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Mad Solution is a dynamic conglomerate that spans several creative and business sectors, all aimed at elevating the entertainment industry. The company operates through distinct divisions, including Mad Celebrity, Mad Content, Mad Marketing, Mad Distribution, and Mad World. Mad World serves as the foundational entity within this ecosystem, leading groundbreaking initiatives in cinema and beyond.

In 2024, Mad World launched its operations in Cannes, with a hefty worldwide slate of exciting new Arab-language films. There are currently more than a dozen titles — some completed, others in various stages of production — that are entirely new to the international licensing marketplace. Among them are unexpected narratives from Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia that between them span a multitude of storytelling tones and genres.

The Mad Celebrity division itself is diversified, encompassing three distinct categories:

Mad Celebrity for established stars. Mad Rising for emerging talents. Mad Crew, dedicated to behind-the-scenes professionals.

My Driver And I by Saudi director Ahd Kamel is set to screen not once but thrice as part of the Arab Spectacular Program of the fourth Red Sea International Film Festival, which will run from December 5th to the 14th.

The film is scheduled to hold its world premiere screening at 7 pm on December 6th in the Cultural Square’s Auditorium. From there, the film will screen twice more, once on the following day at 4:15 pm and again at 9:30 pm on December 14th at Cinema 4 of the Cultural Square.

My Driver And I follows Salma, a young, affluent, and rebellious Saudi girl whose family hires a Sudanese man named Gamar to drive her to and from her day-to-day activities.

Initially adhering to a simple employer/employee dynamic, Salma and Gamar’s relationship quickly evolves into a friendship that bonds them through her teenage years and beyond, but...

Exclusive: Dubai-based global management and production company 75East has signed Sudanese writer-director and producer Amjad Abu Alala.

The director first broke out internationally with debut film You Will Die At 20, which won Venice’s Luigi de Laurentiis Award for Best First Feature in 2019.

He was among a wave of filmmakers to emerge out of Sudan in the wake of its 2019 revolution, ending the 30-year rule of dictator Omar al-Bashir, although hopes for a democratic, civil society have since been shattered by the civil war involving two rival military factions.

You Will Die At 20 was shot in Sudan in December 2018 in the early days of the popular uprising against, with the struggles of the film’s protagonist described as a metaphor for the Sudanese people’s fight for democracy.

Following its Venice prize, the feature played at a raft of top international festivals, including TIFF and Rotterdam, winning more than 25 awards,...

Starting off its festival tour on a high note, Ahd Kamel‘s Saudi feature My Driver And I has been selected to hold its world premiere as part of the Arab Spectacular Program at the fourth Red Sea International Film Festival, which is set to run from December 5th to the 14th in Saudi Arabia.

The film follows Salma, a young, privileged, and rebellious Saudi girl whose family hires a Sudanese man named Gamar to drive her to and from her day-to-day activities.

Initially adhering to a simple employer/employee dynamic, Salma and Gamar’s relationship quickly evolves into an intimate personal friendship that bonds them through her teenage years and beyond, but their friendship is put to the test when Salma gets older and starts taking the wheel.

Commenting on her film, director Ahd Kamed stated, “The film opens a window on a certain strand of late 20th-century Saudi society,...

As conflicts escalate in the Middle East and North Africa, from Palestine to Yemen and Sudan, filmmakers have seen an increase in solidarity within the local creative community to find ways to continue to get films made in the region. Still, producers and directors struggle to navigate an increasingly tense and politicized international scene and express concerns about the future of an industry that has experienced unforeseen growth within the last five years.

“We are in the middle of a very scary situation right now and we don’t know when it will end,” said film producer Alaa Karkouti, CEO and co-founder of Mad Solutions, the Arab world’s most prolific distributor of Arabic film content. “There is the issue of local productions but any non-Arab productions will also look at the political situation before coming to the region. This is the most pressing issue in the world right now.

Egyptian filmmaker Jad Chahine’s magical realism drama The Masters Of Magic And Beauty and Libyan-us filmmaker Jihan’s feature documentary My Father And Qaddafi have scooped the top prizes at the CineGouna industry platform of the El Gouna Film Festival.

Running October 25-31, the platform’s CineGouna Funding component showcased 21 projects in development and post-production.

