‘Jihad Rehab’ Filmmaker Responds to Islamophobe Criticism of Sundance Doc: ‘This Film Seeks to Challenge Stereotypes’ (Exclusive)

Lewis Lee told Sharon Waxman at TheWrap’s Sundance Studio how she first became aware of the disproportionate numbers of preventable deaths of Black mothers and babies.“Way back in 2007, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services asked me to be the spokesperson for their infant mortality awareness raising campaign called ‘A Healthy Baby Begins With You,’” she said.

Cody Rhodes and Brandi Rhodes have made their exit from All Elite Wrestling (AEW).

Katy Perry loves a theme, and what better way to show up to an NFL event than dressed like a football?On Thursday, February 10, the singer attended the 2022 NFL Honors, documenting the special occassion in a set of photographs she posted to Instagram.In the snaps, Perry proudly poses with a football clutch in hand, wearing brown head-to-toe in the form of a strapless dress, which she elevated with a pair of arm-length gloves in the same fabric.Katy Perry wishes her “sexy” fiancé Orlando Bloom a Happy 45th BirthdayKaty Perry drops video for “When I’m Gone” with Alesso during CFP National Championship gameDid Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom have a secret wedding?Over one glove, the “Harleys In Hawaii” singer wore two large diamond rings over on her hand. In her other, she held onto a bedazzled Judith Leiber clutch, which is shaped like a football and perfectly matches the shade of her outfit.According to reports from Page Six, the Alex Perry gown and gloves go for $2,200), while the crystal-encrusted clutch costs a whopping $3,995.“Damn should I retire #NFLHonors,” the singer joked in the caption of her post, likely referring to Tom Brady’s recent retirement.A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry)Perry was in attendace at this year’s NFL Honors to present the Defensive Player Of The Year award alongside JJ Watt.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaTaylor Tomlinson has mined her up-bringing in a devout Christian family for laughs in her comedy act and Netflix stand-up specials. Now, her story will be the basis of a new feature film.Village Roadshow Pictures has acquired the rights to an untitled movie based on the life of the hit stand-up comedian, outbidding several other suitors. Paul Weitz will direct from a script written by Tomlinson and Taylor Tetreau.

Komplizen Film, the German indie run by Janine Jackowski, Maren Ade and Jonas Dornbach, has joined The Creatives, an alliance of independent production companies that has a three-year partnership for developing and funding series with Fremantle.

Vivienne Chow Leading Hollywood screenwriters Bruce McKenna and John Fusco have been tapped by U.S-based Inspire Studios to write two Asian-themed war features. One will go into production this year, the other in 2023, Variety has learned.McKenna, who co-wrote and co-produced the Emmy-winning mini-series “The Pacific,” and wrote part of “Band of Brothers,” is attached to the company’s debut release, Filipino-Hollywood feature “Angel Warrior” as scriptwriter.

EXCLUSIVE: Lysa Heslov, the filmmaker best known for her award-winning 2017 documentary Served Like A Girl, has signed with Gersh for representation.

Directed by Paula Eislet and Tonya Lewis Lee (Spike Lee’s producer and partner), the documentary “Aftershock” chronicles the dismal maternal mortality rate that women of color face in the United States medical system. The statistics are shameful, pointing to a systemic racist indifference, and the documentary chronicles the staggering number of times that expectant mothers entering into hospitals simply do not come out alive due to a lack of care and sensitivity.

TikTok is an undeniable force in our society. It has the power to launch music careers, house the homeless, and unite people worldwide.

Julia Child knew her way around a sauce the way Leonard Bernstein knew his way around a sympathy, the way Patrick Mahomes knows his way through a defense. That is to say, with panache.

Production company MUBI has acquired Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s documentary “Free Chol Soo Lee” that premiered last week at Sundance, the company said in a release.The film has been acquired for North America, UK, Ireland, Latin America, German, Austria, Italy and Turkey and will release theatrically in 2022 in the U.S., with plans for other regions coming later.The documentary is about a movement in the 1970s in San Francisco, where a 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee gets racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. Lee is sentenced to life and fights to survive until a journalist takes up his case and ignites a social justice movement in the Asian American community.

Wyatte Grantham-Philips editor“Free Chol Soo Lee” has been acquired by global distributor, streamer and production company MUBI.The documentary, which premiered last week at the Sundance Film Festival, will come to U.S. theaters in 2022, with release plans in other territories (Latin America, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey, the U.K.

