Exclusive Curtain-raiser As Cameron Mackintosh,Judi Dench and ‘Old Friends’ Prepare To Celebrate Musical Genius,Stephen Sondheim

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentLola Arabia and Dubai’s Charisma Group are readying Agustí Villaronga’s “Arabian Aroma” and Pau Miró’s “Lost Symphony,” the first two titles in a 12-pic production alliance unveiled during the Berlin. FestivalBoth movies are in pre-production, budgeted around $6 million and feature women “who passionately set themselves on a mission,” the partners announced.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSaudi Arabian filmmaker, actress and activist Fatima Al-Banawi (“Barakah Meets Barakah”) is set to make her feature film directorial debut with “Basma,” a bold drama that will tackle the theme of mental illness in her country.The pic, which she also wrote, is set to start shooting in Jeddah in October.Besides writing and directing “Basma,” Al Banawi will be its titular star, playing the 26-year-old daughter of a man who suffers from paranoid delusions. Upon returning from the U.S.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterLatin American jazz fusion icon Carlos Santana will be the subject of an expansive documentary directed by Emmy winner Rudy Valdez.Imagine Documentaries is collaborating with Sony Music Entertainment on the project, who is co-financing and handling distribution. It will follow Santana’s journey from 14-year-old street musician to a 10-time Grammy winning global sensation, and feature unseen archival footage and tracks.Valdez is the director of the Sundance documentary audience award winner “The Sentence,” about the corrosive effect of mandatory minimum sentencing on convicts and their families.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards, Features EditorThe Pasadena Playhouse has announced its lineup for the 2022-23 season, including a six-month Sondheim Celebration that will kick off in January 2023. The celebration is dubbed to be the most ambitious in the theater’s history and will include not only productions of “Sunday in the Park with George,” “A Little Night Music” and “Into the Woods,” but a two-night concert from Sondheim’s muse Bernadette Peters.Says artistic director Danny Feldman, “In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, we began planning one of the most ambitious artistic ventures in our history: A Celebration of Stephen Sondheim.

When thinking of modern television and its lasting legacy, three shows come to mind as standing tall in either acclaim or significance. First, “Breaking Bad,” which lives on currently through “Better Call Saul” on AMC and is still considered potentially the best show of all time.

In 1971, the Cannes Film Festival opened with a screening of Gimme Shelter by Albert and David Maysles, an immersive, vérité depiction of two weeks in the touring life of the Rolling Stones. If that was all it did, it might have been forgotten by now. But by a terrible freak of chance, the filmmakers followed the band to the most notorious concert of their entire career — the Altamont Speedway Free Festival in Livermore, CA, where the Stones, along with Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, were set to perform a free concert for 300,000 people on Dec. 6, 1969. “We didn’t know what it was going to be,” Albert said later. “We just had a childish faith that having seen the Stones and getting along with them, there might be a feature film there.”

and we also covered that this morning — right now I want to focus on something specific: The first footage of Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer Morningstar. (You know, the devil, Satan, ruler of hell, etc etc etc.)The clip comes hear the end as we see images of Lucifer standing in front of a crowd of demons in hell, then directly — and very friendly — addressing Dream of the Endless (Tom Sturridge) asking, “are you well?”You can skip directly to minute 1:35 if you want to watch it above right now, but for your convenience here are some screenshots:Very mild spoilers ahead.You don’t know if you haven’t read “The Sandman,” but for those who have, this is a pretty huge deal.

EXCLUSIVE: Hayley Mills ,still fondly remembered for Disney classics Pollyanna and The Parent Trap, is checking into The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ,to take it on the road in the UK and then to London’s West End.

Party time! Adam Sandler celebrated 13-year-old daughter Sunny’s Bat Mitzvah with the help of his celebrity pals, including Jennifer Aniston and Taylor Lautner.

Metallica show in Curitiba, Brazil on Saturday night (May 7).The metal band were performing at the city’s Estádio Couto Pereira stadium as part of their current South American tour, which was postponed from April 2020 due to the COVID pandemic.As Consequence Of Sound reports, tattoo artist Joice M.

stars Chantel and Pedro are going through some serious marriage issues in this exclusive first look at season 4 of. In this supertease of what's to come, Chantel says she has to fight to save her and Pedro's marriage, even seeking out his mother, Lidia, whom she's long had issues with.While last season of focused on Pedro emotionally trying to find his father in the Dominican Repubic and coming to terms with his painful past — he and his sister were born out of an affair and his father had a whole separate family — on this season, his rocky marriage with Chantel is on full display. «Things between Pedro and I are not OK,» Chantel tells cameras, before she becomes emotional and at a loss for words.

Naman Ramachandran Neil Gaiman’s bestselling graphic novel “The Sandman: Act I” has been adapted as a Hindi-language audio adaptation by Amazon’s Audible and DC, with a voice cast of acclaimed Bollywood actors.The books are also adapted as an ongoing English-language audio presentation by Gaiman and audiobook and audio movie pioneer Dirk Maggs, .Maggs previously had a distinguished career as a producer with BBC Radio where he elevated radio drama to the realm of what he describes as “a film in your ears.” One of his innovations was to introduce Dolby Surround sound into BBC Radio. He has adapted several superhero characters for the radio including Superman, Batman and Judge Dredd and his work also includes a seminal radio adaptation of Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The Hindi version features Tabu (“Andhadhun”) as the narrator, Vijay Varma (“A Suitable Boy”) in the lead role of Morpheus/Dream, Manoj Bajpayee (“The Family Man”) as Doctor Dee, Sushant Divgikar (“Evening Shadows”) as Desire, Adarsh Gaurav (“The White Tiger”) as Constantine, Neeraj Kabi (“Paatal Lok”) as Lucifer, Kubbra Sait (“Foundation”) as Death and Tillotama Shome (“Sir”) as Calliope.In the audio adaptation, The Sandman, also known as Lord Morpheus, the immortal king of dreams, stories and the imagination, is pulled from his realm and imprisoned on Earth by a nefarious cult and languishes for decades before finally escaping.

Ariana DeBose hugs Judith Light on the red carpet at the 2022 GLAAD Media Awards at The Hilton Midtown on Friday night (May 6) in New York City.

features a priceless moment between Kobe and his young son, Koban. In this exclusive clip, Kobe meets Koban for the first time after his visa got approved to come to the United States and he can't contain his emotions.Kobe, who's from Cameroon, met his fiancé, Kansas native Emily, at a nightclub in China and they quickly fell in love. Four weeks into their engagement, she found out she was pregnant and returned to the U.S.

Cameron Mackintosh ,the London theatre owner and impresario, nixed the idea of having a host introduce artists performing at Tuesday’s one-night only Old Friends tribute show ,honoring the legacy of musical theatre genius ,Stephen Sondheim who died ,aged 91 last November.

LONDON -- Judi Dench was given a standing ovation for “Send in The Clowns.” Bernadette Peters bent over with her back to the audience and with her head between her legs blasted her trumpet to “You Gotta Get A Gimmick.”Petula Clark, 89, belted out “I’m Still Here.” And Imelda Staunton set off a huge ovation with “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”What the four had in common was devotion to Stephen Sondheim, the groundbreaking Broadway composer/lyricist who died in November at age 91. Dozens of stars of musical theater gathered Tuesday night for a celebration titled “Old Friends” to raise money for the Stephen Sondheim Foundation, which will benefit young composers.“He always considered London his second home,” producer Cameron Mackintosh, who organized the event, told the sellout crowd of about 1,100 at a theater renamed the Sondheim from the Queen’s in 2019.