Passage 1:
The Messenger (2009 film)
The Messenger is a 2009 war drama film starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Steve Buscemi, and Jena Malone. It is the directorial debut of Oren Moverman, who also wrote the screenplay with Alessandro Camon.
The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was in competition at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay and the Berlinale Peace Film Award '09. The film received first prize for the 2009 Deauville American Film Festival. The film has also received four Independent Spirit Award nominations (including one win), a Golden Globe nomination, and two Oscar nominations.

Plot
On leave from the Iraq War, Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army staff sergeant, finds that his girlfriend Kelly is engaged to another man. Before he is to be discharged, he is dispatched as a casualty notification officer along with Gulf War veteran Captain Tony Stone as his mentor. He is told of the importance of his task by Lieutenant Colonel Dorsett as many have failed. Stone then relays the rules of telling next of kin of a tragedy. On the job, their first report to the family prompts the mother to slap Stone, as she and his pregnant fiancé weep over the deceased; a man named Dale Martin angrily throws things at Will; a woman who secretly married an enlisted man cries in his arms after learning of her husband's death; a Mexican man who is told through a translator about the death of his daughter cries in front of his other child; and a woman named Olivia is in considerably less visible pain after learning of her husband's death. Stone suspects it is due to her having an affair.
In a bar, Will and Stone discuss their lives to each other. Will talks about his girlfriend rejecting him and tells Stone about his father's death due to drunk driving, along with tales of his estranged mother. Will sees Olivia with her son at a mall buying clothes for her husband's funeral, breaking up a fight between her and two Army recruiters attempting to enlist boys and girls, before offering her a ride. He fixes her car and becomes friends with both her and her young son Matt. After hearing a voicemail from Kelly talking about her upcoming wedding, he punches a hole through his wall in a fit of rage, which further aggravates his hand. He arrives at Olivia's house and the two express affection for each other, but his attempts at physical intimacy are met with hesitancy as she tells him about how her husband mistreated her and her son.
When Will comforts a family in a local grocery store after telling them of their son's fate, Stone physically berates him for it. Will stands up to his rank by using his first name "Tony"  before walking home on his own. They later make up and spend the next few days together, where Stone has a hookup and unsuccessfully tries to get Will to do the same. They end up at Kelly's wedding drunk and make a scene, fight in a parking lot, then wake up in a forest after passing out and go home. Martin is there, and he apologizes for lashing out at Will. In Tony's apartment, Will tells Tony about his experience with a friend who died while fighting in Iraq - an event that resulted in his chronic damage to his left eye - and how he feels his bravery was meaningless as he could not do anything for him; he contemplated suicide soon after, but stopped himself when he saw the sunrise. Hearing this, Tony breaks down in tears.
The next day, Olivia decides to move from her house. She tells Will that she is going with her son to Louisiana; Will tells her he is considering staying in the army. He asks Olivia to let him know their new address; she asks him to come with her into the house.

Cast
Production
The Messenger marked the directorial debut of Israeli screenwriter and former journalist Oren Moverman.  Though Sydney Pollack, Roger Michell, and Ben Affleck were all attached to direct the movie at various times, when those talks fell through, the producers eventually asked Moverman to helm the project. The filmmakers worked closely with the United States Army and the Walter Reed Medical Center to conduct research on military life, and were specifically advised by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Sinor as a technical consultant.

Release
The Messenger premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival before receiving a limited release in North America in 4 theaters. It grossed $44,523 for an average of $11,131 per theater ranking 46th at the box office, and went on to earn $1.1 million domestically and $411,601 internationally for a total of $1.5 million, against its budget of $6.5 million.

Reception
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 90%, based on 162 reviews, with an average rating of 7.51/10. The site's critical consensus states, "A dark but timely subject is handled deftly by writer/director Owen Moverman and superbly acted by Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 77 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".Harrelson's performance was subject to considerable praise, leading to Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

Awards and nominations
Top ten lists
The Messenger, upon receiving strong positive reviews from audiences, appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2009.
3rd: Robert Mondello, NPR
4th: Ty Burr, Boston Globe
4th: Stephen Holden, The New York Times
9th: Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
10th: Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Top 10: David Denby, The New Yorker
Passage 2:
Olav Aaraas
Olav Aaraas (born 10 July 1950) is a Norwegian historian and museum director.
He was born in Fredrikstad. From 1982 to 1993 he was the director of Sogn Folk Museum, from 1993 to 2010 he was the director of Maihaugen and from 2001 he has been the director of the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. In 2010 he was decorated with the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav.
Passage 3:
Jeffrey Messenger
Jeffrey Messenger (born November 28, 1949) is an American politician. He is a former member of the Missouri House of Representatives from the 130th district from 2013 to 2021. He is a member of the Republican party.
Passage 4:
Lisa Messenger
Lisa Messenger (born 1971) is an Australian entrepreneur and author. She is the owner and creative director of marketing for The Messenger Group, a book publishing company. As well as the founder and Editor in Chief of Collective Hub.

