Syria Showbiz Latest News and Updates

What could well be Ken Loach’s final film has as much fire and fury as his debut Poor Cow did in 1967, if we discount his pioneering TV work in the run-up. The visual style hasn’t changed a great deal in the years since, but that’s because the British movie veteran, soon to turn 87, isn’t much fussed about surfaces, it’s the inner lives of his characters that he wants to capture. In that respect, The Old Oak would make a fitting swansong, capping the recent North-East trilogy with a vital film that is clearly the work of the team behind previous Cannes Competition hits I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You.

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).

The CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator today announced the projects that will take part in the sixth edition of the prestigious training program for women-identifying nonfiction filmmakers. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Kaouther Ben Hania, the Oscar-nominated director of “The Man Who Sold His Skin” whose latest film “Four Daughters” is competing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, will next direct “Mimesis,” an epic love story set in Tunisia. While the plot is under wraps, the story is set in two different periods, the 1990s and the 1940s, paying tribute to cinema and Arab-Muslim cultural heritage. It’s being produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha at Tanit Films, who produced Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” and her previous film “The Man Who Sold His Skin” which world premiered at Venice where it won best actor for Yahya Mahayni and was nominated for best international film at the Oscars in 2021.

EXCLUSIVE: Egyptian-U.S. company Ambient Light has acquired North American sales rights for Sudanese director Mohamed Kordofani’s Cannes Un Certain Regard title Goodbye Julia.

Christopher Vourlias With Jonathan Glazer’s Auschwitz-set Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” competing for the Palme d’Or and a host of Polish producers bringing buzzy upcoming projects to the Marché du Film, the Polish industry should again have Cannes talking. Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights: The Zone of Interest(Competition)Director: Jonathan GlazerProducers: James Wilson, Ewa Puszczyńska (JW Films, Extreme Emotions)Sales: A24The veteran British filmmaker’s first film in nearly a decade, which will compete for the Palme d’Or, is a Holocaust drama loosely based on the novel by Martin Amis that’s sure to be among the festival’s most talked-about films.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Leading French producer Michael Gentile’s Paris-based outfit The Film is about to start shooting Julie Delpy’s next directorial outing, “The Barbarians,” and Laurence Arné’s “Les Hennedricks” starring Dany Boon. Delpy’s comeback to French filmmaking since “Lolo,” “The Barbarians” is a satirical comedy unfolding in a small town in Brittany which is preparing to welcome Ukrainian refugees after voting unanimously to greet them in exchange for subsidies from the government. But instead of seeing Ukrainians come into town, they see Syrian refugees, causing some tensions among locals and testing their liberal beliefs. Delpy will star in the film opposite Sandrine Kiberlain (“Mademoiselle Chambon”), Laurent Lafitte (“Elle”) and Ziad Bakri (“The Weekend Away”), India Hair (“Angry Annie”), Mathieu Demy (“The Bureau”) and Delpy’s father Albert Delpy.

Films Boutique has closed multiple territory deals on Agnieszka Holland’s “The Green Border,” which just completed principal photography in Poland. The film has been sold to Condor (France), September Films (Benelux), Movies Inspired (Italy), Leopardo Filmes (Portugal), MCF Megacom (former Yugoslavia), Kino Swiat (Poland) and AQS (Czech Rep./Slovakia). “The Green Border” tells the story of a family of Syrian refugees, a solitary English teacher from Afghanistan and a young border guard, all of whom meet on the Polish-Belarusian border during the most recent humanitarian crisis triggered by Belarus’ president Alexander Lukashenko, who opened the country’s doors to migrants as a back door to enter the EU.

In May 2020, two months into the production shutdown caused by the global pandemic, NBC acquired Canadian medical drama Transplant, which landed on the network’s Covid-impacted fall schedule. In December of that year, NBC picked up Season 2 of the show.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor MAD Solutions has acquired the distribution rights to “Concrete Valley” for multiple territories. The film focuses on a Syrian family living in Toronto. The film, from Canadian-French filmmaker Antoine Bourges, premiered at Toronto Film Festival, before travelling to Berlinale, and it just screened at Jeonju. The deal covers the following territories: UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, South of Sudan and Comoro Island. The writers are Bourges and Teyama Alkamli. The producer is Shehrezade Mian at Markhor Pictures.

Letitia Wright is stepping into the ring for In the Shadows, a drama based on the true story of Ramla Ali, the first Somali British professional boxing champion. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Rolling off a successful collaboration on “Charlatan,” Films Boutique has boarded Agnieszka Holland’s next film “The Green Border,” which just completed principal photography in Poland. Now in post production, “The Green Border” tells the fateful story of a family of Syrian refugees, a solitary English teacher from Afghanistan and a young border guard, all of whom meet on the Polish-Belarusian border during the most recent humanitarian crisis triggered by President Lukaschenko opening doors to migrants in Belarus as a back door to enter the EU.  The screenplay, penned by Holland, Gabriela Łazarkiewicz-Sieczko and Maciej Pisuk, is inspired by real events. Research for the film included hundreds of hours of document analysis, interviews with refugees, border guards, borderland residents, activists and experts.

