Syria Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Tourists planning a trip to Turkey should know that the UK Foreign Office (FCDO) has updated the country's travel advice.

Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival unveiled its 2023 lineup today, featuring 250 feature films set to screen across 10 days, with highlights including Isabella Carbonell’s thriller Dogborn, starring Swedish rap star Silvana Imam, and Hlynur Pálmason’s well-received period piece Godland. Other stand-out titles include Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage, which pops up in the International Competition, and Mia Engberg’s latest Hypernoon in the Documentary Competition.

Allen Media Group’s Freestyle Digital Media has acquired the North American DVD and VOD rights to Lamya’s Poem, an animated film about Syrian refugees. The film will be available to rent/own on digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms starting February 21, 2023. Watch the trailer in the video posted above.

A West Lothian man is fronting a new campaign from a national mental health programme to help more veterans open up about their mental health.

Barbara Starr, the longtime Pentagon correspondent for CNN, is departing the network.

In The Corridors of Power, filmmaker Dror Moreh takes a bracing look at the factors that kept America — the sole remaining superpower in the immediate post-Cold War era — from intervening in global instances involving genocide, war crimes and other large-scale atrocities.

Eami means “forest” in Ayoreo. It also means “‘”world.” When director Paz Encina traveled to the land of the indigenous Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people, she found that they do not make a distinction between these things: The trees, the animals and the plants that have surrounded them for centuries are all they know and now they live in an area – the Chaco plain – that is experiencing the fastest deforestation on the planet.

When director Darin J. Sallam came to make her feature debut with Farah, she always knew what the subject matter would be: as a little girl, Sallam’s mother used to tell her the story of a teenage girl who was locked up in her room during the partition of Palestine in 1948. “She was locked up by her father to protect her life,” Sallam recalls. “She survived [the conflict] and she made it to Syria, where she met a Syrian girl and shared her story with her. This Syrian girl grew up, got married and had a child, and she shared the story with her daughter—and this daughter happened to be me.”

Gunnar Vikene’s War Sailor tells the forgotten story of the 30,000 Norwegian civilian sailors who were conscripted at the beginning of World War II to serve on convoys keeping Allied supply chains open.

Steve Clarke says his Scotland stars have no problem with the heightened security that has seen armoured military vehicles based outside their team hotel in Turkey and armed guards following their movements.

Tulsi Gabbard, the former congresswoman who recently announced that she has left the Democratic party, is joining Fox News as a paid contributor.

EXCLUSIVE: Leading Arab world distributor MAD Solutions has acquired pan-Arab rights to Ameer Fakher Eldin’s upcoming picture Yunan about a disillusioned, exiled writer who travels to a remote island in the North Sea.

The International Film Festival Of India (IFFI) has announced the 15 films that will screen in competition at this year’s edition of the annual event, including recent festival favourites such as Maha Haj’s Mediterranean Fever and Lav Diaz’ When The Waves Are Gone, and three Indian films, including recent Busan premiere The Storyteller. 

You often hear that reality is often more amazing than any fiction. That’s exactly the case with the story that inspired the upcoming film, “The Swimmers.” As seen in the trailer for “The Swimmers,” the film follows the incredible true story of two sisters who escaped Syria as refugees with dreams of one day competing in the Olympic Games as swimmers.

East and west clash in Rheingold, the latest feature from Fatih Akin, which takes him back to the streets of urban Germany after 2019’s controversial serial-killer drama The Golden Glove. This too, though, is a biopic of sorts, with a similarly notorious subject matter: Kurdish rapper, record label boss and sometime jailbird Giwar Hajabi, AKA Xatar. 

EXCLUSIVE: Shout! Studios has acquired all North American rights to the feature documentary Refuge from levelFILM, Katie Couric Media and Artemis Rising Foundation. The multi-platform entertainment distribution and production arm of Shout! Factory plans to release the film in theaters and across all major digital platforms early next year.

On the night of November 13, 2015, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks throughout Paris left 130 people dead and hundreds injured. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which was then in control of large swaths of land in the Middle East, took responsibility for the attacks.

Larsa Pippen has taken a bit of a step back with her popular OnlyFans account — and it’s all because of her father!

King Charles III looked to be in great spirits as he donned a kilt to greet scores of people waiting to catch a glimpse of him in Aberdeen. The new King met crowds on Union Street during a visit to Aberdeen Town House to meet families who have settled in Aberdeen from Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine.

