Sony Music Middle East has appointed veteran regional music exec Rami Mohsen, formerly with Spotify, as its new managing director. 

Prior to joining Sony Music Middle East, Mohsen was the head of music at the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia unit of Spotify. He was instrumental, in this capacity, to spearheading Spotify’s music and content strategies, as well as elevating the company’s profile in the MENA region.

Mohsen began his career at Nogoum FM, a prominent radio station in Egypt and across Middle East, where he rose through the ranks to become network director of both its Nogoum FM and Nogoum FMTV units. In that role, he successfully managed radio programming and music production while overseeing the company’s overall operations.

During his tenure at the radio station, Mohsen launched the NRP production unit dedicated to in-house content creation. The vertical integration of content production also led to the establishment of Nogoum Records, which is now considered one of the top music labels in the MENA region.

Mohsen’s appointment as Middle East chief of Sony Music comes at a time when the MENA region posted the world’s third highest growth rate in 2022, with revenues from recorded music climbing 23.8% to $94 million, according to the IFPI 2023 Global Music Report. Streaming accounted for the vast majority of the market, accounting for a 95.5% share of total revenues.

“We are delighted to welcome Rami to the Sony Music Middle East team,” said Shridhar Subramaniam, president of the company’s corporate strategy and market development for Asia and the Middle East.

“With his progressive outlook on industry trends, a deep passion for artistry, and decisive leadership style, Rami is well-positioned to take Sony Music Middle East to new heights,” he added. “His track record in business and market strategy will be invaluable in meeting the evolving demands of the industry and showcasing the diverse range of sounds and traditions that make the region’s music landscape one-of-a-kind,” Subramaniam went on to note.

Said Mohsen: “The region’s music culture holds a special place in my heart, and we have exceptional musicians and performers whose artistry deserves to be recognised worldwide. My priority is to celebrate and preserve this unique musical heritage while ushering in a fresh wave of music and creativity.”

“With the talented team at Sony Music Middle East, our ambition is to create musical experiences that resonate not only locally, but also on a global scale,” he added.

Kevin Spacey has denied grabbing a man’s genitals so hard while on the freeway that the man almost crashed the car they were both traveling in.

Spacey, who is in the third week of his sexual assault trial in the U.K., told the jury at Southwark Crown Court in London the alleged assault never happened. On Thursday morning Spacey’s barrister, Patrick Gibbs KC, asked the actor, who was sat in the witness box, whether the “car crash” incident had taken place during the early 2000s, to which Spacey replied: “No. I was not on a suicide mission on any of those years.”

Earlier he told the jury his alleged accuser was “flirtatious” and that the touching did not happen in an “aggressive” or “violent” way.

“I’m a big flirt,” Spacey replied when asked if he was flirtatious himself. “We had a very fun time together,” the actor told the court. He added that the man said the experience was new for him and did not want to go further. “I respected that,” Spacey said.

Of another alleged victim, who claimed Spacey grabbed him “hard” backstage at a charity event after having earlier made aggressively sexual remarks, the actor said: “I never said anything of the things he claims I said to him and wouldn’t and never have in my life.”

When asked by Gibbs what Spacey made of the man’s accusations about being grabbed, the actor replied: “It’s madness. It’s madness because it never happened.”

Gibbs also questioned Spacey about the most serious allegation, in which he is accused of drugging a man before performing oral sex on him whilst he was unconscious. Spacey said that when originally questioned by police, he hadn’t recognized the alleged victim’s name, photograph or the allegations. The actor said his initial thought was “This is someone who’s just shaking me down and I’ve faced this before.”

Originally, the alleged victim had believed the encounter had taken place in mid-August, which Spacey proved could not have been the case because of his frequent international travel that month. After a private investigator tracked down the complainant’s then phone number, telephone records showed Spacey had made numerous phone calls and sent a number of text messages to the man on the night the incident was said to have taken place in the months following the alleged assault, including a 19 second call during the period in which the man claimed he would have been unconscious.

Spacey also said that he had found an old telephone in his storage locker that showed he had saved the man’s number in his phone.

The “House of Cards” actor’s account of the evening is that the two men had a consensual sexual encounter in which Spacey performed oral sex on the complainant during what was a “very nice and lovely evening.” Spacey said he then went to the bathroom and when he returned the man left “hurriedly.”

“If he regretted it immediately I don’t know, I can speak for him,” said Spacey. “But something was odd, something was strange and it concerned me.”

Earlier, Spacey appeared relaxed and smiling in the witness box. After his barrister’s opening remarks, the 63-year-old actor told jurors that he had an “excessive” amount of energy when he was younger and it was recommended that he went to drama classes.

