The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes, the genre-bending Greek feature film debut of writer-director Thanasis Neofotistos, may be set in a time that is not specified. But the auteur and his creative team serve up visual references to the recent past. Eagle-eyed audiences will even notice a tribute to a certain group of extinct reptiles that, it turns out, inspired the filmmaker who will world premiere the movie as part of the Screen Festival of SXSW London 2026 on Thursday, June 4.
The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes, a cinematic allegory for exclusion and the desire for love and freedom, which can also be viewed as a queer coming-of-age story, stars Giorgos Karydis as Petros, a boy forced by his strict grandmother, and the village mayor, to hide behind a mask because he has blue eyes. After all, that eye color is a source of fear and superstition for the locals of the remote mountain village where they live.
Co-written by Neofotistos and Grigoris Skarakis, the film features cinematography by Djordje Arambasic, with editing courtesy of Panagiotis Angelopoulos. Gersh is handling U.S. sales.
Ahead of the premiere, Neofotistos shared with THR how he first got hooked on movies. “My biggest role model, my inspiration, is what I call ‘good old-school cinema,’ for example, Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg,” he explained. “That was the first film I ever saw in the cinema, and I got fascinated with dinosaurs because of it. I felt that dinosaurs really existed in real life when I was less than 10 years old. This was my main inspiration to be a filmmaker.”
‘The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes,’ courtesy of Argonauts/SXSW London
Courtesy of Argonauts/SXSW London
The man behind The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes was also impressed by the craft behind the Spielberg dino blockbuster. “He used animatronics, he used materials that they handmade, handcrafted,” the Greek creative gushed. “It was not VFX, or AI now. It felt so real. The story felt so unique, and I got into this universe. That’s why I wanted to be a storyteller.”
The craft aspects were also a key focus for Neofotistos and his team on The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes. “I really love to create universes,” he told THR. “So, my goal here was to create something unique and very handcrafted. We didn’t use any AI. We used minimal VFX. Everything was made in the shooting [process].”
His work is “also very much inspired by some Greek filmmakers,” including big names. “For example, the first film of [Theo] Angelopoulos, The Reconstruction, which was made close to my hometown and gives a great representation of societies,” he said. “And Yorgos Lanthimos, a case of a Greek filmmaker who became huge – the magical realism that he uses is something that I’m inspired by.”
Remember how I mentioned those extinct reptiles? Look for them when you watch The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes! Shared Neofotistos: “There are some dinosaurs in Petros’ room, because of my inspiration from Jurassic Park“.
“California Avenue” is the new show from Hugo Blick, the brains behind some of modern TV’s most impressive dramas, including Emily Blunt starrer “The English,” “The Honourable Woman” with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Michaela Coel-fronted “Black Earth Rising.”
Unsurprisingly, “California Avenue” features an equally star-studded cast in the form of Bill Nighy (“Love Actually), Helena Bonham Carter (“Fight Club”), Erin Doherty (“Adolescence”) and Tom Burke (who’s currently shooting Alex Garland’s “Elden Ring.”)
Produced by Blick’s production company Eight Rooks and Drama Republic for the BBC, the series is set at an English mobile home park in the summer of 1975, when Doherty’s character Lela returns home after a long absence with her 11-year-old daughter in tow. It was in part inspired by Blick’s own experiences of staying with his beloved grandparents in a mobile home community.
“Set in the bucolic British summer of 1975, with a fabulous period soundtrack, this is a warm and witty story about a family on the run from the past and themselves who end up in a community of outsiders,” Blick tells Variety. “Whether these people live in trailers, caravans or RVs, their (non)status as outcasts and misfits is universal. But like ‘The Darling Buds of May,’ or ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ sometimes it’s the folk with nothing who have the most to give.”
While the series will air in the U.K. on BBC, Mediawan Rights and Entourage Media are distributing the six-episode drama internationally.
Following a warmly-received preview of the first episode at Canneseries last month, Greg Brenman, a producer on the show and co-founder of Drama Republic, sat down with Variety to discuss how “California Avenue” got off the ground and whether it might return after the first season.
Tom Burke and Erin Doherty in ‘California Avenue’ (Courtesy of Mediawan)
What was the genesis for “California Avenue”?