Liza Foreman CANNES – REinvent International Sales has sold the refugee drama ‘Lost’ to AMC Networks for Spain and Portugal. The Scandi production-distribtion shingle is presenting the title to buyers at this week’s Mipcom TV market in Cannes. Created by Ulf Ryberg (“Headhunters,” “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”), the drama thriller tells the story of a truck driver smuggling a group of Syrian refugees into Sweden in his truck. An upsetting phone call from his soon to be ex-wife, leaves the refugees struggling for air, when his mind wanders off them.

The European Union police agency Europol said Friday that Spanish police have dismantled an organized crime group believed to have been running Europe’s biggest "narco-bank," used to launder proceeds from international drug trafficking. Europol said the group, composed mainly of Syrians, operated out of a restaurant in an industrial park in the central Spanish town of Fuenlabrada.There, customers could deposit or collect bulk cash and have their earnings laundered by the internationally structured financial network, Europol said. Europol said the group provided financial services to crime gangs linked to drug trafficking in more than twenty countries across the world.

K.J. Yossman Emmy Award nominated journalist and anchor Anelise Borges has signed with CAA, Variety can exclusively reveal. Borges, who speaks four languages fluently including French, Spanish and Portuguese, has reported from more than 30 countries, covering war, migration, dictatorships and Europe’s identity crises. She boasts over a decade of experience in the field. She has worked at Euronews, TRT and France 24 covering topics including the war in Syria, the European refugee crisis and the Greek economic bailout. While based in Istanbul, she covered the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, breaking stories and reporting from the field.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Cinemed, the Mediterranean Cinema Film Festival, is partnering up with Lebanese film org Aflamuna / Beirut DC to launch a new co-production and co-financing initiative aimed at high-profile projects from the Arab world. The new program, which is also backed by France’s National Film Board and is part of the festival’s industry showcase Cinemed Meetings, will present seven projects involving 22 Arab countries, including Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Liban, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Syria, among others. All selected projects are currently in development and are being brought by filmmakers who have previously directed at least one short film.

A Radical Life,” which begins streaming Thursday on Discovery+. “That was my mistake but it’s not a crime.”The documentary takes an unfiltered look at Joya’s journey from British schoolgirl to Jihadi bride to single mother living in Texas. She was born in 1983 to a “culturally Muslim” Bengali-Bangladeshi family, the daughter of an airline employee and a caterer.

The plight of pregnant women living on the streets, relying on sex work and eating from bins as asylum seekers in Greece has been highlighted by Manchester-based volunteers, including former Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh.

Emily Longeretta “NCIS: LA” viewers were alarmed this week when the Season 14 premiere of the CBS procedural did not include Linda Hunt’s Hetty, the character whose last known location was Syria. In the episode, the team received word that a body had been a body found in Syria. By the end, they learn that it was a child’s body but they had Hetty’s IDs attached to them — likely because she wanted to stage her own death. While it hasn’t been determined what exactly she’s up to, there are plans for her to return to the show this season, confirms executive producer R. Scott Gemmill, especially with Callen (Chris O’Donnell) and Anna’s (Bar Paly) nuptials. “Hetty has been an integral force within the agency and an especially important part of Callen’s past,” Gemmill told Variety in a statement on Tuesday. “As Callen starts thinking about his upcoming wedding to Anna, he would want Hetty present. The plan is to go and rescue her at some point and find out what she’s gotten herself into in Syria, but we’re just trying to figure out when we can pull it off. The goal is to make it happen this season.”

Slain journalist James Foley has been honored with a stone memorial outside the church he attended while growing up in New Hampshire. Foley, a freelance journalist, was among a group of Westerners brutally murdered in Islamic State captivity in Syria in 2014. He grew up in Wolfeboro and attended St.