A brave firefighter has told of the distressing scenes she responded to while responding to devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Emma Atcherley, is based in Cardiff and is a crew manager South Wales Fire and Rescue Service.

Naman Ramachandran Sudipto Sen’s “The Kerala Story,” produced by noted filmmaker Vipul Amrutlal Shah, is in the eye of a storm in India. It has divided the country’s political classes, with some banning the film and others encouraging it. “The Kerala Story” follows the travails of three women from the southern Indian state of Kerala who are abducted and recruited by ISIS in Syria. The modestly budgeted film released on May 5 to poor critical reviews, but is emerging as a major box office success, having grossed $5.6 million to date. The film claims that some 32,000 women from Kerala had been abducted and recruited by the ISIS though the veracity of this number has been disputed. There were widespread objections in Kerala to the film, but it is running there in a limited number of cinemas.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic The sensation of a nation crumbling from within — not in slo-mo deterioration, but amid the chaos of widespread violence and political upheaval — is unimaginable to most people. Yet it’s something many will live to experience. Offering a primer of sorts in that grim prospect is “5 Seasons of Revolution.” Made by the pseudonymous Lina, this very first-person documentary doesn’t offer a lot of explanatory background or big-picture commentary on Syria’s still-ongoing civil war. But in charting the filmmaker’s attempts at reportage alongside the fates of her imperiled group of friends between 2011-15, it provides one vivid perspective on a whole country in freefall.  At that timespan’s beginning, the pro-democracy protests of the Arab Spring reach our English-language narrator’s homeland, where she’s an aspiring video journalist. Her likewise twentysomething close associates, introduced at the start here, are fellow journalists, social workers, activists. All grew up in a de facto police state now controlled by President Bashar al-Assad, whose father presided over the country’s transformation into a military dictatorship decades prior. Defying an official media blackout, she interviews demonstrators and those who witnessed their being fired on by government forces. We see joyful still images of street actions, suggesting a turning point may be at hand.

Late German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld will be honored at the 2023 Met Gala on Monday despite, what many commentators called, his "controversial" past statements and views.  The theme, which was announced in September, will feature an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute titled "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty" and display approximately 150 of his designs as well as his original sketches.The dress code of the red carpet event, announced in January, will also be "In honor of Karl."  The Met Gala is a star-studded event where celebrities and other notable figures display unique fashion choices where they raise money for the Met’s Costume Institute However, many media outlets and celebrities called out this year's decision to honor the late fashion designer, claiming that Lagerfeld’s past statements should disqualify him from being honored at the event. He criticized the #MeToo movement in 2018.

A Brit mum who served time in prison after travelling to Syria to join ISIS has reinvented herself as fashion influencer.

The prestigious Visions du Réel film festival in Nyon, Switzerland wraps up this weekend, after hosting the world premiere of dozens of documentaries.

The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner will draw loads of attention for the celebrities who show, the jokes that Joe Biden tells and the shtick that Roy Wood Jr. uses in his routine.

Alan Henning was a local hero who lost his life while taking food to children and families his Syria. The day before Christmas in 2013, Mr Henning, 47, was kidnapped and later beheaded by so-called Islamic State after being snatched when crossing the border from Turkey into Syria with an aid convoy.

Naman Ramachandran Red Zed Films and October Films’ documentary “My Name Is Happy” will have a limited U.K. theatrical run from May 21. Directed by Ayse Toprak (“Mr Gay Syria) and Emmy and BAFTA nominated Nick Read (“Bolshoi Babylon”), the film follows Mutlu Kaya, a Kurdish woman and promising singer from southeastern Turkey whose dreams were about to come true in 2015 when she reached the finals of “Turkey’s Got Talent.” Days before the final she was gunned down by a man whose marriage proposal she had refused. She survived – with a bullet in her brain. After years of rehabilitation from life threatening injuries, the family was again struck by violence. This time, Mutlu’s carer, her sister Dilek, did not survive a murder attempt by another jilted suitor.

