City Beirut Showbiz Latest News and Updates

It’s nearly impossible to go on social media today and not see videos and pictures of war-torn Gaza. The massive amounts of bombings over the past couple of months in Gaza has chilled people to the bone.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Multi-hyphenate Nicole Ansari-Cox has a lot going on. The London-based actor, producer, writer and activist just shot Southern Italy-set rom-com “Under the Stars” directed by Michelle Danner where she stars alongside Toni Colette, Andy Garcia and Alex Pettyfer. In addition, she appears in Austrian director Kat Rohrer’s “What a Feeling” that premiered recently at the BFI FLARE: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival.

Annika Pham Seven years after showcasing “You Make a Better Window Than You Do a Door” at Visions du Réel’s Short Film competition strand, Lebanese-born Farah Kassem is back in Nyon, this time in the main international competition with her doc feature-length debut “We Are Inside.” Variety was granted access to the trailer. The film was produced by the helmer’s regular collaborator Cynthia Choucair of Lebanon’s Road2Films, in co-production with Qatar’s Al Jazeera Documentary Channel and Denmark’s Good Company Pictures (“Photographer of War,” “Beautiful Something Left Behind”).

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon has acquired world rights for Beirut-set dramedy series Self Modulation from producers Falcon Films and Arna Media, in its first ever Arabic TV series acquisition.

Dubai-based Front Row Productions has acquired the rights to the life story of Sally Hafez, the Lebanese woman who stormed a bank to access her savings in September 2022 during Lebanon’s financial crisis, in which citizens were illegally restricted from drawing from their accounts due to an unofficial capital control imposed by Lebanese banks. 

EXCLUSIVE: The Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson sci-fi thriller Mercy is adding four with A Star Is Born‘s Rafi Gavron, Chris Sullivan, Kenneth Choi and Kylie Rogers.

The Alice Group has sold its media arm, which includes the BFM and RMC TV channels, to French Lebanese billionaire Rodolphe Saadé in a deal valued at $1.68B (€1.55B).

EXCLUSIVE: Garret Dillahunt (Ghosts of Beirut). Nolan North (Pretty Little Liars), Elijah Richardson (Fantasy Football), Milly Shapiro (Hereditary), Allison Scagliotti (Warehouse 13) and Jessica Treska (Alex & Me) are set for recurring roles in Hysteria!, Peacock‘s coming-of-age Satanic Panic thriller series. They join previously announced cast Julie Bowen, Anna Camp, Emjay Anthony, Chiara Aurelia, Kezii Curtis, Nikki Hahn and Bruce Campbell.

The residents of the poorest town in the UK have revealed that children walk the streets barefoot, and those who abuse drugs hang around on the streets.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic Palestinian refugees have been arriving in the slum district of Sabra and Shalila on the outskirts of Beirut since what Israel calls the War of Independence in 1948. Forty-four years later, their presence (and that of suspected PLO fighters) got targeted in a mid-September massacre by the Christian militia known as Lebanese Forces, executed while Israeli Defense Forces who’d already invaded the nation three months prior stood by. Another four decades have passed since, during which span the area has remained not just a last-resort magnet for multinational refugees, but “the most lawless, poorest, dirtiest place” in the city.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Succession” star Hiam Abbass will play a role that is the polar opposite of Marcia Roy in French-Lebanese director Danielle Arbid’s age-gap drama “Love Conquers All.” The Palestinian actor — who in the HBO series played the third and final wife of billionaire Logan Roy — will next star as Susan, a 65-year-old impoverished widow living in Beirut. There, she meets Osman, a young Sudanese immigrant worker without papers. They instantly fall in love.

Martin Dale Contributor The sight of dogs ravaging war-torn streets has become an all too familiar sight. Sandra Tabet’s debut feature film “Rabies” (Rage) – a development project at the Atlas Workshops – returns to early 1990s in Beirut, in the aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), when rabies began to spread rapidly amongst ravenous dogs, leading to some parts of the city being overrun. Combining horror genre codes with a real-world setting, “Rabies” follows 60-year-old history teacher Julia, who tries to find a cure for her 30-year-old son Ghassan, who after being bitten by a rabid dog slowly transforms into a violent monster.

A shock evacuation saw BBC Breakfast pulled off the air this morning.

Garry Keane and Stephen Gerard Kelly’s documentary In The Shadow Of Beirut, which is Ireland’s Oscar category this year, is headed to the Red Sea International Film Festival, running November 30 to December 9 in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

Filmmaker Mohammed Almughanni’s project Son of the Streets, about a Palestinian child living in a refugee camp in Beirut, has been awarded Best Pitch at the IDFA Forum Awards. The world’s largest documentary film festival presented two additional prizes on Wednesday, including the IDFA Forum Award for Best Rough Cut to Coexistence, My Ass!, and the DocLab Forum Award to Turbulence. Each of the winners receives a cash prize of €1,500.

