Sri Lanka Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul has revealed plans to shoot a film in Sri Lanka, inspired by the work of science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.

Ross Kemp is returning to acting after 15 years for a Channel 5 police thriller that features on an upfront slate with Tim Peake, Ruby Wax and Jay Blades.

This year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the 16 films selected for its flagship Tiger Competition. Scroll down for the full list.

Dumfries cricketer Chris McBride has been making his mark on the pitch for Scotland in the heat of Namibia whilst his former Dumfries Cricket Club team mates have been putting the gloves on for the icy conditions at home.

RealD has signed separate deals with India’s PVR Cinemas and Taiwan’s Shin Kong Cinemas as Asia’s exhibitors smarten up their tech offerings ahead of the global rollout of Avatar: The Way of Water in mid-December. 

The International Film Festival Of India (IFFI) has announced the 15 films that will screen in competition at this year’s edition of the annual event, including recent festival favourites such as Maha Haj’s Mediterranean Fever and Lav Diaz’ When The Waves Are Gone, and three Indian films, including recent Busan premiere The Storyteller. 

Psychological thriller The Beasts, directed by Spain’s Rodrigo Sorogoyen, won three awards at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, including the Tokyo Grand Prix, best director and best actor for Denis Menochet. 

British holidaymakers are facing very different prospects as they travel the world with the pound in free fall.

George Alagiah is stepping back from his presenting work on BBC News after scans showed his cancer has spread. The 66-year-old was first diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2014 and took a break from his TV work in October last year as he struggled with the disease. He returned to his presenting duties on BBC News at Six in April - but now his agent has confirmed he will once again have to take a step back.

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.

Manori Ravindran International Editor New York’s South Asian International Film Festival has appointed Chayan Sarkar as its new president. A filmmaker, entrepreneur and festival director, Sarkar is also the founder of the Indian International Film Festival of Queensland in Australia. He takes over from SAIFF founder Shilen Amin, who will step down as president, but will remain a member of the festival’s board of directors. Sarkar joins SAIFF as the festival enters its 19th year as a leading film festival in the U.S. for new cinema from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, and within the Indian diaspora. In recent years, SAIFF has become increasingly influential as a platform for South Asian cinema, both in the U.S. and internationally. Fourteen of India’s submissions for the international feature film Oscar have had their North American premieres at the festival.

Naman Ramachandran For the first time in its 37-year history, the SXSW festival in Austin will host South Asian House, an initiative to celebrate South Asians from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Maldives as well as accomplished members of the diaspora. The initiative, scheduled for the first weekend of SXSW on March 11 and 12, 2023, will feature programming around film and television, dance and music, technology, business, fashion, comedy and climate change from a South Asian world view across plenaries, sessions, panel discussions, workshops, art exhibits, book launches and music concerts. It will take place in the 4th Street neighborhood of downtown Austin, near the Austin Convention Center event headquarters.

Naman Ramachandran Mani Ratnam’s Tamil-language epic “Ponniyin Selvan: 1” has scored a worldwide opening weekend of INR2 billion ($24.5 million), according to numbers released by co-producers Madras Talkies. In the process, the film has rewritten some records for Tamil-language cinema. The film released on Sept. 30 and collected $9.8 million on that day, making it the highest all-time opening day for a Tamil-language film. In the U.S., the film opened in sixth position with $4.01 million, making it the highest opening for a Tamil-language film in the territory. It also had the highest per screen average of $8,036 among films in the top 10.

Love Triangle’s Yannick Samarasinghe is a walking embodiment of the phrase “tall, dark and handsome” and even runs his own business, so he needs no help with dating.WATCH: Love Triangle | OFFICIAL TRAILER | A Stan Original Dating SeriesIn the past he’s dated models, athletes and Instagram influencers, confessing to WHO exclusively: “I’m quite a physical person and I know what I like in a woman.“I’ve always dated women that you’d expect a guy who looks like me to date, not to sound like a d—k.”But in a surprisingly candid moment, Yannick admits that focusing on looks alone has left him longing for a deeper connection with a woman.That is why a dating show where you have no clue what the people you’re matched with look like really appealed to him.Yannick admits that focusing on looks alone has left him longing for a deeper connection with a woman.“Because of the way I look sometimes I get put in a box… but there’s a lot more to me,” he says.“To build a connection not knowing what anyone looks like, that was the clincher for me to do the show.”His focus on the show was to just be himself, that way if he got a “bad edit” or was “made out to be a villain”, at least he knew he was true to himself.“If you’re a fake person trying to pretend be something you’re not and you get the bad edit anyway you’re like ‘well f—k’,” he laughs.“Because of the way I look sometimes I get put in a box… but there’s a lot more to me."“You’re probably living in a bit of a fake reality if you go on a show thinking that you have control of that.”On a more personal note, Yannick recognises that his casting in Love Triangle as a mixed-race man of Sri Lankan and Portuguese descent is a big deal in itself.“I’ve always been the token Black guy.

EXCLUSIVE: Bridgerton season two star Charithra Chandran has landed the lead in Olivia Hetreed drama Song of the Sun God, Deadline can reveal.

Paparazzi don’t tend to swarm to Levenshulme - no massive necessity, really - but back when Malanie Tillekeratne worked at Scott’s in Mayfair, she’d have to scrap her way through the scrum on a regular basis as she left work of an evening. Paps would gather at the upscale fish restaurant, where Malanie worked as a pastry chef, to catch a glimpse of some of the celebrities who would be sucking down oysters and champagne inside.

