News

Egyptian drama The Last Miracle has been replaced as the opening-night film of El Gouna Film Festival amid reports it had not been cleared by local censors.

The film, directed by Abdelwahab Shawky, was due to screen this evening (October 24) at the festival in the Egyptian resort town on the shores of the Red Sea.

However, a statement released today by organisers said there has been “an adjustment to the original lineup” as The Last Miracle “unfortunately could not be screened”.

In its place, the festival is set to screen The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent by Croatia’s Nebojsa Slijepcevic,...

UTA Independent Film Group handles US rights.

Myriad Pictures has boarded international sales on the feel-good comedy and Tribeca selection Peace By Chocolate and has launched EFM talks with buyers this week.

Jonathan Keijser (What Would Beethoven Do?) directed the film from Magnetic North Pictures about a Syrian refugee in Canada who aspires to be a doctor and is torn by his chocolatier father’s wish to help him rebuild the family business. Hatem Ali, Ayham Abou Ammar, Yara Sabri and Mark Camacho star.

Keijser produced alongside Catherine Léger, whose Babysitter premiered at Sundance last month, Martin Paul-Hus and Kathy Wolf.

Peace by Chocolate Magnetic North Pictures Reviewed by Tami Smith, Film Reviewer for Shockya Grade: B+ Director: Jonathan Keijser Screenwriters: Jonathan Keijser, Abdul Malik Cast: Hatem Ali, Ayham Abou Ammar, Mark Camacho, Yara Sabri, Justin Trudeau Release Date: Tba When Tareq Hadhad (Ayham Abou Ammar), a refugee from Syria, landed in Halifax airport in 2012 […]

The post Peace by Chocolate Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Uplifting refugee drama “Peace by Chocolate,” which marks the last film starring late great Syrian actor and director Hatem Ali, is set to world premiere at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival.

UTA Independent Film Group will be handling world sales on the English-language pic, which is directed by Canadian first-timer Jonathan Keijser and will bow as part of the fest’s online Tribeca at Home presentations announced today.

“Peace by Chocolate” is based on the true story of Tareq Hadhad who fled from war-torn Syria with his family and founded a now booming chocolate business in Canada called Peace by Chocolate.

The protag’s father is played by Hatem Ali, who passed away prematurely last December at 58. Ali was known across the Arab world as both an actor and the influential director of political TV dramas such as “The Long Night,” about three dissidents released from a Syrian prison after 20 years of incarceration.

Hatem Ali, the Syrian filmmaker and director of hit TV shows, has died at the age of 58, according to multiple local news reports citing family confirmation.

Ali graduated from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus in 1986 before first moving into acting and then into directing in the 1990s.

He was noted for helming works that depicted Arab history, such as his 2000 three-parter Al-Zeer Salem, as well as his projects about Muslim conqueror Salaheddin and the rise and fall of Muslim Andalusia.

His 31-episode drama The Palestinian Exodus (Al-Taghreba al-Falastenya), shot entirely in Syria, told the story of how some 700,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes during the creation of Israel.

On the feature side, his 2009 pic The Long Night, about three political prisoners who are released from a Syrian prison after a long time and try to adjust to freedom, debuted at the Chicago International Film Festival...

Hatem Ali, the influential Syrian multi-hyphenate whose hit historical TV dramas provided collective insight across the Arab world on the roots and complexities of the region’s turbulence, died on Tuesday at 58.

The cause of death, which took place in a Cairo hotel, was a heart attack, according to multiple Middle East news reports.

Born in 1962 in Syria’s Golan Heights, the strategic region occupied by Israel in 1967, Ali started out writing short stories and plays in which he also performed. In 1986 he graduated from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus with an acting degree.

After starting out in showbiz as an actor, Ali segued into directing during the 1990s helming several made-for-tv feature films, including “The Long Night,” a potent drama about the lives of three dissidents released from a Syrian prison after 20 years of incarceration that in 2009 won the top prize at Italy’s Taormina Film Festival.

A revealing new season of films at the Ica looks at the links between religion and revolt

Do the roots of the Arab spring lie in cinema? The question seems absurd: surely kleptocratic dictatorship, youth unemployment and grain prices all played a more important part. Iranian film scholar Hamid Dabashi disagrees: "If you want to understand the emotive universe from which the Arab spring arose, cinema is a good place to start. Look at a film like Elia Suleiman's Divine Intervention: there the director spits out an apricot pit at an Israeli tank and blows it up. The scene is both fantasy and prophecy."

Dabashi will be speaking this month at Winds of Change, a series of talks and screenings at the Ica in London showcasing films from across the Muslim world; it hopes to explore the rich, sometimes fraught relationship between religion and civic society. Özer Kiziltan's...

Branchage Festival, Jersey

The nation's most intrepid film festival offers up another eclectic mix of music-backed movies and screenings in whatever novel locations the island can muster. So in the latter camp, you can watch surf films at the local surfboard factory, Afghanistan doc Restrepo in the army barracks, Of Gods And Men in a church, and rustic hits like Le Quattro Volte in a barn. In the former, DJ Rob Da Bank mixes a new score for King Kong, and London psych-rockers Teeth Of The Sea "re-imagine" dystopian thriller Doomsday.

Various venues, Thu to 25 Sep

Winds Of Change: Cinema From Muslim Societies, London

There has been extra interest in Arab cinema since the Arab spring but this is the first festival to come as a direct response to it. As such, it assembles films dealing with democracy, modernity, human rights and religion. Not that Arab cinema wasn't dealing with...

Tina Mabry's "Mississippi Damned," an independent American production, won the Gold Hugo as the best film in the 2009 Chicago International Film Festival, and added Gold Plaques for best supporting actress (Jossie Thacker) and best screenplay (Mabry). It tells the harrowing story of three black children growing up in rural Mississippi in circumstances of violence and addiction. The film's trailer and an interview with Mabry are linked at the bottom.

Kylee Russell in "Mississippi Damned"

The win came over a crowed field of competitors from all over the world, many of them with much larger budgets. The other big winner at the Pump Room of the Ambassador East awards ceremony Saturday evening was by veteran master Marco Bellocchio of Italy, who won the Silver Hugo as best director for "Vincere," the story of Mussolini's younger brother. Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Filippo Timi won Silver Hugos as best actress and actor,...