‘Unchained’ From Putin’s Russia, Kazakh Cinema Finds a Fresh Voice in Generation of Bold, Emerging Talents

There was a moment in the past year when dozens of media and political reporters found themselves in the same room, sitting patiently for hours, essentially doing nothing but speculating about what was about to happen.

As Elspeth Catton, Saltburn’s bohemian but bloodless matriarch, Rosamund Pike strikes an unnervingly accurate note as the crushingly careless mother of Jacob Elordi’s character Felix. When Felix brings home Oliver (Barry Keoghan), his apparently lame duck of a new friend from Oxford University, Elspeth is delighted to add a new tragic case to her collection of playthings. Already among them is Carey Mulligan’s lost soul character, Poor Dear Pamela — an old friend on the run from a messy breakup with a Russian oligarch. Here, Pike pays tribute to the world created by writer-director Emerald Fennell, and its unpredictable outcome.

As another year draws to a close, King Charles has once again addressed the nation in his annual King’s Speech which traditionally is broadcast around the country on Christmas Day. This year, Charles focused much of his speech on the theme of community and praised the "selfless army of people” who he described as the “essential backbone of our society,” for their continued efforts to improve the areas in which they lived.

The King has praised the “selfless army” of volunteers serving communities across the country in his Christmas broadcast.

Adam Driver is back to barking in an Italian accent after the heinous “House of Gucci,” only this time he sounds a lot less Russian and thankfully did not take Lady Gaga along for the ride.Running time: 124 minutes. Rated R (some violent content/graphic images, sexual content and language). In theaters Dec.

Forbes.Prosecutors had claimed that the YouTube videos “spread LGBT values” and sought to convince “minors to commit illegal actions,” according to Russia’s state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.It is unclear what is meant by the “illegal actions” that the videos are encouraging minors to engage in, although similar language has been used to rail against transgender visibility on the grounds that it will encourage minors to identify as transgender or pursue gender transitions.The fine is the steepest one levied against the search engine in Russia for violating its law prohibiting the spread of “LGBT propaganda.”Last month, the country’s Supreme Court deemed the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an “extremist” organization, prompting crackdowns by local police on LGBTQ venues or advocacy organizations. Under Russian law, anyone participating in or financing an “extremist” organization, including any LGBTQ advocacy groups, can be prosecuted and jailed for up to 12 years.The Russian government, led by President Vladimir Putin, adopted a law in 2013 that prohibits the spread of “propaganda” related to “nontraditional sexual relations,” or any information that paints LGBTQ identity in a positive or neutral light, among minors.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The ninth edition of London’s Focus, the production sector event, attracted a record number of attendees this year. More than 3,500 delegates, exhibitors and sponsors from 84 countries attended the event, which ran Dec. 6-7.

Norma Barzman, a prominent screenwriter who was blacklisted due to her involvement with the American Communist Party, died Sunday at her Beverly Hills home, according to a social media post from her daughter Suzo Barzman. She was 103.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor U.K. based sales and distribution outfit Blue Finch Films has boarded worldwide rights to thriller “Steppenwolf” from writer-director Adilkhan Yerzhanov, whose credits include the Cannes selected titles “The Owners” and “The Gentle Indifference of the World.” The film will have its world premiere at next month’s International Film Festival Rotterdam as part of the Big Screen Competition. “Steppenwolf” is a brutal story of an unlikely duo who will stop at nothing to find what they are looking for.

Fame Park private zoo — and the photos are wild. Seagal, 71, and Galloway, 69, were treated to the once-in-a-lifetime experience by the zoo’s owner Dr.

Kevin Bacon. The plot follows a family on vacation to a rental house in Long Island, who get interrupted by strangers showing up, amid a mysterious blackout and technology glitches. Both families work together to decide how to survive as technology such as phones and television break down, and airplanes start crashing.

EXCLUSIVE: Stephen Fry has signed on to narrate Kayleigh-Paige Rees‘ Ukraine war feature documentary We Are Home, which is about families and children displaced due to the ongoing war.

Tom Cruise is reportedly dating socialite Elsina Khayrova, the daughter of a prominent Russian MP and ex-wife of a diamond-trading oligarch.The 36-year-old model was apparently seen with Cruise, 61, at a party in Grosvenor Square, London on Saturday (December 9).According to The Daily Mail, a source said they were “inseparable” and “clearly a couple”, adding: “He seemed to be besotted with her.”Neither Cruise or Khayrova have commented on the reports.Khayrova was previously married to Russian tycoon Dmitry Tsvetkov for ten years. Their divorce was finalised in a High Court ruling earlier this year, where a judge accused Khayrova of being “guilty of sustained duplicity”, including lying over the possession of a handbag collection worth almost £1million.In an interview with The Telegraph, Tsvetkov said he learned of the alleged relationship between his ex-wife and Cruise when friends began contacting him after the article was published.The diamond trader, who has survived multiple assassination attempts, also said he previously had discussions with a Hollywood producer earlier this year, where he named Cruise as a potential candidate to play him in a film about his life.“After the judgement in August, a friend of mine who is a producer in Hollywood said, ‘Why don’t we do a movie?’ It would be about the three assassination attempts, about the divorce.

Variety. The value of the deal is not yet known.“Brittney is an exceptional athlete whose hardship and resilience are nothing short of extraordinary,” Burke Magnus, the president of content at ESPN, said in a statement.

Christopher Vourlias Siberian-born entrepreneur Arsen Tomsky is not your typical tech mogul. The CEO of the California-based technology company inDrive got his start far from Silicon Valley, when he designed a ride-hailing app in his native Yakutsk to compete with the cartels that controlled the local taxi industry.

Christopher Vourlias Three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, an emerging generation of filmmakers born and raised in the independent countries of Central Asia is giving an exhilarating charge to the region’s cinema and helping to put their unheralded industries on the map. Leading Kazakh film critic Gulnara Abikeyeva says these “children of independence” are bringing a “new attitude” to the screen and giving a jolt of energy to emerging industries that for decades were under Moscow’s thumb.

A critic and enemy of Russian president Vladimir Putin has suffered a “serious health incident” while in prison. Alexei Navalny is reported to have suffered from a “hunger faint” after days of not being fed.

“Warhol After Warhol: Secrets, Lies, & Corruption in the Art World” (Pegasus Books, out now). “The two highly realistic Andy Warhol signatures were stamped facsimiles, not written in Warhol’s own hand.” Simon and Dorment teamed up to determine the true authentication process behind Warhol’s works.Ultimately, they uncovered what they believed was far-reaching fraud, leading to a years-long legal battle that cost millions and millions of dollars and featured a cast of characters that included a mob lawyer and a Russian oligarch.Simon, now 57, first moved in Warhol’s circles as a young man. He was a social Zelig who came to New York at age 15.

was arrested in February 2022 at a Moscow airport while traveling to Russia to play for a professional team there during the WNBA offseason. A cannabis vape cartridge was allegedly found in her luggage.

EXCLUSIVE: Sean Penn-starring Ukrainian anthology movie War Through the Eyes of Animals has wrapped shooting in LA and more details have emerged about Penn’s involvement.