Malina Saval Associate: Last News

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Business entrepreneur Oudi Antebi spent 18 years in the United States and 20 years in the high-tech space before returning to his native Israel to kickstart a new venture, Session 42, a music production shingle that harnesses the ballooning globalwide power of AI technology.  “I was reading about how AI is just changing everything, and I decided that I wanted to start a company with a focus on creating music, a company that blends technology and music together,” says Antebi.  “I knew that I wanted to find the best technology and AI out there and use this technology and AI to unleash creativity.” 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Social media influencer Lizzy Savetsky was two weeks into filming Season 14 of Bravo’s “Real Housewives of New York” when a tidal wave of antisemitism forced her to quit the show. She fielded death threats and a barrage of online harassment. “I had been having a lot of anxiety about putting my family — including my three young children — at risk and not having control over how my story would be portrayed,” says Savetsky.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features When series creator Tony McNamara was crafting the character of Aunt Elizabeth in Hulu’s Emmy-winning biographical comedy “The Great,” he penned it with his actor wife and fellow Aussie, Belinda Bromilow, front of mind.  “I knew the character and I knew what I needed from an actor to do it,” says McNamara, a seasoned playwright and Oscar-nominated screenwriter for Yorgos Lanthimos’ piquant 2018 drama “The Favourite.”  “I knew [Elizabeth] needed to have a strong dramatic voice but also be  a bit idiosyncratic and have really good comic bones,” McNamara continues. “The actor needed to be able to do comedy and be able to shift gears into a darker place. And I’d worked with Belinda before and knew that she could do that.” 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Documentarian Emily Wachtel met Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward when she was two years old. They were neighbors in Westport. Conn, the dearest of family friends. “I knew them my whole life,” says Wachtel. “They are the reason I am in film.”  Wachtel, producer of CNN’s six-part docuseries “The Last Movie Stars,” which paints a sweeping, intimate, romantic portrait of the life, love and careers of Newman and Woodward, describes her childhood with the famed couple as if something out of a suburban New England dream.  “They were incredible people,” says Wachtel. “I was so young when I met them, and I didn’t understand what a movie star was at the time. But part of that is because they were so real. They’d pick you up to go to birthday parties, Joanne made sweaters. They had this big, beautiful barn on the property and they would entertain almost every weekend. Not in a formal way, but with everyone. Not necessarily actors. It was neighbors and friends from all walks of life. They would have everybody over and make hamburgers. They screened movies. I saw a lot of old movies with them, from ‘Lady in the Tramp’ to ‘The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.’ It was just part of the fabric of that household. And it was a gift.” 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features “The Lesson,” the Israeli drama series that was named best series at the 2022 Cannes International Series Festival, is set to premiere June 21 on streamer ChaiFlicks. Created and written by Deakla Keydar, “The Lesson” is a deft socio-political drama revolving around troubled high school civics teacher Amir (Doron Ben-David, “Fauda”) and Lian, a 17-year-old student in his class.  The series, which first premiered in January 2022, was also named best drama series at the Israeli Television Academy Awards in 2023. Maya Landsmann, who plays Lian, won best lead actress at that same ceremony.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Jewish Story Partners (JSP), a Los Angeles-based nonprofit film funding organization, has announced  its new slate of grants to 19 documentary film projects. The org, which was launched in April 2021 with support from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, will distribute $490,000 among these independent films, all of which explore the vast and vibrant terrain of the Jewish storytelling space. The announcement coincides with Jewish American Heritage Month and a commitment from President Joe Biden’s White House administration to develop a national strategy to counter antisemitism and “address increasing awareness and understanding of both antisemitism and Jewish American heritage.” 