News

Chloe Ayling’s harrowing real-life kidnapping serves as the inspiration for BBC Three’s new limited series Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story. Spanning six tightly-paced episodes, the show delves into both the horrors of Chloe’s abduction ordeal and the ongoing struggles she faced long after in the publicity storm that engulfed her.

Aspirations model: at just 20 years old, Chloe traveled to Milan for what she believed was a photoshoot. Instead, masked men attacked her, injecting her with drugs before spiriting her away to a remote farmhouse and six days as an unwilling captive.

Though she survived the kidnapping physically unharmed, hard times were yet to come as talking heads and tabloid articles rushed to cast doubts on Chloe’s troubling tale. Kidnapped takes an unflinching look at both how truth can become twisted in a sensationalist media circus and the resilience of one young woman determined to have her say.

Documentary

Jim Wiseman’s Sky original documentary “Williams and Mansell: Red 5” is set for a debut on Sky Documentaries and Now on July 8. Featuring some of the biggest names in F1, it follows Nigel Mansell and the Williams Racing team’s rise to fame told through the eyes of his team, family and drivers including Jenson Button, Damon Hill and Karun Chandhok.

Mansell grew up in England in the 1960s, dreaming of becoming a professional race car driver, despite not having the financial means for it, while Frank Williams was realizing his own dream at the company he founded, Williams Grand Prix Engineering. The two joined forces, and after years of trying to win together, Mansell left to join Ferrari and then ultimately retired from racing after years of ups and downs, without ever winning the Formula One Drivers’ Championship. But seemingly overnight, he came out of retirement and re-joined Williams Racing.

The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself star Nadia Parkes is leading the BBC’s upcoming drama about the terrifying kidnapping of British model Chloe Ayling.

Parkes will portray Ayling in six-parter Kidnapped [working title], which was revealed by Deadline in April, and she is joined by Adrian Edmondson (Rain Dogs, A Spy Among Friends), Nigel Lindsay (The Capture, The Salisbury Poisonings), Olive Gray (Halo, Rose), Eleanor Romandini (The White Lotus, Il Nostro Generale), Julian Swiezewski (The Passing Bells, Krucjata) and Christine Tremarco (The Responder, Casualty). Further casting will be announced in due course.

Based on Ayling’s book, the series follows her abduction in Italy and subsequent bravery and resilience in captivity, followed by a court case that put her kidnappers in jail. Yet despite their convictions, Chloe faced headlines accusing her of faking her own kidnapping, and found herself at the center of a media storm.

Parkes played Annalise O...

"I also want someone to hold hands with. To talk to... about my feelings." Mubi has debuted a new official trailer for an indie film from Poland titled Sweat, which originally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year. It also played at the Zurich, Hamburg, Chicago, Tokyo, New Horizons, Tallinn Black Nights, and Rotterdam Film Festivals. Sweat is about three days in the life of fitness motivator Sylwia Zajac, a social media celebrity surrounded by loyal employees and admirers, who is really looking for true intimacy. It's yet another cautionary tale trying to bring to the light the honest truth about how vapid and soul-sucking social media is, and how it's easy to get caught up in the craze of the attention it brings. Magdalena Kolesnik stars as Sylwia. This also stars Julian Swiezewski, Aleksandra Konieczna, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Tomasz Orpinski, Lech Lotocki, and Magdalena Kuta. This looks like it's going to be very,...