Chahine’s debut feature The Masters Of Magic And Beauty won the $15,000 CineGouna award for best project in development. The feature follows the magical circumstances surrounding the birth of a little girl. A couple seeks counsel from the Oracle, only to discover that a...

El Gouna Film Festival has made significant enhancements to its industry platform CineGouna (October 25-31) to provide increased support for regional filmmakers.

Now in its seventh edition, the CineGouna platform includes CineGouna Funding (formerly CineGouna Springboard) to support Arab projects in development and post-production; CineGouna Forum (formerly CineGouna Bridge) which offers professional development through industry discussions, masterclasses and workshops; and CineGouna Market, which features 22 exhibitors in this year’s sophomore edition.

In addition, the newly-launched CineGouna Shorts supports short filmmakers through talent development and a funding competition. And the CineGouna Emerge programme, now in its second edition, is hosting 200 emerging filmmakers from Egypt.

Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir, whose latest documentary “The Brink of Dreams” became the first Egyptian film to win the Golden Eye Award for best documentary at Cannes earlier this year, have received the Variety Middle East and North Africa Talent of the Year Award. The ceremony was held at the El Gouna Film Festival, where their film is also playing as part of the Feature Narrative Competition.

“The Brink of Dreams” is a moving coming-of-age story following the Panorama Barsha Troupe, an all-female theater group in a remote village in southern Egypt who take to the streets to act out their plays denouncing underage marriage, domestic violence and patriarchy in a deeply conservative society.

“It’s wonderful to get this award and truly meaningful for us as filmmakers. We deeply respect the creatives who received the award before us and are so very happy to join them,” said Riyadh.

The seventh edition of CineGouna, the industry arm of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, has updated its core programs to reflect its “commitment to fostering creativity and supporting regional talent in the film industry.”

Former CineGouna SpringBoard is now CineGouna Funding, while former CineGouna Bridge is now CineGouna Forum. The former offers financial and artistic support to Arab film projects, while the latter provides professional development opportunities through industry discussions and workshops. CineGouna Market, the festival’s market arm, returns for its sophomore edition, as does CineGouna Emerge, which supports emerging filmmakers and introduces new initiatives for young talents. This year’s edition also sees the debut of CineGouna Shorts, dedicated to supporting short filmmakers through talent development and a cash competition.

“Rebranding the whole program is a crucial step. I believe it makes more sense now,” the head of CineGouna Funding Ahmed Shawky told Variety. “With the expansion of the Market,...

Exclusive: Mena film distribution and marketing company and talent agency Mad Solutions has acquired worldwide rights to the short film The Last Miracle ahead of its world premiere as the opener of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival later this month.

Its subsidiary Mad Distribution will handle its release across Arab-speaking territories, while the company’s recently-launched sales arm Mad World will look after sales in all other territories.

The Egyptian short is directed by Abdelwahab Shawky, whose previous credits include assistant director on Sudanese breakout feature You Will Die At 20 by Amjad Abu Alala.

Popular actor Khaled Kamal plays 40-year-old Yahya, who receives a surprising phone call from a deceased Sheikh at a bar. Little does he know he’s about to go on a spiritual journey with an unexpected conclusion.

It is based on a tale in a short story collection titled ‘The...

Mad Distribution has secured all Arab rights to Hind Meddeb’s Sudan, Remember Us from Paris-based Dulac Distribution, ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The political documentary will screen as part of Giornate delgli Autori, the independent sidebar that runs parallel to the festival from August 28 to September 9, as a Special Event title.

Mad Distribution will handle the release of the film in territories across the Middle East and North Africa in 2025.

The documentary follows five young Sudanese political activists as they struggle to overthrow Sudan’s military regime in the tumultuous years leading up to...

The Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund (Wcf) has backed 10 feature projects in its 40th session, at a total of €260,000.

The latest funding pot has awarded eight production and two distribution grants, to projects from Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Egypt, Iran, Lesotho, Nepal and Sudan.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

Aisha Can’t Fly Away, the debut feature of Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mostafa, received €25,000. Mostafa participated in the 2024 Berlinale Talents, was named a Screen Arab Star of Tomorrow in 2023, and will take part in the Final Cut in Venice lab with his project in September after shooting this summer.

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has unveiled the official selection for its 58th edition, including new features by Mark Cousins, Noaz Deshe, Oleg Sentsov and Beata Parkanova.

