The Sydney woman accused of targeting the lucrative international student market for unenforceable fees in the eastern suburbs has been slapped with a travel ban in China amid fresh allegations she ripped off a business partner.

In a significant escalation of the business woes of Ashleigh Howe, a 29-year-old alumnus of SCEGGS Darlinghurst, a series of court cases in Shanghai and Beijing have detailed allegations that Ms Howe failed to pay suppliers.

It comes after the Herald revealed in April that Ms Howe failed to adhere to a NSW Supreme Court order to repay nearly $700,000 to liquidators of an accommodation company that helped students find lodgings around the University of NSW.

Around 100 mostly Chinese students attending university in Sydney had claimed they were gouged fees by Ms Howe's businesses. Legal advocates say these fees were unenforceable.

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Ms Howe now faces a mountain of legal trouble in China after travelling to Shanghai early last year to establish a string of high-end businesses targeted at the city’s expanding luxury market, including a children’s art school led by marquee artists charging up to US$12,500 a semester.

Instead, the ventures collapsed in acrimony over allegations of unpaid wages and debts.

Wage disputes, a rental dispute and multiple complaints of non-payment against Aima Shili Real Estate, a company Ms Howe claimed to represent in correspondence sighted by the Herald, are among five cases lodged with courts in Shanghai and Beijing over the past six months.

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At the same time, liquidators were circling in Sydney, securing a court order for Ms Howe to pay $689,000 over unreasonable director-related transactions, insolvent and uncommercial transactions in relation to a student accommodation business she helmed.

Liquidators confirmed last week she has still not paid and they have been unable to serve a creditor's petition on her, believing she had been in China. But the Herald last week photographed Ms Howe leaving her eastern suburbs apartment block in a white BMW.

'She never paid'

Businessman Johan L.E. rented his Xikang Road property in Shanghai’s Jing’an District to Ms Howe in July 2018 for her to use as a showroom and artists’ residence. Johan was particularly keen to have Ms Howe on the lease after she introduced him in person to a prominent Australian designer who Ms Howe said would work on plans for the renovation of his property to accommodate for her business needs.

Johan said he met with Ms Howe at the St. Regis Hotel early in the month to hammer out the details. He agreed to contribute ¥532,000 – or more than $100,000 – towards the total cost of the renovation after Ms Howe signed a contract agreeing to contribute ¥1,000,000 of her own.

But Johan would never see a return on his investment.

“She never paid, she just swallowed it,” he said. “She took the entire amount.”

Renovations would proceed on his property just long enough to see the kitchen, bathroom and living room gutted before the contractors working on his house stopped turning up as Ms Howe had not paid them, Johan claimed. And then, he said, the rent failed to come through.

Ms Howe did not respond to questions regarding the money and renovations put to her lawyer.

“She always said: ‘We’ll pay you, we’ll pay you, we’ll pay you, blah blah blah, I’m travelling’, Johan said. “She’s got a long list of excuses.”

Johan commenced legal proceedings against Ms Howe in November, pursuing her for ¥610,350 in alleged damages. She did not appear at the court hearing date in January, he said.

“It would be nice to get the money paid back, but I feel sorry for her life, given the situation."

'It was a shambles'

Meanwhile, Ms Howe was busy assembling a team of staff based in Shanghai to help get her businesses off the ground, including her art school Look Learn Do.

“Look Learn Do came from an ambition of mine where I felt that there was a real lack of creative practice and play in the development [of] young children in China,” Ms Howe explained in a video posted to the school’s website, which has since been taken down.

“In the Western world, growing up in Australia, we’re really fortunate that the environment and our social engagements are a big part of our development.

“In China historically, because of the landscape, that hasn’t been possible.”

A number of those Ms Howe had brought on to work for her from mid-2018 said the trouble started almost immediately, and no site for the school was ever formally secured.

“It was a shambles,” one former employee said.

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“If you ever asked Ashleigh where the space was she would say, ‘Oh we’re signing the lease today, we’re signing the lease tomorrow’,” another said.

Visits from local police to their Shanghai office, and issues with visas and pay were also not uncommon, they said.

In November, frustrated staff made a phone call to the Melbourne-based accountant they believed they had been communicating with via an email carrying the domain name of another family business, Global Education Advisory, regarding arrears with their pay.

The phone call was the first time the accountant had heard of the email address.

By the end of the month, almost all of Ms Howe’s staff had walked away from their roles.

Travel ban

The most recent action brought against Ms Howe in Shanghai on March 21, 2019, was over unpaid commission to a recruitment agency.

Ms Howe was sued by her former business development manager in Shanghai, Chen Xiqing, in July for illegal termination of labour, after he was dismissed without notice via an email.

Ms Howe was ordered by a Shanghai court to pay compensation, but refused and appealed. After mediation, the court ordered Ms Howe to pay ¥42,000 in salary by September 21.

But within days of the appeal verdict, the Shanghai Yangpu court ruled again, issuing a travel ban on Ms Howe, and giving the reason that: “Without any proper reasons the person subject to enforcement rejected to implement the reconciliation agreement.”

This exit ban is still listed on Chinese court websites nationally, stating: “The entity subject to enforcement – Shanghai Aima Shili Real Estate Consulting has refused to fulfil its obligations as determined by legal documents, and the court in accordance with laws has restricted its legal representative Howe Ashleigh Margaret from leaving the country.”

An outsourcing company that provided finance administration services for Aima Shili told the Herald they were also looking for Ms Howe over unpaid fees.

“We don’t know what happened … there are quite a lot of due commissions unpaid,” the Shanghai company said. They had never met with her in person and only occasionally received replies to emails.

Despite the exit ban against her name, Ms Howe has reached out to at least one other artist this year, inviting them to be a part of her business.

Australian designer Trent Jansen received an email in January regarding Look Learn Do from Ms Howe that read: “I am an Australian; slightly crazy, definitely daring and limitless entrepreneur based in Shanghai, China.

“It is our expressed wish to make contact with and ascertain your interest in joining us in collaboration for this bold and defining project.”

Mr Jansen did not pursue the opportunity.

Bong Joon-ho has become the first Korean ever to win the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or – the top film prize in the world – for his film Parasites, the extravagantly wacky story of a poor family that infiltrates a rich household by taking all their service positions, an employment victory that has unexpectedly bloody results.

The win was hugely popular among critics, but unexpected. All the smart money was on Pedro Almodovar’s semi-autobiographical Pain and Glory. Now 69 and threatening retirement, Almodovar was thought to be a sure-fire winner.

