Global Flicks: Mohammad Rasoulof sentenced to eight years in prison due to political criticism
Africa: Filmmaker Korede Azeez speaks out on her feelings of misrepresentation in Nollywood. Azeez says she can “count off the top of her head, and on the fingers of one hand, the major films in Nollywood which have Muslim characters as their lead.” She said that, even when you do find these rare Muslim characters, they are often shown through dramatic stereotypes. The filmmaker expressed her disappointment over these clichés, especially because Muslims account for half of Nigeria’s population. Azeez plans to take matters into her own hands with her upcoming film, With Difficulty Comes Ease. The title stems from verse 94:5 of the Quran. She chose this title because she “wanted something that would make Muslims stop to look at this film.” The major theme in this film is the strength of women, no matter their religion, tribe, or family background. With Difficulty Comes Ease tells the tale of an Igbo woman who becomes a Muslim after marrying her Muslim husband. By combining two worlds in this film, she hopes to do the same in her audience and inspire Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
“Not everyone is the picture-perfect Muslim as we are not all the same. Not all people wear the hijab in the same way, not everyone wears the hijab. Like the character who goes through many phases in life; everyone, both Muslim and non-Muslim women struggles with these phases and when life beats them down, they all struggle with feelings of inadequacy, striving for perfection. This character feels what they feel,” said Korede Azeez.
Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage has been the leading female artist in the Afrobeats genre for years. She has headlined global tours, collaborated with Beyoncé and Brandy, and won many awards. However, she is just getting started. Tiwa Savage is starring in and executive producing her debut full-length feature film, Water and Garri. The film had its global debut on Prime Video on May 10. The film follows Aisha, a successful fashion designer, as she returns to Nigeria after a decade in the United States. Upon returning to her homeland, she is taken aback by all that has changed since she had left. The accompanying soundtrack is the key component of the “experience,” as the film’s music mirrors Aisha’s feelings throughout the film. The music includes an array of genres such as Afrobeat and Afropop, amapiano, R&B, gospel, and hints of mainstream trap and pop. Featured are Grammy-nominee Arya Starr, Afro-reggae fusion artist Black Sherif, with highlight contributions from Olamide and rising Nigerian star Young John. The film draws inspiration from Tiwa’s 2021 EP named Water and Garri, and her journey as a Nigerian-born British woman who ventured to Brooklyn to ignite her music career. The film is directed by Meji Alabi, who also is making his debut in full-length filmmaking.
STRAINED, an Okey Oku film (produced and directed by Nigerian cinematographer Okechukwu Oku), has been released to Netflix after nine long months of anticipation. The film is a story of motherhood, personal growth, and combining families after years of tension. The plot focuses on Ebere, a mother who gives birth to her first child and receives a visit from her estranged mother. The two have not spoken in years, but after her mother arrives to teach Ebere how to care for a newborn, they find a commonplace and reconnect. The film stars Queen Nwokoye, Tracey George, Samuel Nnabuike, Adaeze Onuigbo. Story and screenplay is by Onyinyechukwu Amadi.
Imtiaz Ali - SUJIT JAISWAL
Asia: Indian filmmaker and television personality Karan Johar plans to release a new film, Kill, on the July 4 weekend this summer (and July 5 in India). This is a historic moment for Johar and his company, Dharma Prods., because this is his first film that is made for a global audience. Kill is set entirely on an express train to New Delhi. The film follows Indian army commandos Amrit (Lakyshya) and Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan) on a mission to rescue Amrit’s girlfriend Tulika (Tanya Maniktala). Amrit and Viresh are unaware that there are 40 bandits on the train who are plotting to rob the passengers, setting off a bloody face-off. Johar said this film is “the most violent film made out of India” and describes it as “blood porn.” He received the Legend Award at the Gold House May 11 in Los Angeles. Johar credits the rise of streamers for his success and Indian cinema as a whole.
“It’s brought the entire communities of filmmakers, storytellers and artists even closer together,” Karan Johar says. “What’s happening now is we’re not only consuming cinema from our countries, but we’re watching all kinds of cinema because it’s one click away. The digital revolution has caused awareness.”
