Kazakhstan Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Mike Tyson sits front row to watch the final match between Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan and Petra Kvitova of Czechia against at the Miami Open tennis tournament at Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday (April 1) in Miami Gardens, Fla.

Bournemouth and Denmark midfielder Philip Billing believes that Atalanta striker Rasmus Hojlund would be the perfect fit for Manchester United.

Denmark striker Rasmus Højlund is the leading scorer after the opening set of qualifying matches for Euro 2024.

Elena Rybakina is the champion!

EXCLUSIVE: Writer-director Aysulu Onaran (Balaban) has wrapped principal photography on her latest feature film, Rebirth Island. The film is a historical spy thriller based on true events from the Cold War.

Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish had a happy Valentine’s Day, swashbuckling to a new global milestone. The spinoff sequel crossed $400M with Tuesday’s numbers bringing the worldwide kitty to $401.5M. The split is $160.1M domestic and $241.4M at the international box office. 

Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF) in China’s Sanya has returned as an in-person event, following a relatively short Covid-related postponement, with separate competition sections for features, documentaries and shorts. 

There was much talk in the Kennedy Center Honors after-party about one of the standout moments from the three-hour long ceremony on Sunday: Sacha Baron Cohen’s return as Borat as part of the tribute to U2.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Kamila Andini’s “Before Now and Then” (aka “Nana”) topped the nominations for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, with nods in four categories including best film and best director. The film, about a gentlewoman’s memories of escaping from a Communist purge, narrowly headed three films with three nominations each: “Poet” (aka “Akyn”) by Kazakhstan’s Darezhan Omirbayev; “This Is What I Remember” (aka “Esimde”) by Kyrgyzstan’s Aktan Arym Kubat; and Philippines director Lav Diaz’s “When The Waves Are Gone” (“Kapag Wala Nang Mga Alon”). APSA casts its net wide, seeking honors for cinematic excellence from 78 countries and territories defined as Asia Pacific. The awards will be presented at a ceremony at HOTA on Australia’s Gold Coast on Nov. 11, 2022.

This fall, tip your basket to William Blaxton when you pluck a plump apple from a tree, bob for apples on Halloween or cherish your grandmother's amazing apple pie on Thanksgiving. Reverend Blaxton, among other claims to fame, planted the first seeds that would fuel a pioneering nation and give apples an image of all-American wholesomeness.

Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Bahrain blends three of his top priorities as pope: Ministering to a tiny Catholic community, promoting dialogue with the Muslim world and fostering relations with other Christian communities, according to details released Thursday by the Vatican. The Nov. 3-6 visit will mark Francis' second trip to the Gulf, his second to a majority Muslim nation in as many months and his second to participate in an interfaith gathering sponsored by someone other than the Vatican to promote dialogue among people of different faiths.

Dr. Frank Rubio traveled to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Les Films du Losange has closed a raft of major deals on Kasja Naess’s animated feature “Titina” which is produced by the teams behind the Oscar-nominated film “The Triplets of Belleville” and Oscar-winning short “The Danish Poet.” “Titina” will world premiere at Animation Is Film Festival, which takes place Oct. 21-23, and is produced by GKids, in collaboration with Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Variety. Budgeted at $8.5 million, the Norwegian animated movie was produced by Mikrofilm (“The Danish Poet”) and Vivi Film (“The Triplets of Belleville”). The film tells the real-life story of a fox terrier that accompanied her master on an expedition to the North Pole in an air balloon in the 1920’s. It will be released in Norway by Norsk Film Distribusjon, and in France by Les Films du Losange.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Alexander Rodnyansky, the producer of Oscar nominated films “Leviathan” and “Loveless,” has boarded the next project from Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov (pictured), whose film “Goliath” has its world premiere at Venice Film Festival on Thursday in the Horizons Extra section. The new project, “Nosorog,” tells a contemporary story of Tamara, a distraught woman on a desperate search for her missing son in a small town consumed by violent riots. To help get her son back, she hires a shady detective, Brayuk, with unexpected consequences. Rodnyansky joins producers Aliya Mendygozhina and Olga Khlasheva on the project, which is a co-production between the State Center of Support of the National Cinema of Kazakhstan and Kazakh film company Golden Man Media.

Trinidad Barleycorn At the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Biarritz, Studiocanal revealed further sales on its high-budget sci-fi thriller “Infiniti,” produced by Empreinte Digitale and Federation Entertainment Belgium. The show has already sold to more than 60 territories internationally, including Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Brazil, and has now been acquired by AMC Networks International, SBS (Australia), Now Studio (Hong Kong), TV2 (Norway), NOVA (Greece), Go3 (Baltics), HOT(Israel) and Telus (English speaking Canada). More deals are in the pipeline. “Infiniti” blends a sci-fi crime thriller with political intrigue and a classic love story woven through, that echoes the current global space race. 

