Kosovo Showbiz Latest News and Updates

K.J. Yossman SkyShowtime, the joint streaming venture between Comcast and ViacomCBS, has received full regulatory approval.It will launch in Europe later this year.

Last January, filmmaker Blerta Basholli was just happy she had gotten into the Sundance Film Festival with her debut feature “Hive.” The Albanian-language film about a woman who starts her own business after the Kosovo War was an inspirational gem, but Basholli hadn’t even dared to dream of just how far they would go.Not only did it become the first film in Sundance history to win the top three awards in the world cinema competition, now it has a strong chance of becoming Kosovo’s first Oscar contender in the best international feature category.“Hive,” which comes to video on demand on Feb. 1 and The Criterion Channel on Feb.

Naman Ramachandran The Walt Disney Company’s streamer Disney Plus has confirmed a summer 2022 launch across Europe, Africa and West Asia in 42 countries and 11 new territories. New countries for the service include South Africa, Turkey, Poland and the United Arab Emirates.The countries that the streamer will launch in include Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Oman, Palestine Territories, Poland, Qatar, Romania, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Vatican City and Yemen.

Clayton Davis The Oscars have announced that 276 feature films are eligible for this year’s Academy Awards, with nomination voting set to begin Thursday, Jan. 27 until Tuesday, Feb.

Ugyen (Sherab Dorji) is a government-contracted teacher who doesn’t want to teach in Pawo Choyning Dorji’s Oscar-shortlisted debut film Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom. It was submitted for consideration for last year’s Academy Award for International Feature, but was not accepted because the South Asian nation hadn’t submitted a film since it’s lone entry in 1999. Beating the odds, Dorji’s film made the International Feature shortlist — making Bhutan one of three countries to make the cut for the first time, along with Kosovo and Panama.

Belgium, “Playground”Bhutan, “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”Denmark, “Flee”Finland, “Compartment No.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today unveiled its shortlist of 15 films that will advance to the next stage of voting in the International Feature Film category at the Oscars. Notable among omissions is Julia Ducournau’s Titane, the entry from France which won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or — becoming only the second movie directed by a woman to scoop that prize.

EXCLUSIVE: Elisabeth Moss and Lindsey McManus have boarded writer-director Blerta Basholli’s Hive as executive producers. The Love & Squalor Pictures partners will spearhead the awards push for the Kosovan Oscar entry.

Rina Lipa was loving her older sister Dua’s style way before she was famous.

In 1999, 240 people disappeared when Serbian forces descended on the village of Krusha e Madhe in Kosovo, shot or captured the men and burned the residents out. According to the end-titles in Blerta Basholli’s triple Sundance-award winning Hive, there are still 64 missing.

When Kosovan writer-director Blerta Basholli met war widow Fahrije Hoti, the subject of her new feature film Hive, she was immediately struck by her strength of character and personality, which helped shape how she would approach making a feature film based on the story of Hoti’s life after the Kosovo War.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough laughed at former president Donald Trump’s choice of international “envoy” Friday, tearing into former acting director of national intelligence Ric Grenell. Grenell, Scarborough said, was someone he wouldn’t even send to 7-Eleven “to get a Slurpee,” let alone to the Kosovo-Serbia.

Vera Dreams of the Sea,” Kaltrina Krasniqi’s semi-autobiographical drama about a sign-language interpreter who battles for her rights in an inheritance dispute, was awarded the Tokyo Grand Prix at the closing ceremony of the 34nd Tokyo International Film Festival on Monday.

Manchester City starlet Cole Palmer is continuing his fine start to the season.

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How do we discover, and ultimately embrace, our definition of freedom? The women of “Hive” find themselves at a crossroads between their painful pasts and an equally hostile community bent on outdated norms. Blerta Basholli’s film explores the emotional toll of war while also revealing the underpinnings of societal misogyny.

Naman Ramachandran Kosovo has chosen Blerta Basholli’s Sundance triple winner “Hive” as its official entry for the Oscars’ international feature category.

Hive, the debut feature from writer-director Blerta Basholli that won a trio of awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, has been submitted by Kosovo for this year’s International Feature Oscar race.

Over 24 hours in Kabul, brutality, trauma, moments of grace— US: Afghan evacuees who fail initial screening Kosovo-bound— Rescue groups: US tally misses hundreds left in Afghanistan— US expects to admit more than 50,000 evacuated Afghans— Afghan women demand rights as Taliban seek recognition———— Find more AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/afghanistan———HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:KABUL, Afghanistan — Some domestic flights have resumed at Afghanistan’s international airport in Kabul, with

Christopher Vourlias Amidst all the horrors of a war-torn decade that she would largely like to forget, one memory stands out for Kosovar filmmaker Kaltrina Krasniqi: the day her mother surprised the family with a VHS player. “We were so, so excited,” she tells Variety.

Christopher Vourlias Heretic, the Athens-based boutique production company and sales agent, has acquired world sales rights for “Vera Dreams of the Sea,” the feature-length debut of Kosovan director Kaltrina Krasniqi, which will have its world premiere in the Horizons sidebar of the Venice Film Festival.

