the Afghan Taliban was ousted in 2001, the sport resumed being played. When the Taliban regained power in 2021, they allowed the sport to continue.


title: Buzkashi

text: Games similar to buzkashi are played today by several Central Asian ethnic groups such as the Kyrgyz, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Hazaras, Tajiks, Wakhis and Pashtuns. In the West, the game is also played by Kyrgyz who migrated to Ulupamir village in the Van district of Turkey from the Pamir region. In western China, there is not only horse-back buzkashi, but also yak buzkashi among Tajiks of Xinjiang.


title: Buzkashi

text: Buzkashi is the national sport and a "passion" in Afghanistan where it is often played on Fridays and matches draw thousands of fans. Whitney Azoy notes in his book "Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan" that "leaders are men who can seize control by means foul and fair and then fight off their rivals. The Buzkashi rider does the same". Traditionally, games could last for several days, but in its more regulated tournament version, it has a limited match time.


title: Buzkashi

text: Kazakhstan's first National Kokpar Association was registered in 2000. The association has been holding annual kokpar championships among adults since 2001 and youth kokpar championships since 2005. All 14 regions of Kazakhstan have professional kokpar teams. The regions with the biggest number of professional kokpar teams are Southern Kazakhstan with 32 professional teams, Jambyl region with 27 teams and Akmola region with 18 teams. Kazakhstan's national kokpar team currently holds a title of Eurasian kokpar champions.


title: Buzkashi

text: A photograph documents "kokboru" players in Kyrgyzstan around 1870; however, Kyrgyzstan's kokboru rules were first officially defined and regulated in 1949. Starting from 1958 kokboru began being held in hippodromes. The size of a kokboru field depends on the number of participants.


title: Buzkashi

text: The buzkashi season in Tajikistan generally runs from November through April. High temperatures often prevent matches from taking place outside of this period, though isolated games might be found in some cooler mountain areas.


title: Buzkashi

text: In Tajikistan and among the Tajik people of Tashkorgan in China's Xinjiang region, buzkashi games are particularly popular in relation to weddings as the games are sponsored by the father of the bride as part of the festivities.


title: Buzkashi

text: In Pakistan Buzkashi has traditionally been very popular in the areas bordering Afghanistan. Although the sport is dying, it is still played by the Wakhi people of Hunza in Gilgit Baltistan and by the Pashtuns including Afghan Refugees in parts of Baluchistan.


title: Buzkashi

text: Buzkashi was brought to the U.S. by a descendant from the Afghan Royal Family, the family of King Amanullah and King Zahir Shah. A mounted version of the game has also been played in the United States in the 1940s. Young men in Cleveland, Ohio, played a game they called "kav kaz". The men – five to a team – played on horseback with a sheepskin-covered ball. The Greater Cleveland area had six or seven teams. The game was divided into three "chukkers", somewhat like polo. The field was about the size of a football field and had goals at each end: large wooden frameworks standing on tripods, with holes about two feet square. The players carried the ball in their hands, holding it by the long-fleeced sheepskin. A team had to pass the ball three times before throwing it into the goal. If the ball fell to the ground, the player had to reach down from his horse to pick it up. One player recalls, "Others would try to unseat the rider as he leaned over. They would grab you by the shoulder to shove you off. There weren't many rules."


title: Buzkashi

text: Mounted team-based potato races, a popular pastime in early 20th-century America, bore some resemblance to buzkashi, although on a much smaller and tamer scale.


title: Buzkashi

text: Competition is typically fierce. Prior to the establishment of official rules by the Afghan Olympic Federation, the sport was mainly conducted based upon rules such as not whipping a fellow rider intentionally or deliberately knocking him off his horse. Riders usually wear heavy clothing and head protection to protect themselves against other players' whips and boots. For example, riders in the former Soviet Union often wear salvaged Soviet tank helmets for protection. The boots usually have high heels that lock into the saddle of the horse to help the rider lean on the side of the horse while trying to pick up the goat. Games can last for several days, and the winning team receives a prize, not necessarily money, as a reward for their win. Top players, such as Aziz Ahmad, are often sponsored by wealthy Afghans.


title: Buzkashi

text: A buzkashi player is called a Chapandaz; it is mainly believed in Afghanistan that a skilful Chapandaz is usually in his forties. This is based on the fact that the nature of the game requires its player to undergo severe physical practice and observation. Similarly, horses used in buzkashi also undergo severe training and due attention. A player does not necessarily own the horse. Horses are usually owned by landlords and highly rich people wealthy enough to look after and provide training facilities for such horses. However, a master Chapandaz can choose to select any horse and the owner of the horse usually wants his horse to be ridden by a master Chapandaz as a winning horse also brings pride to the owner.


title: Buzkashi

text: The game consists of two main forms: Tudabarai and Qarajai. Tudabarai is considered to be the simpler form of the game. In this version, the goal is simply to grab the goat and move in any direction until clear of the other players. In Qarajai, players must carry the carcass around a flag or marker at one end of the field, then throw it into a scoring circle (the "Circle of Justice") at the other end. The riders will carry a whip to fend off opposing horses and riders. When the rider's hands are occupied, the whip is typically carried in the teeth.


title: Buzkashi

text: The calf in a buzkashi game is normally beheaded and disembowelled and has two limbs cut off. It is then soaked in cold water for 24 hours before play to toughen it. Occasionally sand is packed into the carcass to give it extra weight. Though a goat is used when no calf is available, a calf is less likely to disintegrate during the game. While players may not strap the calf to their bodies or saddles, it is acceptable—and common practice—to wedge the calf under one leg in order to free up the hands.


title: Buzkashi

text: It is also prohibited to ride towards the spectators or receive spectators' assistance or to start a kokboru game without giving an oath to play justly.


title: Buzkashi

text: In Tajikistan, buzkashi is played in a variety of ways. The most common iteration is a free-form game, often played in a mountain valley or other natural arena, in which each player competes individually to seize the buz and carry it to a goal. Forming unofficial teams or alliances does occur, but is discouraged in favor of individual play. Often, dozens of riders will compete against one another simultaneously, making the scrum to retrieve a fallen buz a chaotic affair. Tajik buzkashi games typically consist of many short matches, with a prize being awarded to each player who successfully scores a point.


title: Buzkashi

text: Buzkashi is portrayed in several books, both fiction and non-fiction. It is shown in Steve Berry's book "The Venetian Betrayal", and it is briefly mentioned in the Khaled Hosseini book "The Kite Runner". Buzkashi was the subject of a book called "Horsemen of Afghanistan" by French photojournalists Roland and Sabrina Michaud. Gino Strada wrote a book named after the sport (with the spelling Buskashì) in which he tells about his life as surgeon in Kabul in the days after the 9-11 strikes. P.J. O'Rourke also mentions the game in discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Foreign Policy section of "Parliament of Whores", and Rory Stewart devotes a few sentences to it in "The Places in Between".


