Lebanon Showbiz Latest News and Updates

EXCLUSIVE: Sara Boustany has joined the cast as one of the leads in Hello, Beautiful, which is based on the Christine Handy novel Walk Beside Me. Handy is producing along with Michael Espinosa, and Ziad H. Hamzeh–who will also serve as director.The film revolves around Willow, a successful model, struggling with the facade of a perfect life while confronted with a crumbling family dynamic and then, breast cancer diagnosis. Sara will play “Isabel,” her wild and resentful teenage daughter who is struggling with her own obstacles.

Heidi Klum is back in France for the Cannes Film Festival and ready for a tan. The iconic model arrived in the country on May 12 for the opening ceremony and seems to have left before returning on May 20.A post shared by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum)During some downtime, Klum hit the pool.

It’s a momentous Cannes for Cairo-based film professionals Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab as they mark the 15th anniversary of the creation of marketing and distribution company MAD Solutions and the 10th anniversary of spin-off the Arab Cinema Center (ACC).

Jamie Lang Brazil’s O2 Play, the distribution arm of O2 Filmes group, will host a Cannes market screening for director Marcelo Gomes‘ latest feature, “Portrait of a Certain Orient,” on Friday, May 17 at 1:30 p.m. in Lerins 4. Ahead of the screening, O2 has given Variety exclusive access to the romantic period drama’s international trailer.

Ricky Martin and Jwan Yosef surprised everyone by announcing their divorce after six years of marriage. At that time, the singer and the plastic artist made it clear that the well-being of their children would always be their priority. Despite calling it quits, the pair’s co-parenting journey seems peaceful.Yosef took to social media to share a sweet snap of Lucía and Renn alongside their grandmother Minerva to commemorate Mother’s Day.

Greta Gerwig addressed the growing #MeToo movement in France at the jury press conference on opening day of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. “I think people in the community of movies telling us stories and trying to change things for the better is only good,” Gerwig said when asked how she felt about #MeToo-related rumors swirling ahead of the festival. “I have seen substantive change in in the American film community, and I think it’s important that we continue to expand that conversation.

‘No travel’ warnings have been issued by the UK Foreign Office for 24 countries, which effectively means they are off-limits to UK travellers. On the list are some expected destinations as well as countries which may come as a surprise.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Multi-hyphenate Nicole Ansari-Cox has a lot going on. The London-based actor, producer, writer and activist just shot Southern Italy-set rom-com “Under the Stars” directed by Michelle Danner where she stars alongside Toni Colette, Andy Garcia and Alex Pettyfer. In addition, she appears in Austrian director Kat Rohrer’s “What a Feeling” that premiered recently at the BFI FLARE: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival.

Joe Leydon Film Critic The thin line between cheating death and chasing it appears to have been smudged, repeatedly, by maverick video journalist Margaret Moth, the subject of first-time filmmaker Lucy Lawless’ fascinating documentary “Never Look Away.” At least, that’s the impression we’re left with at the end of this compact yet complex portrait of a singularly and aggressively unconventional war correspondent who inspired equal measures of admiration and anxiety among her friends, colleagues and lovers throughout her 20 years of assignments in the world’s trouble spots — Baghdad, Sarajevo, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Zaire, you name it, she was there — for CNN. Something of an enigma even to those closest to her — “I never fully understood what was ticking inside of her” is a comment typical of responses by interviewees questioned by an off-camera Lawless — Moth was fond of proudly proclaiming, “I live life to the fullest.” But it was a life she repeatedly risked by going places, doing things and recording wartime horrors with such little regard for her own safety that a CNN teammate warned her: “There’s only so much Russian Roulette you can play.” It was also a life that she more or less reinvented herself to portray.

Greta Gerwig has her jury. This evening, the Cannes Film Festival revealed the rest of the nine-member jury filled with festival veterans and Academy members.

The Cannes Film Festival has named the eight members of its main Competition jury who will join previously announced president Greta Gerwig in deciding the Palme d’Or and other key prizes at 77th edition running from May 14 to 25.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Sudanese director Mohamed Kordofani’s “Goodbye Julia,” a timely morality tale that takes place just before the 2011 secession of South Sudan, leads the way in nominations for the eighth edition of the Critics Awards for Arab films, winners of which will be announced during the Cannes Film Festival. The first Sudanese film ever to screen in Cannes’ official selection, “Goodbye Julia” is the story of two women — one from the North, the other from the South — who are brought together by fate in a complex relationship that attempts to reconcile differences between northern and southern Sudanese communities in the currently war-ravaged country.

