Jafar Panahi’s Wife Issues Fresh Appeal For Imprisoned Iranian Director As Release Hopes Dashed

MGM+ new original fantasy-adventure comedy The Portable Door will debut exclusively on MGM+ and coming exclusively to the U.S. market in April. The comedy stars multi-time Golden Globe nominee Sam Neill (Peter Rabbit, Jurassic Park) and Patrick Gibson (The OA, Tolkien), joining two-time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained, No Time to Die) and Sophie Wilde (Eden, You Don’t Know Me). The award-winning Jeffrey Walker (Ali’s Wedding, Lambs of God) directed the film, which is adapted by Leon Ford (Griff the Invisible) from Tom Holt’s popular seven-book fantasy series. 

Miley Cyrus looks set to secure a straight month at Number 1 in the UK, with Flowers on track to keep its spot at the top of the Official Singles Chart.

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been released from Evin prison in Tehran.

Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, French filmmaker Alice Diop and Romanian director Cristian Mungiu have demanded that Iran’s Fajr International Film Festival remove their films from the line-up of its current edition, running from February 1 to 11.

Dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has gone on hunger strike to protest his ongoing detention at Iran’s notoriously harsh Evin prison, even though his sentence has been declared void by the country’s Supreme Court.

Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi led a demonstration in support of the people of Iran and the artists who have been detained by the country’s political regime at the Göteborg Film Festival Tuesday evening.

Prince Andrew may have avoided jail time and gotten his sexual assault settlement paid from out of the royal coffers — but he’s not exactly counting his blessings.

A few weeks after Zar Amir-Ebrahimi won the Best Actress Award in Cannes for her performance as journalist Arezoo Rahimi in crime thriller Holy Spider, the Iranian-French actor flew to Melbourne, Australia, to take part in what was set to be another urgent story from an Iranian filmmaker: Noora Niasari’s debut feature Shayda. 

Ghislaine Maxwell is officially jumping on board with a conspiracy theory that MANY people share. Her new take is that her former lover

Maryam Keshavarz, Noora Niasari and Sierra Urich have films at Sundance this year, two narrative features and a doc, wrenching and joyful family stories of the Iranian diaspora threaded with longing, regret and rebellion. None deal with ongoing civil unrest there, but it colors the filmmakers’ work and life.  

Berlinale artistic director Carlo Chatrian and executive director Mariëtte Rissenbeck reveal the festival’s main Competition and Encounters selections at a press conference on Monday, January 23, as they gear up for their first fully in-person edition since 2020 from February 16 to 26.

The Berlinale staunchly condemns Russia’s ongoing war of aggression, which violates international law, and expresses its solidarity with the people in Ukraine and all those who are campaigning against this war. The festival also stands with the courageous protesters in Iran as they defend themselves against a violent, undemocratic regime.In expressing this solidarity, the festival will not exclude filmmakers, artists, industry representatives or journalists because of their Russian or Iranian nationality.

More than 100 key figures from the UK film and TV industry have signed a letter urging the UK government to take “immediate action” against Iranian authorities for “gross violations of human rights and women’s rights” in their response to the wave of public protests that erupted last year.

Old flames! Sean Penn and ex-wife Robin Wright were spotted out together for the first time in years after their splits from Leila George and Clément Giraudet, respectively.