Jessie J feared she’d never perform again after serious car crash caused her to lose her voice

Angelina Jolie and Dua Lipa have publicly expressed their support for the protesters in Iran. Protests broke out across the country earlier this month following the death of Mahsa Amini - a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by Iran's "morality police" for wearing her hair outside of her hijab. As the death toll from the protests reached 76 this week, demonstrations in support of Iranian activists have appeared in London, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Berlin, and Paris.

William Earl The Gotham Film & Media Institute (The Gotham) announced today the launch of The Gotham/Variety Audio Honors, presented by Wondery, a groundbreaking initiative dedicated to recognizing the boldest voices in the ever-expanding world of audio storytelling. The honorees have been selected in recognition of their innovations in audio storytelling by a committee of distinguished audio industry professionals, chaired by award-winning podcast creator, producer and new host of NPR’s “It’s Been a Minute,” Brittany Luse. The Gotham/Variety Audio Honors are set to take place in person as a luncheon and a staged presentation in New York City on Friday, Oct. 14. “As an organization dedicated to celebrating and nurturing independent creators, we are proud to recognize these brilliant, innovative, and groundbreaking audio storytellers,” said Jeffrey Sharp, Executive Director of The Gotham Film & Media Institute. “As audio content reaches a pivotal point of engagement and innovation, it is crucial that we launch new platforms of recognition, such as The Gotham/Variety Audio Honors, to celebrate the most daring creators in our industry.”

Naman Ramachandran Neil Maskell, whose acting credits include “Kill List” and “Peaky Blinders,” makes his feature directorial debut with “Klokkenluider,” which is playing at the BFI London Film Festival. A dark comic thriller, the film revolves around a hapless government whistleblower and his partner who hide out in a remote Belgian cottage, accompanied by two eccentric bodyguards. “‘Klokkenluider’ came out of a combination of circumstances. I was on holiday in East Flanders and the atmosphere of the house we were staying in set off some voices in my head. There were four characters and they were trapped there but it took me a while to work out who they were” Maskell told Variety.

“I was so inspired by my colleagues at Titmouse New York taking the first step to finally allow animation workers in New York to have a collective voice! I’m calling on Late Night Cartoons to voluntarily recognize our Union because all of the amazing, hardworking, passionate people who are my coworkers deserve to have benefits, protections, and fair treatment like any of our peers represented by the entertainment unions in LA,” said drawn animator Lynn Fong in a news release. Late Night Cartoons, Inc.

Animation workers at Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News have voted overwhelmingly to join The Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839. The animated comedy news program, which debuted in 2020, moves to Comedy Central next month. Its third season premieres October 5.

EXCLUSIVE: APA is bolstering its Physical Production Department with the addition of three new agents – Marina Moyses, Alexa Lopez and Micaela Huber.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor By now, Jaime Jarrín’s career milestones are as well-known to baseball fans as his voice.   The Los Angeles Dodgers’ legendary Spanish-language broadcaster is set to retire next month after an astounding 64 seasons with the team. He’s been a prominent voice of the Dodgers for virtually all of the Brooklyn-born franchise’s time in Los Angeles. After the legendary Vin Scully retired in 2016, Jarrín became the longest-tenured announcer in baseball.

When filmmaker Kathryn Ferguson was growing up in Northern Ireland in the late 1980s, she says the whole of the island – the North and the Republic – desperately needed transformation.

Dead To Me is coming back – two and a half years after it was last on Netflix.

Thania Garcia Shawn Mendes, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and more are on the soundtrack to the upcoming animated movie “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile!” Mendes, as the voice of the titular character, also revealed that he will be sharing one of the original tracks he wrote for the set titled “Heartbeat,” next Friday (Sept. 30). He is credited on eight tracks on the list and is also joined by co-stars Constance Wu and Javier Bardem, as well as Anthony Ramos. The full soundtrack will be available for streaming on Oct. 7, the same day as the film’s official premiere. A post shared by Shawn Mendes (@shawnmendes) Based on Bernard Waber’s 1965 children’s book, the Will Speck and Josh Gordon film follows Lyle the crocodile as he navigates New York. After the Primm family moves into their house on 88th Street, Mrs. Primm, played by Wu, is shocked to find the singing crocodile in her bathtub. Eventually, the croc makes friends with her son Josh (Winslow Fegley) and his owner Héctor P. Valenti, played by Bardem.