title: Buzkashi

text: Two books have been written about buzkashi which were later turned into films. The game is the subject of a novel by French novelist Joseph Kessel titled "Les Cavaliers" (aka "Horsemen"), which then became the basis of the film "The Horsemen" (1971). The film was directed by John Frankenheimer with Omar Sharif in the lead role, and U.S. actor and accomplished horseman Jack Palance as his father, a legendary retired chapandaz. This film shows Afghanistan and its people the way they were before the wars that wracked the country, particularly their love for the sport of buzkashi.


title: Buzkashi

text: The game is also a key element in the book "Caravans" by James Michener and the film of the same name (1978) starring Anthony Quinn. A scene from the film featuring the king of Afghanistan watching a game included the real-life king at the time, Mohammed Zahir Shah. The whole sequence of the game being witnessed by the king was filmed on the Kabul Golf Course, where the national championships were played at the time the film was made.


title: Buzkashi

text: In Ken Follett's book, "Lie Down with Lions" (1986), the game is mentioned being played, but instead of a goat, a live Russian soldier is used.


title: Buzkashi

text: "" a French 1956 film by Jacques Dupont and Pierre Schoendoerfer concerns Buzkashi players. "The Horsemen" (1971) starring Jack Palance and Omar Sharif as father and son is centered on the game. Both "La Passe du Diable" and "The Horseman" are based on a novel by Joseph Kessel.


title: Buzkashi

text: In "Rambo III" (1988), directed by Peter MacDonald, John Rambo (played by Sylvester Stallone) was shown in a sequence playing and scoring in a buzkashi with his mujahideen friends when suddenly they were attacked by Soviet forces. The Tom Selleck film "High Road to China" (1983) features a spirited game of buzkashi. Buzkashi is described at length in Episode 2, "The Harvest of the Seasons", of the documentary "The Ascent of Man" by Jacob Bronowski. It is put in the context of the development, by the Mongols, of warfare using the horse and its effect on agricultural settlements. The film includes several scenes from a game in Afghanistan. The opening scenes of the Bollywood film "Khuda Gawah" (1992), which was filmed in Afghanistan and India, show actors Amitabh Bachchan and Sridevi engaged in the game. The game also showed in another Bollywood movie Kabul Express. The game is mentioned briefly in John Huston's film "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975) based on a story by Rudyard Kipling, the movie "" (2004) during advertisements for the fictional ESPN 8 (El Ocho) television channel and episode 15 of season 6 of "" (2015).


title: Buzkashi

text: The 2012 joint international-Afghan short film "Buzkashi Boys" depicts a fictional story centered on the game, and has won awards at several international film festivals.


title: Buzkashi

text: On January 10, 2013, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated "Buzkashi Boys" for an Oscar in the category of Short Film (Live Action) for the 85th Academy Awards.


title: Buzkashi

text: Venerated Buzkashi (ulak tartysh in Kyrgyz) player, 82 year old veteran school teacher Khamid Boronov stars in 2016 feature documentary film "Letters from the Pamirs" by Janyl Jusupjan. Famed Buzkashi players of Jaylgan village Shamsidin and Kazyke appear in a sequence to show the elements of Buzkashi to kids from a town. A spirited Buzkashi match is one of the last episodes of the film made in Jerge-Tal Kyrgyz region in Tajikistan's north.


title: Buzkashi

text: Buzkashi is mentioned in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty where it is translated as 'Goat Hockey' and is a clue to the location of 'Sean O'Connell'.


title: Messenger (novel)

text: Messenger is a 2004 young adult dystopian novel by American author Lois Lowry, as is the third installment of "The Giver Quartet", which began with the 1993 Newbery Medal-winning novel "The Giver". The story takes place about eight years after the events of "The Giver", and six years after the events of "Gathering Blue", the preceding novel in the series. Characters from both of the previous books reappear in "Messenger" and give the novels a stronger continuity.


title: Messenger (novel)

text: Set in an isolated community known simply as Village, the novel focuses on a boy, Matty, who serves as message-bearer through the ominous and lethal Forest that surrounds the community.


title: Messenger (novel)

text: Matty, who was introduced in "Gathering Blue" as "Matt", now lives with Seer, who was originally named Christopher and is a blind man rescued by the people of the Village years earlier.


title: Messenger (novel)

text: Outside the safe boundaries of Village is the Forest, an unwelcoming realm that most of the Villagers fear because of its powerful harm. Despite the lack of dangerous beasts, The Forest is animated.


title: Messenger (novel)

text: People who trade at a gathering, Trade Mart, change from being compassionate and generous to angry and impatient. The Villagers change temperament and decide to close their borders and stop permitting the displaced and the unwanted of other communities to enter. Seer, in the wake of the sudden change, decides to send Matty to travel through the Forest to retrieve his daughter, Kira, who lives in a town several days away.


title: Messenger (novel)

text: The gift is a special ability that Matty possesses but hardly understands. It is a power of healing that causes wholeness from the inside out. Matty puts his hands to the ground and manages to restore the integrity of The Forest and people alike at the expense of his own life from the thickening forest. The Leader (Jonas) names Matty as "the Healer."


title: Messenger (novel)

text: At the end of the novel, Matty's soul drifts deep into the earth, which saves the villagers and Forest. The chaos turns to peace, as Matty's powers become a part of the perishing earth.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: Made in Japan is a double live album by English rock band Deep Purple, recorded during their first tour of Japan in August 1972. It was originally released in December 1972, with a US release in April 1973, and became a commercial and critical success.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The band were well known for their strong stage act, and had privately recorded several shows, or broadcast them on radio, but were unenthusiastic about recording a live album until their Japanese record company decided it would be good for publicity. They insisted on supervising the live production, including using Martin Birch, who had previously collaborated with the band, as engineer, and were not particularly interested in the album's release, even after recording. The tour was successful, with strong media interest and a positive response from fans.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The album was an immediate commercial success, particularly in the US, where it was accompanied by the top five hit "Smoke on the Water", and became a steady seller throughout the 1970s. A three-CD set of most of the tour's performances was released in 1993, while a remastered edition of the album with a CD of extra tracks was released in 1998. In 2014, a deluxe edition was announced with further bonus material. The album had a strong critical reception and continues to attract praise. A "Rolling Stone" readers' poll in 2012 ranked "Made in Japan" the sixth best live album of all time.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: Deep Purple "Mk II" formed in July 1969 when founding members, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, organist Jon Lord and drummer Ian Paice recruited singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover to progress from their earlier pop and psychedelic rock sound towards hard rock. They began touring extensively, becoming a well received live band, and had recorded several shows either to broadcast on the radio or listen to privately. However, they had rejected the idea of releasing a live album commercially as they believed it would be impossible to reproduce the quality and experience of their stage act on an LP.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: Consequently, there was a demand for bootleg recordings of the band. The most notorious of these was an LP entitled "H Bomb", recorded at Aachen on 11 July 1970, which led to a subsequent court case when Virgin Records' Richard Branson was prosecuted for selling it. An article in "Melody Maker" that examined the bootleg phenomenon claimed that "H Bomb" was the best selling one at that time. This success, along with albums from other artists such as the Who's "Live at Leeds" and the Rolling Stones' "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" convinced the band that an official live album would be commercially successful. At the time, Glover told "Sounds" magazine that "there are so many bootlegs of us going around, if we put out our own live set, it should kill their market."