Naman Ramachandran British-Sri Lankan actor Nimmi Harasgama has returned to the U.K. stage after nearly a decade with “Silence,” a co-production between Donmar Warehouse and Tara Theatre. Harasgama, who was a member of the U.K.’s National Youth Theatre and went on to get a BA in drama and theater arts at Goldsmiths College, London University, has also trained at Groundlings Improv School and Lesly Kahn and Co Drama School in Los Angeles. The actor shot to international prominence with a brace of films by Sri Lankan auteur Prasanna Vithanage – “August Sun” (2003), for which she won best actress at Las Palmas, and “Flowers of the Sky” (2008), which premiered at Busan. After some shorts and roles in BBC series “Doctors,” Harasgama had an extended run on the U.K. stage in productions such as “The Snow Queen” (Unicorn Theatre); “Gandhi and Coconuts” (Kali Theatre Company); “Aunty Netta’s Holiday for Asylum” (Tamasha Theatre Company – Edinburgh Festival Fringe); and “Handful of Henna” (Rasa Theatre Company).

A headteacher asked more than 100 boys for naked pictures on Facebook. Nick Clayton from Holyake sent creepy messages to boys as young as 10 while working as the head of a British international school in Iraq.

Naman Ramachandran Sri Lanka’s Vimukthi Jayasundara and Guatemala’s César Díaz, winners of the Cannes Golden Camera for “The Forsaken Land” (2005) and “Nuestras madres” (2019) respectively, are among the recipients of the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) of the International Film Festival Rotterdam‘s (IFFR) HBF+Europe: Minority Co-production Support scheme for 2022. Out of 25 applications, six projects by filmmakers from Argentina, Egypt, Guatemala, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Yemen have been awarded a contribution of €60,000 ($60,854) each through their European co-producers in Austria, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Jayasundara is supported for “Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars” (France/Sri Lanka, House on Fire), set on a mysterious resort where the protagonist must quarantine and reckon with his past on his return to Sri Lanka, while Díaz gets it for “Fidelidad” (Guatemala/Belgium, Lemming Film Belgium), a love triangle set on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala.

Naman Ramachandran Leading Indian AVOD platform MX Player has set a multi-year partnership with Lionsgate to bring premium Hollywood content onto the service. Via this agreement, MX Player consumers in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives will now have access to more than 50 Hollywood blockbuster films dubbed in the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu languages in a year. Titles available in September include “Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1,” “Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2,” “War” and “Destruction: Las Vegas.” Mansi Shrivastav, senior VP, content acquisitions and alliances, MX Player, said: “Our partnership with Lionsgate allows us to bring some of the most popular and commercially acclaimed Hollywood films to our viewers in their local languages. This partnership also enables us to attract new users to the platform while consolidating our existing audience base. We are thrilled with this alliance and look forward to working closely with the team at Lionsgate to make more Hollywood content available for users in the region.”

A Scots Instagrammer who is facing deportation from Sri Lanka for sharing images of the country's revolution online has appealed the cancelling of her visa.

M.I.A. has shared a snippet of a new single called ‘Popular’ – check out the post below.The English-Sri Lankan musician posted the clip of the song on her official Instagram page yesterday (August 10). In the caption, she wrote: “MIA IS DEAD AF, THE FUTURE IS HERE ITS MAI BITCHES [sic].”M.I.A.

Rebekah Vardy vs Coleen Rooney libel trial will be made into a Channel 4 docudrama, the broadcaster has confirmed. Earlier this year, the legal battle gained significant media attention after Vardy took Rooney to court for defamation when Rooney accused Vardy of leaking her private social stories to the press in 2019.

As the summer holidays begin today Jet2 will operate its ‘busiest ever weekend’ as thousands of Brits jet off abroad. Almost 150,000 customers will be travelling to popular holiday destinations including the Canary Islands and Turkey with the airline this Saturday and Sunday.

Sri Lanka weathers the worst economic crisis in its history.The island nation known as the pearl of the Indian Ocean — where films like “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “Tarzan, the Ape Man” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai” were shot on location — has been through some extraordinary times in recent weeks.In the last year, the government’s economic mismanagement has precipitated a foreign currency and agricultural crisis that has led to shortages of medicine, fuel and basic food staples amid a 50% rise in inflation. The country declared bankruptcy earlier this month.

Bobby Brazier - the son of late Big Brother star Jade Goody - is set to make his acting debut in EastEnders. The 19-year-old will take on the role of Freddie Slater, the son of Maureen "Little Mo" Slater, and is currently filming scenes scheduled to air this summer.

Long queues at the Port of Dover are causing delays for families embarking on summer getaways at the start of the school holidays. Ferry operators warned passengers to expect delays of several hours at the border, advising people to have travel documents ready for inspection in an effort to assist border checks and reduce queueing time.

TUI has announced it has cancelled more holidays to Sri Lanka following government advice amid ongoing political and economic instability in the country. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has advised against all but essential travel to the South Asian country due to the political unrest of the past three months.

Netflix's The Gray Man in Berlin. The actor, 41, stood out from the crowd in a vibrant red blazer at the star-studded event held at the Zoo Palast cinema. He donned a white shirt and black tie underneath, while completing the ensemble with a pair of trousers and smart shoes.

Love Island star Jay Younger has been questioned by fans while he was in the villa - but not for his flirting skills this time. Viewers have flocked to the star's social media comments to figure out what his upper arm tattoo means. And his family, who are currently running his social media accounts, were happy to oblige over on TikTok.