The festival, which runs from June 28-July 6 in the Czech spa town, has selected 34 films for its official selection, which spans the main Crystal Globe Competition, the Proxima Competition and Special Screenings.

Scroll down for full selection

There are 11 world premieres and one international premiere in the Crystal Globe Competition. UK director Cousins world premieres A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things, a documentary portrait of British painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a leading figure in...

Sudanese first-timer Mohamed Kordofani’s “Goodbye Julia,” a timely morality tale that takes place just before the 2011 secession of South Sudan, has won top awards for both fest feature film and best screenplay at the eighth edition of the Critics Awards for Arab Films that will be handed out today at the Plage des Palmes in Cannes.

The first Sudanese film ever to screen in Cannes’ official selection, where it premiered in Un Certain Regard last year, “Goodbye Julia” (pictured) 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 war-ravaged country.

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s hybrid doc-drama “Four Daughters,” about an Arab mother contending with the Islamic radicalization and the sexual desires of her teenage daughters, scored three awards: best director for Ben Hania,...

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).

Under these banners, the pair have been at the forefront of promoting Arab cinema internationally and played a part in growing its prominence on the world stage.

Acc kicks off its 10th Cannes program on Friday with a panel entitled “The Arab New Wave: The Actors” on the market’s Plage des Palmes venue.

Speakers on the panel will include iconic Egyptian actress Yousra, Mbc Studios Saudi Arabia General Manager Zeinab Abu Alsamh, top Lebanese TV presenter Raya Abi Rashed, Egyptian superstar Ahmed Malek and Yagoub Alfarhan, star of Saudi Arabia’s first film in Official Selection Norah as well as casting director Cassandra Han.

The swanky location and...

Pan-Arab distributor Mad Solutions is expanding operations by setting up Mad World, a Dubai-based company dedicated to selling Arab movies internationally that will officially launch in Cannes.

Touted as Arab cinema’s first global sales outfit, Mad World segues from Mad Solution’s first foray in the international distribution arena last year with Sudanese director Mohamed Kordofani’s “Goodbye Julia” which they sold widely after it’s splashy launch from Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.

In addition to acquiring global rights to an increasing number of international co-productions, the Cairo-based studio has been stepping up its involvement in packaging Arabic projects with global market potential.

Besides fresh product, Mad World will be handling sales on an extensive library of recent festival award-winners, including shorts, and a back-catalog of titles comprising regional theatrical and streaming titles, many of which have not reached audiences outside the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.

Pan-Arab outfit Mad Solutions has launched international sales company Mad World, which will introduce its first slate of titles and executive team at the Cannes market next week.

The Dubai-based firm will handle worldwide sales and international distribution of new Arab-language feature films, led by Mad Solutions’ co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab as well as the company’s managing partner Colin Brown. All three are co-presidents of Mad World, with Karkouti serving as CEO.

Also joining Mad World are European executives Edin De Liancourt as vice president of sales and acquisitions and Jeanne Deny as director of sales and acquisitions.

Mohamed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia and Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters lead the nominations for the 8th Critics Awards for Arab Films, which will be held during the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

Both features picked up seven nominations apiece for the awards, focused on Arab films that were produced and premiered outside of the Arab world in 2023. Overseen and run by the Cairo-based Arab Cinema Centre (Acc), it was voted on by 209 critics from 72 countries and the winners will be announced during Cannes on May 18.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

This year’s nominees range from Sudan,...

Sudanese first-timer Mohamed Kordofani’s “Goodbye Julia,” a timely morality tale that takes place just before the 2011 secession of South Sudan, and Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” lead 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” (pictured) 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.

The drama, which marked Kordofani’s debut, has scored nominations in seven categories of the Arab film awards, including best feature, director, screenplay, actress, actor and editing.

Ben Hania’s hybrid doc/drama “Four Daughters,” about an Arab...

Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated documentary Four Daughters and Sudanese director Mohamed Kordofani’s Lupita Nyong’o-EPed drama Goodbye Julia lead the nominations in the eighth edition of the Critics Awards for Arab Films.

Hybrid work Four Daughters, exploring the story of a real-life Tunisian mother who lost two of her daughters to Isis after they were radicalized by a local preacher, world premiered in Competition in Cannes last year.

