Global Showbiz Briefs: Bollywood Star Prison Term; Stone Roses Documentary; Greg Dyke & English Soccer; Oz Media Reforms; ‘Jews In Egypt’
Bollywood Actor Ordered To Prison For Role In Mumbai Attacks
India’s Supreme Court has ruled that Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt must return to prison for his connection with the 1993 Mumbai blasts. The actor has been on bail since 2007 when he appealed his sentence of 6 years. Today the Supreme Court reduced it to 5 years. Dutt was convicted in 2006 of buying weapons from bombers who attacked Mumbai. He spent 20 months in jail. The serial bombings killed 257 people and wounded 713 others. The actor and producer has figured in some of the biggest Hindi-language films of the past three decades and the sentence comes as there are reportedly anywhere from $37M-$65M at stake on projects in which he is involved. Among them are understood to be Peekay, Policegiri, Ungli, Zanjeer – a remake of the 1970s blockbuster that starred Amitabh Bachchan — and the latest in the popular Munnabhai crime caper franchise, although some are said to be near completion. Dutt is best known for playing gangsters, thugs and police officers in action movies. He was also the host of the fifth season of Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother, in 2011. He has 3½ years remaining to serve on today’s sentence and four weeks to surrender. He is expected to file to have the verdict reviewed.
Stone Roses To Join Documentary At Premiere
Shane Meadows’ The Stone Roses: Made Of Stone will have its premiere on May 30 in Manchester, England before rolling out in the UK and Ireland on June 5 via Picturehouse. The premiere, which will be satellite-broadcast to 100 cinemas, will be attended by the resurgent band that hails from the northern-England city. Meadows says, “This film isn’t a history lesson, nor is it a two hour concert film. It is a film about defying the odds, sticking it to the man and telling the cynics to shut their pie-holes!” The band regrouped in 2012 to tour after 16 years. Mark Herbert produced the documentary for Warp Films.
BFI Chair, Former BBC Chief Greg Dyke To Head English Soccer
Greg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC, has been named chairman of England’s Football Association. Dyke will replace David Bernstein on July 13, the soccer ruling body said. In taking over the FA, Dyke will resign from the boards of German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 and the Brentford soccer club. He is currently chair of the British Film Institute and TV production company HIT Entertainment. He was the head of the BBC from 200-2004 and was also previously managing director at London Weekend Television which is now part of ITV. He was also director of Manchester United in the late 90s.
Australian Government Abandons Media Reforms
The Labor Government has withdrawn from parliament bills that would have created a new body to approve or reject media takeovers and mergers after accepting the measures would be defeated by the opposition. The reforms package had been fiercely criticized by all major media groups. The only parts of the legislation that won parliament’s approval earlier this week slashed the annual license fees paid by commercial TV broadcasters by 50% in return for local content quotas on their digital channels, ruled out a fourth commercial TV network and updated the charters of public broadcasters ABC and SBS to cover the production of online content. – Don Groves
‘Jews Of Egypt’ Clears Local Censors
Egyptian censors have given the go-ahead for a screening of Jews Of Egypt, a historical documentary about the country’s Jewish community. The release had been delayed when security officials objected to the film’s title. Directed by Amir Ramses, the film will screen on March 27 at two cinemas in Cairo and a third in Alexandria, according to Reuters. It depicts changes in Egyptian society’s acceptance of its Jewish minority in the first half of the 20th century and was initially approved last year by the censor’s office, but its license had expired in October, Ramses told the news agency.
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