TIRANA, Albania -- Albanian police on Monday said they have arrested two people for allegedly hurling tear gas cannisters during a concert by a Bosnian Serb musician whom many in the country accuse of not condemning the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo.A statement said Redon Leka, 21, was arrested after hurling a tear gas cannister while songwriter and composer Goran Bregovic was performing Sunday night at the Korca Beer Fest, 165 kilometers (about 100 miles) southeast of the capital, Tirana.Another man

A total of 47 films will compete at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival across its four competitive sections. The event will feature 18 world premieres and three international premieres.

coronavirus infection on her own taught Arta Jashari how the power of one can offer hope to others and change things for the better.The 32-year-old soprano took it upon herself to treat her father, Baki Bashari — the Kosovo Philharmonic's maestro who suffers from diabetes and a heart ailment — after she discharged him last June from the country's overwhelmed Pulmonological Clinic.Under quarantine, the job was difficult.

Jay Weissberg Rites of passage, teenage girls in small towns, strict and uncomprehending parents: We know the drill, yet few films riffing on the subject get the mood and ambiguities as right as “Looking for Venera.” Debuting feature director Norika Sefa exhibits exceptional talent in bringing subtlety and depth to characters as well as the overall atmosphere of a town in Kosovo, ensuring the story is grounded in a particular place while making her protagonist a readily identifiable, highly

More than 20 years ago, the Kosovo war with Serbia and Montenegro left 12,000 dead and more than 3,000 missing, mainly Kosovar Albanians. In Hive (Zgjoi), her first feature, writer-director Blerta Basholli is inspired by the true story of Fahrije Hoti, a single mother who, many years after her husband goes missing, is forced by economic necessity to face his loss.

Rotterdam Winners This year’s virtual International Film Festival Rotterdam has crowned the winners from its film program. Southern India-set Pebbles by Vinothraj P.S won the Tiger Award, while I Comete – A Corsican Summer by French filmmaker Pascal Tagnati and Looking for Venera by Norika Sefa from Kosovo both won Special Jury Awards.

Jessica Kiang The war in Kosovo ended in 1999, but for many families, its losses and erasures created conflict that lasted deep into the new century, echoing on to this day.

Another day, another load of illegal meat seized at Newark Liberty International Airport. A U.S.

Leo Barraclough Senior International CorrespondentThe Czech Film and Television Academy has selected Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan” to be its official entry in the International Feature Film category of the 93rd Academy Awards.Its decision follows recent submissions by Singapore, Kosovo and Georgia.

Leo Barraclough Senior International CorrespondentKosovo has selected Visar Morina’s “Exil” as its official entry in the International Feature Film category of the 93rd Academy Awards. It follows submissions by Bhutan, Taiwan, Ukraine, Bosnia, Ivory Coast, Georgia, Luxembourg, Poland and Switzerland.“Exil” had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition and also screened at the Berlinale as part of the Panorama section.

Christopher Vourlias Visar Morina’s “Exile,” a tense psychodrama about a Kosovan pharmacologist in Germany who becomes increasingly paranoid over a series of menacing events, won the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival, earning the Kosovo-born German director the Heart of Sarajevo.The award ceremony took place online Thursday night, with Morina winning top honors from a jury led by Academy Award-winning director Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) and comprised of Carlo Chatrian, artistic

Christopher Vourlias Xhafer is a 45-year-old pharmacologist who left Kosovo to live in Germany, where he has a comfortable, middle-class life with his German wife and children. But one day a dead rat mysteriously appears hanging from the garden gate in front of his home, setting off a bizarre series of menacing events.

Christopher Vourlias Rome-based Fandango Sales, the sales arm of Domenico Procacci’s production company Fandango, has scooped up world rights, excluding Spain and Andorra, for “Andromeda Galaxy,” the feature directorial debut of Kosovo filmmaker More Raça, which had its world premiere in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival.“Andromeda Galaxy” tells the story of Shpëtim (Sunaj Raça, the director’s father and the film’s producer), a down-at-the-heels single father struggling to make ends

Dua Lipa has spoken further about a tweet she posted about the rights of indigenous Kosovar Albanians.The singer recently shared a picture of a map of Albania with its emblem, alongside a sentence which stated that Kosovar Albanians are an indigenous group of people.Lipa, who spent part of her childhood in Kosovo and whose family have Albanian heritage, wrote: “au•toch•tho•nous adjective (of an inhabitant of a place) indigenous rather than descended from migrants or colonists.”The tweet soon

Dua Lipa posted about the rights of indigenous Kosovar Albanians has sparked a fierce online debate overnight.Lipa shared a picture last night (July 19) of a map of Albania with its emblem, alongside a sentence which stated that Kosovar Albanians are an indigenous group of people.Lipa wrote: “au•toch•tho•nous adjective (of an inhabitant of a place) indigenous rather than descended from migrants or colonists.”Lipa’s family have Albanian heritage and the London-born musician spent part of her