Kosovo Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Pop singer Dua Lipa has opened up to fans about the role of "persistence" in her journey to success. During her appearance at the Hay Festival in Wales last Saturday, 3 May, the singer reflected on her childhood experiences of moving between Kosovo and London, sharing how being adaptable and embracing change had been crucial to her later success. She told the audience: "From a young age, I had the dream to be a pop star but it never seemed like something that was actually possible," adding: "I've been a new girl all my life.” Dua’s upbringing saw her born in London to parents who had fled the war in former Yugoslavia.

Dua Lipa knows what she wants!

Naman Ramachandran U.K.-based sales agent Reason8 Films has sold 2023 Venice title “The Red Suitcase” to HBO for Europe and Suraya Filem for Malaysia and Brunei. The 15 territories covered under the HBO deal include Albania, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Moldova, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Reason8 Films said that advanced negotiations are on for North America and Latin America.

In parts of the Balkans, a remarkable tradition exists: women known as Burrneshas take on societal roles typically confined to men. They assume the physical appearance of men, adopt men’s names or nicknames, and operate with a freedom and power denied women in patriarchal cultures.

Annika Pham Seasoned Danish writer-director Birgitte Stærmose, recently credited for the Netflix show “In From the Cold,” Starz’s “The Spanish Princess” and Göteborg 2023 closing pic “Camino,” is due to bow at the Berlin Film Festival’s Dokument program her hybrid pic “Afterwar”. Variety has secured in exclusivity the trailer for the helmer’s anti-war pamphlet produced by Magic Hour Films in Denmark (“Burma VJ”) in co-production with Sweden’s Vilda Bomben Film (“Excess Will Save Us”), Finland’s Bufo (“Fallen Leaves”) and Kosovo’s Kabineti.

Dua Lipa has called for a ceasefire in Gaza and urged for world leaders to “take a stand” in a new interview.The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has continued into the new year, with over 24,000 people now having died on both sides, 23,469 of them Palestinian and 1,200 Israeli.Last year, Lipa joined the likes of Michael Stipe and Cate Blanchett in signing an open letter to President Joe Biden calling for a ceasefire and “an end to the bombing of Gaza and the safe release of hostages”.Speaking to Rolling Stone about her upcoming new album, Lipa reaffirmed her stance on the conflict, saying: “My existence is kind of political, the fact that I lived in London because my parents left from the war,” she said. “I feel for people who have to leave their home.

The European Film Academy has unveiled its new board which has been voted in under updated guidelines aimed at ensuring a more balanced geographical representation of its members.

Focus Features has set a Jan. 26, 2024 theatrical release date for Goran Stolevski’s latest, Housekeeping For Beginners.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Debora Stratman’s well-received latest Last Things, which premiered in the New Frontiers section at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. 

Manchester United academy hopeful Shea Lacey recorded a brace for England's Under-17s in their 4-1 win over Spain on Tuesday.

Ellise Shafer SkyShowtime, the European streaming home to releases from Paramount and Universal, has revealed its upcoming film and TV slate through the rest of the year, including “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Poker Face.” Just one year since the streaming service’s launch in the Nordics and six months since its rollout in 20 more European markets, SkyShowtime is on track to have 50% of this year’s box office on the platform. “Less than a year since our launch, SkyShowtime boasts an impressive line-up of amazing content,” SkyShowtime CEO Monty Sarhan said in a statement.

As Sweden faced off against Australia in a battle for the third place honour in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, which England's Lionesses have reached the final of, on Saturday 19 August at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, it was the former who dominated the game. And Sweden's win against the Matildas appeared thanks to star players Kosovare Asllani and Fridolina Rolfö, with the latter scoring the first goal of the game in 30th minute - before Kosovare swooped in with the second during the 63rd minute.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “The Hollow” won the Heart of Sarajevo Award for best TV drama series at the Sarajevo Film Festival on Sunday, and also came away with a host of other awards. The in-competition series came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Slovenia.

