‘Jihad Rehab’ Review: Courageous Doc on a Saudi Rehab Center for Jihadist Extremists Both Enlightens and Provokes

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentLola Arabia, the United Arab Emirates label of Oscar-winning Spanish producer Andrés Vicente Gómez (“Belle Epoque”), has struck a 12-movie co-production deal with Dubai-based Charisma Group.The alliance will take in a range of titles, from $2 million-budgeted contemporary comedies to banner productions budgeted at $40 million, revolving around contemporary and historic stories of West Asia.The partners aim to produce an average of four films a year, said Charisma Group co-president Ayham Al Ziyoud.Development has begun on the whole slate. “Although in principle we plan projects with modest budgets, these will be increased in the following year once we find the rights partners outside the Gulf States,” Gómez said.

Shooting wrapped last month on the long-awaited Gerard Butler project Kandahar and here are some exclusive behind the scenes photos from the film, which is notably one of the first major U.S. titles to shoot its entirety in Saudi Arabia. The film, which is produced by John Wick outfit Thunder Road Films and Capstone, reunites Butler with his Greenland and Angel Has Fallen director Ric Roman Waugh. While this certainly isn’t the first action thriller the bankable Scottish actor has starred in, Kandahar is one of the first big-budget Hollywood titles to shoot in the country’s northwest AlUla region, which is home to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra.

Jamie Lang The Red Sea Film Festival has announced that its second edition will run Dec. 1-10 this year, after its 2021 inaugural event saw nearly 140 films from 67 countries in 34 languages screen for more than 30,000 ticket holders and over 3,100 accredited industry guests.

2022 Winter Olympics are underway! The opening ceremony was held on Friday, at Beijing's National Stadium, which is also known as the «Bird's Nest,» and signaled the official start of the Games.The Parade of Nations, the part of the ceremony that highlights each competing nation in the Games, featured many standout moments including a shirtless skeleton competitor, a long-awaited moment for Jamaica, and a Ralph Lauren-clad Team USA.While the U.S. counted its second-largest Olympic delegation in history, other countries had just one athlete set to compete on their behalf. It all came to a close with an epic torch lighting that differed from years past.Keep reading for the five biggest moments from the opening ceremony.With Tonga's Pita Taufatofua sitting out the Olympics for the first time since 2014, fans worried that the cross-country skier's absence would mean they'd be deprived of a shirtless, oiled-up athlete during the Parade of Nations.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping helps open the Winter Games in Beijing on Friday, dozens of world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also are expected to attend.

WWE legend Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has heaped praise upon Manchester boxer Tyson Fury, declaring he could go down as the greatest of all time.

Refresh for latest…: Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home scaled fresh heights this session as it reached an amazing new milestone by crossing the $1B mark at the international box office. The offshore cume through Sunday is an estimated $1.003B for a global total of $1.74B.

Newcastle are hopeful of signing Dean Henderson on loan from Manchester United until the end of the season before Monday's transfer deadline.

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.

including here at TheWrap), but has drawn fire on social media for the fact that the film calls the men “terrorists,” and because the filmmaker herself is not Muslim. One typical tweet by writer Jude Chehab of Turkish news website TRT World says: “When I, a practising Muslim woman say [the film’] is problematic, my voice should be stronger than a white woman saying it’s not.”Smaker, who spent five years making the film, told TheWrap that the movie challenges assumptions about people Americans regard as terrorists, while also offering a never-before-seen perspective into the men who embraced the ideology of groups like al Qaeda.

Tyson Fury has appeared to confirmed as he'll defend his WBC title against Dillian Whyte.

Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios is expanding its sales and distribution team with the hiring of Diane Ferrandez as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Distribution.