Lise Pedersen “The Landscape and the Fury” by Switzerland’s Nicole Vögele took the Grand Jury Prize in the International Feature Film Competition at Swiss doc festival Visions du Réel on Friday. Shot on the Bosnian-Croatian border, which is also the European Union border, the film unveils the struggle of refugees being chased away by police and navigating a terrain still contaminated with mines from the Bosnian War.

The Foreign Office has issued new travel warnings for 16 countries today following. In light of the recent drone attack on Israel by Iran, those planning to visit destinations including Morocco and the United Arab Emirates are strongly advised to check travel advice before making their journey.

The Foreign Office has issued a new urgent travel warning for 18 countries, including popular Mediterranean holiday destinations. The government's latest advisory cautions travellers about an increased risk of terrorist attacks in countries around the southern Mediterranean and the Middle East due to heightened tensions following recent events in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Annika Pham Seven years after showcasing “You Make a Better Window Than You Do a Door” at Visions du Réel’s Short Film competition strand, Lebanese-born Farah Kassem is back in Nyon, this time in the main international competition with her doc feature-length debut “We Are Inside.” Variety was granted access to the trailer. The film was produced by the helmer’s regular collaborator Cynthia Choucair of Lebanon’s Road2Films, in co-production with Qatar’s Al Jazeera Documentary Channel and Denmark’s Good Company Pictures (“Photographer of War,” “Beautiful Something Left Behind”).

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon has acquired world rights for Beirut-set dramedy series Self Modulation from producers Falcon Films and Arna Media, in its first ever Arabic TV series acquisition.

An earthquake has shaken the densely populated New York City metropolitan area and much of the Northeast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). A preliminary magnitude of 4.8 was recorded as locals reported feeling the quake.

New York City has been rocked by a 4.8 magnitude earthquake causing widespread tremors across the region.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.7 shook New York City this morning, with the tremor, lasting more than a few seconds and rattling windows, furniture and apartment floors, reportedly was centered near Lebanon, New Jersey, 40 miles west of New York City.

Dubai-based Front Row Productions has acquired the rights to the life story of Sally Hafez, the Lebanese woman who stormed a bank to access her savings in September 2022 during Lebanon’s financial crisis, in which citizens were illegally restricted from drawing from their accounts due to an unofficial capital control imposed by Lebanese banks. 

The second day of Dublin’s Storyhouse screenwriting festival kicked off with a bang on Friday as established writer-directors Ali Abbasi (Holy Spider), Mounia Akl (Costa Brava Lebanon) and Stacey Gregg (Ballywalter) all discussed at length the process of how they achieve their best work and how they balance the writer-director relationship. 

The Alice Group has sold its media arm, which includes the BFM and RMC TV channels, to French Lebanese billionaire Rodolphe Saadé in a deal valued at $1.68B (€1.55B).

A shot of apple cider vinegar a day helped overweight people lose as much as 8kg in three months, according to a recent study.

Krystyna Pyszková of the Czech Republic was crowned Miss World at a glittering contest held in India on Saturday night.Yasmina Zaytoun of Lebanon was the first runner-up among 112 contestants in the competition held in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital.“Being crowned Miss World is a dream come true.

The Doha Film Institute (DFI) kicked off its 10th Qumra talent and project incubator meeting on a somber note on Friday as its organizers spoke out about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

When director Amber Fares came out with her documentary Speed Sisters, about the Middle East’s first all-women race car driving team, the New York Times praised it as “unconventional in form as well as content.”

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority (GEA) has launched a new film fund called Big Time Investment to boost production of quality Arabic movies and announced a slate of Egyptian feature films toplined by a biopic of Egyptian icon Umm Kulthum who is considered the Arab world’s greatest singer. Prominent Egyptian director Marwan Hamed, whose epic “Kira and El Gen” about local resistance to British occupation, is recent hit, will direct the film titled “El Set.” Egyptian star Mona Zaki will play Kulthum who from the late 1920s onwards became the first prominent Arab singer to disseminate her work to the masses via the new technologies of the times: radio, the phonograph, cinema and television.

Having championed the cause of animals in farmyard doc Gunda, Victor Kossakovsky is making a fresh appeal to the world through new work Architecton: stop using concrete.

Alex Ritman WestEnd Film has boarded “Mariana’s Room,” the adaptation of Aharon Appelfeld’s prize-winning 2006 novel “Blooms of Darkness,” for worldwide sales. The film — which is now in post-production — comes from writer-director Emmanuel Finkiel (“A Decent Man,” “Voyages”) who reunited with his Cesar-winning “Memoir of War” star Mélanie Thierry (“The Zero Theorem’).