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: By 1972, Deep Purple had achieved considerable commercial success in Japan, including several hit singles, so it made sense to tour there. Three dates were booked; the Festival Hall, Osaka on 11 and 12 May, and the Budokan, Tokyo on 16 August, though these were later changed to 15 and 16 August, and 17 August respectively due to an earlier US tour being rescheduled. The dates sold out almost immediately, and consequently the Japanese arm of the band's label, Warner Bros. Records, wanted to record the tour for a live album to be released in the country. The band eventually agreed to the idea, but insisted if it was going to be released, they wanted it to be done properly. Gillan recalled, "we said we would have to OK the equipment, we wanted to use our own engineer and we would have the last say on whether the tapes were released". The band enlisted producer Martin Birch, who had worked on previous studio albums, to record the shows onto an 8-track recorder so they could subsequently be mixed.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The band's live setlist had been revamped at the start of the year, immediately after recording the album "Machine Head", and that album made up a substantial proportion of new material. Although the setlist remained the same for most of the year, opening with "Highway Star" and closing with "Lazy" and "Space Truckin'", the band's musical skill and structure meant there was sufficient improvisation within the songs to keep things fresh. The original intention was the stage act would be used for about a year before being dropped, but Gillan and Glover both resigned from the band in June 1973. When this line-up reformed in 1984, the 1972 setlist made up a significant amount of material performed in concert.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The band arrived in Japan on 9 August, a week before the tour started, to a strong reception, and were greeted with gifts and flowers. Birch was not confident that the recording quality would be satisfactory, since the equipment supplied by Warner Bros. did not have any balance control and that the recorder's size did not appear big enough on sight to capture a commercial quality recording. The band were uninterested in the result, concentrating on simply being able to deliver a good show. Subsequently, Lord noted that he felt this attitude meant the spontaneity of the performances and interplay between the band members was captured well.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The second gig in Osaka was considered to be the stronger of the two, and indeed this show made up the bulk of the released LP. Only one song, "Smoke on the Water" from 15 August show was used, and this may simply have been because it was the only gig that Blackmore played the song's opening riff as per the studio album.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The band considered the gig at Tokyo on 17 August to be the best of the tour. Glover remembered "twelve or thirteen thousand Japanese kids were singing along to 'Child in Time'" and considered it a career highlight, as did Gillan. At the venue, a row of bodyguards manned the front of the stage. When Blackmore smashed his guitar during the end of "Space Truckin'" and threw it into the audience, several of them clambered past fans to try and retrieve it. Blackmore was annoyed, but the rest of the band found the incident amusing. The gig was not as well recorded as the Osaka shows, although "The Mule" and "Lazy" were considered of sufficient quality to make the final release.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: There were no overdubs on the album. Lord claimed once in a magazine interview that a line from "Strange Kind of Woman" had to be redubbed from a different show after Gillan had tripped over his microphone cable, but no direct evidence of this was found when the multitrack tapes were examined. According to Lord, the total budget for the recording was only $3,000 ().


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The band did not consider the album to be important and only Glover and Paice showed up to mix it. According to Birch, Gillan and Blackmore have never heard the finished album. The band did not want the album to be released outside Japan and wanted full rights to the tapes, but it was released worldwide anyway.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The album was released in the UK in December 1972, with a special offer price of £3.25, the same as a typical single LP from that period. It reached number 16 in the charts. The cover was designed by Glover and featured a colour photo of the band on the front and rear covers, and black and white photos in the inside gatefold. The release in the US was delayed until April 1973, because Warner Bros. wanted to release "Who Do We Think We Are" first. They were motivated into releasing it due to a steady flow of UK imports being purchased, and it was an immediate commercial success, reaching number 6 in the charts. Warner Brothers also released "Smoke on the Water" as a single, coupling the live recording on "Made in Japan" with the studio version on "Machine Head", and it reached number 4 in the "Billboard" charts. A recording of "Black Night" from the Tokyo gig, one of the encores that was not on the album, was released as the B-side to the single "Woman from Tokyo" in Europe, and as a single in its own right in Japan.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The Japanese release was titled "Live in Japan" and featured a unique sleeve design, with an overhead stage shot of the band, a selection of photographs from a gig at the Rainbow Theatre in London, and an insert with lyrics and a hand-written message from each band member. The first pressing came with a 35mm film negative with photos of the band which buyers could develop into their own prints. The sleeve notes claimed that the recording only contained the Tokyo gig, though in fact it was musically identical to the version released in the rest of the world. Phil Collen, later to play in Def Leppard, was in the audience for the Rainbow gig as captured on the sleeve.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: In Uruguay, the album was released in 1974 as a single LP (with just the first two sides) on Odeon Records. It used a simplistic sleeve design unlike any other release, with a rising sun on the cover.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The band had mixed feelings about the album. Gillan was critical of his own performance, yet impressed with the quality of the recording, while Lord listed it as his favourite Deep Purple album, saying, "The band was at the height of its powers. That album was the epitome of what we stood for in those days." "It's still probably the best live rock 'n' roll album ever made," declared Paice, who suggested that the shows were some of the group's best. "And that's putting everything Led Zeppelin have done, anything Black Sabbath may have done, Bad Company, Free... As a "tour de force" of innovation and living on the edge and great playing with a fantastic sound, nothing comes close."


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The response from critics was favourable. "Rolling Stone"'s Jon Tiven wrote that ""Made in Japan" is Purple's definitive metal monster, a spark-filled execution ... Deep Purple can still cut the mustard in concert". Subsequently, a 2012 readers' poll in the magazine declared the album to be the sixth best live album of all time, adding the band have performed "countless shows since in countless permutations, but they've never sounded quite this perfect."