In fact, as jury chairman Alejandro Gonzalez Iniarritu made a point of telling the audience at the awards ceremony, the decision for director Bong was unanimous. Parasites was a genre fable, but it was also a critique of current politics “and spoke in a funny way about something so relevant and urgent and global in such a local film with efficiency”.

Pain and Glory came away with a best actor gong for Antonio Banderas, playing a version of the director who is consumed by his memories along with the pain of his middle-aged elements.

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This was noticeably the first year of the #MeToo era. Of the four films by women in the competition, three won prizes. Celine Sciamma won the prize for best screenplay for her austere period romance Portrait of a Woman on Fire, which had also been suggested as a possible Palme d’Or.

Austrian director Jessica Hausner ventured into sci-fi – without ever quite letting go of her customary formalism – to tell the story in Little Joe of a mood-enhancing plant that turns out to be a kind of body-snatcher; Emily Beecham scooped the best actress prize for her performance as an enthusiastic geneticist. Finally, the Grand Prix went to Mati Diop, a French-Senegalese actress and director whose film Atlantique put a magical poetic spin on a Senegalese women’s campaign for fair pay when their men mysteriously disappear. Once again, demonic forces are on the loose.

More than anything, the 72nd Cannes Film Festival will be remembered as the year when genre filmmaking achieved peak respectability. Both the festival competition and the parallel Directors' Fortnight opened with gleefully trash-aware genre films: the main program with Jim Jarmusch’s zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die and the Directors' Fortnight with Quentin Dupieux’s Deerskin, a story of a man’s possession by the fringed leather jacket of his dreams in which The Artist star Jean Dujardin gives the scintillating comic performance of a lifetime.

Then we had more zombies from master of excess Bertrand Bonello in Zombie Child; Babak Anvari’s Wounds, which has Armie Hammer as an ineffectual slacker whose brain is infiltrated by evil thoughts via a stray mobile phone; and witchcraft summoning up the dead in young Brazilian director Alice Furtado’s Sick, Sick, Sick – all in the Directors' Fortnight.

Furtado said in an interview that the horror genre is the vernacular for our times. “Maybe it has to do with our stage of society … and our stage of capitalism. There are a lot of conservative values on the rise and maybe the horror and nightmares and monsters are a way to try to understand this reality from a fantastic point of view.”

In the competition, Bacurau by Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles (whose previous film, Aquarius, was about as different as it could be; the subject there was the skyrocketing price of houses in Sao Paolo) depicts an imaginary town in Brazil's impoverished north-east where rich Americans come to hunt the locals for sport, supervised by regular movie madman Udo Kier. It won one of two jury prizes; the other went to first-time French director Ladj Ly for his fast-moving story of a police shooting in a black district of Paris, Les Miserables. This may not have been a bumper year for incontestable masterpieces, but you certainly couldn’t call it dull.

Outside the cinemas, however, Cannes has gone rather grey. The sun barely showed its face, which certainly lowers the mood, but there were seemingly fewer people – leaving some press screenings barely more than half-full, which never happens – and certainly less money. For the first time anyone can remember, the Carlton Hotel didn’t have the usual three-storey promotional display for some upcoming Hollywood blockbuster.

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There were no crazy promotional stunts: what happened to the days when Jerry Seinfeld would be shot into the air by a giant cannon while dressed as a bee? And while there were parties, of course, none were in the Gatsby mode. Even the eccentrics who used to descend annually on the Croisette, like the Italian man with performing cats on his shoulders, have disappeared.

“It’s changed immensely,” said Jim Jarmusch during an interview about The Dead Don’t Die. “Cannes has gotten more staid and a little less vulgar. I liked the vulgarity because I like contradiction. I remember in the `80s being in Cannes and you’d see some magnificent Romanian film or Chinese film – I didn’t know anything about them – and then go outside into the sun and there’s a naked girl in a parachute descending into a circle of paparazzi on the beach. And I thought that was kind of amazing, you know.”

There are still reasons to be amazed on the cinema screens in Cannes, of course. A last-minute addition in the form of Mektoub My Love: Intermezzo by Tunisian-French provocateur Abdellatif Kechiche, gave weary critics a talking point late in the festival. Was it the 16-minute scene of gynaecologically explicit oral sex in a dance club’s toilet that was truly shocking, or was it the effrontery of asking audiences to sit through 3½ hours of young women twerking to bad techno? At least Cannes can still reliably produce a scandal – the world’s greatest film festival isn’t over yet.

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Amman: Three French members of Islamic State were sentenced to death by a Baghdad court Sunday.

The three were among 13 French citizens handed over to Iraq in January by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the mainly Kurdish US-ally that led the battle to oust Islamic State from Syria. The sentence sheds some light on the pressing question of what may happen when Western countries, including ones like France which oppose capital punishment, do not repatriate their foreign fighter nationals.

Hundreds of foreign Islamic State members survived the devastating battle to destroy the terror group.

The detained jihadists, a group which includes women and children, have since been at the centre of a political battle as their countries of origin decline to take them home and the SDF warns that it could run out of the money and manpower to hold them.

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In recent months, the SDF has transferred an increasing number of Islamic State survivors to Baghdad for legal processing – a process that in Iraq can include minutes-long trials in the absence of credible witnesses.

Of the 13 French citizens, one was later released as it was found he had travelled to Syria to support the Yazidi religious minority, who were the target of a brutal Islamic State campaign that human rights groups say was a genocide.

The remaining 12 were put on trial under Iraq's counterterrorism law, which can order the death penalty to anyone found guilty of joining a "terrorist" group, even if they were not explicitly fighting.

The three sentenced to death, Kevin Gonot, Leonard Lopez and Salim Machou, have 30 days to appeal. Gonot, who fought for Islamic State before being arrested in Syria with his mother, wife, and half-brother, has also been sentenced in absentia by a French court to nine years in jail, according to the French Terrorism Analysis Center.

Machou was a member of the infamous Tariq ibn Ziyad brigade, "a European foreign terrorist fighter cell" that carried out attacks in Iraq and Syria and planned others in Paris and Brussels, according to US officials.

Lopez, from Paris, travelled with his wife and two children to Islamic State-held Mosul in northern Iraq before entering Syria, French investigators say.

French nationals made up the largest contingent of foreign fighters from Western Europe. In 2015, French and Belgian recruits attacked the Bataclan concert hall, stadiums and bars in Paris.

Baghdad has offered to try all foreign fighters in SDF custody – estimated at around 1,000 – in exchange for millions of dollars, Iraqi government sources told AFP.

In late January, a French government spokesman said that citizens who joined Islamic State would be prosecuted and jailed if handed over to Paris.