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Boy George, lead singer of Culture Club, was synonymous with 1980s pop culture. Following a string of ubiquitous international radio hits such as “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” and “Karma Chameleon,” the Grammy-winning singer embarked on a solo career, with his recording of “The Crying Game” punctuating Neil Jordan’s Academy Awarding-winning film of the same name. A steady fixture on reality shows as host of “The Voice Australia” and “The Voice U.K.,” Boy George is hitting the big screen, playing himself in Arclight Films’ comedy adventure “Arthur’s Whiskey,” starring Oscar-winner Diane Keaton, David Harewood (“Homeland,” “Blood Diamond”) and legendary Scottish recording artist Lulu. Arclight Films is handling worldwide rights to “Arthur’s Whiskey,” directed and co-written by Stephen Cookson. Arclight Films is selling the pic at the Cannes market. 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Since joining the American Film Institute faculty as dean and executive vice president in July 2019, Susan Ruskin has kept a steady eye on what lay next in the field of film school education. Ruskin, Variety Entertainment Educator of the Year, discusses why TV and film are more alike than different, what advances in technology means for screenwriters and why film school is still a rock solid bet when it comes to forging a career in the cinematic arts.  With so many avenues to break into the biz, why choose AFI?  There are many different pathways to get into the industry, but I do believe that film school offers one thing that going straight into the industry does not–and that’s a safe place to fail, and a place to meet your collaborators for life. And that is a fast track to success that you cannot get without the sort of protection of being in a space where you get the opportunity to make things and fail at making things and figure out who you are as a storyteller. One of the greatest strengths about AFI is that you come into the discipline that you want for your MFA and you have a very bespoke curriculum. And at the same time, you’re making at least three movies in your first year. We’re doing upwards of 175 productions. You get that opportunity to collaborate. And I don’t know a better way of doing it. 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Michael Trope remembers the day he entered the living room of his childhood home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles to find Cary Grant sipping a martini. Michael’s father, famed attorney Sorrell Trope, was representing Grant in his 1968 divorce from Dyan Cannon.  “My father used to love to tell the story about how Cary Grant became his client,” says Michael Trope, an LA-based trial lawyer and former sports agent.  “Cary Grant went to a mattress store to buy a mattress,” Michael Trope continues. “He was talking to the mattress salesman and testing out mattresses because he wanted to buy a bed. And he started complaining to this mattress salesman about his divorce. The mattress salesman then said, ‘Oh, I went through a divorce. And I had a great experience with my lawyer. He did a really phenomenal job for me.’ And Cary Grant said, ‘Well, who was that?’ And the mattress salesman went and got my dad’s business card and gave it to Cary Grant. And then my dad wound up representing Cary Grant for over 20 years.” 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Growing up in Australia, civil rights in the U.S. were not part of Craig Emanuel’s school curriculum. So when the future power attorney moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s, he “read everything” he could get his hands on.  “I was fascinated,” says Emanuel. “And when it was the 50th anniversary of the marches on the Edmund Pettus Bridge [in 2015], I turned to [my wife] and said, ‘I want to go to Selma.’”  An avid photographer, Emanuel has “saved every negative [he’s] shot” from the age of 6. He’d photographed historic events like President Barack Obama’s inauguration and wanted to do the same in Selma, Ala. Upon the suggestion of a colleague, Emanuel reached out to the Faith & Politics Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 1991 to bridge racial, religious and political schisms among politicians. Rep. John Lewis, who died in 2020, organized the group’s annual civil rights pilgrimage to Selma. Emanuel and his wife made plans to join the organization there. 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Entertainment attorney Craig Emanuel, Variety’s 2023 Power of Law honoree, remembers the day he got a phone call asking if he would be interested in meeting with Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson.  “I knew that they were meeting with a lot of lawyers around town, and I really didn’t think we were going to get selected,” says Emanuel. “A lot of the other law firms were boutique entertainment firms that had huge client lists.” “Months went by, and I thought, you know, nothing’s happening,” Emanuel continues. “And then Richard Lovett, president of CAA, who reps Tom and Rita, called me one evening on the phone. I was at dinner with my partners, and Richard said, ‘I’ve got some good news, you have a new client.’”