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: Recent reviews have been equally positive. "Allmusic"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s William Ruhlmann considered the album to be "a definitive treatment of the band's catalog and its most impressive album". Rock author Daniel Bukszpan claimed the album is "widely acknowledged as one of the greatest live albums of all time". "Goldmine" magazine said the album "defined Deep Purple even as it redefined the concept of the live album." Deep Purple author Dave Thompson wrote "the standing of Deep Purple's first (and finest) live album had scarcely diminished in the quarter-century since its release".


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The original LP was a steady seller throughout the 1970s and remained in print. The first reissue on CD was in 1988 which contained the complete double-LP on a single CD.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: The 8-track tapes of the three shows were carefully put in storage by Warner Bros. Japan for future use. For the album's 21st anniversary in 1993, Deep Purple author and archivist Simon Robinson decided to enquire via the band's management if the tapes could be located. He discovered the entire show had been recorded well, including all the encores. In July, Robinson and Darron Goodwin remixed the tapes at Abbey Road Studios for an expanded edition, that was then mastered by Peter Mew in September. To compromise between including as much of the shows as possible and setting a realistic price that most fans would accept, they decided to release a 3-CD box set, titled "Live in Japan". This included all of the three main shows except for two tracks already available on the original album. In their place were two previously unreleased encores.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: Robinson subsequently oversaw a new reissue of the original album in 1998 on CD, that was also remastered by Mew. This version contained an extra CD with three tracks that had been left off the 1993 set. The colour scheme of the cover was reversed to show gold text on a black background. The remastered "Made in Japan" has further edits to make a contiguous performance, making it shorter than the original release. At the same time, a limited edition of 4,000 double LPs was released on purple vinyl, while in Spain, EMI added the studio versions of the tracks making up the original album to the second CD.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: In 2014, Universal Music announced that the album would be reissued in a number of formats in May. The deluxe option is a set of four CDs or 9 LPs containing a new remix of the three concerts in full, a DVD containing previously unseen video footage, a hardback book and other memorabilia. The original LP was reissued in 180g vinyl as per the original release with the original 1972 mix, with the audio available for digital download through popular providers.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: On 13 January 2006, progressive metal band Dream Theater played the original album in its entirety at Kokusai Forum in Tokyo, and also on the 15th at NHK Hall in Osaka. Both performances were recorded, and mixed by Glover. The latter of the two shows has been released through the band's YtseJam Records label.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: All songs written by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice except where indicated.


title: Made in Japan (Deep Purple album)

text: 1993 Remix by Darron Godwin, assisted by Simon Robinson. Remaster by Peter Mew.<br>Titles already released on "Made in Japan" are in bold.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: Pioneering Spirit (formerly Pieter Schelte) is a catamaran crane vessel owned by the Switzerland-based Allseas Group designed for the single-lift installation and removal of large oil and gas platforms and the installation of record-weight pipelines. The , vessel is the world's largest vessel by gross tonnage, and since September 2021 also the largest floating sheerleg in the world. It was built in South Korea by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in 2013 at a cost of €2.6 billion. It commenced offshore operations in August 2016.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: The initial concept, by Allseas technical director W.P. Kaldenbach, was of a vessel capable of lifting entire platforms, and in 1987 Allseas declared its intention to build it. The initial idea featured two rigidly connected, self-propelled supertankers, with a large slot at the bows enabling it to install platform topsides in one piece. Early designs featured a flotation and ballasting system and active motion compensation system to facilitate a controlled transfer of a topsides' weight from the vessel to a platform substructure. Allseas developed the original idea to include steel jacket installation, jackets and topsides removal and rigid pipelay capabilities.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: The emphasis switched from the conversion of two existing tankers to a new-build hull in 2004, though retaining the catamaran concept. The decision was prompted by a lack of suitable vessels to convert, the lower costs associated with a new-build, and the need to house sophisticated equipment – such as a dynamic positioning system – in the hull.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: In 2007, twenty years after the idea was first conceived, Allseas announced plans to build the "Pieter Schelte", a twin-hulled platform installation / decommissioning and pipelay vessel. Named after the offshore pioneer , the father of Allseas' owner Edward Heerema, the design featured a lifting system at its bows for lifting platform topsides up to and a lifting system at its stern for lifting steel jackets up to . The design also included pipelay equipment to handle pipe diameters ranging from at water depths exceeding .


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: Allseas placed orders for machinery, including generators and thrusters, in 2007, and for the high-tensile steel for the lifting systems in 2008. After the global financial crisis weakened funding, the company was forced to postpone the building schedule and as a result delayed the awarding of the hull construction contract. Finnish engineering company Deltamarin performed detail engineering in 2009.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: Allseas eventually was able to sign the main construction contract in June 2010 with South Korean shipyard Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd. Midway through the build, Allseas decided to widen the ship by in order to increase the clearance between the bows and the legs of large platforms. As a result, the overall width increased from , and the slot width from .


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: "Pioneering Spirit" departed Daewoo in November 2014 and arrived at the Maasvlakte 2, Port of Rotterdam, for completion and commissioning, on January 8, 2015. After the topside lifting system was installed, she left Rotterdam on 6 August 2016.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: The original name caused controversy due to Pieter Schelte Heerema's service in the Waffen-SS during World War II. As a result, in February 2015, Allseas announced that the vessel's name would be changed to "Pioneering Spirit".


