Iranian parliament advances bill to stop UN inspections of nuclear facilities

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the 17 in-development projects selected for its 2021 co-production market CineMart. The typically cosmopolitan and eclectic slate of in-development projects that will be pitching for financiers and co-producers at CineMart 2021 include features from Brazil to Iran, and from Ethiopia to Ecuador.

Naman Ramachandran Noomi Rapace, who shot to global prominence as Lisbeth Salander in the “Millennium” trilogy, will lead the cast of acclaimed “Border” director Ali Abbasi’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”Swedish-Danish-Iranian filmmaker Abbasi made his feature debut in 2018 with “Shelley,” which was selected for the Panorama competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

Noomi Rapace will lead cast in a gender-swapped adaptation of Hamlet from filmmaker Ali Abbasi.

An Iranian teenager named Sahar Tabar has been sentenced to 10 years in jail. The 19-year-old, whose real name is Fatemeh Khishvand, rose to fame after posting heavily distorted photos of herself to Instagram which made her look like a “zombie” version of Angelina Jolie. She boasted 486,000 followers on the platform, before her account was deactivated, and now faces a decade behind bars as a result of her social media activities. Here’s 5 things to know about her.

Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons will be one of the top foreign policy and national security challenges facing Joe Biden when he becomes president Jan. 20.

The Trump administration on Monday added China, Nigeria and Iran to the list of countries that engage in violating or allowing violations of religious freedom within their borders — part of U.S. efforts to end religious persecution around the world.  The State Department announced that the three countries would be named as "Countries of Particular Concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentStrand Releasing has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Majid Majidi’s “Sun Children,” which competed at Venice and represents Iran in the international feature film race at the 2021 Academy Awards.Represented in international markets by Hengameh Panahi’s Celluloid Dreams, “Sun Children” has been critically acclaimed in the festival circuit, and its young leading actor Ruhollah Zamani won Venice’s Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor.

In the final weeks of the Trump administration, Iran is confronting growing pressure amidst concerns over the recent assassination of its top nuclear scientist and continued US financial sanctions “Iran, as stated before as our definite policy, will independently give a matching response to those who ordered and committed this with maximum pain for those who did this,” said Saeed Khatibzadeh, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, of the assassination Friday of Iran’s top nuclear scientist.

Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday vowed to retaliate with “definitive punishment” after the slaying of the country's leading nuclear scientist, with some officials blaming Israel for the apparent assassination. The Israeli government, suspected of assassinating Iranian scientists a decade ago amid tensions over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, has yet to comment on the killing Friday of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.