EXCLUSIVE: As they should, the Black List will be celebrating its 20th anniversary with some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed artists and a cinema institution next year.
01.12.2023 - 08:57 / variety.com
Alissa Simon Film Critic From its jaunty animated credits to its absurdly satisfying conclusion, “Voy! Voy! Voy!” is a saucy and blackly comic look at immigration. An entertaining first feature inspired by stranger-than-fiction actual events from seasoned adman Omar Hilal, here serving as director, writer and producer, Egypt’s official Oscar submission nabbed the top spot at the local box office for two months following its mid-September domestic release and also played well in the Gulf states.
Boasting a smart screenplay with serious undertones and a powerhouse cast with impeccable timing, it’s an audience-friendly affair that could score some distribution in the west. The action is set in 2013, a time of political turmoil in Egypt, although that is not overly stressed.
Cheerfully amoral chief protagonist Hassan (Mohamed Farrag) is willing to try almost anything to escape his financially challenged, dead-end life as a security guard and head to Europe. When his opportunity to upgrade from gigolo to husband of a 70-year-old British woman ends abruptly and the expensive journey touted by people smugglers proves too complicated (the scenario vividly played out in Hassan’s imagination is hilarious), he decides to feign vision loss and join a special needs soccer team who are almost on their way to the Blind World Cup in Poland.
The other main character (and the film’s voiceover narrator) is the team’s gentle coach, Captain Adel (Bayoumi Fouad), who hopes that the players’ success will lead to further coaching gigs. He’s happy to welcome the apparently talented Hassan to the squad, although the newcomer’s skill and coordination attracts the suspicion of the team’s sighted goalie.
EXCLUSIVE: As they should, the Black List will be celebrating its 20th anniversary with some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed artists and a cinema institution next year.
John Bleasdale Guest Contributor When writer-director Mohamed Kordofani first conceived of the film “Goodbye Julia,” he realized that he didn’t have a single friend from South Sudan — “and there are millions who live in Khartoum.” Now he has hundreds, he tells Variety. The first Sudanese film to premiere in the Un Certain Regard sidebar in Cannes, his debut feature won the Prix de la Liberté and is now the official Sudanese entry for the Academy Awards, with Lupita Nyong’o on board as an executive producer. The film had its Middle East and North Africa premiere this week at El Gouna Film Festival, where Kordofani was awarded the Variety MENA Region Talent Award.
There’s a lot to take in and even more to process in American-Armenian director Michael Goorjian’s ambitious period piece: What he’s tilting at here is not beyond the realms of comedy, as Armando Iannucci proved with his 2017 jet-black satire The Death of Stalin. But tone is crucial, and Amerikatsi has a waywardness that too often undermines its intent — there’s a lot that works here and so much that doesn’t. There are moments that are sensitive, thoughtful, and really quite moving — in an elegant, silent-movie way — but the framing is so dark in its humor that many viewers may never make it to them.
Danger is never very far away in Noora Niasari’s confident debut, a deeply personal tribute to a generation torn between tradition and modernity. Focusing on the title character, Shayda hangs on a vulnerable but powerful performance from Holy Spider’s Zar Amir Ebrahimi as an Iranian divorcée hiding out from her abusive ex, who may or may not be planning to smuggle their daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia) back to Iran.
The official German Oscar entry for Best International Feature is an insular, pulse-pounding thriller set within the confines of a school that, for cinematic purposes, doubles as a microcosm of society in general circa 2023 where facts don’t matter, misinformation is rampant, suspicions run hot, divisions run deep, racism still rears its ugly head, and no one can be quite sure where, and even if they want to, fit in.
Caroline Brew editor Director Abdulelah Alqurashi sat down with Variety’s senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay at Variety’s Artisans Screening Series to break down his film “Alhamour H.A.,” Saudi Arabia’s official Oscars submission. The film is based on the true story of one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest con artists, a former security guard named Hamed who grows rich by convincing people to make dubious investments. Alqurashi lived in Jedda as a banker while the scam was happening.
Naman Ramachandran A brace of films exploring important subjects are in contention from India in the best live action short film category at the 96th Academy Awards. Reema Maya’s “Nocturnal Burger,” an investigation of child abuse at a dysfunctional police station in Mumbai, had its world premiere at Sundance. It has since traveled to more than 50 film festivals globally and won 34 awards including the Oscar-qualifying Golden Chair for best international short at KortfilmFestivalen, Norway.
In a clip from the documentary, Little Richard: I Am Everything, we hear the young entertainer singing an early version of what would become his signature tune, “Tutti Frutti.” But surprise! The original lyrics were different than the ones we know today: “Tutti frutti, good booty/Tutti frutti, good booty!”
The Federation Of Motion Film Producers of Hong Kong has issued a statement to confirm that Hong Kong’s official Oscars submission, A Light Never Goes Out, has been disqualified from the race.
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
Michael Nordine author Greed may not be good, but it is universal. And while America would appear to have a monopoly on movies about the pursuit of wealth for wealth’s sake, plenty of other nations have exported their version of the rags-to-riches tale — of which Saudi Arabia’s Oscar submission, “Alhamour H.A.,” is just the latest.
Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor The third edition of the Red Sea Souk, the market arm of the Red Sea Film Festival, awarded its top prize of $100,000 to “The Return of the Prodigal Son” by Rani Massalha. Another eight feature projects and two TV series were awarded cash and in-kind prizes as part of the Red Souk Awards.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Netflix has boarded Saudi Arabian multi-hyphenate Fatima Al-Banawi’s feature film debut “Basma” which tackles the theme of mental illness in her country. The groundbreaking film is set in Jeddah, the city on the Red Sea’s eastern shore where Saudi’s Red Sea Film Festival is currently underway.
Alissa Simon Film Critic Egypt’s Oscar submission “Voy! Voy! Voy!,” from director-writer-producer Omar Hilal, is a blackly comic look at migration viewed through the lens of a conman pretending to be visually impaired in order to play in the Blind Football World Cup. The fast-paced, entertaining film makes its Moroccan debut in the Special Screenings section of the Marrakech Film Festival. Following its September premiere in Egypt, it held the top box-office spot for two months and did remarkably well in the Gulf states.
made Taylor Swift do!On November 30, Taylor Swift attended the London premiere of Queen Bey's wearing a glittering high-slit dress with black pumps and her signature red lip.Tabloids first that Swift hopped on a flight from Kansas City, Missouri, to London on November 29 to make it in time for the big event after missing due an Eras Tour performance in Brazil.The wait, of course, was worth it. In , Swift can be seen posing on the carpet and even taking some selfies with fans.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Stuart Ford’s independent content company AGC Studios is partnering with Egyptian star Mohamed Karim’s MK Global Entertainment to produce “Judgment of the Dead,” an English-language thriller steeped in ancient Egypt’s lore. Karim is known across the Middle East as a former host of talent show “The Voice of Arabia” and for roles in popular Ramadan soaps. He is concurrently pursuing a Hollywood career that has led to roles alongside Nicolas Cage in 2019 action movie “A Score to Settle” and with Bruce Willis in “A Day to Die.” U.S.
The Israeli military has said 10 Israelis and two foreigners being held hostage in Gaza have been released and arrived in Egypt on the fifth day of a temporary ceasefire.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, after being postponed due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, has announced it will hold a special edition from Dec. 14 to 21.
Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, which put its sixth edition on hold in October due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, has announced it will run a special edition from December 14 to 21.
A five-year-old British national has tragically died while on holiday in Egypt.