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: In July 2019, Allseas announced a plan to upgrade the lift capacity from 48,000 tonnes to 60,000 tonnes. This reason for the same is to enable the removal of Statfjord A platform in the North Sea.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: In September 2021, a set of sheerlegs with a lifting capacity of 20,000 tonnes was installed on the stern deck of the ship, permitting it to also hoist platform jackets. This also made it the largest floating sheerleg in the world.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: "Pioneering Spirit" is the world's largest vessel, in terms of her gross tonnage (403,342 gt), breadth (), and displacement (). The maximum topside lift capacity is achieved by operating as a semi-submersible. For removal of topsides, the vessel straddles the intended payload with the slot formed by the twin bows. The slot measures (L×W). After straddling the payload, "Pioneering Spirit" takes on ballast to lower, and two sets of eight (one set per bow) retractable motion-compensated horizontal lifting beams are slid under the payload. Once the load is secure, the vessel offloads the ballast, rising in the water and partially transferring the load to the beams. In the final stage a fast lift system is used that lifts the payload up to in 15 s.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: Two tilting lift beams for the installation or removal of steel jackets, up to in weight, will be located at the vessel's stern. A special purpose crane built by Huisman is scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2018. The tub mounted crane will be available for additional lifts for jacket and topsides installation such as pile handling and bridge installation.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: When equipped with the Stinger, "Pioneering Spirit" can be used to lay pipe. Pipe segments are welded together on board the vessel, then are placed on the Stinger, where they roll into the water. The Stinger is curved to guide the pipe to the bottom of the ocean. The Stinger itself weighs and measures long and wide. It is attached to the Stinger Transition Frame (STF), which provides an interface between the Stinger and the vessel; the STF is installed in the bow slot when attached to the vessel. The Stinger Transition Frame weighs more than by itself.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: The vessel is equipped with eight, 20-cylinder (20V32/44CR) MAN 11,200 kW diesel generators providing a total installed power of 95 MW, driving 12 Rolls-Royce azimuth thrusters which provide dynamic positioning (DP3) and for propulsion. The vessel's maximum speed is . The accommodation has room for 571 persons in two-berth cabins.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: Allseas also constructed two barges to assist "Pioneering Spirit". If the water depth is not sufficient to allow the vessel to approach the dock, "Pioneering Spirit" can unload structures to "Iron Lady", a (L×W) barge with a shallower draft. "Bumblebee" was built specifically to store the Stinger and STF when it is not in use.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: "Pioneering Spirit" performed her first commercial lift, removal of Repsol's Yme mobile offshore production unit (MOPU) on 22 August 2016. Located in the Yme field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, approximately west of Stavanger, the MOPU was a jack-up type platform standing on three, diameter steel legs. The decision to remove the platform was made in 2013, and the contract for the removal of the topsides was subsequently awarded to Allseas. Pioneering Spirit collided with the caisson of the Yme platform during the removal.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: On 28 April 2017 "Pioneering Spirit" performed the single-lift removal of Shell's Brent Delta topsides. Located in the Brent field, approximately off the northeast coast of Shetland, the iconic platform sat on a three-legged gravity-based structure in of water. The vessel delivered the topsides to Able UK's Seaton Port yard, Teesside, for disposal.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: "Pioneering Spirit" installed the offshore section of SouthStream Transport B.V's dual Turkish Stream pipeline in the Black Sea. The pipeline construction started in May 2017 and was completed in November 2018.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: Starting from the Russian coast near the town of Anapa, the , diameter twin-pipeline will traverse the Black Sea at depths up to and emerge onshore in Turkey's Thrace region.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: She has installed three out of four platform topsides for phase one of the Johan Sverdrup development in offshore Norway. The drilling platform (DP) topside was installed in June 2018. The other two topsides named P1 and LQ were installed in March 2019. With P1 topside weighing 26,000 tons, this is one of the heaviest single-lift executed offshore to date, after Wheatstone of 36,000 ton and Arkutun Dagi of 42,380 ton, both with the "H 851". The vessel is expected to return in 2022 to install P2 topside weighing 27,000 tons for phase two of the Johan Sverdrup development.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: It removed Valhall QP topside for Aker BP in June 2019. This structure was an accommodation platform in Valhall field, located in southern part of North Sea about 280 km off the Norwegian coast. Weighing 3800 ton, it is the lightest lift operation performed by the vessel.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: In June 2019, "Pioneering Spirit" also removed the Brent Bravo 25,000-tonne topside located 186 km off the coast of Scotland on the way to Norway. She was also scheduled to remove the remaining two Brent field topsides for Shell, the 15,000 tonne Brent Alpha and 29,500 tonne Brent Charlie.


title: Pioneering Spirit

text: In 2018, Allseas announced its intention to build an even larger version of "Pioneering Spirit", named "Amazing Grace", scheduled to be delivered in 2022. However, in July 2020, Allseas announced that it would suspend the project indefinitely.


title: Ida (film)

text: Ida () is a 2013 drama film directed by Paweł Pawlikowski and written by Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Set in Poland in 1962, it follows a young woman on the verge of taking vows as a Catholic nun. Orphaned as an infant during the German occupation of World War II, she must meet her aunt, a former Communist state prosecutor and only surviving relative, who tells her that her parents were Jewish. The two women embark on a road trip into the Polish countryside to learn the fate of their relatives.


title: Ida (film)

text: Called a "compact masterpiece" and an "eerily beautiful road movie", the film has also been said to "contain a cosmos of guilt, violence and pain", even if certain historical events (German occupation of Poland, the Holocaust and Stalinism) remain unsaid: "none of this is stated, but all of it is built, so to speak, into the atmosphere: the country feels dead, the population sparse".


title: Ida (film)

text: "Ida" won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, becoming the first Polish film to do so. It had earlier been selected as Best Film of 2014 by the European Film Academy and as Best Film Not in the English Language of 2014 by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). In 2016, the film was named as the 55th best film of the 21st century, from a poll of 177 film critics from around the world.


title: Ida (film)

text: In the 1960s Polish People's Republic, Anna, a young novice nun, is told by her prioress that before she takes her final vows, she must visit her aunt, Wanda Gruz, who is her only surviving relative. Anna travels to Warsaw to visit her aunt Wanda, a chain-smoking, hard-drinking, sexually promiscuous judge who reveals that Anna's actual name is Ida Lebenstein; Ida's parents had been Jews who were murdered late in the German occupation of Poland during World War II (1939–45). Ida, after being orphaned, was raised by nuns in a convent. Wanda, who had been a Communist resistance fighter against the German occupation, became the state prosecutor "Red Wanda" who sent "men to their deaths".


title: Ida (film)

text: Wanda tells Ida that she should try worldly sins and pleasures before taking her vows. On their way to their hotel for the night, Wanda picks up a hitchhiker, Lis (Polish for "fox"), who turns out to be an alto saxophone player who is going to a gig in the same town. Wanda tries to get Ida interested in Lis and come to his show, but she resists until going down after hours to watch the band wrap up their evening with a song after the crowd has left. Lis is drawn to Ida and talks with her before she leaves for the night to rejoin her aunt, who is passed out in their room.


title: Ida (film)

text: Ida wants to see her parents' graves, Róża and Haim Lebenstein, and Wanda reveals that it is unknown where or if they were buried. Wanda asks her what would happen if she goes to their bodies and discovers that God is not there. Wanda takes her to the house they were born in and used to own, now occupied by a Christian farmer, Feliks Skiba, and his family. During the war, the Skibas had taken over the home and land and hidden the Lebensteins from the German authorities. Wanda demands that Feliks tell her where his father is to tell her what happened to her family. After some searching, Wanda and Ida find him close to death in a hospital, where he remembers Róża and speaks well of the Lebensteins but says little else. Wanda reveals to Ida that she had left her son Tadzio with Róża and Haim while she went to fight in the Polish Resistance and that he presumably died alongside them, robbing her of the opportunity of getting to know him. Feliks does not want his father to die feeling guilty of murder and asks them to keep his father out of their search. Instead, he agrees to tell them where the bodies are buried if Ida promises to leave the Skibas alone and give up any claim to the house and land.