This show started in development with the BBC a few years ago, and I remember we pitched it to [the BBC’s former head of content] Charlotte Moore, who loved the idea of this community of people living in a mobile home environment in the mid ‘70s, all escaping the world in one way or another.
It’s a love letter to television from the 1970s because [as a child, Blick] spent a lot of his time in a caravan with two people that he absolutely adored, particularly his grandfather — represented to a degree, but not entirely, by Bill Nighy’s character — and watching a lot of TV.
And I think for him it was a sort of window into an entertainment industry that was going to sit with him and blossom many, many, many years later.
What is the show about?
The story starts with Erin’s character, called Lela, running away from a mansion where she lives with what we will discover is quite an abusive husband. We only hear him off camera screaming and shouting at her. She runs away with her 11-year-old daughter and travels overnight and turns up in a mobile home community in the middle of British countryside, and we will discover that actually she’s coming home. She ran away to live with the man in the mansion, she had a child with the man in the mansion, and she is returning home where her mum and dad live, which is Bill and Helena’s characters, and she will introduce her daughter, their granddaughter, to them for the first time.
So it’s about a fractured family coming back together and healing the wounds of her departure, of Erin’s character’s departure, and it’s also a place where she meets Tom Burke’s character. He’s also there for his own reasons, escaping some incidents in his life, and they fall in love. And then, of course, it’s the love story of Erin reunited with her mum and dad, and the love story, actually, of Helena and Bill, their [characters’] enduring relationship. And for the 11-year-old kid, which I think is loosely the age Hugo was in 1975, being with this family, and enjoying the warmth of this community, albeit considered an off-grid, bunch of misfits.
How did you get such an impressive cast?
Helena and Bill came on very early. They absolutely fell in love with the material. I think one of the benefits of working with Hugo is he attracts a lot of top talent, if you think about Maggie and Emily Blunt and Michaela, because he writes shows unlike anybody else. I think that when actors of that calibre read these scripts, as they’ve done in the past with other shows, they find a world and a level of skill and character insight that maybe they’re not always getting in other projects.
To put it bluntly, you know, there are a lot of genre shows around, aren’t there? Dead bodies and fast car chases, and that is not this world. This is a world of huge love, huge humor, huge emotional journeys for all four characters, and I think it’s a testament to their loyalty, but also really to the scripts that they stuck with it.
Why do you think they all signed up to it?
Well, they’re not doing it for the money! And if you strip that out, you go, well, what’s left? The experience of working with the other cast, the scripts, Hugo Blick, reading something unusual, unique, special. That’s all you could hope for, isn’t it, when you aim big with modest resources?
When you’re doing something that’s very set in a particular period in a particular place, do you have to think about how the show is going to travel internationally?
It’s a tricky one. I mean, I produced “Billy Elliot,” the film, years and years ago, and you could put all of those questions to that project. And I think the answer is, you just have to tell a story that matters to you, that’s got universal emotion, that is told with the best cast, the best direction, the best scripts, the best design, and hope that it means something to a broad, global audience. Obviously, with “Billy Elliot,” we didn’t have a clue at the time, but it chimed and you realize, of course, as you would with this show, that who doesn’t have differences with their parents? Who doesn’t want fractures to be healed? Who doesn’t want a better understanding of the fallibility of the people who brought you up? Who doesn’t want to fall in love? So all of those things are universal.
Does “California Avenue” have the potential to be a returning series?
It definitely could return. It hasn’t necessarily been designed to return, but it’s about, ultimately, a group of people who are in a better place at the end of it than they are at the beginning so they all survive to tell the tale.
The National Basketball Association is launching a new “signature audio identity” that will serve as a connective tissue between the league’s media and social coverage and in-arena experiences, using a new NBA Finals promo scored by Successioncomposer Nicholas Britell and voiced by Nas to introduce the sound.
