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The Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) has lined up speakers including filmmakers Michael Mann and Spike Lee and actors Eva Longoria and Andrew Garfield for its In Conversation With and Souk Talents strands.

The line-up of speakers speakers this year also includes Egyptian writer and director Mohamed Samy (Detention Letter) and Turkish stars Engin Altan Düzyatan (Diriliş: Ertuğrul) and Nurgül Yeşilçay.

Also joining the lineup are Indian Cinema stars Ranbir Kapoor (Animal) and Kareena Kapoor Khan (Buckingham Murders).

They join previously announced speakers Egyptian actor Mona Zaki and Academy Award-winner Viola Davis. Spike Lee was last week announced as...

Madonna Feature Doc Set At Sky

Madonna is the latest pop icon to be spotlighted for a documentary. Sky has greenlit a feature on the American singer from At Home with the Furys producer Optomen, which will “chart Madonna’s rise to become the biggest female pop icon in history,” it said. With rare footage, unseen photos and intimate interviews with family, friends and collaborators – some of whom have never spoken in a documentary before – Becoming Madonna will show a new side to the singer, starting with her as a professional dancer in the late 70s and ending in 1992 as she transformed through the decades. Hayley Reynolds, Sky’s Acting Director of Documentaries and Factual, said: “Since her debut in the 80s, Madonna has been a powerhouse in pop music and carved the way for many of today’s most popular artists. This film brings a fresh perspective on an...

Warning: contains plot details for Happy Valley and Son Nefisme Kadar.

Thank heavens for the BBC. UK fans may be chewing their sofa cushions in anxious anticipation of the Happy Valley finale airing this Sunday at 9 p.m., but at least we’re getting a finale. The Turkish remake of Sally Wainwright’s excellent drama left viewers hanging when it was unexpectedly cancelled mid-season following poor ratings.

After airing five two-hour instalments between February and March 2022, Turkish channel Fox cut off Son Nefesime Kadar (Until My Last Breath) on a cliff-hanger that left the Turkish Catherine Cawood knocked unconscious, with fans not knowing whether she lives or dies.

The Turkish version of Sgt Cawood in this officially licensed Happy Valley remake is Başkomiser (or superintendent) Mihri Özbayden, played by Nurgül Yesilçay. Like Catherine, she’s a police officer who lives with her ex-addict sister, and is raising her grandson after...

As 2009 comes to a close, we take a look back at some of the people and events that made this the Best. Lesbian. Decade. Ever. in pop culture.

Luckily for all of us, there was far more information to have mentioned from the last ten years than we could have included in this brief survey. That's why our lists for each year are not intended to be exhaustive, but are instead snapshots of different memorable moments that included the representation of lesbians and bisexual women in film, television, music, literature, comics, sports and the Internet since the year 2000.

2000

Chavela Vargas[/link] comes out

Mexican ranchera music legend Chavela Vargas publicly came out as a lesbian at the tender age of 81.

Angelina Jolie wins Best Supporting Actress Oscar

Angelina Jolie won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Girl, Interrupted and told Talk Magazine, "I only play women I would date.

2008 will always be known as an historic year — for the passing of gay marriage laws in two states (and the tragic reduction of those rights in four), for the election of the nation’s first president of color, and for the downturn of the economy.

Years from now, when we talk about 2008, it’s likely that we’ll be discussing these events, rather than any specific lesbian film that came out.

But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a banner year for lesbian cinema.

While there were still extremely few mainstream movies with notable lesbian/bi characters, the overall quality of representation was decidedly — and dramatically — on the rise.

2008 saw an encouraging dearth of murderous, victimized or man-hating lesbian characters in any level of production (from smaller indie flicks to big-budget movies).

Women of color were better represented than in many years past, gross stereotypes were avoided, and new talents emerged.

Fatih Akin's 2003 feature Head-On was about a marriage of convenience, and his 2005 documentary Crossing The Bridge covered Istanbul's diverse music scene, but both were really about how the increasingly intermingled Turkish and German cultures try to heal their schisms through contrivance—whether by blending musical genres, finding loopholes in the law, or submitting to the will of the European Union. Now in The Edge Of Heaven, the writer-director returns to the idea of people trying to will their way to happiness. As the movie opens, elderly gambler Tuncel Kurtiz meets middle-aged prostitute and fellow Turk Nursel Köse in Bremen's red-light district, and offers to pay her to be his, exclusively. Köse agrees, then dies suddenly, leaving Kurtiz's son Baki Davrak to locate Köse's grown daughter Nurgül Yesilçay back in Istanbul. Davrak quits his job as a German professor and buys a German bookstore in Turkey, unaware that Yesilçay is.