Manori Ravindran International EditorOne of the most controversial movies to emerge from this year’s Sundance Film Festival is a documentary called “Jihad Rehab,” which follows a group of former Guantanamo Bay detainees.Directed by American filmmaker Megan Smaker — a former California firefighter who spent five years in Yemen — the film follows several Yemeni men who were unlawfully detained for 15 years in the U.S.-run detention camp, before being relocated to Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Bin Nayef Centre for Counselling and Care — a so-called “rehabilitation center” for extremists who must graduate the program before they’re allowed to rejoin society.The film tracks Ali, Nadir and Mohammed’s turbulent journey over three years as they try to come to grips with their trauma and navigate an uneasy future in Saudi Arabia, where it’s illegal for them, as Yemenis, to leave. (A Saudi-led coalition of Gulf states infiltrated Yemen’s civil war in 2015, carrying out air raids that have devastated the nation.) While “Jihad Rehab” isn’t the first film in the grisly orbit of Guantanamo, its Sundance premiere has received heavy criticism from human rights advocates and other documentarians, many of them from Arab or Muslim backgrounds, who are concerned that the doc’s subjects are being framed as criminals (despite never standing trial in the U.S.

Angelique Jackson Netflix has acquired worldwide rights to the Sundance award-winning documentary “Descendant,” by filmmaker Margaret Brown (“The Order of Myths,” “Be Here to Love Me: Townes Van Zandt,” “The Great Invisible”). Higher Ground, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s production company, will present the Participant feature alongside Netflix later this year.The film follows members of Africatown, a small community in Alabama, as they share their personal stories and community history as descendants of the Clotilda, the last known ship carrying enslaved Africans to the United States.

In one of Syrian-born artist Mohamad Hafez’s stunning 3D pieces, a figurine of the Virgin Mary stands before an ornate portal, her hands joined in prayer. The building around her, rendered in plaster, paint, rusted metal and found objects, is blasted to ruins.

poisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Tuesday. Called “Navalny,” it’s a no-holds-barred indictment of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, and insists that Navalny’s close brush with death was the result of a secret state-run operation to assassinate him.“As I became more and more famous guy, I was totally sure that my life became safer and safer because I am kind of famous guy — and it will be problematic for them just to kill me,” Navalny, 45, says in the film. “I was very wrong.” The doc, heading to HBO Max, was added at the last minute to the Sundance slate just as Putin had stationed more than 100,000 troops along the Ukrainian border.

At first glance, actor-writer-director Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth” might look like your typical cutesy and whimsical Sundance dramedy, about a twenty-something college graduate learning a valuable life lesson and experiencing a bit of a delayed coming of age. While that’s not an inaccurate description of Raiff’s disarmingly lovely film (programmed in this year’s US Dramatic Competition), what feels miraculous about “Cha Cha” is: it doesn’t come with even an ounce of that cringe-inducing Sundance fancifulness, a brand that many love to hate.

Six months after 9/11, firefighter turned “Jihad Rehab” filmmaker Meg Smaker left her job as a Bay Area firefighter to travel to the Middle East to better understand the world she lived in.After making a pit stop in Afghanistan, Smaker moved to Yemen to study Arabic and Islam, and got a job there running a firefighting academy. “So I was a head fire instructor, teaching Yemeni men to fight fire in Yemen, which is where I was when I first heard about the rehab center, when I was living in Yemen and teaching a firefighting like course,” Smaker tells Sharon Waxman at The Wrap’s Sundance Studio.

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival obviously has so much to offer. Big premieres from indie auteurs, world cinema, documentaries, films for kids, and movies that are receiving so much acclaim right now, you’ll be hearing more from them later in the year upon regular theatrical release.

Wilson Chapman editorThe Miami Film Festival has announced its opening and closing titles for its upcoming 39th edition.The festival, which showcases works from filmmaker’s in the Ibero-American diaspora, will premiere and end with two films listed on the Oscar shortlist for international feature film. “The Good Boss” (El Buen Patrón), a comedy written and directed by Spain’s Fernando León de Aranoa, will open the festival, which will close with “Plaza Catedral,” the sophomore narrative feature of Panamanian director Abner Benaim.“The Good Boss” stars Javier Bardem as Blanco, the owner of a family business up for consideration for a local award for business excellence. Determined to win the award, Blanco begins meddling in the lives of his employees, setting off a chain of events that leads to shocking repercussions.