The film won Cannes’ Golden Eye for Best Documentary and also went on to be nominated for Best Documentary at the 2024 Academy Awards.

Kordofani’s Khartoum-set drama Goodbye Julia was also at Cannes in 2023, making history as the first Sudanese film to play in the festival across its 76 editions, with a debut in Un Certain Regard. It represented Sudan at in the 2023-24 Oscar race but was not nominated.

Set against the backdrop of the 2011 South Sudan Independence referendum,...

The Sudanese drama Goodbye Julia is continuing its impressive awards run, earning the Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature over the weekend at the Sonoma International Film Festival in California.

Mohamed Kordofani directed the story set in the context of the secessionist movement that led to the establishment of the independent nation of South Sudan in 2011.

“We commend the festival for its impressive selection of narrative features and unanimously select Goodbye Julia as the best film,” jurors wrote. “An outstanding first feature from Mohamed Kordofani, anchored by two stellar performances from Eiman Yousif and Siran Riak, Goodbye Julia provides a glimpse into a culture and region that’s underrepresented and underexplored in contemporary cinema.”

The jury, comprised of Rosa Bosch (Begin Again Films), Tyler Coates (The Hollywood Reporter), Rebecca Fisher (Magnolia Pictures), Jason Hellerstein (Sideshow), and Julie Huntsinger (Telluride Film Festival), awarded a Special Mention to Hesitation Wound, describing...

The 27th Sonoma International Film Festival (March 20-24), as always, leaned into wine and food with the sold-out opening night U.S. premiere of Thomas Napper’s “Widow Clicquot” (Vertical Entertainment), starring Haley Bennett as the woman who saves the legendary winemaker’s legacy. The wine country film festival drew its highest audience attendance to date with a robust film slate programmed by artistic director Carl Spence (working with Executive Director Ginny Krieger), in his second year, including upcoming specialty fare like Luc Besson’s “DogMan” (Briarcliff Entertainment) starring Caleb Landry Jones in an incendiary performance, and Sony Pictures Classics’ raucous comedy “Wicked Little Letters,” starring Olivia Colman, along with a smattering of yummy wine and food events.

The five-day festival curated by Spence along with senior programmers Amanda Salazar and Ken Jacobson, showcased more than 100 films. Twenty-five countries were represented in this year’s lineup of 43 narrative features, 16 documentary features,...

Aflamuna Connection, formerly known as Beirut Cinema Platform, has selected 14 feature film projects to participate in its eighth edition, which will be the first edition to be held under the new name Aflamuna (Our films).

Reflecting emerging Arab filmmaker voices, the 14 projects range between fiction, docu-fiction and documentaries, and feature 11 projects in development and three in post-production. The selected projects come from Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Saudi Arabia.

Titles include Moondove, Lebanese filmmaker Karim Kassem’s docu-fiction about a female artist returning to a village outside Beirut after living abroad. Kassem’s documentary Octopus won...

Steve Buscemi’s “The Listener” is heading to the Sarasota Film Festival.

The 26th edition of the Florida fest will feature live and in-person screenings and events that will take place across Sarasota beginning on April 5. The 10-day fest will feature 23 narrative features, 41 documentary features and 81 short films.

Buscemi will be in Sarasota to participate in a Q&a following the screening of “The Listener,” which will serve as the closing night film. About a crisis hotline worker enduring the pressures of her job, the film starring Tessa Thompson made its world premiere at Venice Film Festival in 2022.

Lynn Dow’s “Bull Street,” starring Loretta Devine and Amy Madigan, will open the fest on April 5. The drama centers on a South Carolina small-town lawyer (Malynda Hale) as she faces local politics and an unwavering judge (Madigan) when her estranged father’s family tries to evict her and her grandmother (Devine) from her home.

Global Media Makers is proud of all of our Fellows who had an outstanding presence at this year’s Berlinale. Filmmakers arrived with projects in development, like Angolan Fellow Fradique Bastos, whose Gmm-supported project, Hold Time for Me, won the World Cinema Fund Audience Strategies Award at the Co-Production Market, and Nepali Fellow Rajan Katet, participated in the Berlinale Talents program after a successful festival run for his documentary No Winter Holidays.