Indian filmmaker Imtiaz Ali’s Netflix original film Amar Singh Chamkila is a hit for the streamer, sweeping the board as No. 1 across South Asia and No. 5 on its global Top 10 chart. The film is a biopic of Punjabi musician Amar Singh Chamkila (Diljit Dosanjh), who was the most sought-after performer in the region alongside his wife Amarjot Kaur (Parineeti Chopra). Chamkila’s suggestive lyrics that were rooted in rural Punjabi life were described as vulgar by many, and he came under pressure from religious and political groups to stop and received death threats. To add fuel to the fire, his local musical contemporaries were jealous of his success. In 1988, Chamkila, Kaura, and two of their band members were shot dead. The assassination remains unsolved. There have been two other movies about Chamkila’s story, a mockumentary named Mehsampur (2018), and an unofficial biopic Jodi (2023), also starring Dosanjh. At the time, Punjab was experiencing civil unrest due to a separatist movement, and the public found comfort in Chamkila’s music. The film will highlight the “societal duplicity” of which the people that threatened to kill him were also big fans of his music.
“Chamkila realizes that he has got popularity because of his song lyrics being in a certain way. But that is ultimately what also threatens and takes his life. Society can take somebody and make him big because of a reason, and for that same reason destroy him. That I thought is very fascinating,” Ali says. “Apart from the moral policing, what also exists is the society’s duplicity and a two-pronged behavior toward art.”
The gritty survival drama The Goat Life is currently the third highest-grossing Malayalam language film of all time and one of the highest-grossing Indian films of the year. The film has been banned in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman for its explicit portrayal of the immigrant experience of those emigrating from Kerala to the Middle East. According to a 2014 survey, about 90% of Kerala’s diaspora reside in the Middle East, which is the setting intentionally chosen by director Blessy Ipe Thomas, more commonly known as “Blessy.” Blessy is best known for 100 Years of Chrysostom, which still holds the Guinness World Record for longest ever documentary. The Goat Life is based on Benyamin’s book Goat Days, and is the true story of migrant Najeeb Muhammed, who goes to Saudi Arabia for work. Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, Najeeb finds himself trapped in the country as a goatherd with no prospect of returning home. Actor Prithviraj Sukumaran was 25 when Blessy first approached him to star in The Goat Life. The actor is now 41. Fortunately, the long-awaited film has reaped its success, with The Goat Life taking around $20 million at the Box Office so far, double its budget, which Prithviraj says was very high for a Malayalam movie. Blessy deems the movie as similar to Life of Pi, where the narrative goes from one big event to the other. Only 25% of the film features spoken dialogue. The gaps are filled with intentional cinematography and a “sweeping score” by Academy Award-winning composer A.R. Raham (Slumdog Millionaire). In places where characters speak to the protagonist Najeeb in Arabic, Blessy decided against adding subtitles in order to mirror the confusion that Najeeb himself felt in that moment. Much of the film was shot in the desert, where The Goat Life team ran into crew from Denis Villenueve’s Dune 2, who were scouting for locations in Jordan’s Wadi Rum. The real Najeeb on whom the book and film were based was invited to an early screening of the film. After watching the footage, he kept repeating, “It’s all coming back to me, it’s all rushing back.”
Prime Video has confirmed that Aparna Purohit, Head of Originals for India and Southeast Asia, has left the Amazon streamer. She first joined Amazon in January 2016 and is now set to join Aamir Khan Productions as CEO. Local reports are linking Nikhil Madhok, Head of Original Hindi Content, as her replacement.
On her departure, a Prime Video spokesperson said, “She was the driving force behind the diversity initiatives at Prime Video, significantly increasing female participation in storytelling in front of and behind the camera. Aparna will now be returning to her entrepreneurial roots and continue to work on bar-raising stories. We deeply value her contributions to Prime Video that has made us the home for stories, storytellers and talent, and wish her the best in her new role.”