Spacey attended the Juliard School of Drama in New York, he told the court. He was asked about when he started acting and replied, “My mother would say when I came out.” His first jobs were small parts in Shakespeare In The Park shows in New York, he said, adding that he did three years of regional theater after that.

The court heard that his first film role was in 1985, aged 26 and his first significant role was in “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992).

Spacey, who denies 12 charges of sexual assault against four men, told the court about his stint as artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre and the connection he felt with its “remarkable history.” “I was crazy enough to throw my hat in the ring,” Spacey said of the role, adding that when he got the lead in hit Netflix drama “House of Cards” he began spending long periods of time away from the theatre. He relinquished the Old Vic role in 2015.

More to come.

Kajol, one of India’s best-loved actors, stars in Disney+ Hotstar series “The Trial – Pyaar, Kaanoon, Dhokha,” the Indian adaptation of CBS series “The Good Wife.”

The courtroom drama sees Kajol star as Noyonika Sengupta, a housewife who is forced to return to work as a lawyer after her husband’s public scandal puts him behind bars. Produced by Banijay Asia and Ajay Devgn FFilms, “The Trial” is directed by Suparn S. Varma (“Rana Naidu”).

Kajol is a huge fan of “The Good Wife.” “I loved the characters, I love the whole show, I binge watched it,” Kajol told Variety. Noyonika is the Alicia role that Julianna Margulies played in the original.

Unlike the U.S., India does not have a trial by jury system. That changes the judicial process depicted and the storytelling in the adaptation, Kajol explained.

“The culture of India is completely different. The pressure is different. If something happens in a woman’s life – whether the husband has the affair or the husband dies, the woman is shamed and the woman is blamed for it. And that is society’s perception of it,” Kajol said. “So that in itself changes Noyonika’s character from Alicia in 100 different ways, her reactions, the way she behaves, what she thinks, what she says – they’re all completely different. I would say it’s a very nicely put adaptation, but it’s not scene-for-scene identical.”

On her character, Kajol added: “She has to build herself up all the way from the bottom where work is concerned and where family life, social pressure and family pressures are concerned. Noyonika is pretty much all women. Noyonika is a woman that any woman would understand and sympathize with.”

Keeping things realistic was a priority during production. To this end, lawyer Priyanka Khimani and a team from Khimani & Associates, a law firm known for its entertainment and intellectual property practice, were present on set. “[It was] so that we didn’t take too many cinematic liberties with our words, gestures, what we were allowed to do and what we were not allowed to do,” Kajol said. In terms of body language, it was all about keeping it controlled, the actor said.

The years of pandemic meant that Indian audiences were exposed to a vast array of international content and by the same token, Indian programming was seen abroad, making the world a global village.

“It’s not so much which audience you are catering to. I think acting as a genre in India has changed, and it you have to change with it. And you have to understand that everybody’s seeing better,” Kajol said. “International cinema has now become a norm, rather than a a niche thing that only certain people can watch. Today, everybody has Disney+ Hotstar, Netflix, or Amazon or whatever on their phones, so they are able to view films in a variety of different languages – Japanese, Korean, English, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, everything. As an actor [now], the formula that you think you have done 100 times before, somehow just doesn’t work anymore. You have to change it around. You have to make it more like what you’re seeing everywhere else, rather than sticking to the typical Hindi format.”

“The Trial – Pyaar, Kaanoon, Dhokha” streams from Friday.

As revealed by Variety, Kajol will lead yet-to-shoot Netflix mystery thriller “Do Patti.” “It’s going to be very, very interesting and I hope and pray that you all find it as interesting because it’s very different from what I’ve done so far,” Kajol said.

The actor also has a pivotal role in thriller film “Sarzameen.”

“Silk” screenwriter Peter Moffat is adapting Jonathan Freedland’s non-fiction novel “The Escape Artist,” which tells the true story of two Jews who escaped from Auschwitz.

Margery Bone’s Bonafide Films has secured the rights to Freedland’s novel, which is set to be made into a high-end limited series. Bonafide, who have a development and distribution deal with BBC Studios, recently produced Nicôle Lecky’s BAFTA-winning “Mood.”

“The Escape Artist” centers around nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba, a Slovakian Jew who manages to escape Auschwitz alongside fellow internee Fred Wetzler, and warn the world about what was happening. Their actions saved the lives of at least 200,000 Jews who were facing immediate deportation from Budapest to the world’s most notorious death camp.

“This is a story of how human beings can be pushed to the outer limits, and yet still somehow endure,” said Freeland. “How the actions of one individual, even a teenage boy, can bend the arc of history.”