title: Ida (film)

text: Feliks takes the women to the burial place in the woods and digs up the bones of their family. He admits to Ida that he took them into the woods and killed them. Feliks says that because Ida was very small and able to pass for a Christian, he gave her to a convent. But Wanda's small son was "dark and circumcised," and, as he couldn't pass for a Christian child, Feliks had killed him along with Ida's parents. Wanda and Ida take the bones to their family burial plot in an abandoned, overgrown Jewish cemetery in Lublin, and bury them.


title: Ida (film)

text: Wanda and Ida then part ways and return to their previous existences and routines, but they both have been profoundly affected by their experience. Although Wanda continues to drink and engage in apparently meaningless casual sex, she is now mourning the loss of her niece along with her son and sister. Ida returns to the convent but is visibly thoughtful about her life and decides she is not yet ready to take her solemn vows. Wanda's melancholy deepens, and she ultimately jumps to her death out of her apartment window. Ida returns to Warsaw and attends Wanda's burial, where she sees Lis again. At Wanda's apartment, Ida changes out of her novitiate's habit and into Wanda's stilettos and evening gown, tries smoking and drinking, and then goes to Lis's gig, where he later teaches her to dance. They kiss.


title: Ida (film)

text: After the show, Ida and Lis sleep together. Lis suggests they get married, have children, and after that, live "life as usual." The next morning, Ida quietly arises without awakening Lis, dons her novitiate habit again, and leaves, presumably to return to the convent and take her vows.


title: Ida (film)

text: The director of "Ida", Paweł Pawlikowski, was born in Poland and lived his first fourteen years there. In 1971 his mother abruptly emigrated with him to England, where he ultimately became a prominent filmmaker. "Ida" is his first Polish film; in an interview he said that the film "is an attempt to recover the Poland of my childhood, among many things". "Ida" was filmed in Poland with a cast and crew that was drawn primarily from the Polish film industry. The film received crucial early funding from the Polish Film Institute based on a screenplay by Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who is an English playwright. Once the support from the Polish Film Institute had been secured, producer Eric Abraham underwrote production of the film.


title: Ida (film)

text: The first version of the screenplay was written in English by Lenkiewicz and Pawlikowski, when it had the working title "Sister of Mercy". Pawlikowski then translated the screenplay into Polish and further adapted it for filming.


title: Ida (film)

text: The character of Wanda Gruz is based on Helena Wolińska-Brus, although Wanda's life and fate differ significantly from the real-life model. Like the character, Wolińska-Brus was a Jewish Pole who survived World War II as a member of the Communist resistance. In the postwar Communist regime she was a military prosecutor who was involved in show trials. One notorious example of these led to the 1953 execution of brigadier general Emil August Fieldorf, a famed resistance fighter in the Home Army. While Wolińska-Brus may have been involved, she was not the actual prosecutor for that trial. Pawlikowski met her in the 1980s in England, where she'd emigrated in 1971; he's said of her that "I couldn't square the warm, ironic woman I knew with the ruthless fanatic and Stalinist hangman. This paradox has haunted me for years. I even tried to write a film about her, but couldnʼt get my head around or into someone so contradictory."


title: Ida (film)

text: Pawlikowski had difficulty in casting the role of Anna/Ida. After he'd interviewed more than 400 actresses, Agata Trzebuchowska was discovered by a friend of Pawlikowski's, who saw her sitting in a cafe in Warsaw reading a book. She had no acting experience or plans to pursue an acting career. She agreed to meet with Pawlikowski because she was a fan of his film "My Summer of Love" (2004).


title: Ida (film)

text: Łukasz Żal and Ryszard Lenczewski are credited as the cinematographers. Lenczewski has been the cinematographer for Pawlikowski's feature films since "Last Resort" (2000); unlike Pawlikowski, Lenczewski had worked in Poland as well as England prior to "Ida". "Ida" is filmed in black and white, and uses the now uncommon 4:3 aspect ratio. When Pawlikowski told the film's producers of these decisions about filming, they reportedly commented, "Paul, you are no longer a student, don't be silly." Lenczewski has commented that, "We chose black and white and the 1.33 frame because it was evocative of Polish films of that era, the early 1960s. We designed the unusual compositions to make the audience feel uncertain, to watch in a different way." The original plan had been for Żal to assist Lenczewski. Lenczewski became ill, and Żal took over the project.


title: Ida (film)

text: Production on "Ida" was interrupted mid-filming by an early snowstorm. Pawlikowski took advantage of the two-week hiatus to refine the script, find new locations, and rehearse. He credits the break for "making the film cohere ... in a certain, particular way."


title: Ida (film)

text: "Ida" was edited by Jarosław Kamiński, a veteran of Polish cinema. Pawlikowski's previous English language feature films were edited by David Charap. Except the final scene of the film, there is no background musical score; as Dana Stevens explains, "the soundtrack contains no extradiegetic music—that is, music the characters aren't listening to themselves—but all the music that's there is significant and carefully chosen, from Wanda's treasured collection of classical LPs to the tinny Polish pop that plays on the car radio as the women drive toward their grim destination." As for the final scene, Pawlikowski has said, "The only piece of music that is non-ambient (from outside the world of the film – that is not on the radio or played by a band) is the piece of Bach at the end. I was a bit desperate with the final scene, and I tried it out in the mix. It's in a minor key, but it seems serene and to recognize the world and its complexities."


title: Ida (film)

text: "Ida" received widespread acclaim, with critics praising its writing and cinematography. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 96% approval rating, based on 162 reviews, with an average rating of 8.36/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Empathetically written, splendidly acted, and beautifully photographed, "Ida" finds director Pawel Pawlikowski revisiting his roots to powerful effect." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 91 out of 100, based on 35 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim."


title: Ida (film)

text: A. O. Scott of the "New York Times" writes that "with breathtaking concision and clarity—80 minutes of austere, carefully framed black and white—Mr. Pawlikowski penetrates the darkest, thorniest thickets of Polish history, reckoning with the crimes of Stalinism and the Holocaust." He concludes that "Mr. Pawlikowski has made one of the finest European films (and one of the most insightful films about Europe, past and present) in recent memory." David Denby of "The New Yorker" has called "Ida" a "compact masterpiece", and he discusses the film's reticence concerning the history in which it is embedded: "Between 1939 and 1945, Poland lost a fifth of its population, including three million Jews. In the two years after the war, Communists took over the government under the eyes of the Red Army and the Soviet secret police, the N.K.V.D.. Many Poles who were prominent in resisting the Nazis were accused of preposterous crimes; the independent-minded were shot or hanged. In the movie, none of this is stated, but all of it is built, so to speak, into the atmosphere ..." Denby considered "Ida" to be "by far the best movie of the year". Peter Debruge was more reserved about the film's success, writing in "Variety" that "...dialing things back as much as this film does risks losing the vast majority of viewers along the way, offering an intellectual exercise in lieu of an emotional experience to all but the most rarefied cineastes."