Lourdes Portillo - Amanda Edwards
Latin America: Renowned Mexican-American filmmaker Lourdes Portillo passed away April 20 at the age of 80. She was a pioneering Chicana director celebrated for her one-of-a-kind filmography that spanned over four decades. Portillo’s distinctive style blends elements of visual artistry, investigative journalism, and activism. Her body of work was centered on Latin American, Mexican, LGBTQ+, and Chicano/a experiences. She successfully shed light on social justice issues and made a remarkable impact in the film industry and beyond. Portillo is originally from Chihuahua, Mexico and relocated to Los Angeles during her teenage years. Her filmmaking journey began at the age of 21, where she was invited by a friend in Hollywood to contribute to a documentary project. In the 1970s, she ventured to San Francisco to study at the San Francisco Art Institute. In the city, she immersed herself in Chicano and avant-garde cinema, social-issue documentary filmmaking, feminism, and Latin American politics. In 1979, with Nina Serrano, Portillo co-directed her first acclaimed short film named After the Earthquake / Después del terremoto, depicting the life of a Nicaraguan refugee in San Francisco. A major turning point in her career came with Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (1985). This documentary chronicles the political endeavors of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a collective of Argentine women who assemble weekly at Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo to commemorate their children who vanished during the Dirty War (1976 - 1983). After three years of hard work, Portillo earned a nomination for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards, an Emmy Award nomination, and garnered over twenty international awards. In 1994, she directed The Devil Never Sleeps / El diablo nunca duerme, a documentary inspired by a phone call from a family member informing Portillo of her uncle’s fatal shooting in Chihuahua. Portillo had suspicions of the murder and embarked on an investigation. In The Devil Never Sleeps, Portillo includes a mix of home videos, photographs, staged recollections, and telenova excerpts. The film earned significant praise, making it onto The New Yorker's list of "Sixty-Two Films that Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking" and securing a spot in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Portillo’s impact extended far beyond her films. She relentlessly advocated for diversity and inclusion in the film industry, mentored aspiring filmmakers, and amplified underrepresented voices. She has been said to pave the way for future generations, and though she is gone, her legacy lives on through all those she has influenced along the way. She is survived by her three children, four siblings, five grandchildren, many loving nieces and nephews and a large, loving extended family both in the US and Mexico.
Mexican director Karla Badillo completed filming her debut feature, OCA. The film was shot on locations in San Luis Potosí. Written by Badillo herself, the film stars a young nun who travels to a nearby town to meet the archbishop. On her path, she crosses paths with a pilgrimage, a parachutist, and a femme fatale who all help her along her journey to find herself. The film is a production by the Mexican company Woo Films, in co-production with the French company Slot Machine, and the Argentine companies Pucará Cine and Año Cero. The premiere is scheduled for November 2025. The cast of OCA is made up of Natalia Solián (Huesera), Leonardo Ortizgris (Museo) and Cecilia Suárez (Elvira, I would give you my life but I am using it).
My New Dance Style is the first fiction feature film by Chilean director and producer Pablo Berhelon, who is renowned for his documentaries. The film is a co-production between the Chilean Carnada Films and the Argentine Morocha Films starring a young man who forms a punk band with his neighborhood friends in the ‘80s (during the Chilean dictatorship). The story arises from the real events of the band Emociones clandestinas, of whom Berthelon made a documentary in 2012. Written by Benjamín Berger, the film stars Lucas Sáez, Luciana Ibáñez, Manu Caponni, and Victor Montero.
"What we wanted to tell is how, in that period of transition towards democracy, music and the spirit of rebellion of youth manage to change the face of a city, fill it with culture and form a movement that endures to this day, since Concepción receives the recognition of City of Music in Latin America by UNESCO,” said Palbo Berhelon.
Venezuelan Filmmaker Jonathan Jakubowicz, winner of the German Film Peace Prize 2020 for his film Resistance, has signed on to direct the feature Cottonwood for Eric Paquette’s Meridian Pictures. The story follows a single dad who must confront his troubled past when his former mentor, a “dangerous gangster,” reemerges. He must now protect his family from imminent danger. The film will be produced by Paquette, Aaron Barnett, and The Exchange’s Brian O’Shea, with Claudine Jakubowicz serving as executive producer.