EXCLUSIVE: Dakota Shapiro (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), Ben Groh (God’s Time, Mutt) and Oliver Cooper (Project X, Mindhunter) are to star in psychedelic indie movie The Lemurian Candidate after it received SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement approval.

in London over the past couple of weeks.I'm not quite sure what that means, but it might have something to do with recent trip to her homeland. Though she was born in London, Lipa grew up in the country of Kosovo, not far from her parents' native Albania.

The Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled its official selection for this year’s edition, with Elene Naveriani’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight title Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry among the titles playing in Competition.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival’s Eastern Promises industry platform has unveiled 27 film projects that will be showcased during its Works in Progress, Works in Development – Feature Launch and First Cut+ Works in Progress presentations. The most promising projects, selected by international juries, will receive awards with a total value of 115,000 EUR.  The showcasing of projects to industry professionals will take place in Karlovy Vary, during this year’s KVIFF Industry Days on July 3 (Works in Progress and Works in Development – Feature Launch) and July 4 (First Cut+ Works in Progress). For Works in Progress, 11 fiction and documentary feature films in the late stage of production or post-production from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and North Africa have been selected.

Award-winning singer Dua Lipa was present at the Hay Festival on Sunday. The “Levitating” singer wowed the audience by being open about how “persistence” had led to her success.

Eight feature documentaries and eight short docs have been selected as finalists for the 16th Doc Alliance Awards, presented by the Doc Alliance – the association of European documentary festivals.

The European Film Academy (EFA) has unveiled 462 film professionals as new members in an announcement timed to coincide with Europe Day on May 9.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Twenty emerging producers from across Europe have been selected to take part in European Film Promotion’s promotion and networking platform Producers on the Move before and during the Cannes Film Festival. The producers who were selected for the program from nominations submitted by EFP’s member organizations are Gentian Koçi (Albania), David Bohun (Austria), Julie Esparbes (Belgium), Vanya Rainova (Bulgaria), Miljenka Čogelja (Croatia), Stelana Kliris (Cyprus), Alice Tabery (Czech Republic), Emile Hertling Péronard (Denmark), Emilia Haukka (Finland), Silvana Santamaria (Germany), Vicky Miha (Greece), Júlia Berkes (Hungary), Kathryn Kennedy (Ireland), Valon Bajgora (Kosovo), Dominiks Jarmakovičs (Latvia), Erik Glijnis (The Netherlands), Elisa Fernanda Pirir (Norway), Radu Stancu (Romania), Juraj Krasnohorský (Slovak Republic), and Julia Gebauer (Sweden).

Rita Ora has spoken of how her marriage to Taika Waititi “changed her forever”, and that her husband inspired her to write music again.The Kosovo-born singer has been teasing her third studio album since 2019. After releasing launch single ‘You Only Love Me’ in January, she announced new album ‘You & I’ and revealed the new track ‘Praising You‘ featuring Fatboy Slim earlier this week.In a new interview with Billboard, Ora said she had a “low” period in her musical career where she had “lost a lot of confidence and a lot of hope”.

DJ Regard literally got No Sleep making his new single with Ella Henderson. 

A “globetrotting” college boss racked up over twenty foreign trips before backing a redundancy scheme for staff.

Dua Lipa is "honoured" to have received Albanian citizenship. The New Rules hitmaker, who was born in London to Kosovo Albanian parents, regularly references her heritage and links to the nation.

The mystery of the scrapped studio album is solved. While Rita Ora’s second record was reportedly delayed over the use of ex Calvin Harris’ tracks, the DJ is setting the record straight.

Bolton Wanderers are hopeful of having Conor Bradley available before the weekend's clash against Lincoln City owing to sickness picked up while on Northern Ireland duty.

Gareth Ainsworth believes Bolton Wanderers will be among a clutch of clubs challenging the likes of Sheffield Wednesday who beat his Wycombe side for promotion out of League One this season.

