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Omar Sharif Jr., grandson of the Doctor Zhivago star, is currently in the news because he has come out as a gay man who happens to be half-Jewish (on his mother's side) in an essay found in The Advocate — one accompanied by a photograph showing a hairy, buffed-up, bare-chested man (Sharif Jr.?) holding the Egyptian flag. In the essay, the 29-year-old Montreal-born actor explains he wrote the piece out of "fear for my country, fear for my family, and fear for myself." As per Sharif Jr., the problem is that in Egypt "the full spectrum of equal and human rights are now wedge issues used by both the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces and the Islamist parties, when they should be regarded as universal truths." Further down in his piece, he adds: And so I hesitantly confess: I am Egyptian, I am half Jewish, and I am gay.

Yesterday, the Winnipeg Free Press published an article about the casting of Canadian director Kevin Tierney's upoming comedy, French Immersion.

This will be the directorial debut of Kevin Tierney who has always worked as a producer. The film will talk about the old topic about the division between French and English speakers in Canada.

The story follows five English-speakers: one each from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, Ontario and New York. The five of them decide to go in a small town of Quebec to learn French in a school. Besides, the school is run with an iron fist: everything must be done in French. Besides, the five participants are under constant surveillance, because they have to live in an adoptive family of the village during their two-weeks stay. However, those who escaped from the school's grip in order to speak English at the village's Indian restaurant will realize that everybody...

Quebec knows Fabienne Larouche for penning Virginie, a daily (and uninteresting) soap opera taking place in high school. Now, since many months, it has been announced that Radio-Canada will come up with a medical drama written by Larouche. For what I know, we shouldn't expect to see an imitation of Grey's Anatomy or ER.

Shot with a budget of $710,000 per hour (which is a lot for the French Canadian market) for 10 episodes, the series follows Dr Julie Lemieux (Isabelle Richer), is the head of the St-Arsène Hospital's traumatology wing. Each week, this dramatic TV series explores different facets of life as a surgeon when it comes to professional ethics, their reaction when a patient dies or their own personal weaknesses. In fact, Dr Pierre Meilleur (James Hyndman) drinks too much. Sophie Léveillé (Laurence Leboeuf), the young intern, does too much mistakes.

The show also stars Jean-François Pichette, Catherine de Léan,...