Iran Showbiz Latest News and Updates

a 10-minute video Wednesday entitled “hi.” She flippantly took “accountability” for her actions while simultaneously criticizing cancel culture. “Some people are saying things about me that just aren’t true,” she said in a sing-song voice.

Colleen Ballinger has re-emerged to share her side of the story after the “Miranda Sings” YouTuber was accused of grooming by a fan who claimed she’d “formed an inappropriate personal friendship with him while he was between the ages of 13 and 16.”

Sundance Institute has laid off nearly a dozen staffers across its departments, representing about 6% of its 180- workforce, Deadline has confirmed. The cuts are part of a three- to five-year strategic plan to strengthen the organization amid a challenging economic landscape.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Colleen Ballinger, the YouTube creator whose awkward character Miranda Sings rose to internet fame, has publicly responded to accusations that she formed inappropriate relationships with teenagers. Ballinger posted a video Wednesday to her Colleen Vlogs channel in which she denies the “lies” and “gossip” about her — partly in song, while strumming a ukulele. “Some people are saying things about me that just aren’t true,” she said at the beginning of the 10-minute video. She continued, “Even though my team has strongly advised me not to say what I’m going to say, I realized they never said I couldn’t sing about what I want to say.”

Ed Meza @edmezavar Behrooz Karamizade’s Iranian drama “Empty Nets,” which has its international premiere in the Crystal Globe Competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, offers a sobering look at the increasingly difficult, sometimes hopeless lives of young working-class people in Iran as they strive for better lives. Set on Iran’s northern Caspian Sea coast, the film follows Amir (Hamid Reza Abbasi), a young man who, desperate to marry his girlfriend Narges (Sadif Asgari), seeks work at a local fishery with the hope of earning enough money for an appropriate dowry and winning over her upper-class parents. Once there, illicit opportunities present themselves and he is soon drawn into the dangerous but lucrative business of sturgeon poaching and the black market caviar trade.

This year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) will close with the UK premiere of British Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali’s well-received Sundance pic Fremont.

CNN on Monday, former President Donald Trump cracks jokes about Anthony Weiner after an aide quips that Hillary Clinton also allegedly mishandling classified information.Several of the details have already been reported about the July 2021 conversation that led to Trump being indicted on 37 counts of violating the Espionage Act for, but the newly released two-minute recording shows Trump in a jovial mood as he talks with his aides. After Trump mentions the papers are “highly confidential” and “secret information,” a female staffer jokes, “Hillary would print that out all the time, you know. Her private emails.”“No, she’d send it to Anthony Weiner,” Trump joked, referring to the disgraced former Democratic congressman, who served nearly two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of transferring obscene material to a minor. “These are the papers,” Trump says in the recording, claiming that they prove that it was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen.

CNN obtained the audio recording of a 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump discussed having secret documents he did not declassify.

Oscar Qualifying AwardsBest of the Festival Award - Winner received $5,000 cash prize courtesy of Harold Matzner, Palm Springs International Film Society’s Immediate Past ChairmanJury: Angel An (VP of Acquisitions, Roadside Attractions); Kiva Reardon (Vice President of Film, PASTEL); Clay Pruitt (Head of Programming, Impact Distribution, Impact Distribution, Seed&Spark)Winner:  The Old Young Crow (Japan/USA), Directed by Liam LoPintoSpecial Mention:  48 Hours (Iran), Directed by Azadeh MoussaviSpecial Mention:  Away (Hungary/Belgium/Portugal), Directed by Ruslan FedotowBest Animated Short – Winner received a $1,000 cash prize.Jury: Geoff Marslett (Animator/Director/Writer/Producer); Irene Soriano (Writer/Film Curator); Gabe Van Amburgh (Film Programmer and Senior Manager, SXSW)Winner:  Way Better (Lithuania), Directed by Skirmanta JakaitėSpecial Mention:  Ashkaska (Spain/Argentina), Directed by Lara MaltzSpecial Mention:  Eeva (Croatia/Estonia), Directed by Lucija Mrzljak and Morten TšinakovBest Documentary Short – Winner received a $1,000 cash prize.Jury: Eugene Yi (Director/Editor/Writer, Free Chol Soo Lee); Maria Santos (Funds Program Officer, International Documentary Association); Opal H.

Music fans heading to the Glastonbury Festival are in for a treat with the promise of "dry, sunny weather" as the renowned Pyramid Stage comes alive on Friday. Despite a recent setback due to lead vocalist Alex Turner's acute laryngitis leading to the cancellation of their earlier gig, Arctic Monkeys are still billed as Friday's headliners.

A man has pleaded guilty to killing his neighbour. Tarik Hussein, 28, admitted fatally attacking 56-year-old shop worker Esmaeil Tofigh following an incident in Longsight.

