City Karachi Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is offering a free trial this week for players who haven’t yet jumped on the game.To celebrate the launch of Season Two, the game is free for all to play from February 8 to February 12. Highrise, Rust, Meat, Shipment, Stash House, Terminal, Rio, Karachi and Scrapyard are all the maps available for players to experience in the free trial.The modes Team Deathmatch, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, Team Gun Game and Domination will be available over this four day period for users to play with friends.

Naman Ramachandran Zarrar Kahn‘s acclaimed psychological thriller film “In Flames” has unveiled a trailer ahead of its North American theatrical release. The film bowed at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2023 and played at several global festivals including Toronto, Pingyao and Red Sea, where it won the top prize. It was Pakistan‘s entry to the Oscars’ international category.

Siddhant Adlakha A narrative trifurcated across decades and generations, Fawzia Mizra’s “The Queen of My Dreams” follows a young Pakistani Canadian coming to terms with her upbringing. It hits all the familiar beats of a first-generation South Asian story and, despite its novel queer bent and tongue-in-cheek casting (actress Amrit Kaur plays protagonist Azra, as well as the character’s own mother in flashbacks), it does little to separate itself, thematically or stylistically, from a now repetitive form of “third culture” storytelling. The sound of a slide projector yanks the film’s opening images into place, as though it were a slideshow of family memories.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Ahead of its U.S. premiere at SXSW, “The Queen of My Dreams” has been sold to a flurry of international markets, including in the U.K. and Ireland to Peccadillo Pictures.

Naman Ramachandran A range of subjects, ranging from hot button to mystical, await Academy voters considering the contenders from South Asia in the international feature category. The most visible film from the region is certainly Bhutan’s “The Monk and the Gun,” Pawo Choyning Dorji‘s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.” In the film, Dorji uses the first elections in one of the world’s youngest democracies to comment on what is lost as his country modernizes. The Variety critics pick, following its festival premieres at Telluride, Toronto, Rome and Busan, sold to a raft of major territories worldwide, including Roadside Attractions in the U.S.

Naman Ramachandran Zarrar Kahn‘s “In Flames,” Pakistan‘s submission to the Oscars‘ international feature category, has won the International Newcomer Award for the best film in competition at the 72nd International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg, Germany. The award carries a cash prize of €30,000 ($32,850). “In Flames,” a Pakistani Canadian horror-drama about a Karachi woman and her mother who are beset by malevolent figures from their past after the family patriarch dies, premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and has had considerable festival play since, including at Toronto, Busan, Sitges, Sao Paulo and Pingyao.

EXCLUSIVE: United Talent Agency has signed Zarrar Kahn, director of Pakistan’s Oscar entry In Flames, for representation in all areas. 

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer trailer has shown off the modernised versions of original maps like Rust, High Rise and Terminal in action.The latest trailer for the multiplayer mode of the upcoming game revealed the selection of 16 maps that have been revamped for more modern players. All of these will be available at launch and attempt to marry the nostalgia of the originals with a number of changes to allow for new tactical opportunities.

Activision and Sledgehammer Games have revealed a number of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer maps that are the modernisations of the originals from 2009.All available at launch, these are Afghan, Derail, Estate, Favela, Karachi, Highrise, Invasion, Quarry, Rundown, Rust, Scrapyard, Skidrow, Sub Base, Terminal, Underpass and Wasteland. Revitalising the classics was something of a passion project for the art team, who apparently “lit up” when they were told of the move to bring these legacy maps back.“We [asked], ‘What was good about the movement of older games? What was good about the gunplay of older games?’” explained design director Zach Hodson in the intel drop.

ET Canada’s Carlos Bustamante caught up with Amrit Kaur on the TIFF red carpet, where she was on hand for the world premiere of her new film “The Queen of My Dreams”.

Jennie Punter Pakistani Canadian filmmaker Anam Abbas has won the Canadian Media Producers Assn.’s 2023 Kevin Tierney Emerging Producer Award, it was announced Sept. 7 at the Indiescreen Awards, the opening event of the Toronto International Film Festival’s industry conference at Glenn Gould Studios. Abbas’ latest feature is writer and director Zarrar Kahn’s feature debut “In Flames,” a Pakistani Canadian horror-drama about a Karachi woman and her mother who are beset by malevolent figures from their past after the family patriarch dies.

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy award-winning Indian producer Apoorva Bakshi (Delhi Crime) has boarded The Glassworker, Pakistan’s first ever Hayao Miyazaki-style animated feature, as an executive producer. 

