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Stars: Meghan Adara, Neil James, Charlotte Marshall, Mickaela Sands, Obie Dean, Tom Clear, Sophie Flack, Wayne Liversidge, Sophie Karl, James Merganser, Abi Mcloughlin | Written and Directed by Jamie Langlands

The feature-length directorial debut of actor Jamie Langlands, The Cellar follows Abigail (Meghan Adara), who awakens to find herself imprisoned in a subterranean chamber. After managing to escape her confinement, she discovers an expansive and labyrinthine network of cellars, patrolled by a masked guard. As she evades her captor, Abigail uncovers a flurry of missing posters – possible evidence that the entire Alcoholics Anonymous group she attended has also been abducted, though the motive behind their imprisonment remains a mystery.

Most of The Cellar plays out, for the majority, without any dialogue. The only dialogue there is takes place in flashbacks to the AA meetings Abigail attends, otherwise, her entire capture and suspenseful escape is largely silent, her fear conveyed in the...

A project that has been on our radar since it was an invited spec at Sundance’s January Screenwriters Lab back in 2015, Beretta has found a director in Maysaloun Hamoud. Written by Qatari-American artist, writer and filmmaker Sophia al-Maria, Variety reports that the thriller to be produced by Passage Pictures’ Uri Singer and Aimee Peyronnet. Beretta doesn’t have a start date but we imagine they’ll be lassoing the film’s lead and already have a backdrop in the cards. Hamoud’s Bar Bahar had its world premiere at TIFF back in 2016. That film was three Palestinian women sharing an apartment in contemporary Tel Aviv, navigating religious, sexual and racial fault lines away from home.…...

Exclusive: Palestinian director Maysaloun Hamoud has boarded female revenge thriller Beretta for L.A.-based Passage Pictures.

Written by Qatari-American artist, writer and filmmaker Sophia al-Maria, Beretta is billed as a female-driven Taxi Driver-style thriller centered on a selectively mute woman seeking revenge after she is attacked by a stranger.

Beretta will be Hamoud’s second feature after her 2016 breakout In Between (Bar Bahar) about three Palestinian women sharing an apartment in contemporary Tel Aviv, navigating religious, sexual and racial fault lines away from home.

The drama premiered at Toronto where it won the Netpac Award, before heading to San Sebastian were it was also feted. Hamoud was also honored with the Women in Motion Young Talents Award at Cannes in 2017.

Al Maria is best known for her work around her coined term of “Gulf Futurism”, exploring the impact of rapid modernisation in the Gulf region on architecture, urban planning,...

The honors were evenly distributed at the 2024 Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum awards with no film project winning more than two prizes.

Zhang Zhongchen’s work-in-progress “The Land is Our Navel” (China), that tracks a surreal journey beginning in a village, will be one of five projects invited to go to Cannes. It will be joined by Upamanyu Bhattacharya’s animation “Heirloom” (India), which examines the dark side of nostalgia while celebrating Indian textiles; and Oliver Chan Siu-kuen’s “Montages of a Modern Motherhood” (Hong Kong), where a troubled new mother seeks an immediate solution to her problems.

“The Land is Our Navel” also won the AimMedia Award, while “Heirloom” and “Montages of a Modern Motherhood” won the market’s Work In Progress award for non-Hong Kong and Hong Kong project respectively.

In all, awards worth $223,000 were handed out on Wednesday at the market. In total of 47 projects were...

A cross-country journey in search of a mysterious treasure puts the nature of faith to the test in “The Great Yawn of History,” the feature debut of Iranian director Aliyar Rasti, which premieres Feb. 22 in the competitive Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival.

The film tells the story of a man of wavering religious conviction who dreams of a box of gold hidden in a cave. Convinced he’s forbidden by Islamic law to claim the treasure himself, he turns to a non-believer to assist him, setting into motion an arduous journey of both physical and spiritual dimensions as the two men grapple with notions of faith in their pursuit of a miracle.

Written and directed by Rasti, “The Great Yawn of History” stars Mohammad Aghebati and Amirhossein Hosseini and is produced by Tehran-based Para-Doxa. Heretic is handling world sales.

A visual artist with no formal film schooling, Rasti...

Lauren Jauregui is lending her voice to a timely cause. On Friday, the singer released ballad “The Day the World Blows Up” to support the children of Palestine amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“I wrote this song on November 6th but I feel like it has tried to write itself many times before,” the singer shared on X. “It encompasses the underlying energy I’ve been feeling for a while now about this world. My heart has been in a state of perpetual heartbreak and music, as always, is the...