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Radiohead guitarist and Academy Award-nominated composer Jonny Greenwood has long had an affinity for Israel. Radiohead first toured the country in the mid-1990s and Greenwood married Israeli visual artist, Sharona Katan. Now Greenwood is pairing with acclaimed Israeli singer Dudu Tassa for a collaborative album, “Jarak Qaribak,” which is due out June 9 from World Circuit Records. The album’s debut track, “Ashufak Shay,” which loosely translates to “Your Neighbor in Your Friend” and features Lebanese vocalist Rashid al-Najjar, dropped last week. Produced by Tassa and Greenwood and mixed by Nigel Godrich, “Jarak Qaribak,” is a celebration of multicultural talent, bringing together singers and musicians from across the Middle East, including Egyptian vocalist Ahmed Doma, Palestinian vocalist Nour Freteikh and Safae Essafi, a singer from Dubai. There are songs on the album from countries such as Algeria, Jordan and Morocco.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Two years ago, Israeli singer-songwriter Hadar Sopher was in a long-distance relationship that went suddenly awry. “My girlfriend was supposed to catch a train to come for the weekend, and she called me and said, ‘Yo, I’m sorry, I’m not gonna go on the train,’” recalls Sopher of that fateful phone call. “She said, ‘We need to break up. I’m really sorry.’ It was, like, 10 minutes before the train was supposed to leave. I hung up the phone and I was very confused. I felt horrible. I was a mess. And I just didn’t find my closure. I tried to move on, but I was haunted by questions. I just felt like I was constantly thinking about the situation and stuck in some kind of a loop. And then I just woke up in the middle of the night and started to write this song.”

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features It’s 25 minutesbefore showtime at Krakow, Poland’s Tauron Arena, and Michael Bublé is cool as a cucumber. A February chill in Europe, where he is touring across more than a dozen countries including the U.K., Germany, France, Spain and Italy, is nothing new to the singer raised outside Vancouver. Likewise, the dress- ing room serves as a familiar home away from home for the five-time Grammy winner, who picked up his latest gramophone statuette for traditional pop vocal album in February. A dual citizen of both Canada and Italy, from where his maternal side hails, Bublé never gets stage fright. And 11 albums in — “Higher” was released last March — with sales topping 75 million and his songs streaming over 14 billion, sold-out crowds have also become de rigueur, worthy of recognition with Variety’s Intl. Achievement in Music Award, which he is receiving March 26 in London.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features It’s time to step into Oscar week face-forward with rejuvenating skin treatments favored by stars and non-celebrities alike seeking a youthful, dewy, radiant glow.  “Exfoliating and hydrating are the key to glowing skin,” says Alison Kirsten, director of spa operations at LA’s Fairmont Century City Plaza. “My suggestion would be to cleanse, exfoliate, apply a sheet mask, depuff with a sculpting tool, use a LED device, apply a serum, and end with a facial massage with an oil-based serum to lock in moisture for smooth and supple skin.”  The hotel’s 14,000-square foot spa offers a bevy of awards-season facials, including the Dr.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Adare ManorCounty Limerick, Ireland Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin” is a heart-crushing meditation on friendship torn asunder. It’s also a story set amidst the lush, emerald greenery of an island off the coast of Ireland in the early 1920s. Watching the film, one can’t help being captivated by its verdant, idyllic scenery — cows roaming the pasture, horses braying along a long dirt road. Adare Manor in Co. Limerick, Ireland, a five-star resort comprising a fairy tale-esque castle, Medieval ruins and winding woodsy paths, evokes the bucolic cinematic backdrop of “Banshees.”  A 25-minute drive from Shannon Airport and two and a half hours from Dublin Airport, the sprawling resort is set on an 842-acre estate in Adare Village. The hotel features 104 guest rooms and a luxe, high-end spa with an indoor pool overlooking the Maigue River. For the ultimate in fine dining, Adare Manor guests can enjoy the Oak Room, the only Michelin-starred restaurant in the region. Guests can also partake in a plethora of on-site outdoor activities, including golf (there’s an 18-hole course) and trout fishing, falconry and clay pigeon shooting. Irish gun dog training with Irish Labrador Retrievers your thing? Adare Manor has that, too. adaremanor.com 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features In the face of rampant antisemitism and hate crime statistics soaring in the United States and abroad — per the FBI, Jews are the most targeted ethno-religious group in the U.S. — the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) has announced the launch of its ADL Entertainment Leadership Council, a cohort of top executives and creatives in the film, television, music and media space. The group’s collection mission: to combat societal hate, including antisemitism.  “ADL is the oldest anti-hate organization in America. We’ve been focused on fighting antisemitism, and all forms of bigotry, for 110 years,” says Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO and national director. “And one of the issues that is obvious to us, and I think that is obvious to all, is that popular culture shapes the public conversation. In a world in which there’s a high degree of cynicism and distrust about institutions–whether it’s the government or the media or other large entities–today, more than ever, entertainers and influencers shape public opinion and have a direct impact.” 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features With “Fleishman is in Trouble,” Taffy Brodesser-Akner has sparked a wave of nostalgia for viewers who, like the FX limited series’ three main characters, Toby, Libby and Seth, met during a study abroad program in Israel. Whether it was Hebrew U. in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv U.—or Bar Ilan U., where Brodesser-Akner spent her junior year of college— the TV adaption of the best-selling novel is not only an excavation of divorce and parenthood in the modern age, but a vessel through which fans of the show can relive one of the most impressionable periods of their early twenties, that period during which they left America, nurtured their Jewish identity in a foreign country and forged relationships that stretched into their adulthoods. 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features From the sharp sting of platonic rejection in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” to suicide and self-destruction in “Tár,” to death on a sinking cruise ship in “Triangle of Sadness,” grief and loss are a collective current running throughout this season’s Oscar contenders in the screenplay category. Inconsolable loss plays out with disastrous, violent consequence in “Banshees,” Martin McDonagh’s crushing excavation of friendship torn asunder on a remote island off the coast of Ireland in the early 1920s. As the Irish Civil War rages on the mainland, lead protagonist Pádraic, played to eloquent perfection by Oscar nominee Colin Farrell, is consumed with the heartbreak resulting from another catastrophic event: his comrade Colm (Brendan Gleeson, also an Oscar nominee) has suddenly, and without warning, broken off their friendship.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Sean Penn went to war and a movie broke out. That is, in effect, the story behind the making of the documentary “Superpower,” a gripping cinematic portrait of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on the eve of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  Co-directed by Penn and Aaron Kaufman, who helmed the 2021 documentary “Crusaders: Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses Speak Out,” “Superpower” bows Feb. 17, out of competition, as a Berlinale Special Gala at the Berlin Film Festival. Fifth Season and Vice Studios are behind the film, with Fifth Season selling worldwide rights. “Superpower” was not conceived as a war story. Rather, Penn and Kaufman, as well as producer Billy Smith, endeavored to chart the trajectory of Zelensky’s unusual career trajectory — from actor-comedian-producer playing a history teacher elected as Ukraine’s president in the satirical TV series “Servant of the People,” to a rising political star elected as the real-life president of Ukraine in 2019. The intent was to relay a tale about an everyman — in Zelensky’s case, a Ukrainian, Russian-speaking Jew born under Soviet rule in the late 1970s — who finds himself at the helm of a fledgling democratic nation burning to embrace freedom. A Ukrainian president elected on an anti-corruption platform who, very soon post-election, finds himself in the crosshairs of an American president’s impeachment. 

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features In the late 1990s, after teaching herself screenplay structure by way of reading Viki King’s seminal go-to manual “How to Write a Movie in 21 Days,” Andrea Berloff emerged with her first feature script titled “Liberty,” a comedy set in a small-town Ohio dart tournament. “I had no idea at that point that there were three acts in a movie — I’d never had a class in it,” says Berloff, who cut her teeth as a theater major at Cornell U., poring over Greek tragedies and Shakespeare’s dramas. And while “very few people read that script,” the friends who gave “Liberty” a look served as “encouragement to keep writing,” says Berloff, who would go on to option her second, the biopic “Harry and Caresse” to Fine Line (the then-specialty division of New Line) in 2003, pen the Oliver Stone drama “World Trade Center” and net an Academy Award nomination for co-writ- ing, with Jonathan Herman, the 2015 N.W.A origin story “Straight Outta Compton.”