Moffat and Freedland will exec produce alongside  Bob Bookman, Jonny Geller, Margery Bone, Tom Dunbar and Zander Levy.

“Jonathan Freedland’s conclusion that Rudolf Vrba deserves to ‘stand alongside Anne Frank, Oskar Schindler and Primo Levi in the first rank of stories that define the Shoah,’ is hard to argue with,” said Moffat. “It’s a great privilege to be asked to adapt this profoundly moving work.”

Bone said: “We are thrilled to be working again with the immense talent that is Peter Moffat on this unique and important story. To bring Jonathan Freedland’s brilliant and meticulously researched book to the screen is an honour for all of us.”

Freedland is repped by Geller at Curtis Brown. Moffat is repped by Charles Walker at United Agents.

Nick Marston negotiated the film and TV rights for the book on behalf of Curtis Brown and James Jackson of JL Media on behalf of Bonafide.

Jane Campion, Laura Poitras, Mia Hansen-Løve and Martin McDonagh are among high-caliber members of the Venice Film Festival’s main jury.

The prominent directors, most of whom are Venice regulars – Poitras last year scored the Golden Lion with documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” – will be joined on the Venice jury panel by Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (“Wajib”); Chinese star Shu Qi (“The Assassin”); Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, who was at Venice last year with “Freaks Out”; and Argentinian auteur Santiago Mitre whose “Argentina, 1985” also launched from the Lido last year.

They will join Damien Chazelle who – as previously announced – will serve as president of the Venice competition jury. 

The Lido on Thursday also unveiled its full jury roster across all sections.

The jury of the more cutting edge Horizons section comprises: Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (“The Man Who Sold His Skin”); U.S. director and artist Kahlil Joseph who co-directed the 2017 musical film “Lemonade” with Beyoncé; French director and screenwriter Jean-Paul Salomé, who was in Venice last year with Isabelle Huppert-starrer “La Syndacaliste”; and British film festival director and prominent industry figure Tricia Tuttle.

As previously announced, Italian director Jonas Carpignano who is known for “Mediterranea,” “A Ciambra,” and “A Chiara,” is presiding over the Horizons jury. 

Rounding off this year’s complete Venice jury roster is the jury panel of the fest’s Luigi De Laurentiis – Lion of The Future – Award for best debut film, which – as previously announced – is headed by Alice Diop whose “Saint Omer,” which was her first feature, won both the Venice Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and the Lion of the Future at Venice last year.

The Lion of Future jury comprises: Moroccan actor, director and screenwriter Faouzi Bensaïdi; Argentinian director-producer Laura Citarella, whose “Trenque Lauquen” launched from Venice Horizons last year; Italian director Andrea De Sica (“Children of the Night,” “Don’t Kill Me”); and U.S. writer and director Chloe Domont, whose directorial debut “Fair Play” recently premiered at Sundance and was picked up by Netflix.

The 80th edition of the Venice Film Festival will run Aug. 30-Sept. 9.

More to come.

Major Japanese studio Toho Co. has announced “Godzilla Minus One” as the title of the latest instalment in its “Godzilla” film franchise.

The film will premiere in Japanese theaters on Nov. 4. A U.S. release is set a few weeks later, on Dec. 1.

The company revealed an understated poster and a short but punchy teaser trailer. It suggests that an already-devastated postwar Japan faces a new threat in the form of Godzilla, an enormous, mutated kaiju.

Directed by sci-fi and fantasy specialist Yamazaki Takashi, the picture is the first Japanese-produced “Godzilla” movie since 2016’s “Shin Godzilla.” The previous picture topped the Japanese box office, earning JPY25 billion ($181 million at current exchange rates).

The Japanese release date is exactly 69 years after the first Honda Ishiro-directed “Gojira” movie opened in Japan in 1954. Since then, over 35 films have been made starring the “King of Monsters,” which has resulted in a multi-billion-dollar franchise and global fandom over several decades.

Toho owns the intellectual property and has licensed it for more than a decade to Hollywood’s Legendary Entertainment.

Legendary’s ‘Monsterverse’ has hatched the 2014 Gareth Edwards-directed “Godzilla” as well as the 2019 Michael Dougherty-directed “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” and the 2021 Adam Wingard-directed “Godzilla vs. Kong.” Those films have been co-distributed with Warner Bros.

“Godzilla” has become a household name and has been featured in stand-alone books, comics, TV series, countless lines of consumer products, and merchandize.

