Glasgow City Council advertise top £200k job amid plan to axe 450 teachers in budget cuts

Christopher Vourlias Iranian filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi‘s “My Stolen Planet,” an intimate family portrait of life during Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival on Sunday, bringing a close to an emotional and politically charged week in Greece’s second city. Using both the director’s personal archives and 8mm recordings of strangers’ lives, the film — which world premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand — uses an essayistic style to present the joy and vitality of life in Tehran in the 1970s, in contrast with the oppression imposed on the Iranian people by the country’s hardline regime.

Council chiefs are set to splash almost half a million on Ayr as part of a new vision for the town centre.

EXCLUSIVE: The Bear creator Christopher Storer is shooting Season 3 of the 10-time Emmy-winning show in Chicago, but he’s lined up a big feature project at Warner Bros: the big-screen take of Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway.

Despite assurances at this week's Spring Budget that the average UK worker would benefit from yet another cut to National Insurance tax, many across the country are unlikely to notice a difference at the end of each month as taxes and fixed costs continue to rise across the board. In fact, continued cost of living pressures mean the average worker in Greater Manchester is unlikely to notice any difference at all.

Jeremy Hunt will announce the Spring Budget today amid mounting speculation National Insurance will be cut in a boost for workers.

Christopher Vourlias Viola Davis and Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions, which recently wrapped the action-thriller “G20” for Amazon Studios and MRC Film in Cape Town, is planning to return to South Africa to film the true story of a young African refugee’s improbable journey to the U.S., the company’s head of film production and development, Melanie Clark, revealed this week at the Joburg Film Festival. Developing the film with a working title of “The Refugee,” Clark said Davis and Tennon’s production banner is “actively working on [it] with some local partners and are in the process of figuring out how to shoot it” in South Africa, adding that “we do plan to shoot that here.” The veteran production executive described the project as “the true story of a young Sierra Leonean boy who lost his mother in [the country’s civil war] and found himself alone, because no family would take him in any refugee camp.

Rishi Sunak has hinted at further cuts to national insurance in next week's Spring Budget.

Playwright Christopher Durang has been named the recipient of The Dramatists Guild of America’s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award, joining a prestigious roster of such past awardees as John Guare, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Miller.

Willie Nelson is going all out for this year’s ‘Outlaw Music Festival.’From June through September, the 90-year-old’s annual, star-studded traveling jamboree will include Bob Dylan at all concerts as well as Robert Plant, John Mellencamp and Billy Strings on select dates.New Yorkers and New Jerseyans are in luck, too.On Saturday, June 29, Nelson, Dylan and Plant will drop into Wantagh’s Jones Beach Theater.The next night, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame trio are scheduled to perform at Holmdel’s PNC Bank Arts Center.They’ll also stop into Syracuse, Bethel and Buffalo along the way.“This year’s Outlaw Music Festival Tour promises to be the biggest and best yet with this lineup of legendary artists,” Nelson told Rolling Stone. “I am thrilled to get back on the road again with my family and friends playing the music we love for the fans we love.”And if you want to catch this legendary group live, you can snatch tickets up as soon as today for all 2024 ‘Outlaw Music Festival’ concerts.Although inventory isn’t available on Ticketmaster until Friday, March 1, fans who want to ensure they have tickets ahead of time can purchase on sites like Vivid Seats before tickets are officially on sale.Vivid Seats is a secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand.They have a 100% buyer guarantee that states your transaction will be safe and secure and will be delivered before the event.A complete calendar including all tour dates, venues, support acts and links to buy tickets can be found below.Note: All tour dates include Willie Nelson & Family and Bob Dylan; they are not listed as support acts in the calendar. On top of the tour, the Red Headed Stranger is hitting the road on

Thania Garcia Willie Nelson and Family are set to play the 2024 Outlaw Music Festival Tour with headliners Bob Dylan, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, John Mellencamp, Brittney Spencer, Celisse and Southern Avenue. Billy Strings will also join the tour for one show at The Gorge in Seattle. In a statement, Nelson said, “This year’s Outlaw Music Festival Tour promises to be the biggest and best yet with this lineup of legendary artists.

Cops have released CCTV images of a man and woman in connection with a robbery in Glasgow city-centre.