“There was no model for what we were trying to create here,” Britell tells The Hollywood Reporter. “There is of course a tremendous history of music in sports — in the NBA from John Tesh’s ‘Roundball Rock’ and the Chicago Bulls’ use of Alan Parsons Project ‘Sirius’ — to all the amazing scores of sports films in history, Chariots of Fire, Rudy, He Got Game — the list goes on and on. Our goal was to begin a process of exploring what the sound of the league could be. The first piece we’ve released, which is playing in the playoffs and finals spots we’ve created, is a springboard for more music that we’ll be releasing around a whole sonic landscape for the NBA.”
You can watch the promo here:
“Thirty teams start this journey, but only two are left standing,” Nas says in the voiceover. “The math is simple. The quest… anything but. This isn’t just a series, this is legacy. Everything’s on the line, because history is calling. This… is the NBA Finals.”
For Britell, the opportunity to develop an original sound for the NBA was too compelling an opportunity to pass up, not to mention the chance to work with Nas.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the intersection of music and sports, and I’ve also always loved the art form of sonic identities.” Britell says. “Nas is an all-time hero of mine, so it was a true honor to get to collaborate with him on this. To me, basketball represents drama, power, beauty, and intense emotion: the dedication and ability of these athletes is staggering. Finding a way to encapsulate all this in sound was very exciting.”
The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes, the genre-bending Greek feature film debut of writer-director Thanasis Neofotistos, may be set in a time that is not specified. But the auteur and his creative team serve up visual references to the recent past. Eagle-eyed audiences will even notice a tribute to a certain group of extinct reptiles that, it turns out, inspired the filmmaker who will world premiere the movie as part of the Screen Festival of SXSW London 2026 on Thursday, June 4.
The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes, a cinematic allegory for exclusion and the desire for love and freedom, which can also be viewed as a queer coming-of-age story, stars Giorgos Karydis as Petros, a boy forced by his strict grandmother, and the village mayor, to hide behind a mask because he has blue eyes. After all, that eye color is a source of fear and superstition for the locals of the remote mountain village where they live.
Co-written by Neofotistos and Grigoris Skarakis, the film features cinematography by Djordje Arambasic, with editing courtesy of Panagiotis Angelopoulos. Gersh is handling U.S. sales.
Ahead of the premiere, Neofotistos shared with THR how he first got hooked on movies. “My biggest role model, my inspiration, is what I call ‘good old-school cinema,’ for example, Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg,” he explained. “That was the first film I ever saw in the cinema, and I got fascinated with dinosaurs because of it. I felt that dinosaurs really existed in real life when I was less than 10 years old. This was my main inspiration to be a filmmaker.”
‘The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes,’ courtesy of Argonauts/SXSW London
Courtesy of Argonauts/SXSW London
The man behind The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes was also impressed by the craft behind the Spielberg dino blockbuster. “He used animatronics, he used materials that they handmade, handcrafted,” the Greek creative gushed. “It was not VFX, or AI now. It felt so real. The story felt so unique, and I got into this universe. That’s why I wanted to be a storyteller.”
The craft aspects were also a key focus for Neofotistos and his team on The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes. “I really love to create universes,” he told THR. “So, my goal here was to create something unique and very handcrafted. We didn’t use any AI. We used minimal VFX. Everything was made in the shooting [process].”
His work is “also very much inspired by some Greek filmmakers,” including big names. “For example, the first film of [Theo] Angelopoulos, The Reconstruction, which was made close to my hometown and gives a great representation of societies,” he said. “And Yorgos Lanthimos, a case of a Greek filmmaker who became huge – the magical realism that he uses is something that I’m inspired by.”
Remember how I mentioned those extinct reptiles? Look for them when you watch The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes! Shared Neofotistos: “There are some dinosaurs in Petros’ room, because of my inspiration from Jurassic Park“.
Two-thirds of Americans play an hour or more of video games per week, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA).
Per the gaming industry lobbying organization, 212.3 million people in the U.S. between the ages of 5 and 90 play video games every week. That stat, found in ESA’s 2026 Essential Facts About the U.S. Video Game Industry, is up 3% (or 7.2 million people) compared to the prior year’s report.
Conducted in partnership with YouGov, ESA’s new report found that the average age of players has risen to 37.
Additionally, the data shows that 63% of players surveyed say video games “deliver the most entertainment value for their money, compared to video streaming services for music, TV and movies, as well as books, magazines and news articles.”