Paula Abdul is proud of her “youthful” appearance.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The trailer (below) for “Draw for Change!” – which was named best documentary series at Canneseries this week – has debuted. The feature film version of the first of its six episodes, “Behind the Lines,” will world premiere at Visions du Réel Film Festival on April 28. The series, from creators Guillaume Vandenberghe and Vincent Coen, profiles six female cartoonists working in six geographic areas of the world, in six individual films and broadcast episodes. Female directors with close connections to each of the societies represented were chosen to tell the stories. Autlook Film Sales is handling international sales.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent A Canneseries and MipTV world premiere screening, Canal+ crime thriller “The Brigade” kicks off with an event that has fuelled the modern-day nightmares of France: the terrorist attacks on Bataclan.  Patrick Prigent, who heads up a Paris unit of Brigade de recherche et d’intervention (BRI), an elite police unit, receives a phone call that there is a hostage-taking situation at the nightclub.  Arriving on the scene, he prepares to send in paramedics but a new BRI recruit, a guy called Saïd, advises against that. “I was Special Forces, two years in Syria. I think those guys did too. You only learn by watching others. They won’t negotiate. They know they’re going to die tonight,” says Saïd. Patrick takes in what he says. 

Mona Mansour‘s time-shifting drama Unseen (★★★☆☆), has lost her way, literally and existentially. She might lament that nobody knows the trouble she’s seen, but even she has taken great pains to forget.As she wakes up on the couch at her ex-girlfriend’s apartment in Istanbul, Mia (Katie Kleiger) can’t remember at all where she was last, what she witnessed, or how she made it safely from there to here.

It's 26.2 miles requires epic amounts of energy, stamina and determination. Raja Aslam however will running on empty when he does the Manchester Marathon tomorrow (Sunday).

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Beirut-based production powerhouse Cedars Art Productions is having one of its best Ramadan runs ever with eight new series that are all currently scoring stellar ratings during the region’s peak TV season across the Arab world. The prominent Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region film and TV company – which also has offices in Cairo, Casablanca, and Dubai – is heading to the Cannes MipTV market with a slew of shows, many of which push boundaries in an effort to appeal to a younger generation of Arab viewers.  Case in point is timely drama “Soul Rising” featuring Egyptian star Menna Shalabi as a young woman named Rouh who, in search of her son, winds up captive at an ISIS camp for female fugitives amid fierce fighting in Syria. This series has been submitted for International Emmy consideration, said Cedars’ president Sadek Anwar Sabbah.

A Dalbeattie fundraising drive for the international earthquake relief effort in Turkey and Syria has totalled £1,745.

Pupils at Dalry School have raised more than £1,000 for the Syria and Turkey earthquake appeal.

The Peabodys on Tuesday revealed a total of 27 nominees in the Documentary and News categories for the 83rd annual Peabody Awards.

Get ready to meet Amer Mohamad, one of the leading fashion photographers in the GCC. This creative visionary proves that every life is valuable and every dream is worth pursuing. Amer’s passion for fashion photography has taken him around the world.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Arthouse genre distribution company Yellow Veil Pictures has acquired North American rights “Rebel,” a music-filled thriller by the Belgian directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. The pair broke into Hollywood with “Bad Boys for Life” starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence and are set to direct the sequel for Sony Pictures. “Rebel” was produced by Caviar, the banner behind the Oscar-winning film “Sound of Metal” as well as “War Pony.” It world premiered at Cannes last year in the Midnight section and be theatrically released later this year. “Rebel” follows Kamal, a young man seeking meaning for his life, who leaves Belgium to help war victims in Syria. Once there, he is forced to join ISIS and discovers the propaganda, manipulation, and atrocity the militia is responsible for. Back home, Kamal’s brother Nassim is slowly indoctrinated by radical recruiters and persuaded to join Kamal in Syria, while their mother fights to keep what’s left of her family together.

A British Muslim woman claims she was detained by police at Manchester Airport because her name is similar to Shamima Begum, the woman who left the country as a teenager to join Isis in Syria, according to reports.

EXCLUSIVE: Chris Shaw has left the building. The Oscar-nominated British news executive is calling it quits after an on-off love affair with news producer ITN that has spanned 40 years, affording him a front-row seat to the biggest stories of his generation. Semi-retirement beckons, but not before a valedictory interview.

She has dressed some of the world's biggest A-listers including Lady Gaga, Lindsay Lohan and Liz Hurley. Now, Manchester-based fashion designer Zeynep Kartal is using her talent to help raise funds following a series of devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria which have left millions of people in need of urgent support.

Michelle Obama has revealed some of her family dynamics, and the differences between her daughters, Malia and Sasha. In an appearance on “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast, Michelle got real about family and shared some advice on living better and being happier. Sasha Obama’s early morning look: oversized glasses and Ugg bootsIs Malia Obama using a different professional name?Barack and Michelle Obama’s incredible adventure at the Sydney Harbour BridgeA post shared by Glennon Doyle (@glennondoyle)Michelle was talking about her girls’ teenage years and how much they’ve matured with time, using Sasha and Malia’s relationship with their father as an example.