Manchester City are World Champions after swatting aside Fluminense in Jeddah on Friday.
04.12.2023 - 15:03 / variety.com
John Bleasdale Guest Contributor Baz Luhrmann has discovered a surprising result of his stint as head of jury at the Red Sea Film Festival: empathy for film critics. “I’ve never done this before. I’ve never been forced to sit and watch three to four movies a day,” Luhrmann tells Variety.
“It’s given me more compassion for those journalists and people on juries. And I don’t mean in a bad way, because I’ve got unbelievable energy from it. And it’s not easy — just the amount of movies you see.
But it’s really, really stimulating. I’ve been reminded that, actually, movies can be really powerful and really good.” The movies have also provided Luhrmann with an argument for his decision, not without controversy, to participate in the festival. “When people talk about the Red Sea Festival, my answer is really simple.
Go and see the movies, then come and talk to me about what’s going on here,” he says. “The level of filmmaking is pretty amazing, some truly astounding … but I cannot believe the subjects and the power and the messaging and the kind of points of view that I’m sitting with audiences watching here in Jeddah.” Below, Luhrmann speaks with Variety about his filmmaking process, gives an update on his “The Master and Margarita” adaptation and shares what’s next for him. So you’re in your post-“Elvis” period. Are you working on something? I’m actually going through my process.
I’m working on a variety of things that are not cinema, some theater. I’m not yet articulating it. Not because I’m trying to hide anything — it’s that the moment I say it, I’ve really got to do it.
In my mind, anyway. I’ve made myself a deadline that by the end of the year, I will be committed to what I’m going to do. Because I never make [films]
.Manchester City are World Champions after swatting aside Fluminense in Jeddah on Friday.
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Manchester City will face Fluminense at King Abdullah Sport City in Jeddah in the final of the 2023 Club World Cup on Friday.
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The third annual Red Sea Film Festival handed out its Yusr Awards on Thursday night, with Zarrar Kahn’s In Flames taking Best Feature and Farah Nabulsi’s The Teacher scoring a pair of wins including Best Actor for Saleh Bakri. See the full list below.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Rising Saudi Arabian star Yaqoub Alfarhan, who is known for playing the titular drug trafficker and serial killer in hit MBC TV series “Rashash,” plays a very different role in the drama “Norah” by pioneering Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi, which is set in 1990s Saudi Arabia when conservatism was at its height and all forms of art and painting were banned for religion-related reasons. In “Norah,” which world premiered at the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, Alfarhan plays an artist named Nader who has given up painting and moved to a remote village to be a schoolteacher. There he intersects with this film’s titular character, played by Saudi newcomer Maria Bahrawi.
“Entrepreneurship and acting are very similar. Both require the same kind of energy,” Goop CEO and Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow told a crowd during a career retrospective this evening at the Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egyptian-Austrian director Abu Bakr Shawky, who in 2018 made a splash when his first feature “Yomeddine” had the rare distinction of making the competition cut for Cannes, is back on the festival circuit with Saudi-set adventure movie “Hajjan.” Shawky’s big-budget epic follow-up, which launched from Toronto’s Discovery section, is now premiering regionally at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, where it screened Monday to roaring applause as an out-of-competition gala. Somewhat similarly to “Yomeddine” – which involved the desert voyage of a leper, a donkey and a child – “Hajjan” also involves a journey across the desert.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning filmmakers have formed a trade organisation called Film Association in an effort to hold sway in regulations being laid out for the country’s booming film industry. The Saudi Film Association, announced during the ongoing Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, comes five years after the government removed its 35-year-old religion-related ban on cinemas.
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The Aussies took over Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival this evening as Elvis filmmaker Baz Luhrmann sat down for a career Q&A with actor Chris Hemsworth.
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Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Young Saudi director Meshal Al Jaser, who springs from the country’s vibrant YouTube scene, is making a splash with his madcap feature debut “Naga,” in which a young woman named Sara goes on a date and takes drugs in the desert. She then must overcome various obstacles, including a rabid camel, to get home before the curfew set by her punishment-prone father. Produced by Saudi’s prominent Telfaz11 production company in tandem with Netflix, “Naga” marks the first Saudi film selected for Toronto’s Midnight Madness program and is now premiering locally to ravishing response at the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah.
The Pentagon has said an American warship and multiple commercial ships have come under attack Sunday in the Red Sea.
Halle Berry and Gwyneth Paltrow are among the high-profile names that have been added to the popular ‘In-Conversation’ sidebar section at the third edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival. Scroll down for the full list of attendees.