Background
Messenger grew up on a large farm outside Coolah, central western New South Wales, Australia and now lives north of Bondi Beach, Sydney.
Her first job was as a riding instructor. She graduated from a boarding school in Sydney and Southern Cross University (Bachelor of Business, 1999). She worked for several years before taking her degree. She founded The Messenger Group in 2001 in Sydney, brokering sponsorship deals and doing public relations and marketing.Her self-help and entrepreneurship books reveal several major personal challenges as well as business success. She was married and divorced, and as detailed in her 2016 books, was engaged to an entrepreneur in 2015. In 2023, her friend is acting as a surrogate mother.

Businesses
The Messenger Group is a media company. Lisa Messenger launched it as a publishing company in 2001, and it now has 18 arms including a lifestyle website, publishing, events, marketing consultancy, and homewares. The Group has published around 400 books.  Collective was launched in 2013 with $1.5 million of her own money, as an "entrepreneurial and lifestyle" print magazine, alongside a website and events company. In 2015, Collective was distributed in 37 countries.In October 2017, the Group announced that this flagship publication would shift from monthly to bi-monthly after "several redundancies as the business streamlines itself around the three key pillars of print, digital and events."On 26 March 2018, Messenger announced that the print edition would close. Messenger also closed the Sydney office. Financial and creative reasons were given, and she wrote a book about the process. Several months later, the print edition was reinstated, although with one-off issues and freelance contracts for a smaller number of journalists.

Books
Messenger has written several lifestyle and business books. Most were published by her own company, although Daring & Disruptive was also published by Simon & Schuster.
Messenger, L. 2022. Start Up To Scale Up. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2021. 365 Days Of Kindness. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2020. Life In Lessons. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2019. Daily Mantras To Ignite Your Purpose. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2018. Risk & Resilience; Breaking & Remaking a Brand. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2018. Work From Wherever. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2016. Daring & Disruptive: Unleashing the Entrepreneur. Simon & Schuster/North Star Way
Messenger, L. 2016. Daring & Disruptive playbook. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2016. Breakups and Breakthroughs. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2015. Life & Love: Creating the Dream. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2015. Money and Mindfulness playbook. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2015. Money and Mindfulness: living in abundance. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2012. Social Media to Boost Your Brand. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. 2011. Books to Boost Your Brand. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. and C. Gray (eds.) 2009. Property Investing - The Australian Way. Messenger Publishing.
Messenger, L. 2009. Maverick Marketing. The Messenger Group.
Messenger, L. and Z. Liew 2009. Cubicle Commando: Intrapreneurs, Innovation and Corporate Realities. Messenger Publishing.
Messenger, L. 2009. Happiness Is.... Messenger Publishing.

Awards
Southern Cross University Alumni of the Year (2010)
Thought Leaders Entrepreneur of the Year (2008)
Passage 5:
Ian Barry (director)
Ian Barry is an Australian director of film and TV.

Select credits
Waiting for Lucas (1973) (short)
Stone (1974) (editor only)
The Chain Reaction (1980)
Whose Baby? (1986) (mini-series)
Minnamurra (1989)
Bodysurfer (1989) (mini-series)
Ring of Scorpio (1990) (mini-series)
Crimebroker (1993)
Inferno (1998) (TV movie)
Miss Lettie and Me (2002) (TV movie)
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008) (documentary)
The Doctor Blake Mysteries (2013)
Passage 6:
Markus Zusak
Markus Zusak (born 23 June 1975) is an Australian writer. He is best known for The Book Thief and The Messenger, two novels which became international bestsellers. He won the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2014.

Early life
Zusak was born in Sydney, Australia. His mother Lisa is originally from Germany and his father Helmut is Austrian. They emigrated to Australia in the late 1950s. Zusak is the youngest of four children and has two sisters and one brother. He attended Engadine High School and briefly returned there to teach English while writing. He studied English and history at the University of New South Wales, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Education.