After his film Goodbye Julia was selected as Sudan’s submission to the Oscars, Amjad Abu Alala served on the jury of the program’s Generation section. His Executive Producer, Lupita N’yongo, was the jury president of the festival’s main slate. Lebanese Fellow Myriam Sassine produced Diaries from Lebanon by director Myriam El Hajj, which premiered in the Panorama section.

One of the most memorable moments was on closing night in the main competition, which...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best International Feature Wim Wenders’ ‘Perfect Days’

Weekly Commentary: The United Kingdom is poised to win its first Academy Award with Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” and what a deserved win it will be.

But while I have the floor: it’s time for the...

Prior to making headlines the next day after a short-lived health scare that required a brief stay in hospital, Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins arrived at Dublin’s Complex arts center last Wednesday to present the Dublin film festival’s highest honor to Steve McQueen. Introduced in 2007 and named the Volta Award, after the first commercial cinema set up in Dublin in 1909 by writer James Joyce, its previous recipients include Daniel Day Lewis, Claudia Cardinale and Al Pacino. The famously serious director was in high spirits, enthusing that “festivals are about passion, a passion for film.” “There’s always a buzz, isn’t there?” he continued. “[As you] go to the next picture, the next film, you tend to give people tips and say, ‘Oh, you’ve got to see this, you’ve got to see that…’”

McQueen was in and out of the festival, flying home the same night, fueling...

Arab distributor Mad Solutions has taken world sales on Lebanese director Myriam El-Hajj’s timely feature documentary “Diaries From Lebanon” ahead of its upcoming premiere in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.

El-Hajj’s new doc features three characters from different generations who are looking for their place in Lebanon, a country “haunted by a past that continues to pollute the present,” as the doc’s synopsis puts it.

The protagonists, named Georges, Joumana and Perla Joe, have different perspectives on whether to change Lebanon’s dismal national narrative “through war, politics or revolution,” the description continues.

But as Lebanon’s ongoing mayhem prompts personal quests for meaning and survival, they are all confronted with the same basic question: “Is it possible to sustain our dream in the face of a crumbling world around us?”

El-Hajj’s previous doc “A Time to Rest” examined Lebanon’s Civil War and premiered at...

Exclusive: L.A. and Cairo-based production company Ambient Light Films is upping its support for Middle East and North African indie cinema.

The company has unveiled details of six grants that it awarded to Mena filmmakers in the context of the CineGouna Bridge project market at the El Gouna Film Festival in December.

They included cast grants for Tunisian filmmaker Hinde Boujemaa’s Yammi, about a son who lashes out at the women closest to him following his mother’s death, and Lebanese director Dahlia Nemlich’s Assa, a Fish in a Bowl, about a couple who hire an Ethiopian maid to care for their child with unexpected consequences.

Service grants went to to Lebanese director George Peter Barbari’s So the Lover Could Come Out Again about the relationship between snipers against the backdrop of the Lebanese civil war, and Tunisian road movie Tunis-Djerba by Amel Guellaty.

Further in-kind...

Dublin International Film Festival has unveiled its full programme for the upcoming edition, opening with the world premiere of Irish filmmaker Marian Quinn’s anti-war epic Twig.

This re-telling of Greek tragedy Antigone stars Sade Malone in the titular role and Brían F. O’Byrne, and is set in Dublin’s inner city, where an ancient city wall cordons off a neighbourhood which is rife with drugs. It is produced by Ireland’s Ruth Carter of Blue Ink Films and Tommy Weir for Janey Pictures.

Further Irish filmmaking talent showcased includes the previously announced closing night film, Pat Collins’ adaptation of...

Mohamed Kordofani’s Sudanese title previously opened strongly in Egypt.

Mohamed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia, which became the first Sudanese feature to ever play at Cannes earlier this year, has achieved another first following its release across the Gulf.

The film has recorded box office of $349,000 from 27,000 admissions following its release by Mad Solutions in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain on December 7 and in the UAE on December 14 across a total of 84 screens. This is a record for a non-Egyptian or non-Saudi arthouse film in the Gcc.

Saudi accounted for 40% of total takings from 37 screens while the UAE represented 30% of revenues from 27 screens.