The results also found that 39% of adult gamers are employed full-time and 35% have children, making them more represented in both categories compared to the general U.S. population, which stands at 34% and 30%, respectively.
“There are a lot of small nuggets, which are pretty interesting, in the report. For example, the level of employment and the engagement that people who play games have in society,” ESA president and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis told Variety. “I think one of the things we’re trying to do with these reports is to grow the understanding of the impact games have in society. There’s a perception people had 10, 15, 20 years ago, around games, and when you look at the actual facts about who today’s gamer is, whether you call it a gamer or someone who loves playing games, we are really mainstream. We are really part of every part of society. We are part of the fabric of society, and data like the Essential Facts Report allow us to not only make that claim but to produce data that supports the fact that games are a part of the fabric of society.”
ESA’s selected topline data points from its 2026 Essential Facts About the U.S. Video Game Industry report include:
53% of men and 46% of women actively play video games. Slightly more boys and men play than girls and women in all generations except Boomers (ages 62-80) where 52% of Boomer women play games compared to 47% of men.
More than 80% of Gen Alpha (age 5-13) and Gen Z (age 14-29) play video games, the majority of adults are powering up as well: 71% of Millennials (age 30-45), 56% of Gen X (age 45-61) and 50% of Boomers (age 62-80) say they play weekly. And 32% of the silent generation (age 81-90) are playing.
The majority of American parents (75%) actively play video games each week, with most (81%) saying they also game with their children (52% at least weekly).
Nearly half (49%) of parents whose children play video games believe playing games teaches important skills to their children, such as problem solving and creative thinking.
Most American adults recognize the positive benefits of playing video games, such as them being fun (85%), bringing joy (81%), offering stress relief (78%), and providing mental stimulation (79%). Younger players (Gen Z) especially believe that video games offer a great way to bring people together (88%) and build relationships (87%).
Playing on a mobile device is the most popular across all age groups (80%), while PC and console gameplay is more common with Gen Alpha, Gen Z and Millennials.
Spencer Pratt, the star of a long-running reality show, is closing in on a renewal in the Los Angeles mayoral race, but this season’s finale may yet contain some surprises.
With 53% of the vote counted late Tuesday night, The Hills star-turned-political gadfly sat in second place with just over 29% of the vote in his bid to run California’s largest city, ahead of his third-place rival, progressive City Council member Nithya Raman, by 7.5%. Pratt has garnered 121,000 votes to Raman’s 90,000 — but a whopping 370,000 votes remain to be counted.
Raman also appeared to be closing the gap, in keeping with a trend of Republican votes tending to come earlier in the counting; she had been down ten points earlier in the evening. Whoever prevails will advance to November’s two-person runoff.
Incumbent mayor Karen Bass currently sits comfortably in front of both her rivals with 152,000 votes (36.4%), all but assuring her a place in the runoff but falling short of the 50% needed for automatic re-election. Bass would be the first L.A. mayoral incumbent to need a runoff since 2005, when incumbent James Hahn finished second in the primary and was forced into a runoff against challenger Antonio Villaraigosa, who defeated him. Both Villaraigosa and his successor Eric Garcetti would win a second term with 50% in the primary.
If the totals were to hold and Pratt were to advance against Bass, it would set up a made-for-vintage-MTV showdown. The battle between the two would be one of the fiercest and most colorful elections the city has seen in decades. Pratt has repeatedly gone after Bass in the primary campaign, reposting AI videos of her portrayed as The Joker and deriding her response to the wildfires and the city’s housing crisis. After previously ignoring hm, Bass has recently gone after Pratt too, calling him a “TV reality star villain.” Pratt has received the seal of approval of another reality star-turned-politician, Donald Trump, though rebuffed the endorsement.
A Pratt win over Raman would mean a rebuff for progressives in the city, though it would also stir up some Monday-morning quarterbacking about the decision of Rae Huang, a Democratic Socialist of America candidate, to stay in the race and siphon votes from her. Of course, Raman’s late entry into the race itself may have taken votes from Bass, who might have hit the 50% threshold and avoided a runoff with Pratt if she had stayed out. (Think Nader-Gore-Bush in 2000.)