Northern Ireland boss Ian Baraclough praised Bolton Wanderers defender Conor Bradley for his performance in the Uefa Nations League win over Kosovo.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Les Films du Losange has closed a raft of major deals on Kasja Naess’s animated feature “Titina” which is produced by the teams behind the Oscar-nominated film “The Triplets of Belleville” and Oscar-winning short “The Danish Poet.” “Titina” will world premiere at Animation Is Film Festival, which takes place Oct. 21-23, and is produced by GKids, in collaboration with Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Variety. Budgeted at $8.5 million, the Norwegian animated movie was produced by Mikrofilm (“The Danish Poet”) and Vivi Film (“The Triplets of Belleville”). The film tells the real-life story of a fox terrier that accompanied her master on an expedition to the North Pole in an air balloon in the 1920’s. It will be released in Norway by Norsk Film Distribusjon, and in France by Les Films du Losange.

vowing to “curse” its attendees and saying that if he had a gun, he’d use it against people taking part in the event for flaunting and celebrating homosexuality. The far-right Zaventnici (Oathkeepers) political party also held a protest in August featuring tens of thousands of marchers calling on the Serbian government to cancel the parade.On Sunday, the day before EuroPride was scheduled to kick off, anti-Pride demonstrators, including biker gangs, far-right groups, and religious organizations held a rally “for marriage and the family” demanding the parade’s cancellation.Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has warned for weeks that the Pride march would be banned, arguing that police don’t have the manpower needed to protect Pride revelers from potential riots by right-wing groups.Serbian government officials, including Vucic and the country’s lesbian prime minister, Ana Brnabic, have said the country currently faces more pressing issues that need to be addressed, including attempts to broker a successful peace between the Serbian government and the breakaway province of Kosovo, and an energy crisis that has been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reports the Associated Press.“In the current geopolitical situation and tensions in the region, senseless clashes on the streets of Belgrade would make the position of our country more difficult, (and) endanger the safety of participants in the marches, as well as other citizens,” Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said in a statement.Serbia’s history and record on LGBTQ rights has been spotty.

One of the notoriously silent Queen’s Guard members has spoken out about ‘what an honour and a privilege’ it was to serve the former head of state. Councillor James Watson who gave almost 20 years of his life to the army has compared the ‘emotional’ loss of Queen Elizabeth II like ‘losing a family member’.

Ed Meza @edmezavar France TV Distribution is ratcheting up global sales for the hit Gallic crime series “Bright Minds,” with deals ranging from Japan to the U.S., Canada and Latin America. In its third season, the show, which airs on France 2, follows a police detective who finds a brilliant partner in a young autistic woman with encyclopedic knowledge of criminal investigations who works in the police records bureau. Together, they realize their complementary skills are the key to solving cases. France TV Distribution, which is presenting its current lineup this week at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous market in Biarritz, sold the show to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, which has been airing it since July.

Manori Ravindran International Editor More than a year since SkyShowtime was first announced, the SVOD is ready to join the streaming fray in Europe, Variety can reveal. The new platform — a joint venture between Comcast and Paramount Global that was first unveiled in August 2021 — will officially launch on Sept. 20 in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, before expanding into the Netherlands later this year in Q4. (The service received regulatory approval in Europe back in February.) Meanwhile, the SVOD will continue its roll out across Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) over the coming months and through Q1 of 2023. CEE markets include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

European Pride Organisers Association (EPOA) is insisting that EuroPride in Belgrade is not cancelled despite nationalists joining church protests and Serbian President Vučić announcing the cancellation.Three years ago, EPOA had chosen Belgrade as the host for the annual event for 2022. Vučić cancelled the event on the grounds of tensions in Kosovo, along with economic issues within the country.President of EPOA, Kristine Garina has stated that the event would have the opposite effect, boosting the economy.“EuroPride in Belgrade will not be cancelled and will bring together thousands of LGBTI+ people from across Europe with LGBTI+ people from Serbia and the wider western Balkans,” Garina said.The bullies she refers to are the right-wing anti-LGBTQ+ Serbians whose numbers have grown and have become vocal about their opposition to the pride event.Srbija za primer.

The defiant organisers of EuroPride 2022 say they will not accept the Serbian president’s shocking declaration that the event has been cancelled.