Netflix Stands by Arabic Film ‘Perfect Strangers’ Amid Homophobic Controversy (EXCLUSIVE)

Kanye West made a surprise appearance at the premiere of jeen-yuhs, the new Netflix documentary about him, last night (February 11).The film, the first part of which will arrive on the streaming service on Wednesday (February 16), was directed by Coodie and Chike and made over 20 years.The premiere was held at Citizen News in Hollywood yesterday and was attended by numerous celebrities including Migos’ Offset, Usher, Roddy Ricch, and Taraji P. Henson.According to Variety, West arrived 15 minutes after the screening had started and was given a chair in the front corner of the room.

EXCLUSIVE: Freestyle Digital Media has acquired North American rights to the narrative documentary Acting: The First Six Lessons, written by and starring Beau Bridges and his daughter Emily Bridges, as well as to the Batman-themed feature documentary Batman and Me, from director Michael Wayne. The digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group/Entertainment Studios plans to release both titles across VOD platforms on March 8.

Naman Ramachandran Protagonist Pictures has closed multiple deals for several key territories on Sundance selection and Berlin Film Festival competition title “Call Jane.”Territories sold include DCM for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Umbrella Entertainment for Australia and New Zealand, Mis.label for Scandinavia, Eagle for Italy, Shaw for Singapore and Empire for South Africa.Directed by Phyllis Nagy, the Oscar nominated writer of “Carol,” the film stars Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Mara and Chris Messina. The film follows Joy (Banks), a traditional 1960s housewife who unexpectedly falls pregnant and finds the Janes, an underground abortion movement led by Virginia (Weaver).

Selome Hailu Film Independent has named the winners of three unrestricted $25,000 Spirit Awards cash grants for emerging filmmakers: Alex Camilleri, Lizzie Shapiro and Jessica Beshir. The announcements were made by Ekwa Msangi (“Farewell Amor”), Gerry Kim (“I’m No Longer Here”) and Elegance Bratton (“Pier Kids”), who received the grants last year.Camilleri, director of “Luzzu,” received the Someone to Watch Award. The award is in its 28th year and recognizes talented filmmakers of singular vision who have not yet received appropriate recognition.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentOne of Scandinavia’s leading film distributors, Scanbox Entertainment is changing ownership with a new board including CEO Thor Sigurjonsson. The company was bought back from Scanbox Chairman Joni Sighvatsson. New owners include COO Kim William Beich, commercial director Torben Thorup Jorgensen, and producer Chris Briggs.

above), titled “From Jordan Peele,” gives equal time to both his Oscar-winning “Get Out” and its successful follow-up “Us,” including the spooky “Us”-ified version of Luniz’s 1995 jam “I Got 5 On It.” Of course, at the very end of the spot we get a look at “Nope,” namely cast members Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun (who somehow looks even more dashing in a cowboy hat), all looking ominously to the sky. (The poster featured a sinister-looking cloud.)We don’t know much else about “Nope,” besides that the cast also features Barbie Ferreira, Brandon Perea, and Michael Wincott, and that it was shot by Christopher Nolan’s regular cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (who shot some of it for IMAX).

Zack Sharf First look footage from Jordan Peele’s “Nope” has arrived in a teaser video touting the movie’s full trailer release on Super Bowl Sunday. The brief footage provides the first look at Peele’s cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Steven Yeun and Keke Palmer. “Nope” is Peele’s directorial follow-up to acclaimed horror films “Get Out” and “Us,” both of which earned $255 million at the worldwide box office upon their releases.“Nope” once again teams Peele with Universal Pictures.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe Gucci family saga isn’t quite over.Just months after the release of Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci” — a film that could see Lady Gaga nominated for her second Oscar — a TV drama and documentary focusing on the Gucci family is in the works from Comcast-backed Sky Studios.The company is in early stages of development on a high-end TV series, and is in pre-production on a documentary series, both of which will tell “the story of a great family and a great brand,” says producer Nils Hartmann, senior VP for Sky Studios Germany and Italy.Both projects were brought to Sky by Leone Film Group, which has an agreement with several members of the Gucci family, including Alessandro Gucci, Guccio Gucci Jr. and Giorgio Gucci.

accused of sexual assault and rape.) There are plenty of other reasons to wish the perfectly watchable “Death” had been better, if only because it’s already an upgrade from the flat, purposeless “Express.” This one’s trappings are plusher, its puzzle and solution niftier, yet still not totally there as a smoothly glamorous, engrossing piece of escapism.Christie aficionados may wonder what a grey WWI prologue in Belgium’s blood-soaked trenches has to do with Mediterranean misadventure. But Branagh and Green believe, a tad obnoxiously, that Poirot is more interesting if he’s less comical oddball and more heavy-headed hero with a lost love.

Netflix is more than ready to keep fans entertained this year, thanks to their star-studded slate of upcoming films!