The latest piece of the international Warner Bros. Discovery management puzzle has slotted into place, as the wider reshaping of the business continues. WBD General Manager Warner Bros. Discovery CEE, Baltics and Middle East (CEE MENAT) Jamie Cooke, who took on his post in June, has unveiled his team. Senior roles have gone to the likes of Lee Hobbs and long-serving Warner Bros. sales exec Roni Patel.

LIVE – Updated at 19:33Follow all the action as the women’s semi-finals take place on Thursday at Wimbledon. Ons Jabeur, the No 2 seed, opened the action on Centre Court against her good friend Tatjana Maria. Both players had reached a grand slam semi-final for the first time in their careers, but Jabeur was clear favourite.

A remarkable charity cycle challenge will get under way at Kirkbean later this month – involving riders in Scotland, England – and Kazakhstan.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentReims Polar, a new international festival set in Northern France and dedicated to police thrillers, has awarded Wen Shipei’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?,” Adikhan Yerzhanov’s “Assault” and Lado Kvataniya’s “The Execution.” The selection of Reims Polar is curated by Bruno Barde, who is also the artistic director of the Deauville American Film Festival. “Assault,” a dead-pan thriller set fictional village in rural Kazakhstan and revolving around a school hostage situation, won the festival’s Grand Prize Award.

Marta Balaga Bowing in Canneseries official selection, six-episode miniseries “Infiniti” isn’t just for sci-fi aficionados, Empreinte Digitale producer Eric Laroche told Variety.Co-produced between France and Belgium, the latest Canal Plus offering – created by Stéphane Pannetier and Julien Vanlerenberghe – interweaves multiple storylines, moving from the International Space Station (ISS) that suddenly goes silent to an investigation in Kazakhstan, where a beheaded, wax-covered body is found by a local cop.Discouraged by his superiors, Isaak (Daniyar Alshinov) decides to solve the mystery, while French astronaut Anna Zarathi (Céline Sallette) pursues her dream of space travel.“Having more than one genre, especially in a TV series, is very interesting. But one of them still needs to form the skeleton of the show.

A feature documentary about Le Bal des Débutantes, a Paris-set fashion event, is set to be the first project as part of a new non-fiction slate from Boat Rocker.

Eurovision is back and, potentially, bigger than ever.

EXCLUSIVE: Timur Bekmambetov, the high-profile Russian-Kazakh director who is credited as the creator of the Screenlife genre with projects including Searching and Unfriended, has condemned the “tragedy” in Ukraine and is working on a project analyzing the digital aspects of the conflict.

Wladimir Klitschko, 45, is determined to protect his native country Ukraine from the wrath of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The former professional boxer, who was previously engaged to actress Hayden Panettiere, 32, condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine in a passionate statement that he shared online February 24. “We will defend ourselves with all our might and fight for freedom and democracy. You can also act. Let not fear seize us; let’s not remain frozen,” he said. “Putin shoots at Ukrainian cities, but he aims at our hearts and, more importantly, at our minds. He wants to create doubt and confusion and thus inaction.”

Anna Marie de la Fuente Kazakh filmmaker Askar Uzabayev’s domestic violence drama “Happiness” snagged the Audience Award in the Berlin Film Festival’s prestigious Panorama sidebar, a good sign of its potential appeal in cinemas and festivals worldwide. Whether it will secure distribution in its native Kazakhstan is another matter, however.Based on actual events, “Happiness” centers on a lovely influencer who promotes a product line called Happiness, which she pitches as a surefire path to happiness, beauty and success.But her home life reflects the opposite where her abusive husband grows ever more violent.

Anna Marie de la Fuente International sales, distribution and production company Axxon Media has picked up a troika of films ahead of Berlinale. Leading the pack is Askar Uzabayev’s “Happiness” (“Bakhyt”) from Kazakhstan, which world premieres in the festival’s Panorama section.Making its market debut at the EFM is Algeria-set “Soula,” written and directed by Salah Issaad, a contender at the Red Sea Festival in Jeddah last December.The third film is Amalric Gérard’s French burlesque comedy “Public Enemy No.

Naman Ramachandran France’s Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas kicks off Feb. 1 with a gala screening of Iranian auteur Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s 2001 Cannes winner “Kandahar” and will conclude on Feb.

Jessica Kiang If endless sequels, prequels, reboots, spin-offs, teamups, callbacks and shout-outs have put you off the idea of the “shared cinematic universe,” you haven’t been spending enough time in Karatas, world cinema’s smallest, wildest, weirdest crossover microcosm. The fictional village in rural Kazakhstan, populated exclusively by the clueless, the cowardly, the comic and the corrupt has provided a stark, absurdist backdrop for most of prolific Kazakh director Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s films, including his newest, the dark, funny, freaky “Assault.”It may not be the most essential Yerzhanov entry — it’s not the darkest, funniest or freakiest — but “Assault” is a droll refresher on his singular sensibilities, and his borderline miraculous ability to maintain a coherent tone while narrative logic and consistency are highly expendable commodities.

Hulu has released the full list of movies and television shows coming to the streaming service beginning on February 1, 2022.