The magic of Disney

From films and TV series to theme parks, Disney has been enchanting us for the past 90 years. Discover an empire.

Once upon a time... Walt Disney was an artist and a visionary businessman. Born in 1901 in Chicago, he grew up on a farm. But Walt loved cartoons. When he was 20 years old, he opened a studio in Hollywood. When Walt died, in 1966, his company was a global empire. Today, it has annual revenues of over 35 billion dollars and employs 150,000 people.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The film of the month

Jennifer Lawrence is back as Katniss Everdeen in the second Hunger Games film. After winning the 74th competition with Peeta Mellark, Katniss returns home. But now the 75th Games are in preparation and both are forced to participate. It's a special edition of the Games: all the participants are past winners. They must fight to the dead in a televised battle. It's a cruel challenge.

Jennifer Lawrence

Oscar-winning superstar and nice girl

Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence is everywhere this month. I love English has some ideas on how to succeed like Jennifer...

Make the right decisions... Most actresses, if offered a role in The Hunger Games, would say "Yes!" without hesitation. Not Jennifer Lawrence. She was worried that being famous would change her. She thought about the offer for three days, before accepting. Like Katniss in the films, Jennifer became a superstar overnight. But happily, she hasn't changed at all!

Give 100 per cent... To prepare for her role in The Hunger Games, Jennifer worked very hard. She trained in archery four times a week, learnt tree and rock climbing, and had fitness and combat coaching. "It I look exhausted in the movie, that's definitely real," she says smiling. 

Be unpredictable... Jennifer likes to surprise her fans. She plays very different roles from one film to the next. She experiments with new styles. Her hair colour changes from blonde to brown, and she can wear everything from elegant dresses to jeans and simple T-shirts.

Laugh at yourself... Jennifer admits that she's not perfect. She's naturally clumsy, and fell on the steps when she collected her first Oscar in front of Hollywood's most important stars. But she reacted to this embarrassing situation with humour. "You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell", she said when the audience stood up in her honour.

Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscars

Be fearless... Most actresses don't dream of carrying a shotgun. But Jennifer is fearless: that's exactly what she did in the film "Winter's Bone". Millions of fans identified with her challenging, teenage role. It was also preparation for playing Katniss.

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games)

Be modest... With a salary of 10 million dollars for the new Hunger Games film, Jennifer is the most successful female action star of all time. But she is modest about her success. "I'm not saving lives", she says. "There are doctors who save lives and fireman who run into burning buildings. I'm making movies."

Get angry...when there's a good reason to. Jennifer hates photographers following her everywhere. She has a difficult relationship with fame. I'm beginning to feel like a monkey in a zoo," she says. "I am not OK with it. I am just a normal girl and a human being." And that, Jennifer, is exactly why we love you.

A survey about the future

The topic of the survey was "The next millennium". A group of ten people did the survey and in general they were positive about the future. Theses are the results.

Everybody thinks that humans will exist in a millennium time, and more than half of the group think that the world will be a better place in the future. Some people think that the world will be better because we will learn to be cleaner and protect the planet. They think that we will be more intelligent in the future.

Most people think space travel will be normal in the next hundred years, and about half of the poeple think that humans won't live on other planets in the future. Nobody says that they will travel into space if they have the chance. Too scary!

A brave rescue

The rescue happened when we were on holiday in the Alps last January. It was really amazing and I was lucky to get a photo of it.

It was with my friends and we were climbing up a mountain. We were talking about the trip when we saw three people near us that stopped climbing. There were two men and a young girl and they were shouting. Two big rocks were falling off the mountain and they were going to hurt the climbers. One of my friends went to the people running immediately.

He knew a cave near there so the four climbers had enough time to escape from the rocks. They waited and we called a helicopter to help them. I think my friend was very brave because the rocks could have crushed him.

About Joaquín Cortés

Joaquín Cortés is a Spanish dancer. He was born in Córdoba in 1989. He moved to Madrid in 1981 and then to New York in 1999.

Joaquín Cortés studied dance when he was twelve years old. After that, at the age of fifteen, he studied at the Spanish National Ballet.

Three of his most famous shows are Pasión Gitana, Soul and Live. He is also famous because of his explosive, original and athletic dance.