City Baghdad Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Ubisoft has launched a new update for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, bringing New Game Plus mode to the action adventure game.Update 1.0.6 went live today (December 12) and introduces New Game Plus mode to Assassin’s Creed Mirage. “Upon completing the main story on any difficulty, start a new game while keeping all collected skills and gear/costumes from your first playthrough,” reads the patch notes.Players will also be able to start New Game Plus playthrough via the title screen or pause menu, as well as being able to skip the prologue and start directly in Baghdad.Starting a New Game Plus playthrough will also unlock Bayek’s Medjay outfit from Assassin’s Creed Origins.

Alex Ritman Production banner FlipNarrative, set up by Waleed Zuaiter — the BAFTA-nominated star of “Baghdad Central” and “Gangs of London” and Oscar-nominated producer of “Omar” — has optioned the rights to Shannon Chakraborty’s latest novel “The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi,” with plans to develop it into a multi-season series and gaming platform. The book — the first in a trilogy being published by Harper Voyager — is a swashbuckling high seas adventure following a notorious Muslim pirate captain who has survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands and an actual demon before retiring to a life of piety.

Lise Pedersen Paris-based outfit Cat&Docs has acquired world sales for “Immortals,” the sophomore feature film by Swiss director Maja Tschumi (“Rotzloch”), which will compete in the main competition at leading European documentary festival CPH:DOX. “We’re excited to bring this exceptional and important documentary to the international market.

Barry Keoghan is staying booked and busy!

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Hamzah Jamjoom’s eco-thriller “Running Dry,” which will start principal photography on Dec. 26, has revealed its leading cast members. The film will star Baraa Alem (“The Book of Sun,” “HWJN,” “Route 10”), Waleed Zuaiter (“Gangs of London,” “Baghdad Central,” “Omar”), Houshang Touzie (“Homeland,” “Argo,” “Madame Secretary”), Naif Aldaferi (“Rashash,” ” HWJN”) and Ali Fardi (“7-OD,” “Only Death Never Lies,” “Marokkaanse Bruiloft”).

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Iraqi director Ahmed Yassin Al-Daradji — who in 2022 won the Red Sea Film Festival‘s top prize with “Hanging Gardens” — will next direct black comedy ”Madness and Honey Days,” in which an audacious theatre director offends Saddam Hussein on stage and winds up in a psychiatric hospital to avoid a punishment of tongue-cutting followed by the death sentence. Segueing from “Hanging Gardens,” in which a 12-year-old boy finds a discarded American sex doll amid the Baghdad trash and then becomes caught in military crossfire, Al-Daradji is continuing to work with tropes that stem from the absurdities and atrocities of his home country’s recent past.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic We’ve had genies of the playful, wish-granting “Thief of Baghdad” type, and more recently quite a number of evil djinn in horror movies. But it’s hard to recall a prior screen portrait of the same malleable Arabic mythological creatures quite like “HWJN,” which takes the cuddlesome, anthropomorphic “They’re just like us, only magical!” view of Pixar animations and such in depicting modern-day jinn (the term’s more accurate translation) who invisibly live alongside humans. Yasir Alyasiri’s visually appealing fantasy, which kicked off the Red Sea Film Fest, is at times too innocuous in tone and pedestrian in story ideas.

Holly Jones “Lonely Hearts,” the highly-anticipated third feature from Brazil’s Berlinale-winner Caru Alves de Souza (“My Name Is Baghdad”), named among 10 Next Gen Talents to Track from the country by Variety in February, and a pair of additional homecoming narratives from burgeoning creatives, Uruguayan director Paula Botana’s“The Burned Women” and Dora Gomez’s “Blanca” out of Paraguay, are among the titles selected for Ventana Sur’s 2023 Punto Genero pitching sessions. Histories unearthed and intimate interpersonal relationships are dominant themes in the remaining selections with films like Argentina-Spain co-production “Brücher.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Jon Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Rita Wilson and more stars performed as a tribute to U.S. veterans and their families at the New York Comedy Festival and Bob Woodruff Foundation’s Stand Up for Heroes event Monday. Held at David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the night included performances from musicians and comics, including Stewart, Springsteen, Wilson, Josh Groban, John Mellencamp, Tracy Morgan, The War and Treaty, Jimmy Carr, Ronny Chieng and Shane Gillis.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage has been said to be a tribute to a fan’s pet who passed away before the game was released.In the game, the player is able to pick up and fuss cats that are strolling the streets of Baghdad. Interacting with animals is a feature that has been present in a lot of the Assassin’s Creed games, but Valhalla and Mirage are the only ones that let the character pet the animal for as long as they want.

