‘The Other Half’ Director Giorgos Moutafis on Plight of Ukraine’s Refugees: ‘Nothing Has Changed’

Will Smith's former director has a lesson for Hollywood stars still weighing in on the Oscars slap heard 'round the world: there are bigger things to worry about. Director Michael Bay, who worked with Smith on "Bad Boys 1" and "Bad Boys 2," said at the end of the day the actor's onstage violence of Rock was "wrong." Still, he insisted that it's not exactly the first thing on his mind when he thinks about issues going on in the world. "First of all, it’s wrong to begin with," Bay shared with Deadline while promoting his upcoming thriller "Ambulance." "But that’s all people are talking about.

Transformers director Michael Bay wasn’t watching the Oscars so he missed everything that went down, including the moment when best actor winner Will Smith slapped Chris Rock across the face on the Oscar stage. 

Michael Bay is sharing his thoughts about the aftermath of Will Smith‘s 2022 Oscars slap.

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry is reporting that Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravicius was killed Saturday in Mariupol, the under seige Ukrainian city and subject of his documentary films.

Thania Garcia There are very few people that can claim to have stamped the collective visual consciousness the way Ukrainian director Tanu Muino has. Her colorful and undeniably memorable iconography is what led her to be nominated alongside Lil Nas X for best music video at the 2022 Grammys for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).”Muino’s career has skyrocketed these past few years, despite the cultural, physical and emotional stagnation caused by the pandemic. The Odessa native has produced some of pop culture’s most notable music videos for big names like Lizzo, Cardi B and, most recently, Harry Styles, for his new single “As It Was.”Muino also recently shot and directed Foals’ “2am” music video in Ukraine earlier this year.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentRussian filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov — the director of Cannes competition titles “Leto” and “Petrov’s Flu” — has left the country following the end of a three-year travel ban, and has arrived in Paris.A picture of the iconoclastic Russian helmer popped up on social media on Wednesday. In the pic, Serebrennikov wears a T-shirt that reads “I turn the TV off,” which alludes to the propaganda flooding Russian TV since the invasion of Ukraine on Feb.

Christopher Vourlias More than four weeks into Russia’s disastrous war in Ukraine, and just one week after a court sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to nine years in a high-security prison, “Navalny” director Daniel Roher made a passionate plea on behalf of the jailed politician in Copenhagen, lashing out at the “murderous” regime of President Vladimir Putin and arguing that filmmakers must “pick a side” in an increasingly fractured and polarized world.“There’s a right side of politics. And yes, filmmakers pick a side.

Ben Croll Ever since his first trip to Russia in the late 1990s, filmmaker Antoine Cattin has always been tickled by his adopted country’s record number of national celebrations. Born in Switzerland and based in Saint Petersburg for the past two decades, Cattin has paid an up-close and rather bemused view to the parade of party days where people take to the streets, fireworks light up the sky, and the government sends often contradictory messages about national heritage and civic pride.With “Holidays,” which is set over the course of seven of such public fêtes, and which will world premiere at CPH: DOX on March 29, Cattin both filmed and offered cameras to a Kazakh migrant, an aging public administrator, a xenophobic young activist, and a thrill-seeking urban explorer, making the film’s four characters both subjects and guides on a kaleidoscopic tour of modern Russia.

https://t. co/1H1Y9jC9bl#oscars pic. twitter.

video of the incident has circulated online.A former Pentagon official told Yahoo Sports earlier this month that Griner, a Phoenix Mercury player who competes in Russia during the WNBA’s off-season, could be used as a “high-profile hostage” as tensions mount between President Biden and Russian President Putin over the escalating Ukrainian war.Former WNBA star Lisa Leslie told the “I am Athlete” podcast she’d been advised not to make a “big fuss” over Griner’s arrest in a clip released on Friday.“We were told was to not make a big fuss about it so that they could not use her as a pawn, so to speak, in this situation in the war,” Leslie said in the clip. “So, to make it like it’s not that important or don’t make it where we’re like, ‘Free Brittney’ and we start this campaign, and then it becomes something that they can use,” she said. “I won’t say who said that, but that’s what’s been spreading through the women’s basketball world.

Lise Pedersen While her first feature-length doc “Outside” is having its world premiere in the main competition at the Copenhagen Intl. Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX), Ukrainian director Olha Zhurba will be back home.

Maksim Chmerkovskiy is doing all he can to help Ukrainian refugees fleeing from war.

Ed Meza @edmezavarIn his new documentary, “The Kaiser of Atlantis,” Argentine director Sebastián Alfie tells the story of composer Viktor Ullmann’s chamber opera, about a tyrant bent on waging endless war – written in 1943 in the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt (Terezín) – and, more than 70 years later, a new production of the work in Madrid.Alfie plans to follow up “The Kaiser of Atlantis” — which premieres at the Malaga Festival — with a biopic about Ullmann and the two years he spent imprisoned in Terezín.The director first saw the opera by chance in 2006 at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. “When I read in the playbill that it had been written in a concentration camp, questions began to arise that are the germ of the documentary.

Peta Murgatroyd got emotional while reflecting on Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine.

Elon Musk is looking to throw down with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Tesla co-founder, 50, challenged Putin, 69, to a one-on-one fight amidst Russia’s tragic invasion of Ukraine. “I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat,” Elon wrote on Twitter March 14. “Stakes are Ukraine,” he added. Elon wrote Putin’s name in Russian and Ukraine in Ukrainian.

The Power of the Dog was named best film at tonight’s 75th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), as the New Zealander also scooped best director. During a star-studded ceremony at London’s Royal Albert Hall, sci-fi epic Dune also triumphed with five gongs, and Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical Belfast was named Outstanding British Film. The Power of the Dog’s male star, Benedict Cumberbatch, was on hand to read out the absent Campion’s victory speech for her best director award.

Former Miss Ukraine Anastasiia Lenna has joined the Ukrainian forces to fight Russian troops as Vladimir Putin's invasion continues.The stunning brunette has swapped evening gowns for a rifle as she warned Russian invaders that they will "will die on our land" if they continue their advance. Sharing images on her social media, Anastasiia, who represented Ukraine at the 2015 Miss Grand International beauty pageant, has vowed to defend Ukraine until their safe border is restored.This week, Anastasiia, who has 315,000 Instagram followers, posted another video contrasting Ukraine before the war compared to recent photos and videos.

The Premier League have disqualified Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich as a director of the club, it has been announced.

Christopher Vourlias Under different circumstances, the 24th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival might have been a more celebratory affair, with coronavirus restrictions gradually loosening across Greece and the country’s second city hosting an in-person edition of a festival that was among the world’s first to go virtual at the start of the pandemic in 2020.But with the humanitarian toll rising in Ukraine, as Russia continues its relentless assault of its Eastern European neighbor, festival director Orestis Andreadakis offered a sobering reflection on the eve of opening night on war, cinema and the need for solidarity.“It’s shocking what is happening,” Andreadakis told Variety, likening the threat to the one faced by Europe during World War II. “After the war, we had this slogan: Never again.