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo was awarded the El Gouna Gold Star for best narrative film for his meditation on art and relationships, “In Our Day,” as the delayed edition of the El Gouna Film Festival held its closing ceremony on Thursday. The Italian animated film “A Greyhound of a Girl,” directed by Enzo D’Alò, and the Brazilian director Guto Parente’s “A Strange Path” picked up the Silver and Bronze Stars respectively.

The jury comprised of Indian director Anup Singh, Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak, Palestinian actress Yasmine Al-Massri, French Lebanese actress Manal Issa and Egyptian filmmaker Omar El Zohairy.

In the non-fiction category, Ibrahim Nash’at’s acclaimed documentary “Hollywoodgate” took the top prize, with “Seven Winters in Tehran” and Mila Turajlić’s Serbian film “Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels” sharing the Silver Star, and “On the Adamant,” directed by French director Nicolas Philibert, taking the Bronze Star. The...

Neha Dhupia (“A Thursday”) and Adil Hussain (“Life of Pi”) will star in Egyptian director Ali El Arabi’s upcoming drama “Blue 52,” about a young Indian soccer fan’s journey as a migrant worker to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

In El Arabi’s “Blue 52” Ashish endures his father’s isolating control on a remote island home in Kochi, India, but with his mother’s support, and lessons alongside inspiration from his late brother, he breaks free. Ashish embarks on a journey to meet his idol, Messi, at the World Cup in Qatar 22, leading him to face the world for the first time.

Production has now wrapped on “Blue 52,” which was initially meant to be a doc. The project has become a scripted feature, marking the feature film debut of El Arabi, who made a splash at virtual Sundance in 2021 with doc “Captains of Zaatari,” about the soccer dreams of young Syrian refugees.

The Oscars shortlist voting period has closed as of 5:00 p.m. Pt.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the finalists in 10 categories — documentary feature (15), documentary short subject (15), international feature (15), makeup and hairstyling (10), sound (10), original score (15), original song (15), animated short film (15), live action short film (15), and visual effects (10) — on Thursday, Dec. 21.

We expect to see multiple best picture contenders in various races, including Greta Gerwig’s meta-comedy “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s historical biopic “Oppenheimer.” When it comes to “Barbie,” we are forecasting six mentions for the movie, including three of its songs — “Dance the Night,” “I’m Just Ken” and “What Was I Made For,” which feels like it sealed the deal with Billie Eilish’s moving musical performance on this week’s “Saturday Night Live.”

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

Varying mediums and genres could find representation throughout the lists.

When writer-director Mohamed Kordofani first conceived of the film “Goodbye Julia,” he realized that he didn’t have a single friend from South Sudan — “and there are millions who live in Khartoum.” Now he has hundreds, he tells Variety. The first Sudanese film to premiere in the Un Certain Regard sidebar in Cannes, his debut feature won the Prix de la Liberté and is now the official Sudanese entry for the Academy Awards, with Lupita Nyong’o on board as an executive producer. The film had its Middle East and North Africa premiere this week at El Gouna Film Festival, where Kordofani was awarded the Variety Mena Region Talent Award.

Originally trained as an aircraft engineer, Kordofani had an epiphany while working in the Gulf which proved to be the genesis for the film: “My wife was pregnant with my second daughter and we needed a maid. The agency presented us...

Chua was lead producer on ‘Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell’.

Jeremy Chua, producer of Cannes award-winning feature Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell, has been appointed general manager of the Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff).

The announcement coincided with the closing of a bumper edition of Sgiff, where Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell was named best Asian feature film at the Silver Screen Awards.

Chua will assume the role on January 1 and jointly lead the festival with Thong Kay Wee, who has been programme director since 2021. Emily J Hoe is stepping down as executive director after delivering four editions since 2020.

Chua...

Pham Thien An’s “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” which previously won the Golden Camera at Cannes, has won the Asian Feature Film Competition at the 34th Singapore International Film Festival.

Yoon Eun-Kyung won best director for “The Tenants,” which also won the Fipresci award. “Dreaming & Dying,” by Singaporean director Nelson Yeo earned a special mention. Yu Yi-Hsun won best screenplay for “A Journey in Spring” and the film also won best performance for Yang Kuei-Mei.

The Audience Choice Award went to “Goodbye Julia” by Mohamed Kordofani.