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Shortly afterwards, Nicole Belloubet, the French justice minister, told a radio show that the government would seek to bring home jihadists rather than risk them evading justice.

But since then, the only French nationals known to have been repatriated are five orphaned children.

This month, two French grandparents filed a lawsuit against the French state, alleging that its refusal to allow their grandchildren into France violates the country's human rights commitments.

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Australia has made great strides in recognising its disadvantaged and its minorities, but it cannot be a complete commonwealth until it recognises the most disadvantaged and overlooked of all.

Our first peoples are humanity's longest continuing civilisation and confer a unique status on our country, and also a unique responsibility.

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Yet they are excluded from Australia's success. They live in a parallel land of Third World conditions, when they could be included as the completing third part of our unique nation.

The three parts as Noel Pearson of Cape York brilliantly explains them: "There is our ancient heritage, written on the continent and the original culture painted on its land and seascapes.

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"There is its British inheritance, the structures of government and society transported from the United Kingdom fixing its foundations in the ancient soil.

"There is its multicultural achievement: a triumph of immigration that brought together the gifts of people and cultures from all over the globe – forming one indissoluble commonwealth."

In Pearson's words, "we stand on the cusp of bringing these three parts of our national story together" by giving constitutional recognition to Indigenous Australians to make "a more complete commonwealth". Except that he said that in 2014. And Australia is no closer.

Addressing the material and social suffering of the first Australians is necessary, of course. But insufficient.

Some of the finest moments in Australia's Parliament occur in February each year when the two sides of politics come together in the annual review of the Closing the Gap project, an effort to lift six key indicators of Indigenous health, education and employment to those enjoyed by every other part of our society. The deadline for achieving this is not a far distant one – 2030.

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The usual hysterics and hubbub of the House of Representatives fall away as the two leaders enter a serious and sincere bipartisan discussion of the year's progress. But progress is halting and uneven. Overall, it is failing.

The effort is bedevilled by the same problem that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy has suffered for centuries – it is driven by the urge to do things to Indigenous Australians, not to do things with them.

Our first peoples two years ago proposed the creation of an Indigenous advisory body to the Parliament. It would be established and legitimised by an amendment to the constitution.

The Indigenous "Voice" would have no executive or legislative power. Its function would be to offer Indigenous views on Indigenous policy.

Yet even the request for a voice was strangled by then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who falsely described it as a "third chamber" of Parliament, implying that it was some sort of danger to the prerogatives of the Parliament. This was a straw man, a false argument that was really just an excuse for inaction.

The new Parliament that is to convene in the next few weeks has an opportunity to fix this failure. By giving our first peoples a voice, the Parliament would give them their best opportunity to help a united country Close the Gap. Successfully. That is necessary, but insufficient.

Even if Australia can manage to close the gap on practical measures of Indigenous quality of life, our country is still blighted by the less tangible gap – the great gulf of respect, recognition and self-esteem that has trapped Indigenous Australians at the lowest level of the system of social order.

This is not some waffly concept but a central tenet of the human spirit. The ancient Greeks had a word for it. Thymos – the part of the human soul that craves recognition. With it, we are empowered and ennobled. Without recognition, we are less than fully human.

By establishing the Voice to Parliament in the constitution, Australia will acknowledge the first Australians' right to recognition and respect, and improve the effectiveness of the efforts to Close the Gap at the same time.

Labor campaigned on a promise of a "fair go for all Australians" while the re-elected Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, said that "if you have a go, you'll get a go". Both parties have a new opportunity to give substance to these sentiments.

Our first Australians are at a special disadvantage and need unique recognition and unique help. But on their own terms, guided by their own voice.

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Former Seven West Media executive John Fitzgerald is now looking after the accounts of small businesses in Sydney's western suburbs, despite facing multimillion-dollar fraud allegations from the broadcaster which are being investigated by the police.

Mr Fitzgerald is listed as the Parramatta franchisee for Shoebox Bookkeeping, a small business accounting and tax advisory service, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have learned.

"John and Michell Fitzgerald are the husband and wife team behind Shoebox Bookkeeping Parramatta. Collectively, they have over 10 years of experience in bookkeeping and small business. They ran their own bookkeeping business for many years, which gives them an insider's knowledge of what it is like to own your own business," says the Shoebox Bookkeeping web site.

"John and Michell are committed to helping small business and tradies get and keep their bookkeeping and BAS up to date."

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Michelle Fitzgerald is not accused of any wrongdoing.

Mr Fitzgerald worked for Seven West, which is controlled by billionaire Kerry Stokes, for more than 15 years. He was controlling the finances of Seven's television programming in 2016, with a budget worth hundreds of millions of dollars, when an audit detected some suspicious transactions. It triggered an internal investigation.

In April 2016, Seven West was granted a New South Wales Supreme Court order freezing millions of dollars worth of shares and properties owned by Mr Fitzgerald. It alleged he defrauded the company by paying false invoices to companies he controlled dating back more than 13 years. It later quantified the alleged fraud at over $8 million and referred the matter to the police.

"It is clear from the material before the court that a serious and ongoing fraud appears to have been committed by Mr Fitzgerald against his employer," said Justice François Kunc in the judgment granting the asset freezing order in April, 2016.

Last year, Mr Fitzgerald and Seven West reached a settlement whereby he repaid the money which had also been invested in his superannuation fund. The 2016 freezing order has now been rescinded.

The police have confirmed an investigation is under way.

"In March 2017, detectives from the Financial Crimes Squad received reports of the misappropriation of funds totalling more than $8 million by a former employee of a media network," said a police spokesperson. "Investigations under Strike Force Hamment are continuing."

Mr Fitzgerald did not respond to inquiries from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, but in an interview last year with News Corp papers he said: “My argument was always it was a legitimate service and it didn’t really affect shareholders because the service had to be done.” He also admitted it was "a ­stupid, stupid thing to do.”

Seven West declined to comment.

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The Shoebox Bookkeeping franchise founder, Yvette Coad, defended the decision to allow Mr Fitzgerald to operate the franchise.

"As is done for all franchisees, we have conducted the requisite investigations in relation to Mr Fitzgerald, and it is our understanding that there has been no conviction recorded against Mr Fitzgerald in relation to this matter," she said in an email.

"Again, as is done with all franchisees, Mr Fitzgerald is subjected to ongoing compliance, audit and disclosure requirements, so as to protect the clients of Shoebox Books. In the event that any of franchisees breach any of the ongoing compliance requirements, we would consider taking the appropriate measures to immediately address the issue."