Kaleem Aftab, director of international programming at the Red Sea Film Festival, has cast his net wide in selecting the 14 films in the festival’s International Short Film Competition program.

Aimed at attracting emerging talent from across Africa, Asia and the Islamic world, the section includes fiction, animation and documentary in films that average 15-20 minutes long, but may be as short as a couple of minutes, or as long as an hour.

With films ranging from Iranian director Farnoosh Samadi’s Iran-French co-production, “Titanic” – which takes a darkly comic look at Iranian film censors confused by how to interpret new regulations – to Kazakh filmmaker Shugyla Serzhan’s “The Late Wind,” about a young pregnant woman suddenly abandoned by her boyfriend, the section pushes boundaries of subjects that are already part of the public conversation in the countries from which it selects.

“One of the biggest things about these films...

The girls of Fifth Harmony aren’t officially reuniting, but Ally Brooke is rebuilding her relationship with fellow 5H members.

After a clip circulated online of Brooke agreeing that a reunion is “closer than we think” and that they are “maybe working on something,” the “Gone to Bed” singer clarified that she’s simply rekindling her relationship with the rest of 5H.

“I’m thrilled to see there’s a lot of interest surrounding Fifth Harmony,” Brooke tweeted. “Reunion has many meanings and while there’s no official band reunion happening at the moment,...

It’s been five years since they went on an indefinite hiatus, and Ally Brooke got fans excited for a Fifth Harmony reunion in a new interview!

The 30-year-old singer, who recently dropped her new solo single “Gone to Bed” after signing a new solo record deal, seemingly confirmed that the group has something cooking.

While appearing on E! News, it was pointed out that *Nsync has reunited, so in the future, a 5H reunion has to be possible. Then, it’s what Ally said next that had everyone freaking out.

Find out inside…

“A hundred percent. We may be working on something,” she said.

When the interviewer, Keltie Knight, said, “Oh, it’s sooner than we think,” Ally nodded and responded, “Yes.”

This is very similar to what Ally teased back in June, when she said “we” have something coming back.

However, after reports went viral, Ally took to...

It’s been five years since they went on an indefinite hiatus, but Ally Brooke is getting fans’ hopes up for a Fifth Harmony reunion!

The 30-year-old singer, who recently dropped her new solo single “Gone to Bed” after signing a new solo record deal, confirmed that the group has something cooking.

While appearing on E! News, it was pointed out that *Nsync has reunited, so in the future, a 5H reunion has to be possible. Then, it’s what Ally said next that has everyone freaking out!

Find out inside…

“A hundred percent. We may be working on something,” she said.

When the interviewer, Keltie Knight, said, “Oh, it’s sooner than we think,” Ally nodded and responded, “Yes.”

This is very similar to what Ally teased back in June, when she said “we” have something coming back.

Now, would this be just the four – Ally, Normani, Dinah Jane...

No hard feelings, just love. On Friday, Lauren Jauregui released her second EP, In Between, which closes with “Wolves,” a track featuring Russ and her ex-boyfriend Ty Dolla $ign, whom she wrote about in her song “Always Love.”

The song was originally recorded five years ago when Ty and Jauregui were still dating. (They split in 2019 after two years together.) “Thank you for being such amazing friends and believing in me & this project enough to be a part of it even though we made Wolves 5 years ago,” Jauregui wrote on Instagram.

It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday — especially when it’s New Music Friday! We’re breaking down this week’s best new tracks to keep on your radar.

New Music Friday – May 26th, 2023

Taylor Swift & Ice Spice – “Karma”

Dua Lipa – “Dance The Night” (From Barbie)

Beyoncé ft. Kendrick Lamar – “America Has A Problem”

Taylor Swift – “Hits Different”

Hayley Kiyoko – “Green Light”

OneRepublic – “Runaway”

Lauren Spencer Smith – “That Part”

Lauren Jauregui – “The One”, plus In Between (EP)

John Orlando and Ali Gatie – “When I’m Gone”

Diddy, City Girls, and Fabolous – “Act Bad”

Other noteworthy artists with releases this week include Audien & William Black Ft. Tia Tia – “Would You Even Know”, Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey – “Snow On The Beach with More Lana Del Rey”, Joohoney – “Freedom” + Lights (EP), Nonso Amadi – “Kilimanjaro ft. Beam” + When It Blooms (Album), Kota The Friend – “Hope You Heal”, Dvbbs, Jeremih, SK...

Cannes Critics’ Week has announced the selection for its 62nd edition, running from May 17 to 25.