In the Southeast Asian Short Film Competition, the best Southeast Asian short film was awarded to “The River That Never Ends” by J.T. Trinidad, which also scored a special mention for actor Emerald Romero. “I Look Into the Mirror and Repeat to Myself” by Giselle Lin won best Singapore short film. Best director went to Sam Manacsa for “Cross My Heart and...

Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o will be president of the international jury of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, the Berlinale unveiled on Monday.

The star of 12 Years a Slave, Us and the Black Panther franchise will head up the jury that picks the Gold and Silver Bear winners of the 2024 Berlinale, which runs February 15-25, 2024.

“Lupita Nyong’o embodies what we like in cinema: versatility in embracing different projects, addressing different audiences, and consistency to one idea that is quite recognizable in her characters, as diverse as they may look. We are happy and proud she has accepted our invitation to be the jury president of the 74th Berlinale,” said Berlinale co-directors Mariëtte Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian in a statement.

Added Nyong’o: “I am deeply honored to serve as the President of the International Jury of the Berlin International Film Festival. I look forward to celebrating and recognizing the...

Lupita Nyong’o, the Oscar-winning Kenyan-Mexican actor and filmmaker, will preside over the international jury of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival. She will be the second consecutive female jury president at the Berlinale, following fellow actor Kristen Stewart.

“Lupita Nyong’o embodies what we like in cinema: versatility in embracing different projects, addressing different audiences, and consistency to one idea that is quite recognisable in her characters, as diverse as they may look,” said Berlinale directors Mariëtte Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian.

Lupita Nyong’o, who broke through in “12 Years a Slave,” said she was “deeply honored to serve as the President of the International Jury of the Berlin International Film Festival.”

“I look forward to celebrating and recognising the outstanding work of filmmakers from around the world,” Nyong’o continued.

On top of winning a best supporting Oscar for her performance in “12 Years a Slave,” she has received the Screen Actors Guild Award,...

Nyong’o won best supporting actress Oscar for ’12 Years A Slave’

Lupita Nyong’o will be the president of the international jury for the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.

Nyong’o won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years A Slave, and played the role of warrior Nakia in the Marvel film Black Panther. She also starred in the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022).

Her further credits include Us, Little Monsters, Queen Of Katwe, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the horror film The 355 and she stars in the upcoming horror franchise spin-off A Quiet Place: Day One.

Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o will head the competition jury at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival.

“I am deeply honored to serve as the President of the International Jury of the Berlin International Film Festival. I look forward to celebrating and recognizing the outstanding work of filmmakers from around the world,” Nyong’o said of her appointment.

The daughter of Kenyan parents, Nyong’o was born in Mexico City and grew up in Kenya. She then studied Film and Theatre Studies at Hampshire College (USA) and initially worked on various film productions in the USA. Back in Kenya, she produced her first film In My Genes in 2009, which she also directed and wrote. After further studies at the Yale School of Drama, she began her acting career and is best known for her breakout performance in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave for which she picked up the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Shortlist of 15 films to be announced December 21, nominations out on January 23, 2024.

The Academy has announced eligible features in the categories of international feature film, animation, and documentary for the 96th Academy Awards on March 10, 2024.

The shortlist of 15 films will be announced on December 21, and the nominations announcement is January 23, 2024.

International

Eighty-eight countries or regions have submitted films eligible for consideration in the international feature film category. An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (more than 40 minutes long) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track. Namibia is a first-time entrant.

Academy members...

To make a film critical of oneself and the values instilled in you by family and society is not an easy task. But that’s exactly what Mohamed Kordofani set out to do with Goodbye Julia. “I wanted this to be a mirror for Sudanese people. I think we, as a community, care too much about how people view us but we don’t care at all about what the people we oppress think.”

The film–screening for free this Tuesday, December 12 as part of Film Independent Presents!–tackles the macro issues of racism, colorism and prejudice within Sudan while concentrating on the growing friendship between two women in Khartoum. The first Mona (Eiman Yousef) is a privileged Sudanese housewife of Arab descent. The other, Julia (Siran Riak), is a poor woman originally from South Sudan and of African descent who ends up being her maid.

Like an Asghar Farhadi...

Seven films backed by Fund have been submitted to the Academy Awards’ international feature category

One of the targets for the Red Sea Fund when it launched three years ago was to “be part of the Oscars somehow by 2027, according to fund manager Emad Eskander.

