Rising Senegalese Filmmaker Mamadou Dia on Grief, Trauma and ‘Indigenous Ways’ of Healing in Berlin Encounters Premiere ‘Demba’

Marc Malkin Senior Editor, Culture and Events The cast and crew of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” are still waiting to hear what their creative team has in store for Seasons 2 and 3. “We have no idea,” Dallas Liu, who stars as Prince Zuko in Netflix‘s live-action adaptation of the Nickelodeon animated series of the same name, told me Wednesday night at Vanity Fair and Instagram’s pre-Oscars party, Vanities: A Night for Young Hollywood, at Bar Marmont. “We have literally zero details.

Chris Harrison is getting hitched to Dr. Phil‘s new media venture. The former host of The Bachelor is coming back to TV to host a morning show and a dating series, and will contribute to Dr. Phil Primetime.

Olly Alexander, the frontman for King and Shine hitmakers Years And Years, has a super stylish home in East London. The 33 year old star often shows gives his social media followers a look at his chic flat, with its dark blue walls, floor-to-ceiling windows and cool bathroom. Back in January 2021, Olly gave an amazing acting performance in the hit BBC show about the AIDS crisis, It's A Sin, playing the character Ritchie Tozer.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has unveiled an eclectic, star-studded India slate for 2024. New films on the slate include comedy “Wild Wild Punjab” from producers Luv Ranjan and Ankur Garg and director Simarpreet Singh, where a group of drunk boys decide to avenge a friend’s breakup by crashing his ex’s wedding and achieve closure. Varun Sharma, Sunny Singh, Manjot Singh, Jassie Gill Patralekhaa and Ishita Raj star.

The Valley is coming to Bravo!

Brits are hoping to make their money travel as far as possible at the moment, especially while heading off on holiday. Airplane food can be rather expensive, while airports themselves offer seemingly endless options of food to try.

It would go down in history as one of the most famous royal interviews of all time… for all the wrong reasons. When the future King Charles announced his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer 43 years ago on 24 February 1981, the public hung on to every word as he uttered the immortal phrase “whatever ‘in love’ means” when told they looked “very much in love” during a joint interview.

Denis Villeneuve is a credited screenwriter on six of the acclaimed features he has directed — including Dune: Part One, for which he received a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination from the Academy but not directing nomination. He is, however, not a fan of dialogue.

Parents say their young children had to be prised from their arms at the school gates after a rule change following the half term break.

And the big pics keep on comin’ to SXSW. This afternoon the festival made it known that the Alex Garland directed Civil War from A24 is making its world premiere on March 14 at the Paramount Theater in Austin, TX. This ahead of the movie’s wide release on April 12.

Karen Idelson Visual effects teams served up astonishing images of animated characters, monsters, and the ex-plosions that we’ve all come to expect and love over the last year. And this time, as the Visual Effects Society’s nominations for its annual awards show, VFX artists are leaning more and more into the kinds of tools and techniques that speed up production, give filmmakers real time choices, and create stylized versions of effects.

By any indicator, filmmaker Sean Wang has had a career year–and we’re only in Month Two. His narrative feature debut, Dìdi, captured the Audience Award and a Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble in the US Dramatic Competition at the recently concluded Sundance Film Festival, and that same week, he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Short Subject for Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (Grandma & Grandma). What’s more, Focus Features acquired Dìdi for a mid-summer release, and Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó just premiered on Disney+ as part of the streamer’s “People & Places” series.

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of its world premiere today at the Berlin Film Festival, Cohen Media Group has secured all North American distribution rights to Made In England: The Films Of Powell And Pressburger.

Thania Garcia Berner, the American rapper and CEO behind the cannabis brand Cookies, in association with 4 Ways Entertainment, has set the cast for their first joint film, “Splash City.” Alex Ferrufino, David Mansanalez, John Mercado, and Arie Rose of 4 Ways are set to produce the coming-of-age thriller set against the backdrop of “the real and raw subculture of the San Francisco Bay Area,” according to a press release. The script for “Splash City” was written by David Mansanalez and Berner, with Ferrufino directing the film.

Christopher Vourlias Abel Ferrara has made a career out of staring unflinchingly into the abyss, interrogating man’s weakness and depravity and daring his audiences to look away. Faced with the catastrophic violence of the war in Ukraine, however, which he chronicles in the Berlin-premiering documentary “Turn in the Wound,” even the iconoclastic director finds himself at a loss — for words, and for easy answers.

Christopher Vourlias A cross-country journey in search of a mysterious treasure puts the nature of faith to the test in “The Great Yawn of History,” the feature debut of Iranian director Aliyar Rasti, which premieres Feb. 23 in the competitive Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival. The film tells the story of a man of wavering religious conviction who dreams of a box of gold hidden in a cave.

Christopher Vourlias Greek filmmaker Yorgos Zois, who’s set to bow his sophomore feature, “Arcadia,” in the competitive Encounters strand of the Berlin Film Festival Feb. 18, is developing his first TV series. “Play” follows a lone cinephile who joins a mysterious group of strangers that reenact scenes from movies in real life.

Five international-themed films are competing for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards this year, stories set in Uganda, Chile, Tunisia, Ukraine, and India. To Kill a Tiger, which has brought director Nisha Pahuja the first Oscar nomination of her career, centers on a poor couple in the Indian state Jharkhand who bravely fought for justice after their teenage daughter became the victim of a brutal sexual assault.

Emiliano De Pablos Pink Parrot Media, the Montreal and Madrid-based international sales house, has revealed a flurry of deals for the German-Canadian CG animated fantasy feature “Elli and Her Monster Team!,” which is making its market premiere at the EFM. Underlining the appetite for toon family features by European distributors, the film has been sold to Just Entertainment in Benelux, Bim Distribuzione in Italy, NOS Lusomundo in Portugal, Flins&Piniculas in Spain and GPI for Baltics. “Elli” has also been acquired by Pro Films in Bulgaria, Rocket Releasing for CIS, Forum (Czech Republic/Slovak), MCF Megacom Film (Former Yugoslavia), Cinetel (Hungary), Forum for Poland, Romania and Israel, and Front Row in the Middle East.

Tom Holland is showing love to his girlfriend Zendaya!