Nadine Labaki Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Naman Ramachandran Award-winning artist Justin Anderson’s debut feature “Swimming Home” has its world premiere in competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam. Variety has secured access to the first clip from the film. The film, an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s 2012 Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel, centers on poet Joe (Christopher Abbott) and war photographer Isabel (Mackenzie Davis), whose marriage is dying when Kitti (Ariane Labed), a naked stranger found floating in the pool at their sunny holiday villa in Greece, is invited to stay.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent French mini-major Pathé has acquired Les Films des Tournelles, the production company founded by Anne-Dominique Toussaint whose recent credits include Louis Garrel‘s Cesar-winning “The Innocent.” Besides Garrel, Les Films des Tournelles has worked with a flurry of auteurs on some of their most successful films, including Riad Sattouf’s “The French Kissers,” which won the Cesar for best first film in 2010; Nadine Labaki’s “Caramel”; Emanuele Crialese’s “Respiro”; Valeria Golino’s “Miele”; and Mona Achache’s “The Hedgehog.” “The Innocent” won two prizes at last year’s Cesar Awards and screened at Cannes on the 75th anniversary of the festival. Toussaint has also worked with Philippe Le Guay and Emmanuel Carrère.

Ben Croll Orange Studio has boarded true-crime-tinged psychological thriller “An Ordinary Case” and will launch sales at this week’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris. Top-lined, co-written and directed by French cinema stalwart Daniel Auteuil, this pulled-from-the-headlines drama also boasts “Borgen” and “Westworld” star Sidse Babett Knudsen alongside acclaimed actor Grégory Gadebois (“An Officer and a Spy”).

EXCLUSIVE: James Franco is starring in a Middle Eastern TV crime drama penned by Shades of Blue creator Adi Hasak. Check out a teaser below.

The Cannes Film Festival has admitted six filmmakers, five women and one man, to its 2024 residency program. 

Marta Balaga Nadine Labaki heads “Back to Alexandria” in Tamer Ruggli’s debut feature that allowed him to celebrate Egyptian women. “I am very close to my mother, who is Egyptian. I don’t know if you know many Egyptian women, but they are exuberant, dominant and endearing.” In a story based on his mother’s experiences, Sue (Labaki) returns home after 20 years.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Bosnian director and screenwriter Danis Tanović, whose “No Man’s Land” won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, has been selected as the president of the Official Competition Jury at the 45th edition of the Cairo Film Festival. As well as the Oscar, “No Man’s Land” won best screenplay at Cannes in 2001.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Elsa Zylberstein, the French César-winning actor and producer whose popular movie “Simone: Woman of the Century” recently opened in the U.S., is preparing a biopic movie of fashion icon Christian Dior. The film is being penned by Julien Teisseire (“The Hookup Plan”) and is being developed by Zylberstein’s banner Sonia Films and Odile McDonald (“Ransom”).

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International The Venice Film Festival is rolling out a juried impact award that will mark the first time a major film festival has awarded a prize focused solely on impact. Impact campaigns are crafted around documentaries and some narrative films that have strong social or political messages that can inspire action among audiences and the industry at large.

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival has cancelled its swanky Women in Cinema gala event at the upcoming Venice Film Festival in response to the ongoing actors’ strike.

TIFF has announced the coveted line-up for the 10 World Premiere features that make up the 2023 Platform programme and one of the flicks includes Nicolas Cage!

TIFF has announced the ten titles in its Platform programme, a sidebar which will be teed off by the A24 Kristoffer Borgli comedy Dream Scenario starring Oscar winner Nicolas Cage. This year’s Platform includes movies from 12 countries across three continents, all of which are making their world premiere at TIFF.

Marta Balaga Cyril Aris and his frustrated protagonists in “Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano” are done mincing words. “I hope this film can be screened the way it is, although it’s not painting the brightest picture of the Lebanese political class. And if they censor it, thank you for the publicity. I will take it,” he says following its premiere at Karlovy Vary Film Festival. “In Lebanon, we have leaders who are experts in divide-and-conquer. That’s how they fire up their base and that’s what happened in the port of Beirut, too. There is this theory that everyone knew what was happening, but they were paid for their silence.”

EXCLUSIVE: Anonymous Content and Federation Studios have appointed UBBA agent Rosalie Cimino as MD and producer for Anonymous Federation, their French joint venture.

The Berlin Film Festival today unveiled the titles selected for its retrospective section chosen by a collection of international directors and actors, including Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Nadine Labaki, and Tilda Swinton.

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival has unveiled a star-studded In-Conversations program as the second edition gets underway in the port city of Jeddah today.

Iranian director Emad Aleebrahim-Dehkordi’s feature directorial debut A Tale Of Shemroon won the top Étoile d’Or—the Festival Grand Prize – at the Marrakech International Film Festival on Saturday.

Lebanese actress and director Nadine Labaki enjoyed breakout success with Oscar-nominated and Cannes Jury Prize-winning third feature Capernaum in 2018 and there is now anticipation over what will be her next directorial feature project

Mélita Toscan du Plantier has spent the best part of two decades running Morocco’s Marrakech International Film Festival.

After Netflix-backed feature The Hand Of God, high-end drama The New Pope, and a recent TV adaptation of Italian play Sei Pezzi Facili for state Italian broadcaster Rai, Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino says he wants to reconnect with the cinema theatre.

Indian acting star Ranveer Singh took centre stage at the opening night of the Marrakech International Film Festival on Friday evening, treating spectators to dancing and an impromptu rap session as he received a tribute award.