Career
Zusak is the author of six books. His first three books, The Underdog, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, and When Dogs Cry, released between 1999 and 2001, were all published internationally. The Messenger, published in 2002, won the 2003 CBC Book of the Year Award (Older Readers) and the 2003 NSW Premier's Literary Award (Ethel Turner Prize) in Australia and was a runner-up for the Printz Award in America.
The Book Thief was published in 2005 and has since been translated into more than 40 languages. The Book Thief was adapted as a film of the same name in 2013. In 2014, Zusak delivered a talk called 'The Failurist' at TEDxSydney at the Sydney Opera House. It focused on his drafting process and journey to success through writing The Book Thief.The Messenger (I Am the Messenger in the United States) was published in 2002 and was one of Zusak's first novels. This novel has won awards such as the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards: Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature.In March 2016 Zusak talked about his then unfinished novel Bridge of Clay. He stated that the book was 90% finished but that, "I’m a completely different person than the person who wrote The Book Thief. And this is also the scary thing—I’m a different person to the one who started Bridge of Clay eight, nine years ago ...  I’ve got to get it done this year, or else I’ll probably finally have to set it aside."A TV series based on The Messenger premiered on ABC in 2023. Zusak said his next book would be a "memoir type thing" and not fiction.

Works
The Underdog (1999)
Fighting Ruben Wolfe (2000), sequel to The Underdog
When Dogs Cry (2001), a.k.a. Getting the Girl; sequel to Fighting Ruben Wolfe
The Messenger (2002); US title: I Am the Messenger
The Book Thief (2005)
Bridge of Clay (2018), Pan Macmillan Australia

Awards
In 2014, Zusak won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association (ALA), which annually recognises an author and "a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature".In 2006, Zusak was also the recipient of The Sydney Morning Herald's Young Australian Novelist of the Year Award.

The Book Thief
2006: Kathleen Mitchell Award 2006 (literature)
2006: National Jewish Book Award (Children's and Young Adult Literature)
2007: Michael L. Printz Award runner-up (Honor Book) from the US Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)
2008: Ena Noel Award – the IBBY Australia Ena Noël Encouragement Award for Children's Literature
2009: Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
The Messenger (US title: I Am The Messenger)
2003: New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature
2003: Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award
2005: Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year-Children
2006: Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book
2006: Printz Award Honor Book
2007: Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
When Dogs Cry / Getting the Girl
2002: Honour Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers
Fighting Ruben Wolfe
2001: Honour Book, CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers
shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature
Passage 7:
Peter Levin
Peter Levin is an American director of film, television and theatre.

Career
Since 1967, Levin has amassed a large number of credits directing episodic television and television films. Some of his television series credits include Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, James at 15, The Paper Chase, Family, Starsky & Hutch, Lou Grant, Fame, Cagney & Lacey, Law & Order and Judging Amy.Some of his television film credits include Rape and Marriage: The Rideout Case (1980), A Reason to Live (1985), Popeye Doyle (1986), A Killer Among Us (1990), Queen Sized (2008) and among other films. He directed "Heart in Hiding", written by his wife Audrey Davis Levin, for which she received an Emmy for Best Day Time Special in the 1970s.
Prior to becoming a director, Levin worked as an actor in several Broadway productions. He costarred with Susan Strasberg in "[The Diary of Ann Frank]" but had to leave the production when he was drafted into the Army. He trained at the Carnegie Mellon University. Eventually becoming a theatre director, he directed productions at the Long Wharf Theatre and the Pacific Resident Theatre Company. He also co-founded the off-off-Broadway Theatre [the Hardware Poets Playhouse] with his wife Audrey Davis Levin and was also an associate artist of The Interact Theatre Company.
Passage 8:
Jesse E. Hobson
Jesse Edward Hobson (May 2, 1911 – November 5, 1970) was the director of SRI International from 1947 to 1955. Prior to SRI, he was the director of the Armour Research Foundation.

Early life and education
Hobson was born in Marshall, Indiana. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Purdue University and a PhD in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. Hobson was also selected as a nationally outstanding engineer.Hobson married Jessie Eugertha Bell on March 26, 1939, and they had five children.

Career
Awards and memberships
Hobson was named an IEEE Fellow in 1948.
Passage 9:
Oren Moverman
Oren Moverman (Hebrew: אורן מוברמן; born July 4, 1966) is an Israeli-American screenwriter, film director, and Emmy Award-winning film producer. He has directed the films The Messenger, Rampart, Time Out of Mind, and The Dinner.