A Raman comeback, on the other hand, would amount to a jarring defeat for Pratt, who surged in recent weeks on the back of the viral videos and a general discontentment with the challenges of a city run by Bass. It would end one of the most surprising and novel campaigns in an era of surprising and novel campaigns, halting an outsider run that conservative-coded entertainers have made their stock-in-trade dating back to Jesse Ventura in the 1990’s, Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 2000’s and Donald Trump in the 2010’s.
Despite Pratt’s entertainment bona fides, it was Bass who sought to position herself as the candidate of Hollywood in her speech to supporters Tuesday night. She called L.A. “the creative capital of the world’ and decried an “industry that was leaving but we are bringing it back.”
Pratt, for his part, has kept Hollywood or at least the media at bay — he appeared to ban reporters from covering his election-night party at Don Antonio’s in the Sawtelle neighborhood of Los Angeles, according to two people on the ground, in contravention of longstanding election-night practice but in keeping with his anti-elites theme. He did speak to reporters outside the restaurant, generally striking a restrained tone but offering a few more trash-talky challenges to his presumptive runoff opponent. “She knows it’s on. I hope she’s ready,” he said of Bass.
In the California governor’s race, another critic of Democratic incumbents has turned out a strong showing. Former Fox News host Steve Hilton — like Pratt, a TV figure who has never run for elected office before — had climbed handily into the lead. With 55% of the ballots counted, he had a sturdy lead of 27.6% of the vote, compared to 25.5% of Democrat and poll frontrunner Xavier Becerra, and a full eight points ahead of progressive Democrat Tom Steyer. But the margins — 1.3 million for Hilton, 1.2 million for Becerra and 900,000 for Steyer — were hardly conclusive with nearly four million votes left to be counted.
Should results hold, it would set up a general election between the moderate Democrat and former California AG Becerra, an establishment candidate, and the British Hilton, the political upstart who also has Trump’s endorsement.
Hilton has run a race lambasting incumbent Democrats, particularly Governor Gavin Newsom, and campaigned on a traditional conservative platform of lower taxes and fewer regulations. “Change is coming,” he chanted with supporters at his election-night event. He has also said he would raise the film tax credit ceiling to as high as 60%. In the speech to supporters, Hilton nodded to his England-born status. “I know some of you who are watching thinking ‘who is this guy with a funny accent thinking he can be governor,’” then segued to a reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger and a conversation he had with him about becoming governor.
Steyer had staked out a far more activist government position, arguing for more climate regulations, more worker protections and novel proposals such as the “token tax,” which would charge people for AI usage and put the money in a pot for displaced workers. Some polls had put the billionaire entrepreneur in second place in the days leading up to the race.
But the candidate — who had spent more than $200 million of his own money on the campaign, the most of any candidate this primary season nationwide — seems to be sputtering with voters in the early going, another rebuff of progressives in California.
Becerra continued to ride a late-season wave that has seen him go from single digits at the polls all the way to the top of the heap in his bid to becomes the state’s first Latino governor. He has avoided bold policy prescriptions, including on Hollywood, perhaps waiting to see whether his November rival would be to his right or his left. Speaking to supporters Tuesday night, the former HHS secretary played the Cinderella role, saying he had been “outspent by a ton” (a reference to Steyer) and how he was “even called along the way to drop out” (a reference to the California Democratic party chair’s pleas for lower-polling Democrats to step aside earlier in the race).
“Well guess what,” he said. “The underdog stayed in the fight.”
Is it an alternative and visceral new documentary about Ukraine? Is it a time travel film of sorts, as its title suggests? Is it “a portrait of resistance and collective memory in which personal loss and political history become inseparable,” as one description reads? Well, Time Machine Maidan is all of that – and more.
The film, which takes a first-person, POV-type approach and is created with the goal of immersing audiences, comes from directors Roman Liubyi (War Note, Iron Butterfly) and Volodymyr Tykhyy (One Day in Ukraine, TheGreen Jacket) and world premieres in the international competition lineup of the Sheffield DocFest on June 11.
