In what amounts to a milestone for the Middle East, Imax has announced plans to release its first-ever Arabic-language feature film. It’s a comedy titled “Ambulance” led by Saudi star Ibrahim Hajjaj, whose 2023 wrestling movie “Sattar”is Saudi Arabia’s highest grossing local title. The announcement was made by Imax CEO Richard Gelfond during the grand […]

Paolo Sorrentino – whose latest film “Parthenope” is scoring record-breaking grosses at the Italian box office – is set to return behind camera to shoot “La Grazia,” a drama that will re-team the Oscar-winning director with “The Great Beauty” actor Toni Servillo. Plot details of Sorrentino’s next film are being kept under wraps besides the […]

Alfonso Cuarón had the audience of the Marrakech Film Festival in stitches during a wide-ranging conversation in which he revealed that he had never read a Harry Potter book before shooting “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” He also recalled turning down an offer to shoot a James Bond movie after having dinner with filmmaker Joel Coen. Asked by […]

Jude Law thriller “The Order,” which opens next week in the U.S., has not been an easy sell amid the current Trumpian zeitgeist. The Justin Kurzel-directed film, in which Law plays an FBI agent fighting white supremacist terrorists in 1980s Idaho, is emblematic of how U.S. buyers are gun shy in general right now. And particularly so, when it comes to politically […]

Prominent Egyptian director Marwan Hamed, best known internationally for groundbreaking epic “The Yacoubian Building,” more recently shot “El Set,” a biopic of Egyptian icon Umm Kulthum, who is considered the Arab world’s greatest singer. Kulthum has also been praised by Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, among other Western artists, and sampled by Beyonce and […]

Pierfrancesco Favino, who plays Maria Callas’ protective butler in Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” doesn’t back down from a fight, on-screen or in life.  At last year’s Venice Film Festival, the Rome native erupted with the kind of volcanic indignation that Callas was known for, furious that American actors like “House of Gucci” and “Ferrari” star Adam […]

Warner Bros. Discovery has appointed veteran executive Allan Sperling as its new group vice president of programming, networks and streaming in the Nordic region. Sperling, who previously held prominent roles at MultiChoice Group and Showmax in South Africa as well as at Viacom International in London and Amsterdam, will be based out of Stockholm. He […]

More than three years after the accidental death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his Western “Rust,” Alec Baldwin is hoping to finally put it behind him. “This is obviously the most difficult thing I’ve ever dealt with in my life,” Baldwin tells Variety at the Torino Film Festival, looking weary yet ready […]

Angelina Jolie is set to attend Italy’s Torino Film Festival for the international premiere of “Without Blood,” her fifth film as a director, which is based on Italian author Alessandro Baricco’s short novel by the same title. The drama about war, revenge, memory and healing stars Salma Hayek Pinault and Demián Bichir and world premiered […]

A24 has dropped an eye-catching new trailer for Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” ahead of the U.S. release of the Oscar-winning director’s lavish love letter to his native Naples. The U.S. trailer focuses on the film’s titular character, a young woman born in Naples – Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans” – played by newcomer Celeste […]

Spike Lee will preside over the jury of the fourth edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival. “Looking towards our fourth edition, we’re honored to welcome the legendary Spike Lee as our president of jury for the festival this year,” said Jomana Al Rashid, chairwoman of the Red Sea Film Foundation, in an announcement […]

Cannes Film Festival general delegate Thierry Frémaux will be heading to Saudi Arabia in December to attend the Red Sea Film Festival to support his new documentary “Lumière! The Adventure Continues,” which takes a deep dive into the origins of cinema. Frémaux’s sequel to “Lumière! The Adventure Begins,” which premiered at Red Sea’s inaugural edition […]

Jordan recently pulled the documentary “My Sweet Land” as its official entry for the Oscars best international feature film race after receiving pressure from Azerbaijan, in a blatant case of a country bowing to censorship dictated by diplomacy. “My Sweet Land” follows the life of an 11-year-old boy named Vrej who dreams of becoming a […]

Todd Haynes will preside over the jury of the upcoming 75th Berlin International Film Festival. It will mark the first headed by Tricia Tuttle, the former head of the BFI London Film Festival, The American director, screenwriter and producer has a long-established close rapport with the Berlinale given that his feature film debut “Poison” received the fest’s […]