The alleged fraud by Mr Fitzgerald was detected months before the Amber Harrison affair became public. Ms Harrison claimed Seven took adverse action against her after her relationship with Seven West chief executive, Tim Worner, soured by initiating an investigation into her alleged misuse of a corporate credit card.

A report by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu identified $262,000 of unauthorised expenditure on her card.
Ms Harrison later refuted most of the claims of unauthorised expenditure.

At the Seven West shareholder meeting in February 2017 Mr Stokes was forced to defend the company's financial controls which had come into question after the two scandals became public.

Mr Stokes assured investors that he was “watching the till”.

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Richard Marles is an avid collector of snow globes. Hundreds of them decorate his parliamentary office in Canberra.

Over the past week, the Labor leadership has been thoroughly tipped upside down. And as the dust has settled and the picture made clear again, Marles, 51, has emerged a winner. Later this week, the Victorian MP is expected to be appointed as Labor's new deputy leader.

After Anthony Albanese, who is from the left faction in NSW, became the only nominee for the Labor leadership, this meant his deputy needed to come from the right faction and not from NSW.

This ruled out possible candidates like Tony Burke or Chris Bowen. Finance spokesperson Jim Chalmers is from Queensland and the right faction, but decided not to put his hat in the ring for either leader or deputy. Victoria's Clare O’Neil put her hand up for the deputy’s job, determined there should be a woman in the mix, but did not get the support to continue her run.

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While one Labor MP described Marles' success as a "real scoot through the middle," others insist Marles has been the natural candidate for deputy all along.

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"He takes things seriously that are important, even if they're not glamorous," one Labor source says, pointing to Marles' deep interest in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific region.

Others say he is widely respected among Labor's caucus and is known for his consultative work-style, characteristics that will be needed as Labor rebuilds itself in the post-election period.

"His job is to hold the show together," one MP says. "To be the bridge between the caucus and the leader."

Marles' career before coming to Canberra reads like a textbook Labor CV. Raised in Geelong, he studied law at university, before a stint at law firm Slater &Gordon (where Julia Gillard once worked). He then rose through the union ranks, starting at the Transport Workers' Union and then the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

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In 2006, he won a bitter preselection battle in the Geelong-based seat of Corio, and in 2007 entered Parliament as part of the Kevin07 wave. His first speech to Parliament gave shout outs to factional heavyweights Stephen Conroy, Robert Ray, David Feeney and Bill Shorten.

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Marles was promoted to the front bench within two years of his election, starting out as the parliamentary secretary for innovation and industry. He was parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs in March 2013, when he was part of a group of frontbenchers who quit after a failed attempt to reinstall Kevin Rudd as leader.

When Rudd finally – and briefly – made it back as leader in July 2013, Marles was appointed trade minister.

In opposition, Marles initially had the difficult job of immigration spokesperson, before he was given the defence portfolio in 2016. There was some chatter before the election, that had Labor won, he would have been made Minister for Home Affairs.

Marles has had a largely controversy-free run in Parliament, although he made headlines in February for an interview he did with Sky News, declaring that the collapse of the global market for thermal coal was “at one level … a good thing” because it implied the world was acting on climate change. He was immediately attacked by the Coalition and forced to backtrack. On Saturday, two Queensland Labor state MPs attacked Marles's candidacy on the basis of his comments, accusing him of being anti-jobs.

While Marles has not enjoyed the public profile of other frontbenchers such as Albanese or Tanya Plibersek, he was the only Labor MP to have his own bonafide TV show. For the last few years, he had a weekly show on Sky News with Christopher Pyne (the creatively-titled "Pyne and Marles").

The show did not survive Pyne's recent political retirement.

A little over a year ago, former Australian cricket captain Steve Smith made a tearful confession and apology to the public, having been banned from cricket for 12 months for ball tampering. Smith’s confession was expected. As Australian captain, he would take responsibility for the indiscretions of the whole team.

Smith’s televised confession and apology, and a later Vodafone advertisement referencing it that leans into a redemption narrative, have paved the way for his atonement and successful return to cricket. Smith recently played for the Australia XI in a game against New Zealand; he and Warner will likely play in the first Ashes in August.

We might interpret these confessions cynically, as a public relations exercise. But it is also clear that, in performing these acts, Smith is following particular, expected cultural templates for confession and apology.

Though confession has its origins within Judeo-Christian faiths, it has evolved to become one of Western society’s most familiar rituals. We see confessions every day: in literature, on television, and now online. Some are more convincing than others.

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While confessions on reality TV programs, on certain current affairs shows, and from YouTubers who thrive on controversy are now quite formulaic, new spaces are constantly opening up for confessional narratives. Anonymous social media spaces such as “Reddit” have shown that there is something potentially liberating about sending an anonymous (or semi-anonymous) confession out into the world. While these do have the potential to cause harm, they show just how strong the confessional impulse can be.

The word confession originates from Latin Middle English via Old French Latin (confession, confiture – meaning “acknowledge”). In the act of confession, people disclose their sins (by speaking to a priest) or as part of the sacrament of reconciliation. But whatever the context for the confession, the listener is essential; only they have the power to judge and absolve.

Secular contexts

Though influenced by its religious origins, confession has become meaningful in secular contexts. It is central to legal discourse. The admission of a crime within a court of law is the first step towards penance and possibly absolution.

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The tradition of literary confession is thought to have begun with Saint Augustine’s Confessions, written between AD397-400. Augustine writes about the sins of his youth and his eventual conversion to Christianity. Along with Jean-Jacques Rosseau’s 1782 autobiography Confessions, Augustine has provided a model for writing the confessional that has endured over time: deep, intimate introspection as the first-person author or speaker admits to having committed sins that they wish to atone for.

“Confessional” is now used to describe any autobiography or memoir that is particularly intimate in its revelations.

Authors such as Lena Dunham, Lindy West, and Amy Schumer have mined the deeply personal subjects of their lives for their memoirs.

In Australia, comedians like Judith Lucy use confession, usually in the form of embarrassing personal disclosure, as the foundation for their stand-up. More recently, Hannah Gadsby, in Nanette, explored the problems that come with confessing for laughs. Gadsby persuasively argued that comedians (particularly those from minority groups) should not use self-deprecating humour to put themselves down. Personal stories should instead be positioned as a powerful means of connecting humanity through mutual understanding. Now, Gadsby continues to tell personal stories, but on her own terms – to share and explore her politics on issues such as gender, sexuality, and power.

In these contexts, where humour, confession, and trauma intersect, the listener is positioned to respond with empathy and without judgement. Such self-disclosures establish a sense of intimacy between performer and audience; this might forge connections in an often individualistic, impersonal world.

