Rani Massalha’s ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son,’ About a Coptic Pig Farmer in Egypt, Takes Top Award at Red Sea Souk

It’s been an eventful 2023 for international TV and film. As the strikes shut down Hollywood and streamers retrenched from the mega-spends of the Covid era, shows and movies from far and wide came were already in demand like never before, as viewers look to new countries for inspiration. Call it the Squid Game effect, or whatever you want, but neither subtitles nor geographical boundaries are an impediment to content getting seen any more. Here, we run down each Deadline International journalist’s top pick from the year, for the most part avoiding spoilers (there are some though, so this is a fair warning). You’ll find big-ticket U.S. fare, Japanese anime, restaurant TV dramas and Australian newsroom stories among our eclectic selections.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor South Korean director Hong Sang-soo was awarded the El Gouna Gold Star for best narrative film for his meditation on art and relationships, “In Our Day,” as the delayed edition of the El Gouna Film Festival held its closing ceremony on Thursday. The Italian animated film “A Greyhound of a Girl,” directed by Enzo D’Alò, and the Brazilian director Guto Parente’s “A Strange Path” picked up the Silver and Bronze Stars respectively.

Seasons 5 and 6 of “The Crown.”However, the Netflix royal drama has recently earned criticism for its fictionalized portrayal of the Firm.But West, 54, believes that the Windsors are for all intents and purposes, “public property,” and can be depicted in Hollywood in anyway a filmmaker sees fit.The British actor told BBC Radio 5 Live recently: “I acknowledge that there’s discomfort about it, and I can see why people think that way, and I have persuaded myself that the royal family are public property and therefore, fair game.”“But I’m still uncomfortable with the thought of anyone being fair game or anyone’s private life being made public,” he added.“The Wire” alum noted how he can “understand” why viewers believe that the show is “too close to the actual events.”“The grief is still so real,” he said. “Someone like me can’t turn down a part like Charles.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor Top prizes were handed out by the CineGouna Platform (CGP) at the El Gouna Film Festival this week to projects in various stages of inception or completion. Winning a $15,000 prize for a project in development, “Theft of Fire” is Palestinian filmmaker Amer Shomali’s hybrid documentary, retelling the true story of an art heist “that never happened” to steal back antiquities pilfered from Palestinian lands by former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan.

Manchester City will compete in their first-ever Club World Cup this week and kick-off with a semi-final clash against Urawa Red Diamonds this evening.

Luc Besson, the award-winning writer, director and producer who founded Paris-based studio EuropaCorp in 1999, is returning as interim CEO after the company’s chief executive Axel Duroux resigned.

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with Asteroid City, Wes Anderson‘s latest film that had its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Caroline Brew editor The American Cinematheque announced the honorees for the third annual Tribute to the Crafts, which include “Oppenheimer” for cinematography and editing, “Poor Things” for costume design and “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie” for song. The event will take place on Jan. 19, 2024, at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

In their continuing effort to shine the spotlight on the artisans of the industry who toil behind the scenes to make movie magic, American Cinematheque has announced the 2023 honorees for its 3rd Annual Tribute To The Crafts. Winning multiple honors are Oppenheimer for Cinematography and Film Editing; Maestro for Hair & Makeup and Sound; and Barbie for Production Design/Set Decoration and Song “I’m Just Ken”.

Teezo Touchdown has announced a 2024 tour in support of his debut album ‘How Do You Sleep At Night?’ – find all the details below.The Texas rapper/singer-songwriter is due to hit the road next year, kicking off with European headline shows in Amsterdam (March 21), Zurich (22), Paris (25) and Berlin (26).He’ll then head to the UK for a gig at Village Underground in Shoreditch, east London on March 29. A run of North American dates is scheduled to begin in late April, continuing throughout May and into early June.Teezo is set to stop off in Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Houston and more cities as part of his tour of the US and Canada.Tickets for the upcoming London concert will go on general sale at 9am GMT tomorrow (December 15) – you’ll be able to buy yours here.