Deals between Toho and Legendary were renewed and expanded in 2020, bringing in partners including Playmates (toys) Bioworld (apparel and accessories), Rubies (costumes), Funko (consumer products), 60out (interactive live-action escape room producer, and VR content supplier Virtual Reality Company.

Toho announced that it is preparing for the release of the new picture by launching a U.S.-based e-commerce store, dedicated to providing fans with original Japanese merchandize.  

Watch the U.S. version of the “Godzilla Minus One” teaser trailer here: 

Big Zuu, the BAFTA-winning chef, TV host and grime artist, has inked a development deal with Banijay U.K.

Zuu, who is also known as Zuhair Hassan, signed the deal under his production label Big Productions, which specializes in factual, comedy entertainment and music content including cooking show “Big Zuu’s Big Eats.” Zuu co-founded the label with managing director Matt Dodds and creative director Alex Gilman.

The company is planning new comedy and factual entertainment formats, scripted, documentary, and live event shows as well as a focus on new talent and new voices on both sides of the camera.

The deal will see Big Productions develop new IP with Banijay U.K. labels as well as provide access to Banijay’s £50 million development fund which is aimed at partnering with high profile talent, investing in new businesses and supercharging growth.

The Growth Fund was launched in Feb. 2023 and has since unveiled a number of talent deals including with producer Chris Sussman and Conker Pictures.

“Big Zuu is a once in a generation talent, a man who combines a ridiculously brilliant combination of comedic, culinary and musical skills with the effortless confidence of a natural born entertainer,” said Banijay U.K. CEO Patrick Holland. “Together with Alex and Matt, the vision for Big Productions to be a home for great ideas and new talent is genuinely exciting, and we, across Banijay U.K. production companies, are delighted to be partnering with such a great team.”

Big Zuu said: “Change happens from the top, and my goal with starting Big Productions has always been to develop brilliant content that shakes things up. Partnering with Banijay gives us the access, expertise, and gravitas to achieve that mission on a whole other level. I cannot wait to see what we can create together. Watch this space because we have Big Plans.”

Alex Gilman and Matt Dodds added: “We are thrilled to be partnering with Banijay. Since meeting Patrick and the team, we have been blown away by their enthusiasm and support for our creative ambitions. This feels like an important step for our company’s development, and we are very excited to get started.”

The deal was brokered by Holland and Dodds.

Wanda Investment, a subsidiary of the privately-owned Chinese property giant Dalian Wanda, has sold an 8.3% stake in Wanda Film Holding for RMB2.2 billion ($306 million).

Wanda Film, which is listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange, operates China’s largest circuit of multiplexes and retains a stake in Hollywood producer Legendary Entertainment (“Dune”).

The buyer is Lu Lili, the wife of Shen Jun, the controller of East Money Information, a financial data platform, Wanda Film said in a regulatory filing this week.

The share sale appears to be a move to raise finance for Dalian Wanda and Wang Jianlin, the politically-connected former army officer who built one of China’s largest property empires and from 2012 mounted a seven-year campaign to own a large chunk of Hollywood.

The Chinese government’s move in 2018 to rein in Wang and Dalian Wanda’s mounting debts brought an end to that battle. Following that intervention, Wanda sold off its Chinese studios and theme parks, some of its Chinese hotels, its Beverly Hills property development and most of its stake in North American cinema chain AMC. In January last year, Legendary brought in outside capital from Apollo.

But, in recent months, debt problems across much of China’s commercial property sector have led to corporate defaults and slowed the Chinese economy’s post-COVID recovery. Despite its earlier pruning, Dalian Wanda has not been immune and the group is also attempting to sell is Hoyts cinema chain in Australia.

Over the past month, Wanda Investment also sold 1% of Wanda Film in the open market, while other group units acting in concert sold another 2% stake. Following the latest share sale, the stake in Wanda Film controlled by Wanda Investment and its partners will shrink to 31%. But it will remain Wanda Film’s largest shareholder.

Chinese cinemas were last year tipped into crisis by the government’s tough response to a 2022 surge in COVID cases, rolling lockdowns and other restrictions.

Wanda Film reported a net loss of RMB 581 million ($80.7 million) in the first half of last year. It has recently issued guidance suggesting that it will be able to announce net profits in the RMB380-420 million ($53 – $58 million range) for the January-June 2023 period.

Wanda Film reported that box office in China is up by 50% in the first six months of the year and said that its own market share had grown to 16.8%. At the end of March, the company operated 857 theaters in China, with 7,203 screens.

Wanda Film is also China’s largest operator of Imax theaters. On Wednesday, Imax Corp. announced plans to delist its Hong Kong-traded Imax China subsidiary.