Entertainment

TORONTO, Sept 12, (Agencies): Greta Gerwig stood on the stage of the Ryerson Theatre at the Toronto International Film Festival, wiping back tears from the roaring standing ovation that greeted her directorial debut, “Lady Bird”. Gerwig was already a successful actress and a proven screenwriter, having co-written several films including …

TORONTO, Canada, Sept 12, (Agencies): Nearly a decade after shattering the glass ceiling of Islamic jurisprudence, the first woman judge to be appointed to a sharia court in the Middle East says women’s rights still have a way to go. Kholoud al-Faqih was at the Toronto Film Festival on Monday …

LOS ANGELES, Sept 12, (AFP): The big-screen remake of Stephen King’s “It”, starring the evil entity Pennywise, has smashed box office records and reaffirmed an age-old rule of horror: clowns are creepy as hell. But while countless movies and television shows have cashed in on so-called “coulrophobia” — or fear …

TORONTO, Canada, Sept 11, (Agencies): Oscar nominees Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon electrified audiences at the Toronto Film Festival Sunday with their portrayals of Thomas Edison and his rival in the race for marketable electricity, George Westinghouse. “The Current War” was directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who described Edison as someone …

AMMAN, Jordan, Sept 11, (Agencies): The world must do more to help Syrian refugee children get an education, actress Priyanka Chopra said after chatting and joking with young refugees at an after-school center in Jordan’s capital. Individuals can make a difference with donations if governments don’t step up, said Chopra, …

MOSCOW, Sept 11, (AFP): A new Russian film aimed at a youth audience reinvents classic novelist Nikolai Gogol as a gothic-style detective who battles dark supernatural forces to solve a series of ritual murders. Critics have queried the lashings of eyeliner, plumped-up lips and lack of historical rigour, while the …

VENICE, Italy, Sept 10, (Agencies): Guillermo del Toro’s monster thriller “The Shape of Water” took top prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday, capping an 11-day event where the demons of social division and environmental disaster loomed large on the screen. Del Toro was named winner of the Golden …

Haifaa Al-Mansour became the toast of the international film community in 2012 when her first feature, “Wadjda”, became not only the first feature film from a female Saudi director, but also the first feature to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, period. But what often went missing from the media …

TORONTO, Canada, Sept 9, (AFP): Documentary filmmaker Chris Moukarbel took Toronto film festival audiences backstage to meet the real Lady Gaga on Friday, sketching raw humanity at the height of stardom. It might also be the last glimpse of the singer for a while, as Gaga told a press conference …

VENICE, Sept 6, (RTRS): The courtroom is not where you find the truth, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda shows in his legal drama “The Third Murder”, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday. The movie, called “Sandome no satsujin” in Japanese, is one of 21 films from around the …