“But it happened this year – we have seven films shortlisted for the Oscars,” Eskander told a Red Sea panel session, to loud applause from the audience.

The seven Red Sea-backed films submitted in the international feature category are Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, submitted by Tunisia, Mohamed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia (Sudan), Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji...

“I told myself that I had to stand up for my work,” says Amanda Nell Eu

Malaysian filmmaker Amanda Nell Eu says she was ‘terrified’ about speaking out to disown a censored version of her feature Tiger Stripes that was released in her home country.

Censors cut key scenes from Tiger Stripes, which won the Grand Prize in Critics’ Week at Cannes and is Malaysia’s Oscar entry. It prompted Eu to release a public statement in October against the cuts.

Speaking to Screen about her decision to speak out, Eu said: “I told myself that I had to stand up for my work.

The film will be based on the true story of a massacre at a military camp in 1998.

A film based on the true story of a massacre in Sudan is being lined up by the producers of Cannes award-winning drama Goodbye Julia.

Mohammed Alomda of Sudanese production company Station Films has revealed that filming will take place in 2024 on Specters of AlHoot, which will mark the feature directorial debut of Ahmad Mahmoud. Delivery is expected in 2025.

“This is a true story about three teenagers who flee from a military boot camp to attend a concert, but come back to face...

The third edition of the Red Sea Film Festival, taking place in Jeddah between Nov. 30 – Dec. 9, will be the culmination of a highly successful funding cycle for the Red Sea Film Foundation. Created in 2019 following the lifting of Saudi Arabia’s 30-year cinema ban, the foundation aims to support the local and regional film industry through the organizing and championing of the festival, plus a focus on education and grants.

In 2021, the foundation launched the Red Sea Fund, a financing arm focused on supporting emerging filmmakers and established directors from the Arab world and Africa. Grants were distributed between projects in development, production and post-production. The fund supported 94 projects in the first year and over 250 films in the two years since, including films by acclaimed filmmakers such as Abderrahmane Sissako, Haifaa Al-Mansour and Kaouther Ben Hania.

The impact of the fund was felt throughout the biggest festivals in the world...

Mad Solutions — the Middle East and North Africa region’s leading sales agent and distributor of Arabic-language films — has acquired the world sales rights for Tunisian director Nada Mezni Hafaiedh’s debut feature “Take My Breath,” which world premiered in the International Competition of the Warsaw Film Festival this fall.

Hafaiedh’s film, which has found great success in Tunisian cinemas over the past month, follows the life of a young seamstress named Shams, whose tranquil life unravels when their intersex identity is exposed. Engaged in a steamy love triangle and targeted by an obsessive attacker, Shams escapes to the capital city.

Taking refuge with their lover’s mystic cousin, Shams grapples with their complex sense of self. The evocative tale explores the clash between desire and identity.

In creating “Take My Breath,” Hafaiedh says she aimed to “highlight overlooked struggles and spark discussion about avoided subjects” in her native Tunisia,...

Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, after being postponed due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, has announced it will hold a special edition from Dec. 14 to 21.

The event held in a seaside resort near the tourist town of Hurghada, 250 miles south of Cairo, will feature its previously announced full lineup of films, plus a special program dedicated to Palestinian cinema, in collaboration with the Palestine Film Institute.

“Additionally, a fundraising dinner is planned to gather donations for humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza in coordination with the Egyptian Red Crescent during the festival,” the fest said in a statement, adding that it’s “will be held without any celebrations.”

The Egyptian fest’s sixth edition will feature a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side.

Lupita Nyong’o has joined Goodbye Julia, Sudan’s entry for this year’s Best International feature race at the Oscars, as an executive producer.

Directed by Sudanese filmmaker Mohamed Kordofani in his feature film debut, the pic explores the events leading up the 2011 split between Sudan’s southern and northern populations. The film made history in Cannes this year as the first Sudanese film to play in the festival after it was selected for Un Certain Regard.

The film’s Cannes premiere took place just weeks after fighting broke out in Khartoum due to a clash between rival generals, which has led to the deaths of 5,000 people and uprooted seven million people.

Since Cannes, the film has also played at Karlovy Vary in its Horizons section and had been set to make its Mena premiere at Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival in October ahead of a theatrical release in...