Roc Nation partners with Brooklyn’s LIU to launch new school

In light of the slew of canceled film festivals in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s New York Film Festival is hoping to pull out all the stops and become the premier film event in the US. And as a way of showing what that means, the NYFF organizers announced the Spotlight section for this year’s fest.

Carole Horst The struggles of an undocumented immigrant who is also a trans woman in the Brighton Beach area of New York are given a subtle, delicate and ultimately powerful treatment in “Lingua Franca,” by filmmaker Isabel Sandoval.Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing will virtually debut the film in select theaters and on Netflix Aug.

New York has honoured the memory of the late Marsha P Johnson, LGBTQI activist and a leader of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, and dedicated a park to her – the first state park in the country to be named after an LGBTQI person and a trans person of colour.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement on Monday, which would have been Johnson’s 75th birthday, that the East River State Park in Brooklyn will now be known as Marsha P. Johnson State Park.

The Mothers. The novel, which she began writing while still an undergraduate at Stanford, became a New York Times Bestseller and was optioned by Warner Bros., with Kerry Washington signed on to produce.

NEW YORK -- One of the country's most prominent scholars on race has a new book out in December. Michael Eric Dyson's “Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America” will be released Dec.

Alexandra Del Rosario Associate Editor/Nights & WeekendsEXCLUSIVE: Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza has signed with ICM Partners.The Oakland-based writer and public speaker is also the Principal at the Black Futures Lab and the Black to the Future Action Fund. Garza has been featured a in number of outlets ranging Politico and The New York Times to Essence and Time.

Jake Kanter International TV EditorEXCLUSIVE: Osi Umenyiora, who won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants, has signed with ICM Partners as he looks to further his second career in the entertainment business.The former defensive end moved back to his native London in 2015 and has been a fixture on the BBC’s NFL coverage, including headlining NFL This Week and The NFL Show.Umenyiora has won two Royal Television Society awards for his punditry and established his company, Uprise, in 2017 to

Denise Petski Senior Managing EditorDavid Ayer and Chris Long’s Cedar Park Entertainment has hired former AT&T Audience Network executive Shane Elrod as Senior Vice President of Development and Production for TV and Film. For the past ten years Elrod has worked for Audience Network out of both their New York and Los Angeles offices.

Ash Christian, a producer, actor and director known for Social Animals and Coyote Lake, has died. He was 35.

Lola Consuelos doesn't think her mom should give social media trolls the time of day.

Andreas Wiseman International EditorEXCLUSIVE: Management and production company 42 (The Courier) is teaming with fledgling LA-based label A-Major Media to develop and produce Megan Chan Meinero’s play Good Fortune for film. New York playwright Chan Meinero is writing the adaptation.Mary Lee, previously head of film at Justin Lin’s Perfect Storm Entertainment, is producing for A-Major, which she set up last year year to champion Asian-American voices in film and TV.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaAzazel Jacobs’s “French Exit,” the story of a New York socialite who jettisons her old life for a new one in Paris, has been selected as the closing night feature of the 58th New York Film Festival.The film, which stars Oscar-nominees Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges, will make its world premiere at the festival, which is expected to be a mixture of physical and virtual events due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Lee D’Avanzo, the husband of Mob Wives alum Drita D’Avanzo, was sentenced to more than five years in prison after pleading guilty to a gun charge, the New York Daily News reports.Lee, 51, appeared in federal court in Brooklyn on Friday, August 7, for the courthouse’s first in-person hearing since the coronavirus pandemic began in March. Judge Rachel Kovner ordered him to serve 64 months behind bars for being a felon in possession of a weapon.

Jay-Z is set to launch a New York university, marking his first foray into higher education.The rap icon has joined forces with Brooklyn’s Long Island University to launch the Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment. It will provide students with the chance to study undergraduate degrees in music, music technology, entrepreneurship and production and even sports management.LIU’s President, Dr.

Also Read: Lessons From the Writers Guild's Deal With UTA: Why Now and What's Next?ICM, which employs more than 500 staffers, laid off roughly 40 support staffers in June, while also committing to increasing the wages of the remaining assistants as well as a goal of 50% hiring of diverse and inclusive candidates for all open positions going forward.In December the agency sold a minority stake to New York-based Crestview Partners for somewhere around $150 million.ICM and the WGA are still in

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaPete Hamill, perhaps the last of a generation of celebrity newspaperman, has died of heart and kidney failure after undergoing emergency surgery for a fractured right hip.

Amidst recent drama surrounding the show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show is taking a major hit. The Ellen DeGeneres Show‘s ratings are at “a series low,” according to a report by The New York Post that was released yesterday.

MICHELLE’s 2018 self-released debut album ‘HEATWAVE’ to come to life. Led by the talents of Sofia D’Angelo, Julian Kaufman, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee and Jamee Lockard (the oldest of the gang are only 21), MICHELLE make slick dream-pop with beats that marry with the pounding of the city streets.