The parallel Cannes section will screen 11 features, seven in competition, and four as special screenings, selected from 1,000 submissions. Scroll down for the full list.

The section, which is overseen by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, focuses on first and second features as well as shorts by emerging talents.

Stories of couples, parenthood, family relationships and friendships unfolding against difficult political or societal realities abound in this year’s line-up.

In Competition, Brazilian director Lillah Halla’s Power Alley (Levante) follows a budding teenage volleyball champion who discovers she is pregnant on the eve of an important championship and then comes up against Brazil’s abortion ban.

Blocked in her attempts to seek an illegal termination, the girl’s future seems to be in everyone’s hands but hers, until help comes from an unexpected quarter.

Amjad Al Rasheed’s feature debut “Inshallah a Boy” – co-produced by Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – was awarded La Biennale di Venezia Prize at Final Cut, an industry program at the Venice Film Festival dedicated to films from African and Arab countries.

Shot in February, with mostly Jordanian crew, it was lensed by Kanamé Onoyama.

In the story, a mother and a housewife – played by Mouna Hawa, known for “In Between” – has to face the sudden death of her husband. According to the inheritance law, his family is entitled to most of her belongings, including the home she paid for herself – just because she doesn’t have a son. Desperate, she pretends to be pregnant.

“So many people ask us: ‘Is this real? Do you really have this law?!’ It’s inspired by the experience of someone I know, someone close to me. But when we started to develop the story,...

Exclusive: Maysaloun Hamoud, the writer and director whose feature directorial debut Bar Bahar (In Between) premiered to critical acclaim at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival, has signed with CAA for representation in all areas.

The first film from the Hungarian-born, Palestinian multi-hyphenate followed three Palestinian women living in an apartment in Tel Aviv as they tried to find a balance between traditional and modern culture, picking up TIFF’s Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema Award.

The latest project from the artist based in Israel is The Dreamers, a critically acclaimed series that CAA recently sold to Sundance Now. It follows three Palestinian students who get in trouble with the local crime world, the police and their own families, and subsequently initiate an anti-war protest in the form of a large music festival, bringing Israelis and Palestinians together.

The rising female filmmaker is known for her ability to weave together...

After conquering eyeballs in the Middle East, Latin America and Europe, Turkish TV dramas are now reaping stellar ratings in the U.S. on Spanish-language media giant Univision.

And at its recent upfront Univision announced it’s set to serve up more of the often female-centric skeins known in Turkey as “dizi.”

Since its U.S. launch in February, Turkish romancer “Sefirin Kizi” (The Ambassador’s Daughter) known as “La Hija del Embajador” to Hispanic viewers – who account for 19% of the U.S. population, or 63 million people – has now reached more than 9.2 million total monthly viewers, making Univision the No. 1 U.S. network among Hispanics and bilinguals and outperforming ABC, CBS, NBC, Telemundo and all cable networks in the weeknight 10 p.m. slot, Univision says.

On Univision’s UniMas network the recent premieres of female empowerment drama “Fatmagul” (pictured) retitled “Qué Culpa Tiene Fatmagül?,” which turns on its titular young woman...

Parker Millsap has earned a reputation as a spiritually minded, if not outright spiritual, songwriter. The Oklahoma native described his last record as “gospel sex music” and riffed on yogi Ram Dass’s influential book Be Here Now for the title of his new album: Be Here Instead.

“Stop looking ahead/be here instead/this is the prayer,” Millsap sings in the hypnotic album track “Now, Here,” a song he wrote before the pandemic. When he revisited the lyrics during pre-production for Be Here Instead, it revealed a new meaning.

The film received a 10-minute standing ovation at its world premiere.

In the opening scene of Palestinian director Najwa Najjar’s new film Between Heaven And Earth, a sassy looking young woman rocks up at her former marital home in Ramallah in a vintage blue Mercedes with red-leather seats, music blaring.

Inside, she finds the place in disarray and her estranged husband idling in the outdoor pool.

The romantic road movie, marks a departure in terms of tone and register, if not political intent, for Najjar after hard-hitting West Bank-set dramas Pomegranates And Myrrh and Eyes Of A Thief.

The...

Five years after fashion powerhouse Kering launched its initiative to highlight the role of women before and behind the camera, the mission of Women in Motion is as pressing as ever. While the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements have put a spotlight on the struggles of women in the film industry, the battle for gender parity is far from over.

