Lily James Joins Sean Durkin‘s ’The Iron Claw’ For A24

Merhan Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian man who lived for 18 years in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport and inspired the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks film The Terminal, died Saturday at the airport, officials said. He was believed to be 80 years old.

In an exuberant social media post, Zac Efron showed a first look at the impossibly muscular physique he built to make himself ring shape for A24’s upcoming The Iron Claw.

Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who was at the Cannes Film Festival this year with Competition Title Leila’s Brothers, has posted an image of herself on social media without her headscarf in support of ongoing protests in Iran calling more freedom of women.

EXCLUSIVE: A24’s wrestling pic The Iron Claw from Cannes and Sundance prize-winning filmmaker Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene) is getting a new dash of authenticity, with the addition to the cast of professional wrestler Maxwell Jacob Friedman.

EXCLUSIVE: French film actress Judith Godrèche is making her debut as a TV director debut with an A24-backed comedy series inspired by her life.

James Corden made headlines last week when it was revealed he'd got himself banned from a restaurant in New York.

Italian director and screenwriter Saverio Costanzo has just wrapped his upcoming film Finalemente L’Alba, starring newcomer Rebecca Antonaci alongside international cast Lily James, Joe Keery, Willem Dafoe and Rachel Sennott.

EXCLUSIVE: Maura Tierney is the latest to join the ensemble cast of A24’s The Iron Claw. She will play Doris, the matriarch of the Von Erich wrestling family, in the film that also stars Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson, Holt McCallany and Jeremy Allen White.

It appears Britney Spears has made an enemy of the the Iranian government.

, showed her support for women and girls in Iran with a black T-shirt featuring the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” written in Farsi. Meghan wore the top for a Women@Spotify event at the company’s LA headquarters, where she was joined by Archewell president Mandana Dayani and executive vice president of global communications Ashley Hansen, who are both Iranian.“At an event today, Meghan spoke about the revolution being led by women and young girls in Iran, the courage and bravery they show every day, and their leadership and advocacy of basic human rights,” Dayani wrote as she shared a series of images from the event on .

The pop star tweeted Sunday, “Me & my husband stand with the people of Iran fighting for freedom.”Spears married Iranian-American actor and model Sam Asghari in June.In response to Spears’ message — which has been retweeted more than 25,000 times — the Islamic Republic News Agency noted that Spears was involuntarily placed under a years-long conservatorship. That arrangement ended last year.“American singer @BritneySpears was placed under her father’s conservatorship in 2008 due to her mental health problems,” the IRNA tweet read.

Lily Moayeri “Protest art arises when the society is full of anger and the artist is part of the angry society.” That’s a statement made by Justina, an Iranian rapper, singer and songwriter, on the Oct. 15 episode of BBC program “The Cultural Frontline.” Justina and Iranian singer-songwriter and activist FarAvaz Farvardin were guests on the show, speaking about protest songs in Iran. Experts of sorts, their 2020 song, “Fatva,” was a protest song ahead of its time. Perhaps the most notable of the recent Iran protest songs is Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye,” which was written in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death after being arrested and beaten by Iran’s notorious morality police for not wearing a proper head covering. After receiving nearly 100,000 submissions, it is now the frontrunner for the Recording Academy’s new song for social change Grammy award.

Mani Haghighi is the latest film director who has been impacted by Iran’s ongoing restraint on filmmakers.

Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi will no longer attend the London Film Festival premiere of his latest film Subtraction after authorities stopped him from boarding a flight to London. 

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., drew comparisons between women risking their lives to protest Islamic law in Iran to women fighting for abortion rights in the United States. During a campaign rally to re-elect Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Friday, Omar said pro-life Republicans are challenging women’s bodily autonomy, much like Iran’s oppressive clerical regime led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor One of the new honors the Grammy Awards will introduce at their next ceremony is song for social change — a special-merit award that “recognizes creators of message-driven music that responds to the social issues of our time and has the potential for positive global impact.” While the honor is “curated by a blue-ribbon committee,” there’s little question that the number of submissions will have an impact — and according to the Recording Academy, 95,000 of the 115,000 submissions received have been for Iranian musician Shervin Hajipour’s song, “Baraye,” a protest song about 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested and beaten by Iran’s so-called morality police for not wearing a proper head covering, in line with the country’s Islamic law.