Biography
Oren Moverman was born on July 4, 1966 in Jaffa (Yafo), Israel. He is an Ashkenazi Jew. He grew up in Givatayim. From age 13 to 18, he first lived in the United States. After serving in the Israel Defense Forces, he moved to the United States. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1992.Moverman started his career as a screenwriter. He wrote screenplays for films such as Jesus' Son, Face,  I'm Not There, Married Life., as well as the Brian Wilson biopic Love & MercyIn 2009, Moverman made his directorial feature film debut with The Messenger, starring Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson. The film had its world premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.Co-written with Alessandro Camon The Messenger  won the Silver Bear for best screenplay and the Peace Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the Grand Prize and the International Critics Prize at the Deauville Film Festival. It was nominated in the Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor categories by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 2011, Moverman collaborated with Harrelson again in his second directorial film Rampart. The film had its world premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.In 2014, he directed Time Out of Mind, starring Richard Gere. The film had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival where it won the Fipresci Prize,an award given by the International Federation of Film Critics. In 2017, he directed The Dinner, starring Gere, Steve Coogan, Laura Linney, and Rebecca Hall. The film had its world premiere at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.

Filmography
Feature films
Passage 10:
Brian Kennedy (gallery director)
Brian Patrick Kennedy (born 5 November 1961) is an Irish-born art museum director who has worked in Ireland and Australia, and now lives and works in the United States.  He was the director of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem for 17 months, resigning December 31, 2020. He was the director of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio from 2010 to 2019. He was the director of the Hood Museum of Art from 2005 to 2010, and the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra) from 1997 to 2004.

Career
Brian Kennedy currently lives and works in the United States after leaving Australia in 2005 to direct the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. In October 2010 he became the ninth Director of the Toledo Museum of Art. On 1 July 2019, he succeeded Dan Monroe as the executive director and CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum.

Early life and career in Ireland
Kennedy was born in Dublin and attended Clonkeen College. He received B.A. (1982), M.A. (1985) and PhD (1989) degrees from University College-Dublin, where he studied both art history and history.
He worked in the Irish Department of Education (1982), the European Commission, Brussels (1983), and in Ireland at the Chester Beatty Library (1983–85), Government Publications Office (1985–86), and Department of Finance (1986–89). He married Mary Fiona Carlin in 1988.He was Assistant Director at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin from 1989 to 1997. He was Chair of the Irish Association of Art Historians from 1996 to 1997, and of the Council of Australian Art Museum Directors from 2001 to 2003. In September 1997 he became Director of the National Gallery of Australia.

National Gallery of Australia (NGA)
Kennedy expanded the traveling exhibitions and loans program throughout Australia, arranged for several major shows of Australian art abroad, increased the number of exhibitions at the museum itself and oversaw the development of an extensive multi-media site.  Although he oversaw several years of the museum's highest ever annual visitation, he discontinued the emphasis of his predecessor, Betty Churcher, on showing "blockbuster" exhibitions.
During his directorship, the NGA gained government support for improving the building and significant private donations and corporate sponsorship. However, the initial design for the building proved controversial generating a public dispute with the original architect on moral rights grounds.  As a result, the project was not delivered during Dr Kennedy's tenure, with a significantly altered design completed some years later.  Private funding supported two acquisitions of British art, including David Hockney's A Bigger Grand Canyon in 1999, and Lucian Freud's After Cézanne in 2001. Kennedy built on the established collections at the museum by acquiring the Holmgren-Spertus collection of Indonesian textiles; the Kenneth Tyler collection of editioned prints, screens, multiples and unique proofs; and the Australian Print Workshop Archive. He was also notable for campaigning for the construction of a new "front" entrance to the Gallery, facing King Edward Terrace, which was completed in 2010 (see reference to the building project above).
Kennedy's cancellation of the "Sensation exhibition" (scheduled at the NGA from 2 June 2000 to 13 August 2000) was controversial, and seen by some as censorship. He claimed that the decision was due to the exhibition being "too close to the market" implying that a national cultural institution cannot exhibit the private collection of a speculative art investor. However, there were other exhibitions at the NGA during his tenure, which could have raised similar concerns. The exhibition featured the privately owned Young British Artists works belonging to Charles Saatchi and attracted large attendances in London and Brooklyn. Its most controversial work was Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary, a painting which used elephant dung and was accused of being blasphemous. The then-mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, campaigned against the exhibition, claiming it was "Catholic-bashing" and an "aggressive, vicious, disgusting attack on religion." In November 1999, Kennedy cancelled the exhibition and stated that the events in New York had "obscured discussion of the artistic merit of the works of art". He has said that it "was the toughest decision of my professional life, so far."Kennedy was also repeatedly questioned on his management of a range of issues during the Australian Government's Senate Estimates process - particularly on the NGA's occupational health and safety record and concerns about the NGA's twenty-year-old air-conditioning system. The air-conditioning was finally renovated in 2003. Kennedy announced in 2002 that he would not seek extension of his contract beyond 2004, accepting a seven-year term as had his two predecessors.He became a joint Irish-Australian citizen in 2003.

Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is known for its exceptional collections of European and American paintings and sculpture, glass, antiquities, artist books, Japanese prints and netsuke. The museum offers free admission and is recognized for its historical leadership in the field of art education.  During his tenure, Kennedy has focused the museum's art education efforts on visual literacy, which he defines as "learning to read, understand and write visual language."   Initiatives have included baby and toddler tours, specialized training for all staff, docents, volunteers and the launch of a website, www.vislit.org. In November 2014, the museum hosted the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA) conference, the first Museum to do so. Kennedy has been a frequent speaker on the topic, including 2010 and 2013 TEDx talks on visual and sensory literacy.
Kennedy has expressed an interest in expanding the museum's collection of contemporary art and art by indigenous peoples. Works by Frank Stella, Sean Scully, Jaume Plensa, Ravinder Reddy and Mary Sibande have been acquired.  In addition, the museum has made major acquisitions of Old Master paintings by Frans Hals and Luca Giordano.During his tenure the Toledo Museum of Art has announced the return of several objects from its collection due to claims the objects were stolen and/or illegally exported prior being sold to the museum.  In 2011 a Meissen sweetmeat stand was returned to Germany followed by an Etruscan Kalpis or water jug to Italy (2013), an Indian sculpture of Ganesha (2014) and an astrological compendium to Germany in 2015.

Hood Museum of Art
Kennedy became Director of the Hood Museum of Art in July 2005. During his tenure, he implemented a series of large and small-scale exhibitions and oversaw the production of more than 20 publications to bring greater public attention to the museum's remarkable collections of the arts of America, Europe, Africa, Papua New Guinea and the Polar regions. At 70,000 objects, the Hood has one of the largest collections on any American college of university campus. The exhibition, Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body, toured several US venues. Kennedy increased campus curricular use of works of art, with thousands of objects pulled from storage for classes annually. Numerous acquisitions were made with the museum's generous endowments, and he curated several exhibitions: including Wenda Gu: Forest of Stone Steles: Retranslation and Rewriting Tang Dynasty Poetry, Sean Scully: The Art of the Stripe, and Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons.

Publications
Kennedy has written or edited a number of books on art, including:

Alfred Chester Beatty and Ireland 1950-1968: A study in cultural politics, Glendale Press (1988), ISBN 978-0-907606-49-9
Dreams and responsibilities: The state and arts in independent Ireland, Arts Council of Ireland (1990), ISBN 978-0-906627-32-7
Jack B Yeats: Jack Butler Yeats, 1871-1957 (Lives of Irish Artists), Unipub (October 1991), ISBN 978-0-948524-24-0
The Anatomy Lesson: Art and Medicine (with Davis Coakley), National Gallery of Ireland (January 1992), ISBN 978-0-903162-65-4
Ireland: Art into History (with Raymond Gillespie), Roberts Rinehart Publishers (1994), ISBN 978-1-57098-005-3
Irish Painting, Roberts Rinehart Publishers (November 1997),  ISBN 978-1-86059-059-7
Sean Scully: The Art of the Stripe, Hood Museum of Art (October 2008), ISBN 978-0-944722-34-3
Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons, 1965-1966, Hood Museum of Art (October 2010), ISBN 978-0-944722-39-8

Honors and achievements
Kennedy was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in 2001 for service to Australian Society and its art. He is a trustee and treasurer of the Association of Art Museum Directors, a peer reviewer for the American Association of Museums and a member of the International Association of Art Critics. In 2013 he was appointed inaugural eminent professor at the University of Toledo and received an honorary doctorate from Lourdes University. Most recently, Kennedy received the 2014 Northwest Region, Ohio Art Education Association award for distinguished educator for art education.

== Notes ==