A starry group of global talent has been set to join Paolo Sorrentino on the main jury for the 19th edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival which runs from November 11-19 in the Moroccan city. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The Marrakech International Film Festival will make a big comeback this year with a star-studded jury, including Oscar Isaac (“Scenes from a Marriage”), Vanessa Kirby (“The Son”), French actor Tahar Rahim (“The Serpent”), Australian director Justin Kurzel (“Nitram”) and Danish director Susanne Bier (“The Undoing”). Lebanese director and actor Nadine Labaki (“Caparnum”), German actor Diane Kruger (“Inglorious Basterds”) and Moroccan director Laïla Marrakchi (“Marock”) complete the high-profile jury. As previously announced, Paolo Sorrentino, the Oscar-winning director of “The Great Beauty” and “The Hand of God,” will preside over the jury, which spans 10 countries from four continents.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentKino Lorber has acquired North American rights to first-time Lebanese director Mounia Akl’s timely drama “Costa Brava, Lebanon,” which launched positively last year from Venice.“Costa Brava” provides an acerbic take on Lebanon’s waste management crisis and its turbulent political landscape and combines the country’s strife with the global climate crisis. The darkly comic drama pairs Oscar-nominated Lebanese star and filmmaker Nadine Labaki (“Capernaum”) and Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (“The Band’s Visit”) as a couple who has moved from Beirut to live idyllically in the mountains, until one day the government decides to build a garbage landfill right beside their house.

EXCLUSIVE: In an eye-catching acquisition, 42 has bought respected UK talent and literary agency Dalzell and Beresford, we can reveal.

EXCLUSIVE: LA-based Tricycle Logic has set a U.S. theatrical release for Lebanese director Oualid Mouaness’ debut feature, 1982. The coming-of-age drama premiered at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival where it won the NETPAC Award. It will release domestically beginning June 10 at the Quad Cinema in New York and on June 24 will expand to Los Angeles with a national rollout to follow throughout the summer. 
The New York date coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Lebanon war on June 6. (Check out the trailer below.)

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate is finalizing a deal to acquire a minority stake in London and LA-based management and production company 42, we can reveal.

EXCLUSIVE: Fremantle and HBO Max Nordic are getting behind the inaugural European edition of The Writers Lab (TWL), the program devoted exclusively to script development for women and non-binary writers over the age of 40.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe Arabic adaptation of hit Italian movie “Perfect Strangers,” which is Netflix’s first Arab original film, is sparking controversy in Egypt and across West Asia due to a gay character and taboo-breaking storylines, prompting the U.S. streaming giant to respond.Since its release, the Beirut-set “Perfect Strangers” redo has been among the top trending topics on social media in West Asia, a region also referred to as the Middle East.

Perfect Strangers (Ashab Wala A’azz), the first-ever Arabic film made by Netflix, has set off a wave of controversy across the Middle East, as critics contend that plot elements of the film, including homosexuality and infidelity, violate regional cultural values.The film has sparked anger amongst conservatives who took offence to several plot lines, although it is the character who identifies as gay who has been the target of the most outrage.The film, a remake of the 2016 Italian filmof the same name, stars Muna Zaki, Nadine Labaki, Eyad Nassar, Adel Karam and Georges Khabbaz, all of whom are major stars in the Middle East.Zaki has also been the target of a wave of online abuse as a result of appearing in the film. Zaki is shown in one scene removing her underwear, although no nudity is present in the entirety of the film.Not everyone has objected to Zaki’s appearance in the film, with one user saying, “muna zaki is killing it.

Netflix will release its first ever original film in Arabic next month, a remake of the Italian hit movie “Perfect Strangers.” “Perfect Strangers,” the 2016 film from director Paolo Genevese, has been remade 18 times across countries such as France, Spain, South Korea, Germany, Greece and more, making it the most remade film ever. Now, the Arabic version will gather up a cast of Pan-Arab talent, as led by Lebanese director and actor Nadine Labaki (“Capernaum”) and Egyptian star Mona Zaki.

Netflix has boarded the upcoming Arabic-language version of hit movie property Perfect Strangers, which becomes the streamer’s first Arabic-language Original movie.

Mounia Akl’s feature debut, “Costa Brava, Lebanon” comfortably occupies a space between “Beasts of the Southern Wild” from “Honeyland”: Each movie deals with environmental dilemmas, ranging from climate change to the loss of biodiversity, but in their own ways and their own approaches. “Honeyland” takes the narrative nonfiction tack, chronicling the travails of a Macedonian beekeeper; “Beasts of the Southern Wild” grieves Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath with magical realism.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentLebanese multihyphenate Nadine Labaki’s most recent directorial effort, the Oscar-nominated “Capernaum,” shed light on Beirut’s desperation before her city was blasted last year by one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentParticipant is teaming up with leading French sales agent MK2 Films and Endeavor Content to represent worldwide distribution rights on “Costa Brava, Lebanon,” the anticipated feature debut of Lebanese filmmaker Mounia Akl.“Costa Brava, Lebanon” will be headlined by Lebanese star and filmmaker Nadine Labaki (“Capernaum”), alongside Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (“The Band’s Visit”).

Netflix is planning an English-language take on the French featureLes Invisibles with Cannes regular Nadine Labaki set to direct. The Invisibleswill take place at a day shelter where, according to the project's synopsis, "homeless people congregate for food, warmth, and connection.