It builds a narrative bridge between the Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, that started in Ukraine in late 2013 and continued until February 2014, to today’s war started by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sparked by then-president Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to abandon European Union membership in favor of closer ties with Russia, the Maidan uprising ultimately led to his ouster.
The doc is “reinterpreting the Maidan Revolution through the lens of the present and [the] experience of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” highlight the press notes. “The film creates a haunting bridge between the bloody confrontations of 2013 and today’s battlefields, with Maidan standing as a pivotal moment in recent Ukrainian history.”
‘Time Machine Maidan’ film still, courtesy of Babylon ‘13
As such, the film can be viewed as a story of memory, courage, loss, and “the enduring human need for peace, freedom and the preservation of dignity in the face of oppression in all its forms,” notes the creative team. “With no steady camera to offer distance or comfort, it confronts the viewer directly, placing them in the midst of both the physical and emotional turmoil.”
The doc does so via a wounded soldier, “suspended in a liminal state of consciousness,” who time-travels into the cold Kyiv of December 2013. There, he begins a search for Maksym, a young poet and future warrior, also known as Dali, who he knows will die in the Russia war. The time traveler hopes to warn him and save his life, but is confronted with a painful truth. “Freedom is not the power to rewrite fate, but the courage to choose it,” explain the press notes.
“In this haunting and visually inventive documentary, a spectral voice drifts through time and memory to trace the Maidan Revolution and the roots of resistance in Ukraine,” reads the synopsis on the Sheffield festival website. “The voice is searching for Maksym, a friend and mentor killed in the war with Russia, and the grief of that loss propels it backwards and forwards through time. Time Machine Maidan weaves together archival footage and on-location images in a dreamlike, surrealist flow, intercutting between the Maidan uprising, a summer camp, and the shadow of the present war.”
‘Time Machine Maidan’ film still, courtesy of Babylon ‘13
With cinematography by Yuriy Gruzinov and editing by the directors, Time Machine Maidan was executive produced by Bohdanna Semen of Babylon ’13 and produced by Andrii Kotliar, who is also handling sales. Time Machine Maidan is a Babylon ‘13 production in collaboration with Suspilne Ukraine and co-produced by Germany’s Trimafilm.
“The film is a reflection of who we are right now, who we were 10 years ago and where we are going as individuals and as a nation,” highlights Liubyi In a director’s statement. “Maidan had many angles, and for my generation, Maidan was like a club. All the people I was interested in were there. We spent nights there. I had a date at Maidan. I met my wife during Maidan. It was our youth. It’s not just a boring page from a history textbook.”
And he explains: “I felt the need to make a film dedicated to the 10th anniversary of Revolution of Dignity. The whole course of our history – and world history, too – was defined by the Maidan Revolution. There is still no proper film I can show my daughter about Maidan.”
‘Time Machine Maidan’ film still, courtesy of Babylon ‘13
Shares Tykhyy: “What we witnessed during the first months of Ukraine’s defense particularly in the battles for the outskirts of Kyiv was, in many ways, a direct continuation of the ‘Maidan initiative’: horizontal networks, self-organization, and the construction of fortifications by ordinary citizens with their own hands. This was an effective form of resistance that helped stop the enemy. In the first months of the full-scale war, this ‘spirit of Maidan’ became a decisive factor in Ukraine’s defense.”
And he emphasizes: “Our film is addressed primarily to young people. During the Maidan, they were children or teenagers. Today, there is a profound socio-cultural need for self-understanding. Young Ukrainians need access to an authentic history, rather than censored narratives or concepts shaped decades ago under the influence of Russian mythmaking. The film seeks to answer a fundamental question: ‘Who are we, as Ukrainians?’”
Can’t wait to get a first peek at the sights and sounds of Time Machine Maidan? THR can exclusively premiere the trailer for the doc below. Get ready to time travel through chaos and get a first taste of the spirit of resistance! Get ready for Time Machine Maidan!
In a significant reversal, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated feature “The Voice of Hind Rajab” has been cleared by India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) that had blocked the politically sensitive film’s release in March.