Schadenfreude and current affairs TV

Confessions are also a staple of televised entertainment, encouraging a very different listener/spectator dynamic. Contemporary television confessions are usually about an indiscretion and the need to expunge guilt – for personal reasons or because society requires it (like Steve Smith). Or, the confessor might benefit in some way from the confession (for instance, fame, infamy or monetary reward).

Witness the rise of minor celebrities from reality TV shows like Married at First Sight. At the program’s “commitment ceremonies”, those who offered the most salacious disclosures have become the most in/famous participants. Viewers witnessed the indiscretions on previous episodes. And because they know how these programs work, they are aware that the confessions are coming, and will become an integral part of the show’s narrative arc.

Confessional narratives are sometimes positioned as therapeutic for the confessor, but the viewer is invited to engage in schadenfreude – the joy of witnessing someone else’s misfortune. Reality TV confessions are edited and structured for their sensational value, rather than complexity or nuance. The confession exists in a formulaic mode; the genre is rarely transgressed.

On a Sunday evening you will typically witness confessions on 60 Minutes or Sunday Night. The latter recently ran a story titled “Sex, Guys and Videos” in which so-called “football groupies” (women who date famous AFL or NRL players) disclosed their experiences with the sport’s cultures of toxic masculinity (in particular, sex scandals).

Such confessions are constructed as cautionary tales for the viewer: “don’t fall into the traps that I have”. The women discussed their hurt and embarrassment. But these confessions also function as a celebrity exposé and a strong social commentary around power, sexual consent and sexist cultures that seek to silence and degrade women. Confession commonly implicates others.

Confessing online

Not surprisingly, there are myriad outlets for confession online, whether public, semi-public, or anonymous; indeed, the internet has been described as a “global confessing machine”.

There are possibly millions of portals online catering to different genres of confession. On the news, rating and discussion site and app, Reddit, there are various discussion pages or “subreddits” devoted to anonymous confession. One called “Admit your wrongdoings”, has over a million subscribers.

The “rules” of this subreddit state that all submissions must be a confession, ie a statement that “presumes that you are providing information that you believe other people in your life are not aware of, and is frequently associated with an admission of a moral or legal wrong”. Common confessions here include cheating on partners, failing college, and financial failures.

Perhaps the most infamous spaces for online confessions in recent years are anonymous social networking apps such as “Whisper”, and “Confide”. Designed for mobile use, they allow users (most likely young people) to publicly share secrets and confessions, usually through uploading a symbolic image and one-line caption. Confessional subjects include the breakdown of friendships, unrequited love, and family secrets.

Other apps such as “Wut”, “Rumr” and “Sarahah” are described as “semi-anonymous” because users exist in a known network (for instance, a school or work network), but messages are anonymous.

These anonymous messages are not first-person confessions, but confessions directed towards another. They usually take the form of “feedback” to another user (“I said I liked your formal dress, but really I hate it”). This, unsurprisingly, has resulted in instances of bullying and the potential for defamation.

The likely appeal of these anonymous apps is that they offer an antidote to the more public and performative spaces of Facebook and Instagram, enabling young people to engage anonymously outside of their usual social networks.

As my colleagues and I have found, personal disclosure can be positive and empowering for young people. Online self-representations and self-disclosures can encourage teenagers to take control of their public self-image and how and where it is shared.

There are lots of moral panics about teens over-sharing online, or having stories and images shared without consent. But it is possible that the more experience young people have using different apps and sites, the more skilled, knowledgeable, and comfortable they will be using them to their own benefit.

Social media self-representations can be a site for creativity, showcasing photography, clothing ensembles, hair and make-up, making memes and so on. Private, online confessional spaces can offer supportive networks for exploring thoughts and ideas than require a more intimate public and a place for positive exploration of identities with like-minded peers.

The use of anonymous apps suggests that there is something emancipatory about being invisible amidst so much pressure to be active and visible in their everyday public storying to larger networks on Snapchat and Instagram. There’s potentially something thrilling in the risk of being recognised, or of recognising someone else when engaged in online confession. There’s also the promise of social contact, of connection, attention and validation.

But these apps also have the potential to prey on young people’s sense of alienation or loneliness – when confessions are elicited by platforms designed for profit, who holds the power?

Such concerns – about the potential manipulation of young media consumers – are not new; they simply shift according to new media trends. As I found in my research, young people’s engagements with sites such as these anonymous ones are much more complex than we currently know, and are shifting at a pace faster than we can track.

Engagements with social media can be time-consuming, dull, and harmful. They can also be empowering, creative, and community-forming. And they might be everything in between.

Either/or debates are not useful here: we need to develop much more nuanced discussions on this fast-shifting cultural terrain. And these discussions are best driven by young cultural consumers and producers.

YouTube apologies

Another genre of confession that has become very visible online is apologies from “YouTubers”. The usual sequence of events is this: the YouTuber says something inappropriate or offensive in a video on their channel. They receive backlash from the media or from followers. As in the case of Steve Smith, they must conform to established scripts for confession and apology or else risk being “cancelled” by their fans.

As writer Morgan Sung has noted, because their YouTube content is most often autobiographical, covering intimate subjects and perspectives, apologies are expected as an extension of this constructed intimacy between YouTuber and viewer.

For instance, one of the most well-known YouTubers, Shane Dawson, has found himself in an apologetic loop as he tries to evade his own digital footprint. The now 30-year-old Dawson has confessed to, and apologised for, things he said online during his younger days, most notably for offensive jokes he made during his late-teens “shock” phase. He was heavily criticised for his racially offensive humour, inappropriate sexual jokes, and the attention he paid to conspiracy theories.

Just last week we witnessed the rapid fall of YouTube beauty blogger and make up artist James Charles. Charles’s public feud with fellow YouTuber and former mentor Tati Westbrook resulted in him losing over 2.5 million subscribers. Charles’s numerous confessions via apology videos did not initially help his case. However, after a week of excessive social media banter and accusation (and a 40-minute video from Charles titled No More Lies), the feud seems to have settled a little.

James Charles’s apology video.

Apology videos have become so common they are now often the subject of parody for being insincere or exaggerated. These videos have a formulaic structure; they most often function as image repair – to ensure the YouTuber does not lose their followers. Like the reality television confessions, these apology videos follow expected templates.

The confession compulsion

Though confession has evolved considerably since the times of Augustine and Rosseau, we can see familiar patterns in contemporary practices: we are guided by the moral conventions of our time to perform confession and contrition when required, or else suffer the consequences. Confession, whether anonymous or public, has long been positioned as a means for redemption, connection, or simply, a way of feeling better.