The 76th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will close with a screening of the Sundance Competiton pic Shayda attended by the film’s star Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) and Exec Producer Cate Blanchett.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Cate Blanchett and Zar Amir Ebrahimi are set to attend the Locarno Film Festival’s closing night to promote the European launch of Iranian-Australian director Noora Niasari’s debut film “Shayda.” Blanchett is an executive producer on the drama, which world premiered at Sundance and scored the Utah festival’s audience award. “Shayda” stars Ebrahimi – who broke out last year as a Cannes prizewinner for her role in “Holy Spider” – as a domestic violence survivor during the ’90s in Australia who demands a free life on her own terms, away from the shadow of her abusive husband. Variety critic Tomris Laffly in her review praised Ebrahimi’s turn in “Shayda” as a “quietly commanding performance” and underlined the film’s “unmistakably feminine spirit of perseverance, one that runs wild and free in this promising debut.”

The forecasts are in - and for once it looks to be a dry Glastonbury, with 'sunny weather' the main prediction by forecasters as the first music acts take to the Pyramid Stage on Friday. Friday is set see a “good deal of dry, sunny weather” with temperatures likely to peak around 25C after highs of 25.2C were recorded on Thursday in nearby Yeovilton, the Met Office has said.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor High Fidelity Pictures and newly formed sister company Nuworx Productions are set to adapt Behzad Karim Khani’s bestselling novel “Hund, Wolf, Schakal” together with a yet-to-be-announced German broadcasting partner. Production for the series is due to start next year. The critically acclaimed novel tells the story of two very differently wired brothers who fled Iran with their father, and must now stand up for themselves on the streets of Berlin. The book received the Debut Prize at the Harbour Front Literature Festival, along with numerous positive reviews and was on the Shortlist of the Aspekte-Literature-Award.

One year after tying the knot, Britney Spears and Sam Asghari have faced a few hiccups in their marriage — but they aren’t giving up on their love.

Facing adulthood is never easy.

Paramount+ crime-thriller Bargain, Prime Video’s absurdist comedy I’m a Virgo and Greek infertility dramedy Babython were among the awards series winners at last week’s Seriencamp in Germany.

Two Scots journalists held in a detention centre “like an open sewer” have begged the international ­community to rescue 101 refugees, including children, still there.

Christopher Vourlias Iranian filmmaker Dornaz Hajiha took home the top prize Saturday at the Transilvania Film Festival, as the jury awarded the first-time director with the Transilvania Trophy for “Like a Fish on the Moon,” a moving family drama about two parents coping with the emotional fallout when their young son suddenly stops talking. In the jury’s citation, Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco highlighted “the originality of its premise, the power of its performances, and the intelligence with which it explored very difficult subject matter,” describing “Like a Fish on the Moon” as “a film that resonated long after it ended.” Hajiha was visibly moved as she took the stage to accept the award, which was presented to her by Transilvania Lifetime Achievement Award winner Geoffrey Rush moments after the Australian actor delivered an impassioned and at times whimsical tribute to the power of cinema.

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A former gym disciple "was so hammered" he admitted "if I did it, I did it" after going on a alcohol-fuelled racist rampage where he threatened to shoot and stab a pub regular and rape the mothers and girlfriends of police.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Sunday,” by Uzbekistan-based director Shokir Kholikov, was Thursday named best film in the Asian New Talent section of the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival. The Asian New Talent Awards are called Golden Goblet Awards, but are separate from the festival’s official competition section, and favor new and emerging talent. The main competition jury will hand out its Golden Goblets on Sunday. The best director prize in the Asian New Talent section was shared by two helmers: China’s Luo Dong won for “May.” So too did Kazakhstan’s Aisultan Seit for “Qash.” Luo previously attended the Shanghai festival’s project market ten years ago and has since completed one other film.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The International Olympic Committee said on Thursday that Swiss-based, Chinese-owned Infront Sports & Media would handle broadcast right sales in much of Asia for the next series of Summer and Winter games. The deal covers 22 territories including Afghanistan, Brunei, Cambodia, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam – but not China, Japan or South Korea, and runs 2026-2032. That means it will cover the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics and the Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032 Summer games. The 2030 Winter Olympics, which have yet to be allocated a host, and all Youth Olympic Games during this period will also be covered.

Christopher Vourlias A passionate friendship spanning a turbulent decade marked by two unlikely uprisings forms the emotional heart of “Between Revolutions,” Romanian filmmaker Vlad Petri’s powerful hybrid documentary that plays this week at the Transilvania Film Festival. Using extensive archival footage, Petri’s sophomore feature depicts the intense bond forged between two young women studying medicine in Bucharest in the 1970s. When political turmoil begins to sweep across Iran, their lives are drawn apart, as the Iranian-born Zahra is forced to return home, leaving her Romanian friend Maria behind. Over the next decade, the two women maintain their connection through a series of letters, chronicling their struggles as women fighting for a voice while their respective countries move in divergent directions.