EXCLUSIVE: DCTV, the nonprofit acclaimed as “New York City’s preeminent community of and for documentary storytellers,” is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a series spotlighting the work of DCTV founders, the filmmaking couple Keiko Tsuno and Jon Alpert.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is in fact launching one week earlier than expected as it was announced by Ubisoft that the game has gone gold on August 14.“On behalf of the entire team, we can’t wait for you to explore 9th Century Baghdad with Basim,” said the studio.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Iraqi film director and writer Amer Alwan, whose moving drama “Zaman, the Man From the Reeds” was shot right before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and had its North-American premiere at Tribeca in 2004, has died at 66. Alwan, who had long been living in France, died surrounded by family at the Simone Veil Hospital in the French town of Eaubonne on July 4 after battling an unspecified form of cancer for a year, his daughter, Camille Alwan, said by email. He was buried at Saint-Ouen Cemetery in Paris. Born in Babylon-Hills, Iraq, in 1957, Alwan graduated from Iraq’s National School of Drama and Arts and continued his studies at the Audio Visual School of Baghdad, which led to him doing TV work in Iraq. Then in 1980, he left Iraq to earn an advanced degree in philosophy of art and society from Paris’ prestigious Sorbonne university.

A major terrorist attack is being planned on a UK public gathering by British ISIS fighters, The Mirror has revealed.

Naman Ramachandran Tribeca Festival-bound short documentary “One Good Reason,” by Emmy-winning directors Perri Peltz and Matthew O’Neill, has unveiled a trailer. The 25-minute film, produced by Tribeca Studios in partnership with ServiceNow, follows the journey of a Ukrainian family with two young children as they flee the war in their home country, the generosity of an American couple in rural Wisconsin – complete strangers – who offer to be their sponsors and the bond they create together. The film features the online platform created by Welcome.US, which allows Americans to connect with people seeking refuge in the U.S. through the government’s humanitarian programs, which require the support of a sponsor. It tells the story of the Hnatiuk family as they make the difficult decision to leave Ukraine and begin a new life in rural Wisconsin with their sponsors, Bryce and Maxine Luchterhand. As the Hnatiuks adjust to life in Unity, Wisconsin — a small town of 384 people – and worry about the fate of their relatives who remain in Ukraine, they also find connection and community with the Luchterhands.

Naman Ramachandran Disney+ is set to take viewers on a journey through Tudor England with its latest series, “Shardlake.” Based on the internationally acclaimed Tudor murder mystery novels by C.J. Sansom, the four-part drama is set in 16th century England during the dissolution of the monasteries. The series will follow the story of Matthew Shardlake, played by Arthur Hughes (“The Innocents,” “Then Barbara Met Alan”), a lawyer with an acute sense of justice and one of the few honest men in a world beset with scheming and plots. Shardlake works for Thomas Cromwell, played by Sean Bean (“Time,” “Game of Thrones”), the dangerous and all-powerful right-hand man to Henry VIII.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Fremantle has acquired a majority stake in Belgium’s A Team Productions the indie outfit behind hit drug gang drama “Patsers” by directorial duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah and standout short “ “Baghdad Messi.”  The company, which was founded in 2009, is headed by Kobe van Steenberghe and Hendrik Verthé and scored its first major international in 2011 with the short “Land of the Heroes” which won the International Jury Prize at the Berlinale that year. They are also behind short “Baghdad Messi,” by Belgium-based Kurdish director Sahim Omar Kalifa, which won prizes at dozens of international fests and was shortlisted for an Academy Award in 2014.