Whether or not confession is therapeutic is still up for debate, and no doubt its potential is time and culture-specific.

But if the stakes are high enough; if confession and apology are required for the maintenance of economic livelihood, or fame, these acts, whether believable, will at least be predictable.<!– Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. –><!– End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines –>

Kate Douglas, is a Professor, Flinders University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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What terrible things happened in the brief two year period before their relationship became irretrievably broken in May 2011 we may never know, but fashion designer Camilla Franks and her father Bill Franks seem determined to document the fallout down to its last detail.

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Forget about airing the dirty laundry, these feuders have basically scaled the Paddington Town Hall and erected a rotating digital billboard!

As revealed in this place earlier this year, the stoush comes down to the ownership of the high-profile Camilla fashion empire and a number of Vaucluse apartments.

Bill Franks was unceremoniously walked from the Camilla HQ in 2011, when he was allegedly found to have transferred almost $1 million from the company’s accounts to another outfit called BNC Investments, which he controlled. (He denies these allegations.)

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It was four days ago that Camilla Franks was at the centre of a kaftan-themed knees-up at Curtis Stone’s Los Angeles eatery Gwen, celebrating the opening of stores in Orange County and Miami with her pals Tammin Sursok, Ashleigh Brewer and model Ash Hart.

But back in Sydney, just a few days earlier, her lawyers at Speed and Stracey were lodging Supreme Court filings alleging Bill Franks shouldn’t have control of his share of the company — valued at around $32.5 million — partly because he was “a domineering father”.

Not only that but he “was in a position of ascendancy over Camilla” who was at that time reliant on his advice, making her decision to hand him a quarter of the company void, they allege.

Among the long line of Sydney feuds, painstakingly presented here, this showdown makes the Arnaout hotellier family stoush sound like a certified love-in.

Track circular

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It’s taken some time for our friends down in Bleak City to discover that competition with Racing NSW boss Peter V’landys isn’t the sort of glacial jousting (the euphemism, of course, being “gentlemanly”) they had become accustomed to over the years.

If the $14 million Everest race day wasn’t warning enough, the arrival of the $7.5 million Golden Eagle on the same day as Melbourne hosts Derby Day should have been.

It took one of the few female executives at Racing Victoria to come up with something half as exciting for punters as the big money events V’landys and his Australian Turf Club mate Jamie Barkley had begun to roll out in the last two years.

The inaugural $5 million All Star Mile at Flemington ran for the first time in March.

Then, for reasons unknown, the woman who came up with the whole thing departed.

Racing Victoria’s chief commercial officer Jane Ballantyne has been made redundant.

Or as one racing industry source told CBD: “Victoria has struggled to keep pace with V’Landys over the past few years and it looks like they’ve given up trying.''

We’re told Ballantyne’s job disappeared after it was split between Racing Victoria chief financial officer Aaron Morrison and recently-arrived corporate affairs boss Carly Dixon.

Here’s hoping Racing Victoria chief executive Giles Thompson (a Male Champion of Change) gets the house in order, particularly considering the Spring Racing Carnival is but six months away.

From the stands

And while the campaign for the NSW Labor leadership, between water spokesman Chris Minns and transport spokeswoman Jodi McKay got under way on Saturday, who was enjoying the V’landys-provided hospitality at Royal Randwick?

Former opposition leader Michael Daley, champagne in hand, watching Anthony Cummings-trained Prince Fawaz take out the 1400m over favourite Reloaded.

Channel surfing

With some fondness — and some irritation — we recall asking our friends at the ABC in mid-April about the possibility of Sky News Australia political editor David Speers becoming the new host of Insiders, with filming likely to move to Aunty's Canberra bureau.

“Sounds like pretty wild speculation,” one said.

Now we’re told former Weekend Today host Peter Stefanovic is bound for the Sky News bureau – not just for the well-publicised Lawyer X project about the life of Melbourne defence barrister Nicola Gobbo – but to host the channel’s morning show.

Could Stefanovic be announced as part of the First Edition team alongside Sky News stalwart Laura Jayes as early as Monday? It would certainly explain the glowing write-up of the former Nine journalist in The Sunday Telegraph in which he "revealed his shame" after a secret recording of him and his brother Karl made by an Uber driver picked up their thoughts on some of their closest colleagues.

Meanwhile, guess who (don’t sue) — which Nine News reporter was spotted dining with Sky News Australia’s news editor Chris Willis last week?

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Television personalities Amanda Keller, Tom Gleeson and Waleed Aly have been announced as finalists for this year's Gold Logie, an award recognising the most popular personality on Australian television.

Also nominated for the top gong, awarded next month after a public vote, are actors Rodger Corser and Eve Morey, Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadis, and Sunrise weather presenter Sam Mac.

It is the third nomination for Aly, who won the Gold Logie in 2016, and the third nomination for Corser, while Keller is up for the award for the second time. Georgiadis, Morey, Mac and Gleeson have all been nominated for the first time.

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The nominations were announced on Sunday afternoon, with the annual television industry awards to be held at the Gold Coast on June 30.

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A mixture of news, drama and reality TV shows have been nominated over a range of categories, including most outstanding entertainment program, most outstanding sports coverage, and most outstanding news coverage.

Oscar-nominated actor Jacki Weaver and Gold Logie winner Asher Keddie are both nominated in the most outstanding supporting actress category, Keddie for ABC series The Cry and Weaver for mystery series Bloom on streaming service Stan.

A handful of international personalities are also up for awards, including singer Joe Jonas nominated in the most popular new talent category for his appearance on The Voice Australia, and English actor Jenna Coleman for her role in The Cry.