The numbers still indicate that women are underrepresented both on screen and behind the scenes. Yet how the marginalization of women is addressed has changed drastically in just half a decade. In 2015, when Kering premiered its talks at the Cannes Film Festival, frank conversations about gender inequality were hardly de rigueur.

“I’m proud of the awareness it brought to the topic, even at a time when very few thought it was something that should be acted upon,” says Kering CEO Francois-Henri Pinault. “And I’m impressed by all...

Brooding pop singer Banks shared her hypnotic new single “Gimme,” her first release since 2017. The synth-heavy track — featuring Banks’ bewitching vocals over a mesmerizing, sharp backbeat — premiered on Beats 1 Monday.

“’Gimme’ is a song about getting what you want,” Banks said of the single in a statement. “It’s about knowing what you deserve, saying it out loud, and demanding it with no apologies. I’m ready to release this into the world and begin a new chapter.”

The singer, whose given name is Jillian Banks, has accumulated over 1 billion streams,...

“The Dreamers,” one of the series to be presented at Series Mania’s Co-Pro Pitching Sessions, is a 10-part crime comedy produced by prominent Israeli filmmaker Shlomi Elkabetz (“Gett”) and Galit Cachlon at Deux Beaux Garcons Films.

Produced for Israeli cable TV operator Hot, the series will be directed by Maysaloun Hamoud, a young Hungarian-born Palestinian filmmaker who made her feature debut with “In Between” (“Bar Bahar) which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.

Expanding on the plot of “In Between.” ”The Dreamers” follows Warda, Kais and Salah, three Palestinian roommates who came to Tel Aviv to fulfill their parent’s dreams, only to quickly discover their own. Warda came to Tel Aviv to work at her father’s accounting firm but quickly abandoned and signed up for acting school. Kais came to study accounting and business management but got sidetracked after discovering Tel Aviv’s nightlife.

A five-member jury will award a grand prize of €50,000 to help develop the winning show.

French TV festival and professional meeting Series Mania, running March 22-30 in the northern French city of Lille, has announced the 16 projects due to be pitched in co-production sessions taking place during its industry-focused Series Mania Forum (Mar 25-27).

The selection includes a number of projects from production houses, working both in film and TV.

Rome-based Indigo Film, best-known for its long-time collaboration with Paolo Sorrentino on films such as Academy Award-winning The Great Beauty and Loro, will present Gymnasts. The company’s past TV...

Anyone buying Kamasi Washington‘s latest album, Heaven and Earth, expecting four LPs’ worth of shimmering spiritual jazz was in for a surprise: There was actually a fifth.

Sealed inside a perforated pocket in the center of the package is The Choice, an unannounced record (or, on smaller racks, a CD) featuring 38 additional minutes of Washington, a more smoothed-out affair including covers of songs made famous by the Shirelles (“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”) and the Five Stairsteps (“O-o-h Child”). To access it, fans actually have to slice open the package.

Shlomi Elkabetz has boarded ground-breaking project.

The first ever feature directed by Bedouin filmmakers - and giving a rare insight into Israel’s Bedouin community - was among the 10 projects unveiled at Jerusalem Film Festival’s Pitch Point industry event over the weekend.

Entitled Eed, the drama will be set and shot in the Bedouin city of Rahat in southern Israel, a city never before shown on the big screen in feature film format.

It revolves around the titular character of Eed, a 21-year-old aspiring theatre director whose artistic ambitions and desires for personal freedom are compromised when his family...

The Alliance for Women in Media Foundation (Awmf) handed out the 43rd Annual Gracie Awards at the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles this week.

Norman Lear and Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree Rita Moreno

Credit/Copyright: Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Alliance for Women in Media

Host Lisa Joyner led the evening which included the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award to Rita Moreno by Norman Lear and a special performance by Grammy-nominated country music singer Kelsea Ballerini.

The Gracie Awards, which each year celebrate programming created by, for and about women across radio, television, cable and interactive media, hosted attendees including Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Jon Cryer, Pam Oliver, Elizabeth Smart, Loni Love, Shaun Robinson, Jeannie Mai, Gabrielle Dennis, Kevin Burkhardt, Erica Hill, Toni Trucks, Mary Louise Kelly, Robin Thede, Zerlina Maxwell, Jessica McIntosh, Tracey Wigfield, Shirley Strawberry, Rachel Nelson, Salma Abdelaziz, Paula Malcomson and more. This...

Film Movement has acquired North American rights for “Rafiki,” Wanuri Kahiu’s moving Lgbt drama that world premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard this month.