Christopher Vourlias The forbidden love between two soldiers in a society riven by war is at the heart of “So the Lovers Could Come Out Again,” the sophomore feature from Lebanese filmmaker George Peter Barbari, whose debut, “Death of a Virgin, and the Sin of Not Living,” premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand. Barbari will be presenting the project at the Crossroads Co-Production Forum, which takes place Nov.

System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian will publish his debut memoir, Down With the System: A Memoir (Of Sorts) in 2024. The book will be published by Hachette Book Group on May 14 and is described as "a memoir that is far more than just a rock’n’roll fable.

EXCLUSIVE: The Exchange is launching international sales rights on sci-fi action film World Breaker.

A mum waits for her youngest son to finish school. For now, she’s at peace. She knows he’s somewhere safe.

EXCLUSIVE: James Franco is starring in a Middle Eastern TV crime drama penned by Shades of Blue creator Adi Hasak. Check out a teaser below.

Reuters videographer Issam Abdullah was killed and four other reporters were wounded in southern Lebanon on Friday while covering skirmishes along its border with Israel.

Stephen Gerard Kelly and Garry Keane’s documentary In The Shadow of Beirut has been submitted as Ireland‘s entry for the 2024 Oscar International Feature Film race.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival’s Cinemed industry section has teamed up with Beirut-based cultural nonprofit Aflamuna on a new initiative, under which 10 film and doc projects from a wide range of Arab countries will soon be unveiled to prospective partners. The new program, called Cinemed and Aflamuna Professional Encounters, features 10 Arab works in development that reflect a slew of themes relevant to the region, including political turbulence, societal changes, female empowerment and climate change concerns.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent A lavish Arabic-language film titled “Sukkar,” that draws inspiration from U.S. writer Jean Webster’s epistolary novel “Daddy-Long-Legs” and is being touted as the Arab world’s first musical movie in the Western canon, is set to release in cinemas across the Middle East and North Africa.

Beirut has announced his first new album in four years, ‘Hadsel’.Zach Condon’s follow-up to 2019’s ‘Gallipoli’ is set to arrive on November 10 via his own Pompeii Records and is preceded by the new single ‘So Many Plans’.Per a press release, the story of ‘Hadsel’ began when Condon set out to escape to a small cabin to recover from the persistent throat issues that forced him to cancel the end of his ‘Gallipoli’ tour in 2019. In early 2020, he travelled to the island of Hadsel in the northern part of Norway, where he met a a collector and fellow organ enthusiast named Oddvar, who gave him access to the local Hadselkirke, a wooden, octagonal structure housing a church organ that dated back to the early 1800s.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent SRMG Ventures, the venture capital arm of Ryadh-based conglomerate Saudi Research and Media Group, has announced a small but significant $5 million investment in Anghami, which is the Arab world’s rival to Spotify. SRMG Ventures in a statement said that, besides the investment, it will be providing the Middle East music and entertainment streamer its “extensive media reach, content library and portfolio of leading assets in audio/podcasts.” It claims this will enable Anghami to snag a larger share of the fast-growing music streaming sector expected to “reach $700 million in the Middle East and North Africa in 2026.” As part of the agreement, SRMG will be invited to join Anghami’s board of directors and will have the option to increase its investment in the music streaming service going forward.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Apple TV+ documentary series “Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn” reconstructs the rise and fall of former Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn, whose incarceration in Japan on financial misconduct charges was followed by an extraordinary escape. Inspired by the book “Boundless” by The Wall Street Journal reporters Nick Kostov and Sean McLain, the series is directed by Emmy-winning British filmmaker James Jones (“Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes”).

Marta Balaga Cyril Aris and his frustrated protagonists in “Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano” are done mincing words. “I hope this film can be screened the way it is, although it’s not painting the brightest picture of the Lebanese political class. And if they censor it, thank you for the publicity. I will take it,” he says following its premiere at Karlovy Vary Film Festival. “In Lebanon, we have leaders who are experts in divide-and-conquer. That’s how they fire up their base and that’s what happened in the port of Beirut, too. There is this theory that everyone knew what was happening, but they were paid for their silence.”

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The trailer has debuted for feature documentary “Dancing on the Edge of the Volcano,” which will have its world premiere in the Main Competition at Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Reynard Films is handling international sales. Cyril Aris’ film centers on the aftermath of the catastrophic explosion at the port of Beirut on Aug. 4, 2020, which leaves a large part of the Lebanese capital in ruins. In the midst of the chaos, a film crew face an overwhelming decision: to continue the production of their movie or abandon it? They are torn between their firm belief in the transformative power of cinema and a deep sense of cynicism about its ability to effect change in a nation plagued by economic turmoil and societal collapse.

Naman Ramachandran The first trailer has been unveiled for documentary “In the Shadow of Beirut,” executive produced by Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Siobhan Sinnerton for HiddenLight Productions. The film is a cinematic portrait of modern-day Lebanon as seen through the eyes of four families living in the impoverished Sabra and Shatila neighbourhoods of the city, the scene of an infamous massacre in 1982. It filmed over four years with unique access to the families within these largely restricted areas and is co-directed by Stephen Gerard Kelly, in his debut, and Garry Keane (Sundance selection “Gaza,” 2019). Kelly built up his relationship with the families over a six-year period.