Mohammad Rasoulof - STEPHANE CARDINALE/CORBIS/CORBIS
Middle East: Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof has been sentenced to eight years in prison, according to his lawyer. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the filmmaker’s lawyer Babak Paknia wrote that Iran’s Islamic Revolution Court sentenced Rasoulof to eight years of imprisonment, flogging, a fine, and confiscation of property. The judgment was confirmed in a Court of Appeal and the case has now been sent for enforcement, Paknia wrote. According to Paknia, the main reason for the sentence were Rasoulof’s public statements and documentaries, which the court deemed “examples of collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country’s security.” The news comes as Iranian authorities exert heavy pressure on Rasoulof to pull his work The Seed of the Sacred Fig from the Cannes Film Festival by “harassing” the film’s producers. Actors and other staff members were summoned for questioning and banned from leaving the country. Paknia, who is a human rights lawyer, had written in a previous X post that Iran’s authorities pressured Sacred Fig producers and actors to convince Rasoulof to withdraw the film from the festival. Rasoulof was incarcerated by Iranian authorities in July 2022 after he posted an appeal urging Iranian security forces to stop using weapons during protests. The protests were prompted by a building collapse in the southwestern city of Abadan. He was released in February 2023 for health reasons. There have been three other incidents in which Iranian authorities have not allowed Rasoulof to leave the country, most of which related to the Cannes Film Festival.
Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi’s Norah made history this May as the first-ever Saudi feature to play in Cannes’ Official Selection. The achievement comes six years after Saudi Arabia announced the end of its 35-year cinema ban. Set in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s when artistic expression was banned, the feature follows a rookie teacher and artist, Nader, who is sent to a remote village where he connects with a young woman, Norah, whose life has been stifled by the era of conservatism. She ignites the creativity inside him and inspires him to paint again. Norah realizes that she must leave her community in order to grow and express her artistic self. The cast features rising Saudi star Yaqoub Alfarhan (Rashash), newcomer Maria Bahrawi, and acclaimed veteran actor Abdullah Alsadhan (Tash ma Tash). Norah is the first Saudi feature film to shoot entirely in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of AlUla
“This landmark film, which encapsulates the spirit of Saudi Arabia in the 1990s through its poignant narrative of artistic and personal awakening, represents a significant moment for Saudi cinema on the global stage,” said Cercamon CEO Sebastien Chesneau. “Norah is a bold statement about the power of art and expression. We believe its universal themes of struggle, creativity, and resilience will resonate deeply with audiences worldwide.”
Katerina Suvorova’s new documentary, Streets Loud With Echoes, captures a youth-powered civil movement sparked by the shocking murder of Denis Ten. Ten made history when he became the first ever Kazakhstani figure skater to win an Olympic medal. The 95-minute documentary follows Kazakhstan citizens who aim to challenge their political regime and “make them take notice of their citizenry.” Streets Loud With Echoes made its world premiere at Hot Docs. Suvorova has been working on this project for five years and described it as necessary because it started as a “big and painful event in my city,” that she had no answers to and “no clue at the moment how to reconnect with the reality I was living in towards the feeling of safety in my country.” To find solace, Suvorova gathered at a certain place in her city where people would meet and process the events together. After the second evening, Suvorova realized she should bring her camera.
“When I was making the film, I was thinking that the world has an image of Kazakhstan that the state has represented. What I wanted to do is shatter that image and invite people from around the world to learn how we really are in our country – especially my generation. I want people to understand our fears and hopes to make change,” said Suvorova.
Pan-Arab distributor Mad Solutions is expanding operations by setting up Mad World, a Dubai-based company dedicated to selling Arab movies internationally. Mad World officially launched at Cannes this year with a dozen titles in various stages. In addition to acquiring global rights to an increasing number of international co-productions, the Cairo-based studio has been incorporating Arabic projects with global market potential. Mad World will also be handling sales on an extensive library of recent festival award-winners, including shorts, and a back-catalog of streaming titles that have not reached audiences outside the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Mad World will be led by Mad Solution’s two co-founders, Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, as well as a third managing partner, Brooklyn-based media analyst and consultant Colin Brown. All three will wear co-president hats at Mad World, with Karkouti serving as CEO.