title: Ida (film)

text: "Ida" is partially a "road movie" in which the relationship of its two main characters, Anna/Ida (Agata Trzebuchowska) and Wanda (Agata Kulesza), develops as they journey into Poland's hinterlands and into their shared history. Both actresses have received favorable reviews for their performances from several critics. Peter Bradshaw wrote in "The Guardian" that "Agata Trzebuchowska is tremendously mysterious as a 17-year-old novitiate in a remote convent: she has the impassivity and inscrutability of youth." Riva Reardon writes, "In her debut role, the actress masterfully negotiates the film's challenging subtlety, offering glimpses into her character with only a slight movement of the corner of her mouth or by simply shifting her uncanny black eyes." David Denby writes that "Wanda tells her of her past in brief fragments, and Kulesza does more with those fragments—adding a gesture, a pause—than anyone since Greta Garbo, who always implied much more than she said." Dana Stevens writes that "As played, stupendously, by the veteran Polish TV, stage, and film actress Agata Kulesza, Wanda is a vortex of a character, as fascinating to spend time with as she is bottomlessly sad."


title: Ida (film)

text: The film was criticized by Polish nationalists for its perspective on Christian–Jewish relations in Poland. A letter of complaint was sent by the right-wing Polish Anti-Defamation League to the Polish Film Institute, which provided significant funding for the film. A petition calling for the addition of explanatory title cards was signed by more than 40,000 Poles; the film does not explicitly note that thousands of Poles were executed by the German occupiers for hiding or helping Jewish Poles. Eric Abraham, one of the producers of "Ida", responded: "Are they really suggesting that all films loosely based on historical events should come with contextual captions? Tell that to Mr. Stone and Mr. Spielberg and Mr. von Donnersmarck", referring to the directors of "JFK", "Lincoln", and "The Lives of Others".


title: Ida (film)

text: Conversely, others have argued that the character of Wanda Gruz, who participated in the persecution of those who threatened the Soviet-sponsored postwar regime, perpetuates a stereotype about Polish Jews as collaborators with the regime.


title: Ida (film)

text: Several critics have discerned possible influences on "Ida" from Carl Theodor Dreyer's films and from Robert Bresson's. Thus David Thomson writes enthusiastically that seeing "Ida" is "like seeing Carl Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" for the first time" and that the relationship of Ida and her aunt Wanda is "worthy of the Bresson of "Diary of a Country Priest"." "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928) is a silent film that is noted as one of the greatest films. M. Leary has expanded on the influence on "Ida": "The actress that plays Ida was apparently noticed at a cafe and drafted in as a blank canvas for this character, who becomes a mute witness in the film to the terror of Jewish genocide and the Soviet aftermath. She is a bit like Dreyer's Joan in that her character is more about a violent march of history than her Catholic subtext." Dana Stevens writes that Ida is "set in the early 1960s, and its stylistic austerity and interest in theological questions often recall the work of Robert Bresson (though Pawlikowski lacks—I think—Bresson's deeply held faith in salvation)."


title: Ida (film)

text: Other critics have emphasized stylistic similarities to New Wave films such as the definitive French film "The 400 Blows" (directed by François Truffaut-1959) and the Polish film "Innocent Sorcerers" (directed by Andrzej Wajda-1960). There are also similarities with Luis Buñuel's "Viridiana" (1961).


title: Ida (film)

text: Grossing more than $3.8 million at the North American box office, the film has been described as a "crossover hit", especially for a foreign language film. Nearly 500,000 people watched the film in France, making it one of the most successful Polish-language films ever screened there. The film earned nearly as much in France, $3.2 million, as it did in the US. The film earned $300,000 in Poland, and less than $100,000 in Germany.


title: Ida (film)

text: "Ida" was screened in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival where it won the FIPRESCI Special Presentations award. Among other festivals "Ida" won Best Film at Gdynia, Warsaw, London, Bydgoszcz, Minsk, Gijón, Wiesbaden, Kraków. The film is also widely recognized for Agata Kulesza's and Agata Trzebuchowska's performances, and for the cinematography by Ryszard Lenczewski and Łukasz Żal.


title: Ida (film)

text: The film was honoured by the national Polish Film Academy as the Best Film of 2013, winning in three other categories, and nominated in seven additional categories. The European Film Academy nominated the film in seven categories, winning 5, including Best European Film and People's Choice Award, at the 27th European Film Awards. The Spanish Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences named "Ida" as Best European Film at the 29th Goya Awards. At the 68th British Academy Film Awards the film won the Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.


title: Ida (film)

text: At the 87th Academy Awards, it won the award for Best Foreign Language Film, and was also nominated for Best Cinematography.


title: Ida (film)

text: The film has received a nomination from Hollywood Foreign Press Association at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, and from International Press Academy at the 19th Satellite Awards for Best Foreign Language Film category.


title: Ida (film)

text: It has been also recognised by the Swedish Film Institute (50th Guldbagge Awards), the Danish Film Academy (31st Robert Awards), the French Academy of Arts and Technics of Cinema (40th César Awards), the Catalan Academy of Cinema (7th Gaudí Awards). The film was also selected by the European Parliament for the Lux Prize.


title: Ida (film)