Here are the full nominations:

Tv Week Gold Logie – Most Popular Personality On Australian TV

• Amanda Keller (The Living Room/Dancing With The Stars, 10)
• Costa Georgiadis (Gardening Australia, ABC)
• Eve Morey (Neighbours, 10)
• Rodger Corser (Doctor Doctor, Nine Network)
• Sam Mac (Sunrise, Channel Seven)
• Tom Gleeson (Hard Quiz, ABC)
• Waleed Aly (The Project, 10)

Most Popular Actor

• Aaron Pedersen (Mystery Road, ABC)
• Guy Pearce (Jack Irish, ABC)
• Luke McGregor (Rosehaven, ABC)
• Ray Meagher (Home And Away, Channel Seven)
• Rodger Corser (Doctor Doctor, Nine Network)
• Ryan Moloney (Neighbours, 10)

Most Popular Actress

• Asher Keddie (The Cry, ABC)
• Celia Pacquola (Rosehaven, ABC)
• Deborah Mailman (Bite Club/Mystery Road, Nine Network/ABC)
• Eve Morey (Neighbours, 10)
• Jenna Coleman (The Cry, ABC)
• Marta Dusseldorp (A Place To Call Home/Jack Irish, Foxtel/ABC)

Most Popular Presenter

• Amanda Keller (The Living Room/Dancing With The Stars, 10)
• Carrie Bickmore (The Project, 10)
• Costa Georgiadis (Gardening Australia, ABC)
• Julia Morris (Blind Date/I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here/Chris & Julia’s Sunday Night Takeaway, 10)
• Tom Gleeson (Hard Quiz, ABC)
• Waleed Aly (The Project, 10)

Graham Kennedy Award For Most Popular New Talent

• Bonnie Anderson (Neighbours, 10)
• Courtney Miller (Home And Away, Channel Seven)
• Dylan Alcott (The Set, ABC)
• Eddie Woo (Teenage Boss, ABC)
• Joe Jonas (The Voice Australia, Nine Network)
• Tasia Zalar (Mystery Road, ABC)

Most Popular Drama Program

• Doctor Doctor (Nine Network)
• Home And Away (Channel Seven)
• Mystery Road (ABC)
• Neighbours (10)
• The Cry (ABC)
• Wentworth (Foxtel)

Most Popular Entertainment Program

• Anh’s Brush With Fame (ABC)
• Dancing With The Stars (10)
• Gogglebox Australia (Foxtel/10)
• Gruen (ABC)
• Hard Quiz (ABC)
• The Voice Australia (Nine Network)

Most Popular Comedy Program

• Have You Been Paying Attention? (10)
• Hughesy, We Have A Problem (10)
• Rosehaven (ABC)
• Russell Coight’s All Aussie Adventures (10)
• Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell (ABC)
• True Story With Hamish & Andy (Nine Network)

Most Popular Reality Program

• Australian Survivor: Champions Vs Contenders (10)
• I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! (10)
• Married At First Sight (Nine Network)
• MasterChef Australia (10)
• My Kitchen Rules (Channel Seven)
• The Block (Nine Network)

Most Popular Lifestyle Program

• Back In Time For Dinner (ABC)
• Better Homes And Gardens (Channel Seven)
• Gardening Australia (ABC)
• Selling Houses Australia (Foxtel)
• The Living Room (10)
• Travel Guides (Nine Network)

Most Popular Panel Or Current Affairs Program

• 7.30 (ABC)
• 60 Minutes (Nine Network)
• A Current Affair (Nine Network)
• Australian Story (ABC)
• Four Corners (ABC)
• The Project (10)

Most Popular Television Commercial

• Dundee: Australia's Tourism Ad In Disguise – Tourism Australia
• Frank – Westpac
• I Am The Captain Of My Own Soul – Invictus Games
• Naked Wrestling – KFC
• Santa Crashes Christmas – Aldi
• Serena Project: I Touch Myself – Berlei

Most Outstanding Drama Series

• Doctor Doctor (Nine Network)
• Mystery Road (ABC)
• Neighbours (10)
• Secret City: Under The Eagle (Foxtel)
• Wentworth (Foxtel)

Most Outstanding Miniseries Or Telemovie

• Bloom (Stan)
• Olivia Newton-John: Hopelessly Devoted To You (Channel Seven)
• On The Ropes (SBS)
• Pine Gap (ABC)
• The Cry (ABC)

Most Outstanding Actor

• Aaron Pedersen (Mystery Road, ABC)
• Bryan Brown (Bloom, Stan)
• Jay Ryan (Fighting Season, Foxtel)
• Robbie Magasiva (Wentworth, Foxtel)
• Scott Ryan (Mr Inbetween, Foxtel)

Most Outstanding Actress

• Danielle Cormack (Secret City: Under The Eagle, Foxtel)
• Jenna Coleman (The Cry, ABC)
• Judy Davis (Mystery Road, ABC)
• Leah Purcell (Wentworth, Foxtel)
• Nicole Chamoun (On The Ropes, SBS)

Most Outstanding Supporting Actor

• Bernard Curry (Wentworth, Foxtel)
• Ewen Leslie (Fighting Season, Foxtel)
• Frankie J Holden (A Place To Call Home, Foxtel)
• Ian Meadows (Dead Lucky, SBS)
• Wayne Blair (Mystery Road, ABC)

Most Outstanding Supporting Actress

• Asher Keddie (The Cry, ABC)
• Celia Ireland (Wentworth, Foxtel)
• Jacki Weaver (Bloom, Stan)
• Keisha Castle-Hughes (On The Ropes, SBS)
• Susie Porter (The Second, Stan)

Most Outstanding Entertainment Program

• Australian Ninja Warrior (Nine Network)
• Eurovision – Australia Decides 2018 (SBS)
• Gogglebox Australia (Foxtel/10)
• Have You Been Paying Attention? (10)
• True Story With Hamish & Andy (Nine Network)

Most Outstanding Children's Program

• Bluey (ABC)
• Grace Beside Me (SBS/NITV)
• Mustangs FC (ABC)
• Teenage Boss (ABC)
• The Bureau Of Magical Things (10)

Most Outstanding Sports Coverage

• Australia Vs India; Second Test In Perth (Foxtel)
• Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (Channel Seven)
• Invictus Games Sydney 2018 (ABC)
• Supercars Championship: Bathurst (10)
• The 2018 FIFA World Cup (SBS)

Most Outstanding News Coverage Or Public Affairs Report

• “James Comey Interview” (7.30, ABC)
• “Leadership Spill” (Sky News, Foxtel)
• “Out Of The Dark” (Four Corners, ABC)
• “Townsville Flood Disaster” (7 News, Channel Seven)
• “Who Cares?” (Four Corners, ABC)

Most Outstanding Factual Or Documentary Program

• Employable Me (ABC)
• Exposed: The Case Of Keli Lane (ABC)
• Ron Iddles: The Good Cop (Foxtel)
• Taboo (10)
• The Pacific – In The Wake Of Captain Cook With Sam Neil (Foxtel)

Most Outstanding Reality Program

• Australian Survivor: Champions Vs Contenders (10)
• House Rules (Channel Seven)
• Married At First Sight (Nine Network)
• MasterChef Australia (10)
• The Block (Nine Network)

James Bond fans will have to wait until April 2020 for the next instalment in the iconic film franchise, but already everyone wants to know more about the brandnew Bond girl, Ana de Armas. The stunning Cuban actor, 31, who will be starring alongside Daniel Craig and Oscar-winner Rami Malek, first found fame on Spanish television, but is still a relative newcomer to Hollywood. Here she talks about her humble beginnings, pure determination and new life in LA.