After stumbling upon a story through a link on Facebook about a team of blind footballers from Egypt who arrived in Warsaw and disappeared into thin air after it turned out they could actually see, writer-director

The third annual Red Sea Film Festival handed out its Yusr Awards on Thursday night, with Zarrar Kahn’s In Flames taking Best Feature and Farah Nabulsi’s The Teacher scoring a pair of wins including Best Actor for Saleh Bakri. See the full list below.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Justine Triet‘s “Anatomy of a Fall” missed out on being chosen as France’s Oscar entry, but the movie has been a critical and commercial hit — including in the U.S., where it’s become the highest-grossing specialized foreign-language release post-pandemic, according to distributor Neon. Released in the States on Oct. 13, “Anatomy of a Fall” has pulled in $3.5 million so far, putting it ahead of Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World” and on track to match last year’s Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness,” another Neon movie.

A+E‘s survivalist format Alone is headed into Germany.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “The Summer With Carmen,” Zacharias Mavroeidis’ queer comedy, has been acquired in major territories since world premiering at the Venice Film Festival. The movie, which is represented by Be For Films and had its North American premiere at AFI, recently won three prizes at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. It will be released next year by Cinobo in Greece, Epicentre in France and Xenix Filmdistribution in Switzerland.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Something Special, the Seoul-based international format agency founded by format specialists Jin Woo Hwang (president and executive producer) and Kim In Soon (EVP & head of content) announce that ITV Studios has optioned the hit Korean celebrity format “Battle in the Box” for France, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. The deal was unveiled on Wednewday, the first full day of the Asia Television Forum and Market (ATF) in Singapore. “Battle in the Box,” created by Korea’s NMedia and represented globally by Something Special, has previously seen deals announced with Fremantle for Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal.

Queens Of The Stone Age, The Smile, The National and more have been added to the Øya Festival 2024 line-up.The bands join Norwegian pop singer Gabrielle, Idles, Loyle Carner, Big Thief, The Kills, Nia Archives, Overmono, Yussef Dayes, Alvvays, Blondshell, Yard Act and more.The new wave of acts follow the announcement of Pulp and PJ Harvey as the first headliners at the Oslo festival.The 25th-anniversary edition of the event takes place at Tøyenparken in Oslo, Norway between August 7 and 10. Week-long tickets are on sale now – you can buy yours here.A post shared by Øyafestivalen (@oyafestivalen)This year’s edition of Øya – which is billed as “the world’s greenest festival” – hosted the likes of Blur, Boygenius, Lorde, Caroline Polachek, Sigrid and Devo.In a four-star review of the 2023 instalment, NME wrote: “[Øya is] a beautiful, intimate, forward-thinking and friendly setting for good times, world firsts, and a taste of tomorrow from one of the music capitals of the world.

Karim Debbagh‘s leading Tangier-based line producer Kasbah Films has secured a raft of U.S. and U.K. projects that will lense in Morocco, including “Lords of War,” the sequel to “Lord of War,” starring Nicolas Cage as the world’s most notorious arms dealer.

story came to a close with the first part of Season 6 of “The Crown.” The first four episodes of the final season dropped earlier this month — and detailed her love affair with Egyptian billionaire Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), their untimely deaths and Dodi’s relationship with his father, Mohamed al-Fayed.However, the royal drama seems to be chock-full of historical inaccuracies — according to BBC correspondent and Mohamed’s onetime spokesman Michael Cole.Cole told the Sun how the show’s “malicious” scenes are hurtful to the reputations of the Princess of Wales (Elizabeth Debicki) and the film producer. The two died in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.Cole insisted that producers of the series did “not respect Diana” and that the show is “a travesty of the truth” and portrays the couple’s serious romance as a short rendezvous.“It’s the complete opposite [of the truth], and completely cruel, and unnecessarily so, and they’ve got it wrong, because … it’s drama,” he said, adding that Diana and Dodi were “in love.”Mohamed (Salim Daw) is presented as a matchmaker between his son and the princess, appearing as a villain trying to savagely get them together for his personal gain.But this was far from real life.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor MAD Solutions — the Middle East and North Africa region’s leading sales agent and distributor of Arabic-language films — has acquired the world sales rights for Tunisian director Nada Mezni Hafaiedh’s debut feature “Take My Breath,” which world premiered in the International Competition of the Warsaw Film Festival this fall. Hafaiedh’s film, which has found great success in Tunisian cinemas over the past month, follows the life of a young seamstress named Shams, whose tranquil life unravels when their intersex identity is exposed.