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterMaybe you’ve been patiently waiting two years for director Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” sequel. It could be the team-up of Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans and Ana de Armas in “The Gray Man” that strikes your fancy.

sequel.In the quick clip towards the end of the promo, Daniel Craig's Detective Benoit Blanc is seen boarding a boat in the Mediterranean, along with some of new A-list cast members, like Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr. and more.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe year 2022 has started out strong for Netflix in Arabic-speaking countries, where its edgy originals are making a punchy debut.The streamer’s first Arab original film, “Perfect Strangers,” sparked an uproar in socially conservative Egypt due to its portrayal of a gay male character and taboo storylines. Meanwhile, “Finding Ola” toplines Cairo-based Tunisian star Hend Sabry as a happy divorcee who embarks on a journey of self-discovery after her divorce. Both are reflections of the streamer’s thematically groundbreaking strategy in the region, says Nuha Eltayeb, Netflix’s director of acquisitions in MENA and Turkey.“We’re looking for content that will create impact for the viewers, where they will find it authentic and representative, and at the same time relatable to their day-to-day storylines,” says Eltayeb.

EXCLUSIVE: BET has acquired the short Why Not?, exec produced by Los Angeles Laker Russell Westbrook. The film showcasing the culture of Crenshaw will kick off the network’s new digital edition of its Black Film Friday series, celebrating Black artistry—debuting on BET Digital on February 4.

Ever wondered how some women walk around in high heels all day? Especially when our feet severely ache after just 5 minutes of wearing them. Well, fans of Holly Willoughby, Amanda Holden and Kate Middleton have been wondering this for years.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent“Suits,” the hit U.S. TV show created by Aaron Korsh, is getting a high-end Arabic adaptation that will play on prominent West Asia satellite pay-TV and streaming service Orbit Showtime Network (OSN) and Egyptian broadcaster UMS.NBCUniversal Formats, a division of Universal Studio Group, has teamed up with Cairo-based media production company TVision and OSN, as well as Egypt’s UMS, to produce the Arabic redo of the show.

CAIRO -- A Lebanese father tells his teenage daughter she is free to choose whether to have sex with her boyfriend despite his reservations.An Egyptian wife discreetly slips off her black, lacy underwear from under her clothes before heading out for dinner, and it’s not her husband she’s trying to tantalize.And in a dramatic moment, a man reveals that he is gay, a secret he has kept from his longtime friends who are shocked — but seem mostly accepting.The scenes in the first Arabic Netflix movie have sparked a public drama as intense as the one that plays out onscreen. On social media and TV talk shows and among friends in Egypt and other Middle East countries, a torrent of critics have denounced the film as a threat to family and religious values, encouraging homosexuality and unfit for Arab societies.Others have rallied to the film’s defense, saying detractors are in denial about what happens behind closed doors in real life.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAs we enter the final countdown to the Feb. 8 Oscar nominations announcement, Isabella Rossellini is clearly rooting for Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” which is Italy’s candidate for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and among the shortlisted titles.To help promote the pic with Academy voters, Rossellini engaged in an online chat with the director and young Italian actor Filippo Scotti, who plays Sorrentino’s alter-ego Fabietto in the pic. She also wore a gold horn amulet that belonged to her father, the late great Italian master Roberto Rossellini, for good luck.Here are edited excerpts of the conversation, to which Variety has been given exclusive access.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItaly’s True Colours has taken international sales on “Perfect Strangers” director Paolo Genovese’s new movie, a comedy drama titled “The First Day of My Life.”The Rome-based sales company will be launching pre-sales at the upcoming online EFM market on Genovese’s latest concept pic, which has echoes of Frank Capra’s classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”Based on Genovese’s novel of the same title, which was a bestseller in Italy, “The First Day of My Life” revolves around four characters on the brink of taking their lives who make a pact with a stranger with supernatural powers, played by “The Great Beauty” star Toni Servillo. The mystery man gives them a chance to travel forward in time to see for a week how their friends and relatives would react to their deaths and what the world would be like without them.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentNaples-set young adult series “The Sea Beyond,” which depicts the world of a juvenile jail in the crime-ridden Italian city, is scoring a slew of international sales prompted by its phenomenal ratings on pubcaster RAI.Germany’s Beta Film, which is selling the show about kids behind bars produced by Rome-based Picomedia and RAI Fiction, has inked deals with WarnerMedia Latin America for HBO Max, Sweden’s free-to-air channel TV4, cabler HOT for Israel, and streamer Blu TV in Turkey.The deals mark a rare case of an Italian young adult series traveling abroad.Set in a youth detention center overlooking the bay of Naples, “The Sea Beyond” depicts a world populated by kids apparently without hope, “given that they mostly belong to [the Camorra] organized crime syndicate that Naples is known for,” said Picomedia chief Roberto Sessa, who added that the show also has “all the color and vitality of that city.” Instead, “It’s like the flip side of ‘Gomorrah’ in that it gives a sense of hope,” Sessa noted, because “there is light at the end of the tunnel for these kids.”Sessa also pointed out that they took some poetic license by making the youth penitentiary a place for both men and women who get to interact “with all the relationships and passions that stem from this.”The jail warden is a woman named Paola Vinci, played by Carolina Crescentini (“Bastards of Pizzofalcone”).Directed by Carmine Elia, Milena Cocozza, and Ivan Silvestrini, “The Sea Beyond” is now at its second season which debuted on RAI in mid-November 2021 both on the pubcaster’s linear RAI 2 channel and on its RAI Play streaming platform.It has become a minor phenomenon in Italy because it’s the first show that proved a