When did you decide you wanted to be an actor?

I was very young. I would watch movies on the couch in my house. If I saw a scene played by a woman or a man, I would right away run to the mirror and repeat it and do it again. We moved to Havana when I was nine and I heard there was a theatre school. That was the day I said, "Oh, if there is a school, then that's what I want to do, where I want to go." And I made my parents take me for the auditions. That's how it started.

Did your acting dream seem real?

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It was real. You can dream very high, but very few people dream that they can really go outside and have the balls to make that dream happen.

You had the balls to do it, but when did the opportunity come about?

I had the balls and a Spanish passport. So when I was 18 and I graduated from school, it came to my mind: "I want to go to Spain to just try and audition for something and see what happens." I bought a ticket and told my mom, "When I run out of money, I'll come back." I went to Spain with 200 euros in my pocket. I was lucky enough to meet a big casting director a week after I got there. He cast me for one of the biggest TV series ever made in Spain. And I never came back, because I started shooting.

What did you love about Spain?

I loved being independent for real, like finally. To me, my family means everything. I have a very small family, and I'm very close to all of them. But at the same time, I like to do my thing alone. And in Spain, I had that freedom. So when I moved to Spain, that was a great feeling.

Were you quick to adapt to working in English rather than Spanish?

I had to be. I guess your brain gets into survival mode or something. It was like I was learning a new superpower and how to use it. I always saw actors like Penélope [Cruz]. I could tell how hard it was for her at the beginning to feel and to act in English, because it's a different part of your brain. I always thought, "I have to get good at that. I have to be able to be able to feel and not to think about what I'm saying." I just want to feel it.

I always tell my agents, "I'm doing classes, but I want to go to meetings now, and I want to audition now."

"No, but your accent …"

"I don't care about the accent. I don't care. I want to do it, and I don't want to audition for Maria, and Juana, none of that. I want to audition for the same parts everyone else is auditioning for. And I'll make the difference. I'll make them change their minds."

At the beginning, it was a disaster. Nobody understood what I was saying. Even myself couldn't understand the context of what I was reading. I remember little phrases like "I beg your pardon?" or stuff like that. I had no clue what I was saying. But I knew emotionally what the scene was about. So my feelings were in the right place; my mouth was going somewhere else.

How do you mix putting yourself out there with being particular about the parts that you want to play?

There are two things. First, what they think that you can bring to the table, what you can bring to the character to offer, and what you can really offer. But sometimes they already make a decision before you ever get there.

And once you get there, there is another step: You don't look how I was imagining you. Because some of them, they don't even bother to google your photo. "Oh, but you're blonde, and green eyes, and so white. Are you Cuban? Cuban from where? From Miami?"

"No, from Cuba."

"You're Cuban, you're from Cuba?" Like all those kind of steps of being labelled, or being put in just the image they have in their heads.

The next step is that you get in the room for the audition. Then you can try to do your best and convince them that maybe that part that was not written for someone with an accent, or Latina, just someone in the world. It doesn't matter from where. You can play that, and you can do something special, and you can make that part remarkable and something different.

So it is something that, every day, I still have to do it. It's a puzzle.

How often do you get back to Cuba?

It depends on how busy I am that year. Some years I've only been once. So it always depends. I'm on the phone with my parents all the time. I'm in touch with my people always. I don't feel I'm disconnected or even not being there. Probably you pay more attention when you're not there.

Have you adapted to living in LA?

I like LA. It was tough at the beginning, because it can feel very lonely. It's hard to meet people. Everything happens in a house. So if you don't know anybody who invites you to the house, you're not anywhere. But now I have my friends, a great group of people. But also there are a few things that I don't adapt to.

As a human being, you always want to fit in. You don't want to be pointed out. Until the day you realise that you're just different – you cannot be from the same colour. They're all grey and you're pink. And that's your strength. The best thing I have is that nobody's me.

You don't have to try to fit. You have to just be yourself and do what you have to do. Why would you want it to be someone else that already exists? You can't. It's taken. Be you, and do what you've got.

Is there anything about the lifestyle in LA that you embraced that you hadn't experienced before?

There is something about LA that's all this healthy life, but in a good way. There is this nice routine in the mornings when you go get a juice, go for a walk with your dog, or go for a hike. In Cuba, I grew up with so many trees, and by the ocean, and walking a lot. It was something so regular for me, like so ordinary, that you forget what you're seeing. It's just your every day.

I remember when I moved from Cuba to Spain, all I wanted to have was a very clean, new apartment with new windows, and airconditioned. Because [in Cuba] all I had was a balcony with messy plants hanging around me, and it was hot. So you always want what you don't have. I realised how much I miss that nature, and I can see how here people really appreciate that.

Do you look for certain kinds of roles or take each one as they come?

So far, I've done the best with what I've got. Of course I see projects that I really want to do, and the parts that I really would love to play, and I can get to that. I want to do everything and beyond.

I want to create some impact. Until now, I've been always the wife or the girlfriend of the lead actor in a movie. I've learnt a lot, and I really enjoyed it, and I played it because I really wanted the part. But there's more than that. There are great female roles that are not only reacting or creating the situation for him to be the hero. I want to show how strong and smart women are.

We go through so much. We need to see that on screen. Those female parts, not many, but they are out there, and I have to find some. I want that chance.

Do you have a career masterplan?

I don't think about that. I just don't want to do that to myself. I don't want to create that anticipation and expectations to myself. Because I know for sure, because they've never done it, my parents are not waiting for me to come back home with a trophy or anything to prove. So the only one that can get in my head is just me, and I don't want to do that. Whatever happens, happens.

OUR FAVOURITE BOND GIRLS
Ana de Armas is following in the footsteps of many memorable women who have wooed 007. Here are 10 who lead the way.

• MARY GOODNIGHT who was played by Britt Ekland in The Man with the Golden Gun.
• WAI LIN who was played by Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies.
• SOLITAIRE who was played by Jane Seymour in Live and Let Die.
• HONEY RYDER who was played by Ursula Andress in Dr No.
• MAY DAY who was played by Grace Jones in A View to a Kill.
• GIACINTA “JINX” JOHNSON who was played by Halle Berry in Die Another Day.
• TATIANA ROMANOVA who was played by Daniela Bianchi in From Russia with Love.
• TRACY BOND who was played by Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
• PUSSY GALORE who played Honor Blackman in Goldfinger.
• VESPER LYND who was played by Eva Green in Casino Royale.

This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale May 26.