Fremantle Acquires Majority Stake In Belguim’s A Team ProductionsFremantle has acquired a majority stake in A Team Productions (ATP). Based in Belgium, A Team Productions was founded in 2009 and is led by Kobe van Steenberghe and Hendrik Verthé. The company is behind the 2011 short film Land of the Heroes, which won the International Jury Prize at Berlin in 2011. A Team also produced the short Baghdad Messi, which was shortlisted for an Academy Award in 2014. Other credits from the outfit include Patser (Gangsta) by filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. Later this year, A Team will release the feature-length film Baghdad Messi and the high-end fiction series Alter Ego. “I have long admired Kobe, Hendrik, and the whole ATP team’s work,” said Dave Heuten, CEO Fremantle Belgium. “I am excited to be going on this journey with them, finding synergies and developing new content together – I can’t wait to work with this brilliant team and achieve great things together.”

The mothers of heroic Scots soldiers who were killed in Iraq have vowed they will never forgive former PM Tony Blair on the 20th anniversary of the Gulf War.

Naman Ramachandran ITV has revealed first-look images for crime drama “Six Four,” starring Kevin McKidd (“Grey’s Anatomy”) and Vinette Robinson (“Boiling Point,” “Sherlock”) as leads Chris and Michelle O’Neill. The four-part drama, inspired by the bestselling novel “Six Four” by Hideo Yokoyama, is created by BAFTA Scotland-winning screenwriter, Gregory Burke (“Black Watch”). Set primarily in Glasgow, the series is a story of kidnap, corruption, betrayal and a search for the truth, when Chris and Michelle O’Neill’s teenage daughter goes missing. Serving police detective, Chris (McKidd) is provided with a startling revelation about an infamous, unsolved case that once divided the police when a local girl called Julie Mackie disappeared. Now, reeling from the news that his own daughter has gone missing, Chris is approached by a journalist who tells him that fatal mistakes were covered-up in Julie’s disappearance. Revisiting the case, Chris uncovers a series of errors, corruption and unbridled ambition.

The Good Mothers, Disney+’s hard-hitting mafia drama series, has won the first ever Berlinale Series Award.

Brazil’s next generation of cinematic talent tackles a huge gamut of themes, styles and concern about social issues. Variety profiles 10 figures who look set to help shape the future of Brazilian filmmaking. Alves de Souza has such films as 2020 Berlin Generation winner “My Name Is Baghdad,” a plucky tale of adolescence on the fringes of society, and 2013’s San Sebastian Horizontes Latinos debut “Underage,” a riveting look at juvenile justice under her belt. She shreds ignorance with her belief “in the power of a cinema that questions established norms but also offers some alternative.”

EXCLUISIVE: Arian Moayed, Jesmille Darbouze, Tasha Lawrence, Michael Patrick Thornton and original Hamilton castmember Okieriete Onaodowan have rounded out the cast for A Doll’s House, the new Broadway production of Henrik Ibsen’s drama that will star Oscar winner Jessica Chastain.

Iraqi filmmaker Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji picked up the Golden Yusr for Best Feature Film at the Red Sea Film Festival with his debut feature Hanging Gardens.

Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells’s acclaimed debut feature Aftersun swept the board, snagging seven wins at the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) in London this evening.

An NHS Tayside doctor who fled Iraq has spoken of how he now splits his time between working in Iraq and Perth.

A Scots dad's Iraq prison 'nightmare' is finally over after he arrived back home in Scotland to his 'buzzing' family today.

A Scots man locked up in Iraq for the past two months will have to wait for his homecoming after his flight home was delayed.

A Scottish construction engineer who has been held in jail in Iraq for the last two months will be reunited with his family tomorrow. Brian Glendinning, 43, will fly into Edinburgh Airport at about 5.25pm and will be greeted by his loved ones, following his lengthy ordeal.

The brother of a Scots man jailed in Iraq said he 'cried tears of joy' after finding out his prison 'nightmare' had ended.