37-count indictment for mishandling classified documents, falsely claiming in a heated CNN interview with Dana Bash that Trump had the right to handle the documents “however he wants.” “If he wants to store material in a box in a bathroom, in a box on the stage, he can do that,” the representative from Ohio said.The indictment, filed by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, accuses Trump of violating the Espionage Act by holding on to classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago compound that included sensitive information on the United States’ nuclear stockpile and potential vulnerabilities to foreign attacks, among other national security topics. The indictment also cites audio recordings of Trump sharing documents on a plan to attack Iran with people within his circle who did not have clearance to see them and acknowledging that he was not allowed to show them such files.

Charna Flam When readers and audiences hear Hello Sunshine has acquired a best-selling book, it’s likely the production company’s president of film and TV, Lauren Neustadter, has spearheaded the deal. Before joining Reese Witherspoon’s production company in 2017, Neustadter spent over a decade working in film as an executive at such companies as Miramax and 20th Century Fox, eventually transitioning to TV and serving as a Fox network exec. Once she landed at Hello Sunshine — and before she developed a slew of book-inspired series, including “Big Little Lies,” “Little Fires Everywhere” and “Truth Be Told” — she had an early book-to-screen adaptation, “Americanized,” that made it to the final stages of thenetwork development pilot cycle.

“Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth” is officially due to drop in 2024. The highly anticipated addition to the role-playing franchise will arrive for the PS5, notably on “two discs.” (What that detail means is still unclear, but a logical assumption would be that the game is just that big.)The major announcement was the last of many revelations at the Summer Game Fest 2023 big games showcase on Thursday, held at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles to highlight upcoming releases gamers can look forward to in the near future.

Jessica Kiang A locked-off camera can convey many things — watchfulness, stealthiness, clinical remove or elegant restraint — but seldom is it as evocatively accusatory as in Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari’s “Terrestrial Verses.” Here, its use over a series of stationary vignettes, bookended by dramatic images of urban collapse, becomes an increasingly inspired choice even as the themes start to repeat and the resonances with the ongoing Women Life Freedom movement in Iran become more apparent. Putting the viewer in the uncomfortable position of interviewer/interrogator in nine encounters between everyday Iranians and some manner of authority figure, this is punchy first-person filmmaking, from the point of view of the last person you want to be. 

WWE fans are mourning a legend.

pic.twitter.com/Cr6CC9pXSOThe Iron Sheik got his start as a Greco-Roman wrestler, competing for Iran at the1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. He later served as an assistant coach for Team USA at the 1972 Games in Munich. He made his WWF debut in 1979 and won the WWF World Heavyweight Championship in 1983, becoming the only Iranian wrestler ever to do so.His legendary rivalry with Hulk Hogan helped make Hogan one of the great pro wrestling heroes of the 1980s, and his tag team pairing with Nikolai Volkoff won the WWF Tag Team Championship at the inaugural WrestleMania event in 1985.In 2005, The Iron Sheik was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

may have actively moved to conceal evidence that Trump knowingly took classified documents despite his unfounded claim that he “declassified” them. Trump’s lawyers met Monday with Justice Department officials, in an attempt to keep him from being indicted.When the case became public, it soon also came out that President Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence both had also taken a much smaller number of classified documents, however in both cases the matter was voluntarily disclosed and the officials cooperated fully with investigators.

reported that federal prosecutors now have a recording from a 2021 meeting, in which Trump explicitly acknowledges that he kept a classified document about a potential attack on Iran. This would fly in the face of Trump’s repeated claim that he declassified everything he had (sometimes just with his mind), and counts as an admission of a crime.Farah Griffin has been pretty vocal in her doubts about Trump facing real consequences by way of prison time, but on Thursday morning, she changed course.“I always kind of thought the documents investigation was over, since we found out Pence had documents, current President Biden does.

report on Wednesday that federal prosecutors now have a recording from a 2021 meeting, in which Trump explicitly acknowledges that he kept a classified document about a potential attack on Iran. This, of course, would fly in the face of Trump’s repeated claim that he declassified everything he had (sometimes just with his mind).“I think if this audio tape exists, this is not a question of if there are going to be charges,” Weissman said.

The Karlovy Vary Film Festival has unveiled the official selection for its upcoming 57th edition. The lineup comprises 31 films across three sections and a host of world and international premieres. Scroll down for the full list.

A behind-closed-doors trial is being held in Tehran for an Iranian journalist on charges resulting from her coverage of Mahsa Amini, whose 2022 death in custody by Iran’s morality police sparked months of protest.