1492: Conquest of Paradise

1492: Conquest of Paradise is an epic 1992 adventure/drama film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Roselyne Bosch, which tells the fictionalized story of the discovery of the New World by the Genoan explorer Christopher Columbus (Gérard Depardieu) and the effect this had on the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The film was released by Paramount to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage.

Plot

In the beginning, Columbus is obsessed with making a trip westwards to Asia, but lacks crew and a ship. The Catholic theologians at the University of Salamanca heavily disapprove of it, and they are not keen on ideas that go against the writings of Ptolemaeus. After continuous warnings at the monastery, he becomes involved in a brawl with the monks, ending up lying in the monastery courtyard to pay penance. His eldest son, Diego, one of the monks, looks on disapprovingly. As Columbus continues his penance through a vow of silence, he is approached by Martín Pinzon, a shipowner from Palos, who introduces Columbus to the banker Santángel. Queen Isabella I (Sigourney Weaver) owes money to Santángel. Columbus meets with the queen, who grants him his journey in exchange for his promise to bring back sufficient amounts of riches in gold.

Conquest

Conquest may refer to:

History

Stage, film and television

Music

Gaming

Paradise

Paradise (Persian: پردیس, Paradise garden) is the term for a place of timeless harmony. The Abrahamic faiths associate paradise with the Garden of Eden, that is, the perfect state of the world prior to the fall from grace, and the perfect state that will be restored in the World to Come.

Paradisaical notions are cross-cultural, often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, a land of luxury and idleness. Paradise is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, in contrast to this world, or underworlds such as Hell. In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead. In Christian and Islamic understanding, Heaven is a paradisaical relief. In old Egyptian beliefs, the otherworld is Aaru, the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the dead lived after judgment. For the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a paradisaical land of plenty where the heroic and righteous dead hoped to spend eternity. The Vedic Indians held that the physical body was destroyed by fire but recreated and reunited in the Third Heaven in a state of bliss. In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the "Best Existence" and the "House of Song" are places of the righteous dead. On the other hand, in cosmological contexts 'paradise' describes the world before it was tainted by evil.

Dana Winner

Dana Winner is the stage name of Chantal Vanlee (born in Hasselt, 10 February 1965). She is a Belgian singer who is famous especially in Flanders, South Africa and the Netherlands.

Biography

In 1990 she released her first single Op het dak van de wereld, (Dutch: "On the roof of the world"), a cover of The Carpenters' Top of the World from 1973. In 1993 she became really popular with Woordenloos (Dutch: "Without words"). However, it was only in 1995 that she released her only hit single so far to reach the Dutch Top 40, Westenwind. This was a cover of the former hit One Way Wind by the Volendam group The Cats.

After her first success, Dana Winner also became well known in Germany and South Africa. At the end of the 1990s, she began singing in other languages and did not release an album in Dutch between 2000 and 2006. It was also in 2006 that she got a permanent memento in Bornem, along the SIM-route.

Discography

CD - Album

Regenbogen 1993 België

Mijn Paradijs 1994 België

Regen van geluk 1995 België

Ridley Scott

Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. Following his commercial breakthrough with the science-fiction horror film Alien (1979), his better-known works are the neo-noir dystopian science fiction film Blade Runner (1982), crime drama Thelma & Louise (1991), historical drama and Best Picture Oscar winner Gladiator (2000), war film Black Hawk Down (2001), crime thriller Hannibal (2001), biographical film American Gangster (2007), and science fiction films Prometheus (2012) and The Martian (2015).

Scott is known for his atmospheric, highly concentrated visual style. Though his films range widely in setting and period, they frequently showcase memorable imagery of urban environments, whether 2nd century Rome (Gladiator), 12th century Jerusalem (Kingdom of Heaven), medieval England (Robin Hood), contemporary Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down), or the future cityscapes of Blade Runner. Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing (for Thelma and Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down). In 1995, both Ridley and his brother Tony received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Contribution To Cinema. In 2003, Scott was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his "services to the British film industry". In 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Art in London.