After weeks of controversy in India over its initial censorship of the film – which tells the real story of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl who was trapped inside a car attacked by Israeli forces in Gaza and later found dead – the CBFC has now granted “The Voice of Hind Rajab” a so-called ‘A’ certificate, meaning the film has been cleared for theatrical release without any cuts, according to Mumbai-based Jai Viratra Entertainment.
Winning this censorship battle means “The Voice of Hind Rajab” will now get a theatrical release via Jai Viratra across India on June 19.
In March, Jai Viratra chief Manoj Nandwana told Variety that he had submitted “The Voice of Hind Rajab” for censorship approval in February, intending to release the film in India on March 6. But at the time the film was not been cleared for release with Nadawana being told by a CBFC member that “if it gets released it would break up the India-Israel relationship,” Nadawana said.
The CBFC’s alleged initial reluctance to clear “The Voice of Hind Rajab” came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Israel in late February, where he received a warm welcome, marking the first visit by an Indian premier in the 25 years since the two countries established full diplomatic relations. The visit, which aimed to strengthen economic and technological ties between the two countries, underscored a shift in Israel-India relations under Modi, whose embrace of Israel marks a departure from India’s foreign policy that has historically supported the Palestinians.
“I told them: the India-Israel relationship is so strong that it’s idiotic to think this movie will break it,” Nadawana told Variety in March, noting that “The Voice of Hind Rajab” has been released “in the U.S., U.K., Italy, France and many other countries that have a relationship with Israel.”
“We would like to begin by expressing our sincere gratitude to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), India, for granting certification without any cut to Voice of Hind Rajab and enabling Indian audiences to engage with this important cinematic work,” Jai Viratra Entertainment said in a statement on Tuesday.
“At Jai Viratra Entertainment Limited, we firmly believe that cinema serves as a powerful medium for storytelling, dialogue, and understanding diverse human experiences. We appreciate the thoughtful consideration extended by the CBFC in evaluating the film and facilitating its release in India,” it added.
“We would also like to extend our heartfelt thanks to members of the media fraternity, industry colleagues, filmmakers, artists, and well-wishers who supported our efforts throughout this process. Your encouragement, advocacy, and belief in the importance of meaningful cinema played a significant role in helping this film reach Indian audiences,” the statement continued.
In September, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” elicited more than 20 minutes of thunderous applause when it world premiered at the Venice Film Festival and then went on to win the fest’s Silver Lion. The film has been released in the U.S. by Willa, the production partner’s distribution arm, after other U.S. distributors passed.
The star of a long-running reality show is looking poised for a fresh episode in the Los Angeles mayoral race.
With about half the votes counted, The Hills star-turned-political gadfly Spencer Pratt sat comfortably in second place with 30% of the vote, ahead of his third-place rival, progressive City Council member Nithya Raman, by nine points. If the totals were to hold — and a lot of ballots still need to be counted — it would set up a made-for-vintage-MTV showdown between Pratt and incumbent Karen Bass, who sits in first place with 37%.
The general election battle between the two would be one of the fiercest and most colorful the city has seen in decades. Pratt has repeatedly gone after Bass in the primary campaign, reposting videos of her depicted as The Joker and deriding her response to the wildfires, homelessness and the city’s housing crisis. After previously ignoring hm, Bass has recently gone after Pratt too, calling him a “TV reality star villain.” Pratt has received the seal of approval of another reality star-turned-politician, Donald Trump, though rebuffed the endorsement.
The primary race is far from over, however. Later ballots tend to skew Democratic, and if Raman were even within striking distance by midnight Tuesday she could pull past Pratt when all is said and done.
If Raman were to go down it would be a rebuff for progressives in the city, though it would also stir up some Monday-morning quarterbacking about the decision of Rae Huang, a Democratic Socialist of America candidate, to stay in the race and siphon votes from Raman, giving Pratt the two-spot. It is all but impossible for Bass to surge past 50%, which she would need to avoid a runoff.
Despite Pratt’s entertainment bona fides, it was Bass who sought to position herself as the candidate of Hollywood in her speech to supporters Tuesday night. She called L.A. “the creative capital of the world’ and decried an “industry that was leaving but we are bringing it back.”
