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Festival

Saeed Roustayi’s Cannes winner “Leila’s Brothers” and Amil Shivji’s Toronto selection and Tanzanian Oscar submission “Tug of War” will open and close the inaugural Qisah International Film Festival in London. The festival seeks to provide a platform for films from across the Muslim world enabling filmmakers, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who are producing films exploring social changes in Muslim life. Qisah means stories in Arabic.

The first edition of the festival will feature 14 films that explore themes of family, resilience, patriarchy, secularism and religion, empowerment, anti-colonial politics, love across Muslim cultures as well as questions of aesthetics, politics and censorship. It is curated by academic Asad Ali and Phillippe Jalladeau who, for over 25 years, ran the Festival du Trois Continent in Nantes. Filmmaker Ahmed Jamal serves as festival director.

The festival will take place Nov. 9-12 at Kiln Cinema, Lyric Hammersmith and Rio Cinema and is supported by the BFI.

Crime thriller The Little Things brings together three Academy Award winners in Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto and could at one time could have been directed by another one, Steven Spielberg. The Little Things writer John Lee Hancock wrote the initial draft for the movie back in 1993, with the intention for Hollywood icon Steven Spielberg to helm the project.

"Steven really liked A Perfect World, my script for it. And so, before we ever went into production on A Perfect World, he came to me and said, 'Let's do a blind picture deal. ... Let's just do it at Warner Brothers. Something for you to write and meet to direct.' ... So, we started pitching ideas back and forth. I came up on this one, I can't remember exactly when, and fell in love with it. The twists and turns. I wrote a long outline and then talked to...

The first trailer and images from upcoming thriller The Little Things have now been released, giving us a glimpse at the trio of Oscar winners at the centre of the story; Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto. The eerie footage and handful of images show Washington looking every bit the grizzled, world-weary sheriff with a sixth sense and penchant for following his gut, while Leto sports a Charles Manson-esque beard and long hair look, his greasy appearance and sunken eyes doing their best to disguise his leading man visage.

The Little Things follows Oscar winning actor and Hollywood icon Denzel Washington as Deke Craven, a burned-out deputy sheriff with an eye for detail who teams up with Baxter, a crack Los Angeles detective, played by Rami Malek, to reel in a wily serial killer. Deke's nose for the "little things" proves eerily accurate, but his willingness to circumvent...

Indican Pictures will distribute Jonathan Holbrook's Beloved Beast. To show in theatres and on Digital platforms, Beloved Beast takes a note from John Carpenter's Halloween (1979) as a deranged individual escapes from a local mental hospital. On the loose, this strange character goes on a murder spree, in a small town. Beloved Beast stars: Meredith Binder (The Oregonian), Tabitha Bastien (The Wonderland Murders), Sheila Houlahan and Lance Carver. A trailer and the artwork are here ahead of the film's October release. The official synopsis mentions another character, Nina (Sanae Loutsis). Only twelve years old, Nina invites this lunatic into her home, only to find her Aunt Erma has gone missing, shortly after. Now, Nina is alone with this murderer, with nowhere to escape to. Beloved Beast is nearly three hours along. Set to show on October 11th, this title will show in several theatres, across the United States. In Los Angeles,...

Joris Jarsky, Sheila Houlahan and Sofia Vassilieva are the latest to join Warner Bros’ thriller The Little Things starring Oscar winners Denzel Washington, Jared Leto and Rami Malek. Written and directed by John Lee Hancock, the plot follows Deke (Washington), a burned-out Kern County, CA deputy sheriff who teams with Baxter (Malek), a crack Lasd detective, to nab a serial killer. Deke’s nose for the “little things” proves eerily accurate, but his willingness to circumvent the rules embroils Baxter in a soul-shattering dilemma. Meanwhile, Deke must wrestle with a dark secret from his past. Jarsky is repped by Grandview; Houlahan by Hartman Entertainment; Vassilieva by Greene & Associates Talent Agency and Lighthouse Management.

Matthew Glave (First Man) and Hunter Sansone (Star Girl) have joined Reginald Hudlin’s Disney+ drama Safety, which is inspired by the...