Prime Video has set September 1 for the Season 2 premiere of fantasy epic series The Wheel of Time. We’re also getting a first look at the second season in some new images released today.

Imad Mughniyeh killed thousands of people with car bombs — including 220 Marines stationed in Beirut in 1983 — before he himself was blown to bits in Syria 25 years later.The story of Mughniyeh an Islamic Jihadist dubbed “The Man of Smoke,” is dramatized, for the first time and in detail, in “Ghosts of Beirut,” a four-part Showtime series mixing real, documentary-style on-camera interviews with scripted drama that goes inside the joint CIA/Mossad operation to track down and assassinate Mughniyeh … or so the story goes, since US and Israeli officials have never officially confirmed their agencies’ roles in sending him to kingdom come.“Ghosts” was created by Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff, who also developed the hit Netflix series “Fauda,” in which Raz stars as Israeli Defense Force team member Doron Kavillio. (Raz himself was a commando in an IDF counter-terrorism unit.)Raz and Issacharoff also co-wrote “Ghosts of Beirut,” filmed in Morocco, with Joëlle Tauma and Greg Barker (who directed all four episodes).

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Shellac has boarded “La Mer et ses vagues” as both the international sales agency and the French distributor, ahead of its world premiere on Friday in the ACID sidebar in Cannes. The Lebanese film, directed by Liana and Renaud, follows the young Najwa and the musician Mansour as they cross the Lebanese border and reach Beirut on a full moon night. They follow the trail of smugglers hoping to join a woman, Haifa, on the other side of the sea. A few streets away, Selim, the old lighthouse keeper, tries to repair the electricity in his neighborhood. The cast is led by Mays Mustafa, Roger Assaf, Mohammed Al Ammari and Hanane Hajj-Ali. The producer is Mathieu Mullier-Griffiths for Kafard Films. The co-producer is Monkey Business Virals.

Goth Babe is not what you’re expecting based on the tongue-in-cheek band name.No, there isn’t an eyeliner-laden beauty grabbing your attention onstage at a Goth Babe show; rather, front and center is scruffy, charismatic frontman 25-year-old Griff Washburn.And he, along with his solid backing band, put on a rousing show.Goth Babe — really the moniker of bedroom pop wunderkind Washburn, along with a tight 2-piece touring band — sounds a little like if Beirut met Odesza, and the two of them downloaded LCD Soundsystem’s synth presets.On a brisk Cinco de Mayo evening, the three-piece outfit performed a loose yet energetic 15-song set at New York City’s Rooftop at Pier 17 inspiring an audience made up of college-age Gen Z’ers, elder Millennials and everything in between to bliss out to the group’s mellow yet melodic dream pop.To kick the evening off, Goth Babe got the crowd’s attention with arguably their most goosebump-inducing track.The trick worked like a charm.“New Born Worlds,” easily Goth Babe’s most ethereal bop, turned heads.What was this mythical sound taking over the rooftop?As soon as the the ensemble’s thumping drum launched mid-track, toes were tapping, heads were nodding, smiles were washing over faces.This is what we came for — this is why you see your favorite bands live.Following the otherworldly opening number, Washburn addressed the crowd.His boyish voice didn’t quite match the assured, deep timbre of his vocals much to my surprise  — he was much more playful, friendly, ready to chat with the crowd, which he did.In between songs, Washburn and audience members bantered.Yes, crowd surfing came up.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety is releasing the poster and teaser (below) for “La Mer et ses vagues,” which will world premiere in the ACID sidebar in Cannes later this month. The Lebanese film, directed by Liana and Renaud, follows the young Najwa and the musician Mansour as they cross the Lebanese border and reach Beirut on a full moon night. They follow the trail of smugglers hoping to join a women, Haifa, on the other side of the sea. A few streets away, Selim, the old lighthouse keeper, tries to repair the electricity in his neighborhood. The cast is led by Mays Mustafa, Roger Assaf, Mohammed Al Ammari and Hanane Hajj-Ali. The producer is Mathieu Mullier-Griffiths for Kafard Films. The co-producer is Monkey Business Virals.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Dubai-based podcast company Kerning Cultures Network is producing “The Lebanon Heist,” an original investigative probe into the root causes of Lebanon’s devastating financial crisis. Launching in October, the six-part podcast will be produced in English and Arabic, delving into the crash that led to millions of Lebanese citizens being robbed of their life savings, and exploring the role of Riad Salamah, the country’s current central bank governor, who is considered to be at heart of the collapse. He is accused of having embezzled and laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds. Salameh, who denies wrongdoing, is being investigated in Lebanon and several European countries for allegedly siphoning off more than $300 million from the central bank with his brother throughout more than a decade.