BBC).The cuts will also hit the city’s cultural life, with music venues expected to be impacted. Among the announced casualties are funding for the Birmingham International Dance Festival, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the IKON Gallery.Lyle Bignon, who represents the Night Time Industries Association for Birmingham, has said: “The proposed cuts to council culture budgets confirm what many of us working in arts, culture, entertainment, music and NTE in Birmingham have known for some time.“Our city’s council, regional authorities, and key agencies have simply not placed enough value on culture over the years, despite its proven social and economic benefits.”“[These] announcements sound a major alarm for Birmingham’s creative community as well as cultural professionals and audiences across the UK,” Bignon added.The news comes at a time when the national infrastructure around live music is at a crisis point.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sebastian Stan, whose “A Different Man” screens in the Berlin Film Festival, Christoph Waltz and Tom Wlaschiha, the “Faceless Man” in “Game of Thrones,” were among the guests at Studio Babelsberg Night, the historic Berlin film studios’ party at Soho House Berlin held to celebrate the 74th edition of the festival. The event was supported by Mexican tequila brand Don Julio, the Motion Picture Assn. and Little Moons.

In perhaps one of the best feel-good stories in Hollywood this year, a coalition of 35 filmmakers have invested in a coalition to save Los Angeles’ fabled Westwood Village Theater. Organized by Jason Reitman, the group will book first-run features and repertory programming from the theater’s directors/caretakers.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor UPDATED: Jason Reitman has gathered more than two dozen filmmakers to help acquire Westwood’s historic Village Theater, which will program first-run and repertory programming. The group includes JJ Abrams, Judd Apatow, Damien Chazelle, Chris Columbus, Ryan Coogler, Bradley Cooper, Alfonso Cuarón, Jonathan Dayton, Guillermo del Toro, Valerie Faris, Hannah Fidell, Alejandro González Iñárritu, James Gunn, Sian Heder, Rian Johnson, Gil Kenan, Karyn Kusama, Justin Lin, Phil Lord, David Lowery, Christopher McQuarrie, Chris Miller, Christopher Nolan, Alexander Payne, Todd Phillips, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Jay Roach, Seth Rogen, Emma Seligman, Brad Silberling, Steven Spielberg, Emma Thomas, Denis Villeneuve, Lulu Wang, and Chloé Zhao.

Thania Garcia Berner, the American rapper and CEO behind the cannabis brand Cookies, in association with 4 Ways Entertainment, has set the cast for their first joint film, “Splash City.” Alex Ferrufino, David Mansanalez, John Mercado, and Arie Rose of 4 Ways are set to produce the coming-of-age thriller set against the backdrop of “the real and raw subculture of the San Francisco Bay Area,” according to a press release. The script for “Splash City” was written by David Mansanalez and Berner, with Ferrufino directing the film.

Well, this is certainly good timing. David Krumholtz, who appears in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” as Isidor Isaac Rabi, one of Oppenheimer’s best friends from an early age, is having a moment.

Christopher Nolan used his acceptance speech at tonight’s BAFTA Film Awards to acknowledge the people who have fought for nuclear disarmament.He won the Best Director award at the ceremony in London tonight (February 18) for his work on Oppenheimer, a biopic about Robert J. Oppenheimer, the real-life American physicist who played a pivotal role in the creation of the atomic bomb in World War II.Often dubbed ‘the father of the atomic bomb’, Oppenheimer was instrumental in the creation of the nuclear weapons that were used in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict in human history.Nolan took to the stage at the Royal Festival Hall to accept his award, and made reference to the end of his film, in which the title character articulates his fear that his work may not have saved the world, but hastened its end.“I do just want to say, our film ends on what I think is a dramatically necessary note of despair,” he said.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Focus Features has bought international rights to Brady Corbet‘s “The Brutalist,” starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce and Joe Alwyn, Variety has learned. Corbet, who sits on the Berlinale jury, penned the film with Mona Fastvold (“The World to Come”), a Swedish filmmaker who is also his wife. The film charts 30 years in the lives of visionary architect László Toth and his wife, Erzsébet, who flee post-war Europe in 1947 and witness the birth of modern America.

What’s next for Christopher Nolan after “Oppenheimer“? Variety reports that the director doesn’t have exact plans yet for his next film, but he’d consider making a horror movie, so long as the idea was “really exceptional.” READ MORE: Christopher Nolan Wins 2024 DGA Award For ‘Oppenheimer’ Nolan talked about his love of the horror genre at an event at BFI last night in London.