text: "Ida" has been released to DVD in both region 1 and region 2 with English subtitles. It has also been released with subtitles in several other languages. In December 2014 the film was awarded the Lux Prize by the European Parliament; this prize supports subtitling of films into all of the 23 official languages of the European Union.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: Aayutha Ezhuthu is a 2004 Indian Tamil-language political action film written and directed by Mani Ratnam. It is loosely based on the life story of George Reddy, a scholar from Osmania University of Hyderabad. It stars Suriya in the lead role, with an ensemble supporting cast. Bharathiraja appears in another pivotal role. This is the Tamil debut of Bollywood actress Esha Deol and remains the only Tamil film she has ever acted in. The title of the movie was taken from the name of a Tamil letter, ஃ – three dots corresponding to the film's three different personalities from completely different strata of society.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: The film's score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman, while Ravi K. Chandran was the cinematographer and Sreekar Prasad was the editor. The film was simultaneously shot in Hindi as "Yuva" with an entirely different cast retaining Deol. The film was produced by Ratnam's home banner, Madras Talkies, and was released on 21 May 2004.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: The film begins with Inba Sekar shooting Michael “Mike” Vasanth on his bike, resulting in him falling off the Napier Bridge into the water below which is witnessed by Arjun Balakrishnan. The flashback of the characters prior to the incident then unveils.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: InbaSekar grew up to be a goon as his brother Gunasekaran had left him to fend for himself, and he had no option of earning. He loves, marries, and abuses his wife Sashi. He gets into a contract under Guna's recommendation to run errands and work as a hitman for Selvanayagam, a politician.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: Michael is an influential student leader who wants politicians like Selvanayagam to keep away from college elections. Michael is in love with his neighbor Geetha, who lives with her uncle and aunt. Selvanayagam is worried when he hears news of students standing in the election. He uses every possible tactic to get them out of politics. Firstly, he provides a scholarship to study at a prestigious foreign university to Michael. When Michael refuses the bribe, Inba takes control under Guna's orders. Inba beats some students but faces very strong retaliation from Michael and other students. Inba and his thug friend Dilli meet Michael face-to-face and fall into a tussle after Inba threatens the latter to leave politics.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: Arjun Balakrishnan is the carefree and spoiled son of an IAS officer. He wants to relocate to the US for a better future. He falls in love with Meera, whom he just met. One day, Arjun proposes to Meera on the road, and she gets into an auto while telling him to prove it, playfully. Arjun hitches a ride from Michael, who is riding in the same direction, to catch up with Meera. Suddenly, Michael is shot by three rounds fired by Inba, but Arjun saves him. Critically injured, Michael is rushed to the hospital by Meera and Arjun.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: Inba finds out that Michael is recovering from his injuries and this is witnessed by Arjun, who follows him to apprehend him, only for Inba to beat him up badly and leave him with a broken arm. After staying by his side until his recovery, Arjun changes his mind and joins hands with Michael to contest in elections. Inba later kills Guna when he finds out that he had been instructed by Selvanayagam to take him out due to Inba leaving an eyewitness, Arjun, behind the bridge incident. He confronts Selvanayagam, who brainwashes him to work for him and orders him to kidnap Arjun, Suchi, and Trilok. However, they escape with the help of Dilli, who has a change of heart after realizing that their profession was interfering with their personal lives, causing Sashi to leave Inba for her hometown. He convinces Inba, however to no avail, and is killed by him when he aids Arjun's escape.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: While running, Arjun calls Michael for help, but Inba easily catches up and thrashes him. Michael arrives at the nick of time to rescue Arjun at the Napier Bridge. A fight ensues between the three men, where Inba is overpowered by Michael, who spares him and leaves him for the police. Inba is handed over to the police and jailed. Michael, Arjun, Suchi, and Trilok win the four seats they had contested for and thus enter into politics.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: The film began pre-production in early 2003 in a typical manner adapted by the director, Mani Ratnam, who keeps his projects under wraps until completion. The director chose to make two different versions of the film as he did not want the film to be dubbed, explaining that the essence of the script would be lost if they had done so. The project was named "Aayitha Ezhuthu" after the last letter of the Tamil alphabet, which is denoted by three dots in a triangle and the director revealed that the film was about three individuals. Early reports indicated that the film would be based on the 2000 neorealist Mexican film, "Amores perros" by Alejandro González Iñárritu, but eventually only the idea of hyperlink cinema was common in both films. However, Mani Ratnam revealed that the film was closer to Akira Kurosawa's 1950 Japanese film "Rashomon" as both films dealt with a cause-effect and a third-view called Rashomon effect.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: Suriya, who made his debut in the 1997 Mani Ratnam production "Nerukku Ner", revealed that he agreed "blindly" to star in the film without even listening to the story or his character. The actor revealed in an interview about Mani Ratnam's choice that "when the master calls for the student you just say “yes”." Suriya stated that his character was based on a real person George Reddy from Andhra Pradesh and to prepare, he read a lot of books and collected a lot of information before the shoot. R. Madhavan was signed on to appear in Mani Ratnam's fourth successive project after playing the lead roles in his "Alaipayuthey" (2000) and "Kannathil Muthamittal" (2002) as well as his 2001 production, "Dumm Dumm Dumm". The actor bulked up and sported a shaven look for the first time in his career to resemble his character of a ruffian. Initially, actor Vikram was considered to do the role of Madhavan, but unable to sign in due to his other commitments. For a third lead role, Mani Ratnam called Srikanth and requested him to audition for the project in December 2002. The actor had scored back-to-back successes in his first two films, "Roja Koottam" and "April Madhathil", and was subsequently selected to be a part of the film. However, the actor soon after suffered an injury and was unable to commit to the dates Mani Ratnam suggested. Shaam was next approached for the role of Arjun, but date clashes with "Iyarkai", meant that he was unable to sign the project. Karthi, the brother of Suriya, was then offered the role but declined the offer to make his debut and worked as an assistant director on the film because he wanted to become a film director and preferred directing to acting. Siddharth, who had previously apprenticed as an assistant director under Mani Ratnam in "Kannathil Muthamittal" before his making his acting debut in Shankar's "Boys", was subsequently signed on for the film. Prior to release, Siddharth felt he was cast as he "looked, talked and behaved like Arjun" and mentioned that the sync sound technique used worked in favour of him as he was an experienced theatre actor. Veteran director Bharathiraja was signed on to play a politician in the film, while Sriman and Janagaraj were given supporting roles. Leading Kannada actor Sudeep was also initially slated to form a part of the cast after meeting Mani Ratnam for the script discussion, but was ultimately discarded from the film. Krishna and Suchitra, a singer and radio jockey, also were chosen to play the roles of student leaders in the film.


title: Aayutha Ezhuthu

text: Malayalam actress Meera Jasmine was signed on to play a slum dweller in the film portraying Madhavan's wife and it was reported that she spent hours perfecting her Tamil for the film, trying to get rid of her native Malayalam accent to adapt to the sound sync technique used. Relative newcomer Trisha was also signed on to play a youngster in the film and dubbed for her own voice for the first time. Initially Simran was signed on to play the roles of Geetanjali in both versions, but opted out after she began to have problems speaking Tamil as the sound for the film was recorded live. Esha Deol, daughter of actress Hema Malini, was then selected to play the role in the Tamil version of the film after Suhasini enquired whether she could speak Tamil. After finishing her work in "Aaytha Ezhuthu", Deol was signed on for the Hindi version of the film too after Simran also opted out of that role and thus Deol became the only common leading actor between the versions. To prepare for her role, Deol worked on certain pronunciations of Iyer Tamil with Mani Ratnam's assistant Kannan mentoring her progress. It was also reported that actress Nadhiya had signed the film and would make a comeback to films after a ten-year sabbatical but did not eventually form a part of the final cast.