BBC Greenlights Drama On Football Sexual Abuse Scandal; Disney+ Launch Plans; Cairo Film Fest Director; Viaplay Liv Ullmann Doc – Global Briefs

He’s one of the world’s most recognisable actors, thanks to his acclaimed roles in The Wire and Luther, but Idris Elba says things could have turned out very differently for him. The 49-year-old has praised the boxing school at York Hall in London’s Bethnal Green for keeping him on the straight and narrow as a young man. “At 22 years old, I could have gone many different ways,” the actor has explained.

Great Celebrity Bake Off on Channel 4 Actors Katherine Kelly and Ben Miller and Olympic champion Mo Farah joined Strictly Come Dancing judge Motsi for the penultimate Stand Up To Cancer special. For their showstopper, the bakers were asked to create an edible ode to their favourite childhood memory.

Guy Lodge Film CriticOperation Mincemeat was an aptly absurd code name for what was, on the face of it, a preposterous British military mission: In 1943, with Allied forces planning to invade Sicily and wrest it from fascist Axis control, two intelligence officers conspired to convince the Nazis they were targeting Greece instead, pulling off the ruse with false documents and the stolen, dressed-up corpse of a fictitious British marine. It’s a true chapter of history that nonetheless sounds like a war film as dreamed up by Ealing Studios scriptwriters; it’s practically begging to be made into a farce, and sure enough, the gag-filled knockabout musical “Operation Mincemeat” hits London stages this very month.

Naman Ramachandran Celebrated media diversity and inclusion practitioner Joanna Abeyie is joining the BBC as interim head of creative diversity on a six-month contract.Abeyie will support the BBC’s outgoing director of creative diversity, June Sarpong, and chief content officer, Charlotte Moore, in delivering on-air diversity and inclusion strategies across all BBC output.Abeyie will lead on the planning, development and implementation of initiatives related to on-air talent portrayal, commissioning guidelines, diverse audience panels, monitoring and reporting. She joins at a time when there is an exodus of women of color from the BBC, as revealed by a Variety investigation.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterHarrison Ford has signed on to star opposite Jason Segel in the Apple comedy series “Shrinking,” Variety has learned.The show was first announced in October 2021. Segel will write the series alongside “Ted Lasso” co-creator Bill Lawrence and “Ted Lasso” star, writer, and co-executive producer Brett Goldstein.“Shrinking” follows Jimmy (Segel), a grieving therapist who starts to break the rules and tell his clients exactly what he thinks.

“Historic Collaboration” From India’s Zee And Mexico’s TelevisaUnivision

Jack O’Connell. Fans are preparing to so goodbye to Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and the gang as Peaky Blinders will be airing its final episode on Sunday, however, creator Steven Knight has treated us with another series for us to tune into.

EXCLUSIVE: Leonard Cohen’s relationship with muse Marianne Ihlen is going under the microscope in a 1960s-set drama co-production for Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

For late-night TV viewers, Friday, April 1 presented a tale of two Jimmies.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentEgyptian filmmaker Amir Ramses, who has tackled controversial social and political themes including pedophilia in works such as “Curfew” and the doc “Jews of Egypt,” has been appointed director of the Cairo Film Festival. The news that Ramses will head Cairo, which is the grande dame of Arab film events, follows shortly after prominent producer Mohamed Hefzy stepped down as Cairo fest president earlier this month.Hefzy was replaced as fest president by veteran Egyptian actor Hussein Fahmy, 81, a local megastar, who is taking over the event’s presidency for the second time after a first term between 1998 to 2001. Ramses, who was previously artistic director of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival between 2017 to 2021, is now expected to take on a broader role at Cairo extending beyond artistic director into a general manager position.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has launched a formal review following Will Smith’s assault on Chris Rock at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony. The organization behind the annual film awards show initially said it condemned violence without mentioning Smith by name, but now it is making its displeasure over the incident more explicit. “The Academy condemns the actions of Mr.

EXCLUSIVE: Jacqueline Obradors (Promised Land), Jon Beavers (Licorice Pizza) and Ruth Righi (Sydney To The Max) are set as leads opposite Scott Bakula, Anna Wood, Oluniké Adeliyi and Cress Williams in NBC’s drama pilot Unbroken (working title). They also join previously announced series regulars Delon de Metz, Amanda Payton and Shian Tomlinson in the project from New Amsterdam executive producer Shaun Cassidy and Universal Television.

Moon Knight director Mohamed Diab feels Western cinema has a way to go in its depictions of his native Egypt.

Moon Knight director Mohamed Diab has called the depiction of Egypt in Wonder Woman 1984 “a disgrace”.The filmmaker, from Egypt himself, pointed to the scene in which Diana and Steve visit Cairo, and discussed his own take on ancient Egyptian mythology in the forthcoming Disney+ series.“In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood’s history,” he told SFX Magazine.“It’s always exotic – we call it orientalism. It dehumanises us. We are always naked, we are always sexy, we are always bad, we are always over the top.”Speaking about Wonder Woman 1984 specifically, Diab went on: “You never see Cairo.

Zack Sharf Marvel’s upcoming series “Moon Knight” features four of six episodes directed by Mohamed Diab, the Egyptian screenwriter and filmmaker best known for his feature directorial debut “Cairo 678” and his 2021 Venice world premiere “Amira.” The Marvel series incorporates elements of Ancient Egyptian mythology in telling the story of Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac), a mercenary who becomes the conduit of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu, so it was of upmost importance for Diab when signing onto the series that it did right by Egyptian representation.“In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood’s history,” Diab recently told SFX Magazine. “It’s always exotic – we call it orientalism. It dehumanizes us.

Former Black Lightning star Cress Williams has been tapped as a lead opposite Scott Bakula, Anna Wood and Oluniké Adeliyi in NBC’s drama pilot Unbroken (working title). Also cast in the project, from New Amsterdam executive producer Shaun Cassidy and Universal Television, is newcomer Shian Tomlinson whose only previous TV credit is a guest spot on NBC/Uni TV drama New Amsterdam.

Naman Ramachandran U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 has picked up South African detective drama “The Cane Field Killings” starring Kim Engelbrecht (“Bullet Proof”) and Iain Glen (“Game of Thrones”). The eight-episode series, which launched last year in South Africa, will launch on Channel 4 on Apr.