Jack Thorne has said he wanted to be involved in a film about a Syrian refugee who competed at the Olympics because there needs to be a change in attitudes. Netflix film The Swimmers is based on the inspirational true story of the Mardini sisters, who fled their war-torn home of Damascus in 2015 by boat and helped save the lives of their fellow refugees. The film will show how just a year after their treacherous journey, younger sister Yusra competed in swimming events at the 2016 Rio Olympics as part of the Refugee Olympic team.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has appointed a new commander to the armed forces in Ukraine as Moscow looks to turn around its dwindling fortunes.  General of the Army Sergei Surovikin will take over as Commander of the Joint Group of Russian Forces in Ukraine effective immediately, drawing on experience from the second Chechen war and campaigns in Syria and Tajikistan, Russian outlet Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported.  Surovikin previously held command of the Southern group in June and Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces in 2017. His Chechen war experience, where he led the 42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division, will draw scrutiny as a campaign rife with accusations of war crimes and human rights violations and marked by its brutality.  Russian troops in 2004 raided a school in the rural community of Beslan after a three-day standoff with Chechen militants, with 330 of the 1,100 hostages – mostly children – killed.  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, commander of Russian forces in Syria, attend a state awards ceremony for military personnel who served in Syria, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia December 28, 2017.  (Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters) And human rights organizations claimed Moscow's warplanes in Syria deliberately targeted civilians and rescue workers during its campaign to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor While there’s been no official word, Pink Floyd has been shopping its recorded-music catalog and other assets for several months, seeking as much as $500 million, according to the Financial Times, with both major music companies and investment firms as the top bidders. But sources say an explosive new interview with founding member, main songwriter and stakeholder Roger Waters — in which he makes extensive remarks about Israel, Ukraine, Russia, the U.S. and other political matters that one could politely characterize as controversial — is giving at least one potential buyer cold feet and seems likely to lead others to rethink their positions. For years Waters has sounded off about politics in the press and at his concerts, most controversially Israel’s policies. But the new interview in Rolling Stone raises (or lowers) the bar considerably. While interviewer James Ball does his best to challenge some of Waters’ more far-fetched statements, the former Pink Floyd singer argues emphatically that some Jewish people in the U.S. and U.K. bear responsibility for the actions of Israel “because they pay for everything”; that well-documented accounts of Russian war crimes in Ukraine are “lies, lies, lies”; that the United States is “the most evil [country in the world] of all by a factor of at least 10 times”; that Russia’s brutal military involvement in Syria is justified because “they were there at the invitation of the Syrian government” (which is led by one of the world’s most murderous dictators, Bashar Assad), and more. (See a 12,000-word transcript of the interview here).

Manori Ravindran International Editor The London Film Festival has revealed its jury line-up for this year’s awards. The Official Competition jury is led by “Power of the Dog” and “Cold War” producer Tanya Seghatchian (pictured), while the First Feature Competition (Sutherland Award) jury will be headed up by director and actor Nana Mensah whose directorial debut “Queen of Glory” won the Best New Narrative Director prize at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. Elsewhere, Italian filmmaker Roberto Minervini will lead the jury selecting the winner of the Grierson Award for Best Documentary after winning the award in 2018 for his film “What You Gonna Do When the World’s On Fire.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian producer Andrea Iervolino (“Waiting for the Barbarians”) has acquired a controlling stake in central London’s Mercato Metropolitano food market and teamed with British music producer David Tickle’s Tickle Entertainment on a doc series set there about global food culture. Iervolino, whose Iervolino and Lady Bacardi Entertainment (ILBE) company produces feature films including Bobby Moresco’s upcoming “Lamborghini,” is also the founder of innovative digital entertainment platform TaTaTu, a social media platform that uses a form of rewards points called TTU Coins. TaTaTu recently acquired a controlling stake in London’s Mercato Metropolitano from its founder Andrea Rasca who in 2016 established this pioneering community market as a space for social exchange and environmental sustainability. The Mercato is now being used as the location for an upcoming docu-series chronicling the journey of four chefs who sought refuge in the United Kingdom respectively from Syria, Namibia, Nepal, and Uzbekistan.

The Queen's state funeral is set to be one of the biggest international events the UK has ever seen.

President Joe Biden has arrived in London, where he will join other world leaders at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on Monday. 

People in Falkirk are being urged to help to look after children and young people who have made the long dangerous journey to the UK to seek asylum with no parents or family to protect them.

A NSW Supreme Court jury  on Thursday held Hamdi Alqudsi guilty of allegedly plotting to carry out attacks on Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and other places as leader of the terrorist group ‘Shura’. The court has scheduled Alqudsi’s sentencing over two days starting October 31, reported the Sydney Morning Herald. Alqudsi was the first Australian to be convicted and sentenced to eight years imprisonment in 2016 for his role in sending young men from Australia to Syria to help  Islamic State fighters in the country’s civil war. The prosecution case was that Alqudsi set up the Shura in 2013 and dubbed himself the “commander” and “emir” of the Shura. Shura means consultation council in Arabic.