Naman Ramachandran XYZ Films has unveiled the first clip from Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection “In Flames,” a Pakistani-Canadian horror film directed by Zarrar Kahn. The film, produced by Anam Abbas and executive produced by Shant Joshi, Todd Brown and Maxime Cottray, is part of XYZ’s New Visions slate. As revealed by Variety, XYZ had boarded the title last year. In the Karachi-set film, after the death of the family patriarch, a mother and daughter’s precarious existence is ripped apart by figures from their past – both real and phantasmal. They must find strength in each other if they are to survive the malevolent forces that threaten to engulf them.

Naman Ramachandran XYZ Films has unveiled New Visions, an initiative designed to spotlight bold new voices alongside established talent striking a new path in the international cinema space. The initiative will serve as a curated collection of films that “exists to discover and support the next generation of great filmmakers at the inception of their career, and to give established talents room to do something smaller, more intimate, or challenging outside of the usual box of independent filmmaking,” XYZ said in a statement. The slate will launch in Cannes with Directors’ Fortnight selection “In Flames,” a Pakistani-Canadian horror film directed by Zarrar Kahn and executive produced by Shant Joshi. As revealed by Variety, XYZ had boarded the title last year. In the Karachi-set film, after the death of the family patriarch, a mother and daughter’s precarious existence is ripped apart by figures from their past – both real and phantasmal. They must find strength in each other if they are to survive the malevolent forces that threaten to engulf them.

If you are beginning to think about jetting off for some summer sun, then leading low-cost carrier, Pegasus Airlines, strives to make travelling abroad as smooth as possible.

Naman Ramachandran A poster has been unveiled for “Barzakh,” starring top Pakistani actors Fawad Khan and Sanam Saeed. The only South Asian selection at Series Mania this year, the series will debut in the showcase’s International Panorama, a 12-title competitive section where it will be eligible for the best series, director, actress, actor, student jury and audience awards. “Barzakh” (6 x 58′) is produced by Waqas Hassan and Shailja Kejriwal for Zindagi, the Indian subcontinent focused programming block on streamer ZEE5 Global. It is helmed by critically acclaimed director Asim Abbasi who also directed Zindagi’s first Pakistani original “Churails” and the feature film “Cake.”

Naman Ramachandran Zia Mohyeddin, a British-Pakistani actor known for films “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Immaculate Conception” and the stage version of “A Passage to India,” died on Monday in Karachi. He was 91. Mohyeddin was ill and was on life support in a Karachi hospital, his family said. Mohyeddin was born in Lylallpur (now Faisalabad), British India, in 1931. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in the early 1950s. After theater roles in “Long Day’s Journey into Night” and “Julius Caesar,” Mohyeddin made his West End debut in “A Passage to India” in 1960, where he originated the role of Dr. Aziz.

"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling has received a death threat after showing support for Salman Rushdie – who was attacked in New York right before giving a lecture.  Rowling took to Twitter Friday and wrote, "Horrifying news.

JK Rowling has called in police after seemingly receiving a death threat on Twitter. The Harry Potter creator was targeted by a troll after sending well wishes to author Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed in New York.

A Pakistani doctor who referred to female work colleagues as ''beautiful things'' and took an illicit photo of another medic has been cleared of wrongdoing. Dr Siddick Dulloo, 69, was accused of making sexually suggestive remarks after he compared one doctor and a nurse to the ''sun and moon in an eclipse''.

Episode 4 of Marvel Studios’ “Ms. Marvel” series was a change of pace for the show.

EXCLUSIVE: Javed Iqbal: The Untold Story Of A Serial Killer, which was banned in Pakistan two days before its scheduled release in theaters, will now see the light of day as the opening movie of the 2022 UK Asian Film Festival.

Families will be able to hunt for the colourful giant eggs in a trail at RHS Bridgewater this Easter.

Naman Ramachandran Top Pakistani stars Fawad Khan and Sanam Saeed have wrapped shooting an as-yet-untitled series for Zindagi, the Indian subcontinent focused programming block on streamer ZEE5. The series, which blends magical realism and supernatural fantasy with a family reunion, is helmed by critically acclaimed director Asim Abbasi who also directed Zindagi’s first Pakistani original “Churails” and the feature film “Cake.”Khan plays a single parent who, with his son, tries to be every bit the father his own father wasn’t. Saeed plays the central female character in the series.

More than 100 people are believed to have died after a plane crashed into houses in Pakistan.

Tributes have been paid to a 'loving and kind' Manchester Royal Infirmary doctor and a dad-of-six who has died having contracted coronavirus.

The famous quote from 13th century Sufi mystic Rumi about the place beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing provides the title of I'll Meet You There, writer-director Iram Parveen Bilal's domestic drama set in a Pakistani immigrant community in Chicago.

A man who tried to fake his own death to claim a £1m insurance payout has been jailed.