Kanye West has apologised to his ex-wife Kim Kardashian for “any stress that [he’s] caused” her since their break-up.The former couple, who got married in 2014, were reportedly living “separate lives” by early 2021 before Kardashian filed for divorce the following month. They share four children: North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm.Kardashian later began dating Pete Davidson, but the pair broke up this summer.

Marta Balaga “The Woodcutter Story,” a Finnish drama with a surreal touch, has been sold to Australia (Palace Films), Baltics (Estinfilm), Sweden (Njuta), Germany (Eksystent) and France (Urban), Paris-based Totem Films shared exclusively with Variety. Directed by Mikko Myllylahti, it sees a good man who runs into bad luck: he loses his job and his wife leaves, but Pepe (Jarkko Lahti) is trying to keep his head high. Even when strange things start to happen in his sleepy village. The film, which premiered in Cannes’ Critics Week, screens Wednesday at the Helsinki Film Festival – Love & Anarchy. It will have its North American premiere at Chicago Film Festival and its U.K. premiere at the London Film Festival.

An elegant tribute. Meghan Markle showed her appreciation for Queen Elizabeth II at her funeral, donning jewelry the late monarch gifted her.

Liza Foreman Expanding the diversity of Spain’s film-TV sector, Moroccan-Spanish director, Swel Noury Cazorla’s “Azahar Baby,” is 10 of ten projects pitching at San Sebastian first Creative Investors’ Conference, which is co-organized with CAA Media Finance.  Written, and to be directed, by Noury (“Heaven’s Door,” “The Man Who Sold the World”), the feature project is the first out of the gate for Noury and executive producer Sonia Ziadi Trives, who is also Moroccan–Spanish, at their Madrid-based joint production venture,Two Flavours Productions. “Azahar Baby” weighs in as a coming-of-age dramedy. It tells the story of Yusef, an aspiring filmmaker who is making a documentary to make sense of his identity as a second-generation Moroccan immigrant. 

EJ Panaligan editor NewFest, a New York-based LGBTQ+ film festival, has announced the full lineup for its 34th iteration. The 2022 edition will run from Oct. 13 to Oct. 25. With world, North American, U.S. and New York premieres for more than 130 films from 23 countries, the festival will be headlined by the world premiere of HBO documentary “Mama’s Boy” from Laurent Bouzereau as the opening night screening. Additionally, the festival will hold an advance screening for the Season 2 premiere of popular HBO series “The White Lotus.” Other high-profile screenings through the festival’s run include Michael Grandage’s love triangle film “My Policeman,” starring Harry Styles and Emma Corrin, and the stop-motion horror comedy “Wendell & Wild,” from writer-director Henry Selick. Jordan Peele co-writes, while also featuring in a lead voice role. Keegan-Michael Key inhabits the film’s other lead voice role, marking a “Key & Peele” reunion on the animated stage between the two longtime collaborators.

Disney’s Pixar today named the lead voice actors for its upcoming animated feature, Elemental. The film’s director Peter Sohn and producer Denise Ream, who previously collaborated on The Good Dinosaur, announced the castings, as they brought to the stage actors Mamoudou Athie (Jurassic World Dominion) and Leah Lewis (The Half of It).

“They’re trying to kill me! They hate me! They just don’t like women,” a giggling Tucker Carlson said in a high-pitched tone on Fox & Friends this morning. He was mocking a recent GQ cover interview in which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said, among other things, “My experience here has given me a front-row seat to how deeply and unconsciously, as well as consciously, so many people in this country hate women. And they hate women of color.”