The film is a coming-of-age story about two teenage girls whose blossoming romance is opposed by their families and community. The movie was banned in Kenya, where homosexuality is illegal, with the country’s film board claiming it attempted to “promote lesbianism.”

“We’ve long championed first-time directors, releasing the first films by such notable filmmakers as Maren Ade (‘The Forest for the Trees’) and Alice Rohrwacher (‘Corpo Celeste’), among others. And we continue to champion important new voices in cinema, such as Naji Abu-Nowar (‘Theeb’), Atsuko Hirayanagi (‘Oh Lucy!’), Maysaloun Hamoud (‘In Between’), and Rungano Nyoni (‘I Am Not a Witch’),” said Film Movement president Michael Rosenberg.

“We believe that Wanuri Kahiu is another important voice, and look forward to bringing ‘Rafiki’ to North American audiences.

The new series that have sprouted up for the 2018-19 television season are taking notable steps to be more inclusive in not only its casting but also with key creative roles, but parity still hasn’t been hit yet.

Working with industry sources, Variety has identified 88 key roles in 34 scripted shows debuting on broadcast in fall 2018 and beyond. Among these roles across the five major networks are 42% women and 42% people of color. Breaking it down further, Variety has identified 18% women of color in these roles.

Looking at those behind-the-scenes in executive producer roles, 34% are women this year, while 10.7% are people of color (2.68% are women of color).

Of course, there will be personnel changes from pick-up to premiere that may alter these numbers slightly. CBS’ “The Code” and NBC’s “In Between” have already announced recasting for a key role each, while many series from first-time creators will surely be looking to attached a seasoned showrunner.

Well here we are, the first release weekend of the new year. The dumping ground for everything from studio horror cast offs like the latest in the Insidious franchise to art films continuing to make the rounds as they make their way to a hopeful Oscar nomination of some sort, this is one of the year’s more interesting portions of the calendar. Sure, for every ditched genre film you get an expanding prestige picture, but you also get the chance to see some genuinely interesting, if less buzzed about, independent films from around the world.

For example, there are films like In Between. Following a fruitful run on the 2017 film festival circuit, director Maysaloun Hamoud’s feature film directing debut begins its theatrical run in New York via Film Movement, and is a superbly made and emotionally resonant look at three young women caught in the middle of traditionalism and modernity in Tel Aviv.

To whom does the title of Maysaloun Hamoud’s assured, empathetic debut “In Between” refer? To her characters, of course, who are stuck in between their conservative cultures and their liberal desires. But also to Hamoud herself, who has been both widely praised and roundly condemned for her blunt take on the lives of young Arab-Israeli women. The fictional friends who’ve earned such disapproval are Laila (vibrant standout Mouna Hawa), Salma (Sana Jammelieh) and Nour (Shaden Kanboura), 20-something roommates in Tel Aviv. Laila is the rebel, a chain-smoking, hard-partying Palestinian lawyer. And Nour is her obvious opposite, a pious Muslim student.

Istanbul Film Festival unveils line-up and Meetings On The Bridge details.

The İstanbul Film Festival (April 5-15) has unveiled the programme for its 36th edition.

Scroll down for lineups

Despite intensive political campaigning ahead of the Turkish constitutional referendum on April 16 and an ongoing state of emergency in the country following last year’s July putsch, festival director Kerem Ayan revealed the line-up at a relatively relaxed press conference in Istanbul.

The festival will host a total of 203 films in 21 categories from 61 countries in nine venues on both sides of the Bosphorous. Among those are 13 Turkish features getting their world premieres.

Among films to compete in the international competition are Toronto hit Lady Macbeth and French immigration drama This is Our Land.

While the number of international guests set to attend the festival is expected to be down on previous years due to a series of terror attacks in the city, notable guests...

Istanbul Film Festival unveils line-up and Meetings On The Bridge details.

The İstanbul Film Festival (April 5-15) has unveiled the programme for its 36th edition.

Scroll down for lineups

Despite intensive political campaigning ahead of the Turkish constitutional referendum on April 16 and an ongoing state of emergency in the country following last year’s July putsch, festival director Kerem Ayan revealed the line-up at a relatively relaxed press conference in Istanbul.

The festival will host a total of 203 films in 21 categories from 61 countries in nine venues on both sides of the Bosphorous. Among those are 13 Turkish features getting their world premieres.

Among films to compete in the international competition are Toronto hit Lady Macbeth and French immigration drama This is Our Land.

While the number of international guests set to attend the festival is expected to be down on previous years due to a series of terror attacks in the city, notable guests...