Ilker Çatak On His Uncomfortable Teenage Experience That Sparked ‘The Teachers’ Lounge’ – Contenders International

Ninja has launched its hotly-anticipated Boxing Day sale, and has slashed £100s off some of its bestselling air fryers. Ninja is regarded by many as the premium retailer when it comes to air fryers, but the brand's gadgets don't always come cheap.

Naman Ramachandran “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” led the worldwide box office with a $108 million debut weekend, according to numbers released by Comscore. Warner Bros. and DC Studio’s “Aquaman 2” also topped the U.S.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Slow,” Marija Kavtaradze’s delicate romance, won the Crystal Arrow at the 15th edition of Les Arcs Film Festival from a jury presided over by Oscar-nominated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (“A Separation”). Kavtaradze’s sophomore outing, “Slow” world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it won best director.

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with the Paul King-directed and co-written Wonka. From Warner Bros, Village Roadshow and Heyday Films, the Timothée Chalamet starrer is also co-written by Simon Farnaby based on characters created by Roald Dahl.

Miley Cyrus to “Barbie” soundtrack standout Billie Eilish to blockbuster-tour titans Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, women rocked many of the best songs of 2023.There was even a black female songwriter — Tracy Chapman — behind a historic country hit, Luke Combs’ cover of “Fast Car.”And when the nominees for the 2024 Grammy Awards were announced last month, women ruled — make that, owned — the Big 4 categories: Album, Record and Song of the Year, plus Best New Artist.In fact, there is only one man — former “Late Show” bandleader Jon Batiste — among the eight nominees for Record of the Year.Still, a couple of octogenarian gents were not about to fade away: Even as both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards turned 80, the still-rocking Rolling Stones gave us a dose of testosterone.Here are the top 10 tracks that deserved their “Flowers” in 2023.After squeaking in her long-awaited sophomore set, “SOS,” at the end of 2022, SZA made like Uma —Thurman, that is — and killed it with her first No. 1 single.

Billboard charts in the past decade is familiar with at least some of the massive hit songs they’ve written for stars like Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Halsey, and many others.Now, after nearly 10 years of working behind the scenes and crafting countless smashes, Tranter is finally earning some well-deserved and long-overdue recognition.Tranter is one of five people currently nominated for the “Songwriter of the Year” Grammy. The category was only introduced a year ago, so very few talents have been up for the honor.

Swiss writer-director Carmen Jaquier’s Swiss-language debut feature Thunder, is about adolescent sexual awakening set at the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s the story of Elisabeth (Lilith Grasmug), a teenage novitiate who, as she’s about to take her vows, is told of her elder sister Innocente’s sudden death.

Omen is the official submission from Belgium for the International Feature Oscar category and comes from multi-hyphenate interdisciplinary artist Baloji, who makes his feature directing debut. The film had its world premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section this year where it won the New Voice Prize, before going on to play myriad festivals. Utopia is the North American distributor. 

Beginning as a simple two-hander in which a young working-class caretaker comes under the spell of his returning boss — a charismatic military man who has designs on getting into local politics — Makbul Mubarak’s debut film Autobiography soon develops into a tense psychological thriller about the way populist leaders groom and abuse their people. It works on its own terms, as a simple yet dark father-son allegory set within Indonesia’s military culture, but there’s a universality here that’s hard to miss.

2018 Everyone Is a Hero writer-director Jude Anthany Joseph was a victim of the 2018 Kerala floods in southern India, a catastrophic natural disaster that was the worst flood to hit the region in more than a century.

died on Dec. 8 at the age of 82.Co-star Ali MacGraw released a statement on Saturday regarding his death.

Filmmaker Stephan Komandarev, whose credits include two previous Bulgarian Oscar entries including the shortlisted The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, wrapped a movie trilogy about the social ills of post-communist society with Blaga’s Lessons, about the harrowing journey of a retired teacher through the dangerous world of phone scams.

Bosnian-Dutch director Ena Sendijarević’s satire Sweet Dreams unfolds on a plantation in the Dutch East Indies that is falling into decay in step with the crumbling of the Netherlands’ colonial power.

The husband-and-wife team behind 2019 feature animation Oscar nominee Loving Vincent, DK and Hugh Welchman, is back in the awards race this season with The Peasants.

Like the Japanese with their Godzilla movies, the Koreans are partial to a bit of post-apocalyptic social satire, and Um Tae-Hwa’s box office hit Concrete Utopia follows a path trailblazed in 2013 by Bong Joon-ho’s cult sci-fi Snowpiercer. Adapted from the popular webtoon Pleasant Outcast by Kim Soong Nyung and partly inspired by British writer J.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel High-Rise, it centers on a Korean apartment block whose residents become lawless after a terrifying earthquake rips through the country.

For Iranian-Australian filmmaker Noora Niasari, her debut feature Shayda has served as an authentic and honest exploration into her own personal childhood trauma. The film, which is being released by Sony Pictures Classics and won the World Cinema Dramatic Competition Audience Award in Sundance earlier this year, is Australia’s Oscar submission for the Best International Feature Oscar.

After stumbling upon a story through a link on Facebook about a team of blind footballers from Egypt who arrived in Warsaw and disappeared into thin air after it turned out they could actually see, writer-director

Society of the Snow, directed by Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona and Spain’s submission into the 2024 Oscar race, is based on the true story of the 1972 Andes flight disaster in which a flight carrying Uruguay’s Old Christians Club rugby team for a match in Santiago, Chile, crashed on a glacier at the Valle de las Lágrimas (Valley of Tears).

When most people think of Prince William’s famous wedding to Kate Middleton back in 2011, they will likely recall that William’s brother Prince Harry took on the role of best man. However while many fans may have believed the duties to have exclusively fallen on Harry’s shoulders, it has seen been revealed that one of William’s closest friends Thomas Van Straubenzee, also secretly acted as his best man on the all important big day.Thomas and William have known each other since they attended Ludgrove Prep School - over 30 years ago, with their enduring friendship having seen them both present in each other’s lives for every triumph, tragedy and milestone moment - including the birth of the royal children.

Caroline Brew editor SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for “Leave the World Behind,” now streaming on Netflix. “There was one ending that was really inevitable,” says Rumaan Alam, whose novel “Leave the World Behind” was the source material for Netflix’s latest apocalyptic thriller. “The key thing to look at … is that the book ends with a question mark.” Sam Esmail’s sci-fi feature adaptation makes a few diversions from the book, particularly in regards to the ending. But according to Alam, who also serves as an executive producer on the film, these changes were “emotionally faithful to the book.” “Leave the World Behind” follows Amanda and Clay Sandford, played by Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke, who bring their children Rose and Archie (Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans) on a beach getaway.