You have to love Spike Lee for crashing Thierry Frémaux’s insiders party at the line-up press conference… via social media of course!
Read MoreLaetitia Ky in a still from Erige Sehiri’s ‘Promised Sky’
A still from Iran’s submission to the Oscars, ‘Sun Children’ by Majid Majidi
Doha's Ajyal Film Festival: Erasing some of the common borders of the Middle East, for a youth centric audience
I’ve long been a fan of everything that the Doha Film Institute has to offer. Their Qumra event is a phenomenal way to witness how filmmakers go about constructing their films, from pre-production to grants and securing funding to finish their projects. For a culture journalist, it’s a valuable way to experience, quite literally, how cinema is made.
But personally, the event that remains near and dear to my heart is always the Ajyal Film Festival.
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Actress Behnaz Jafari with filmmaker Jafar Panahi in a still from '3 Faces'
The last of the Cannes Diaries 2018: When all else fails, you can find me at the movies
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Actually, this edition of the Festival de Cannes turned out to be a missed opportunity, for media and juries alike to truly take charge of the #TimesUp movement and make of it a lasting course instead of a passing trend. Yes, there were stairs filled with women in pretty dresses, there were hotlines that we could call if we felt threatened or harassed, but ultimately the big prizes went to the big boys. As they have for every edition of the festival, except once, in 1993 when Jane Campion made history as the first and only woman to win the Palme d’Or.
Yet personally, I loved Cannes more than ever this year. I had a soft place to fall, in the form of a wonderful group of friends I spent my free time with, eating dinners we cooked together and drinking our morning coffee back at our cozy apartment with one breathtaking view. I mean, just look at the Disney fireworks for 'SOLO: A Star Wars Story' display from our terrace!
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