Pratt, for his part, has kept Hollywood or at least the media at bay — he appeared to ban them from covering his election-night party at Don Antonio’s in Sawtelle, according to two people on the ground, in contravention of longstanding election-night practice but in keeping with his anti-elites theme.
In the California governor’s race, another critic of Democratic incumbents has turned out a strong showing. Former Fox News host Steve Hilton — like Pratt a TV figure who has never run for elected office — had inched into the lead with about half the ballots counted, just one point ahead of Democrat Xavier Becerra and a full seven points ahead of progressive Democrat Tom Steyer.
Should results hold, it would set up a general election between the moderate Democrat and former California AG Becerra, an establishment candidate, and the British Hilton, the political upstart who also has Trump’s endorsement.
Hilton has run a race lambasting incumbent Democrats, particularly Governor Gavin Newsom, and campaigned on a traditional conservative platform of lower taxes and fewer regulations. He has said he would raise the film tax credit ceiling to as high as 60%. In his speech to supporters, Hilton nodded to his England-born status. “I know some of you who are watching thinking ‘who is this guy with a funny accent thinking he can be governor,’” then segueing into a reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger and a conversation he had with him about becoming governor. “Change is coming,” he chanted at his rally.
Steyer had staked out a very different and more activist government position, arguing for more climate regulations, more worker protections and novel proposals such as the “token tax,” which would charge people for AI usage and put the money in a pot for displaced workers. Some polls had put the billionaire entrepreneur in second place in the days leading up to the race.
But the candidate — who had spent more than $200 million of his own money on the campaign, the most of any candidate this primary season nationwide — seems to be sputtering with voters in the early going, another rebuff of progressives in California.
Becerra continued to ride a late-season wave that has seen him go from single digits all the way to the top of the heap in gis bid to becomes the state’s first Latino governor.
Karen Bass and Spencer Pratt led in early returns in the race for Los Angeles mayor on Tuesday night, with Councilwoman Nithya Raman running in third. However, it could still take days to determine which two candidates will face each other in November.
Speaking to supporters at her election party just after 9 p.m., Bass said it was “looking good so far,” and predicted that she would declare victory within a couple of hours.
“Tomorrow begins the second half of this journey,” Bass said. “You stood with me on the first half. Will you stand with me all the way?”
Pratt appeared at an election night party at a Mexican restaurant in West L.A., but the media was not allowed inside.
Bass was leading in the initial returns, with about 36.6% of the vote. Pratt was in second with 29.8%, while Raman held 20.5%.
“This is a very good night for Karen Bass,” said Conan Nolan, the NBC4 anchor, predicting that Bass would get her preferred matchup against Pratt in the runoff.
Raman told her supporters at an election night party that she had presented an uplifting vision for the city during her brief campaign.
“We believe that Angelenos were hungry for that vision — and we were right,” she said. “Here’s the reality. That vision threatens some very powerful forces. They came at us with everything they had.”
She said she had faced opposition from “City Hall insiders” as well as corporations and landlords.
Bass, first elected in 2022, has faced a difficult test as she tries to win a second term. Pratt, the Republican former star of MTV’s “The Hills,” galvanized anger over homelessness and the Palisades fire — which claimed his house — to build an improbably strong challenge to Bass’ leadership.
Bass has also taken fire from her left flank, as both Raman and socialist candidate Rae Huang argued it is time for fresh leadership.
Bass has touted a 17.5% decline in street homelessness as she runs for a second term, and relied heavily on labor support to fund her reelection bid. Among other unions, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the Hollywood Teamsters are supporting her campaign.
Bass’ opponents accused her of not acting fast enough to try to stem the outflow of Hollywood jobs, while Bass touted her record of reducing permit fees and cutting red tape.
Raman, meanwhile, had financial support from many industry figures, including Tina Fey, Mike Schur, Cord Jefferson, Mindy Kaling and Colin Jost.
Pratt struck a chord with conservatives who are fed up with the Democratic Party’s control of California and the city, appearing in the final days of his campaign on Fox News, among other outlets. He has also been featured and endorsed by The California Post, a local offshoot of the Murdoch-owned New York Post.
All three candidates have called for an unlimited state tax incentive for film production, though the mayor has little influence over the state budget.
