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Christopher Vourlias The 7th edition of the Joburg Film Festival came to a close Saturday night, bringing an end to a busy week that saw the festival and its parallel industry event, JBX, make strides in establishing themselves as what festival founder Timothy Mangwedi is determined to transform into “the number one pop-culture, must-attend event in sub-Saharan Africa.” Across the three-day JBX, or Joburg Xchange, representatives of the South African and global screen industries explored ways to bolster cross-border collaboration, wrestled with thorny issues involving copyright law, AI and workers’ rights, and sought to ensure that African narratives remain in the hands of African storytellers. Meanwhile, a full-day program presented in collaboration with Sisters Working in Film and Television (SWIFT) showcased the advances made by women in the South African screen industries while highlighting how much remains to be done on the road to gender parity.

Christopher Vourlias The disruptive power of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements has shifted the conversation around storytelling about underrepresented and marginalized communities, even as the backlash in the U.S. and other countries has swung the pendulum to the (far) right, putting many of those gains at risk.

Christopher Vourlias Taiwanese director Julian Chou’s “Blind Love,” a drama about a sensitive teenager who discovers the secret affair between his mother and a mysterious woman, won the top prize at the 7th Joburg Film Festival on Saturday. Chou’s sophomore feature, which premiered in the Tiger competition at the Rotterdam Intl.

Jack Dunn President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to slash Voice of America. The plan looks to largely dismantle the government-funded media outlet as well as programs like Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. “This order continues the reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary,” reads the order, released late Friday.

Colt Ford is revealing a side of country star Jason Aldean that fans rarely see. In a candid conversation with Fox News Digital, Ford peeled back the curtain on his fellow country superstars he’s collaborated with -- including the late Toby Keith -- and shared the one thing that fans may not know about Aldean. "People get confused with the whole artist thing," Ford told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Dolly Parton is returning to the spotlight following the passing of her husband Carl Dean.

For the Paris Olympics last summer, NBC Universal aired an astonishing 7,000 hours of coverage over the 19 days of the games.

Christopher Vourlias South African producer Kutlwano Ditsele’s Ten30 Pictures is developing a slate of projects to follow on the heels of the Netflix original series “GO!,” which launches globally March 21. Speaking to Variety in Johannesburg, where the streamer will host the show’s premiere on March 16, Ditsele said this is just the first step for his young production outfit, insisting he plans on turning Ten30 into “the A24 of Africa.” “The biggest thing is to have an identity that says these stories are different to what’s [already out there],” he said.

Jana Kramer and her husband Allan Russell are revealing the real date that they got married!

Calvin Harris has explored country on his new single ‘Smoke The Pain Away’, the first song that he’s contributed vocals to in several years.It is the Scottish producer’s first new music since his Ellie Goulding collaboration ‘Free’. Since then, he shared a remix of his 2016 Rihanna collaboration ‘This Is What You Came For’ in November, which was dubbed the ‘Calvin Harris VIP Mix – Amazon Music Original’.After Harris teased his new single last week, it has finally arrived.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Bill Burr‘s press tour for his new Hulu comedy special continued to be an Elon Musk takedown during an interview on “The Breakfast Club” radio show (via The Daily Beast), where the comedian said its baffling how Musk “still has a job” after giving the Nazi salute in public. Musk’s controversial hand gestures at an inauguration event for Donald Trump continue to anger Burr. “What I don’t get is the amount of veterans, people in the armed services, that died to stop Hitler,” Musk said, confused about how Musk still has support.

Chappell Roan is hard at work on new music!

Connie Britton is opening up about her decision to pursue adoption as single mom.

The Giver’, which fans were already calling a “lesbian anthem” after she debuted it during a performance on Saturday Night Live last November and told audience: “All you country boys saying you know how to treat a woman right. Well, only a woman knows how to treat a woman right.”For a lot of fans, it felt revelatory to have an openly queer musician take on country, and Roan has since elaborated on experiences that shaped ‘The Giver’, including brushes with country boys and embracing her identity through music.Speaking with Apple Music Country’s Kelleigh Bannen, the ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ singer was asked why country was the direction she chose, and she cited “campy” and “fun” tracks like ‘Chattahoochee’ and ‘Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)’ as major inspirations for how she wanted to feel while performing.“I think I have a special relationship to where I’m from because of country music,” she continued.

Chappell Roan has finally released the studio version of "The Giver." Scroll down to listen to the song below. "The Giver" was debuted during Roan's appearance on Saturday Night Live in November. She then began teasing an HQ version of the song last month via a hotline shared with fans that allowed them to call in and hear snippets of the track.

Chappell Roan has today shared her new “full ass country song” called ‘The Giver’ – listen below.Roan has been steadily teasing ‘The Giver’ for some time now, with the former NME Cover star debuting the song during an appearance on Saturday Night Live last November. On the show, she told the audience: “All you country boys saying you know how to treat a woman right.

Chappell Roan just dropped her brand new country anthem “The Giver“!

Steven J. Horowitz Senior Music Writer After teasing the song for weeks, and months after its live debut, Chappell Roan has released her new country single “The Giver.” The lesbian country anthem is all fiddles and kickin’ up dirt, a hoedown about how it takes a real woman to please another woman: “Ain’t no country boy quitter, I get the job done,” she sings on the chorus. Roan first debuted “The Giver” with a live rendition of the tune during her “Saturday Night Live” performance in Nov.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Kaleem Aftab, director of international programming at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival, has stepped down following a four-year stint. The London-based film critic had been a key member of the team that launched the rapidly growing event which takes place in Jeddah, on the Red Sea’s eastern shore, and aims to become the region’s top festival and market. In his role Aftab pushed boundaries by programming uncensored movies from the Western world, and also from Asia and Africa, in a country where cinema had been banned for religion-related reasons until 2017.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Want to hang out with George and Amal Clooney on Italy’s Lake Como and be pampered to the hilt, all for a good cause? In August, the couple will be hosting an exclusive five-day fundraiser for the Clooney Foundation for Justice, hosting 16 guests who are passionate about philanthropy but also eager to indulge “in the most incredible aspects of Lake Como,” according to Emma Ponsonby, CEO of Satopia Group, which is organizing the event. Participation starts at €160,000 ($173,000) per room (based on double occupancy) at the Passalacqua hotel, an opulent 18th century villa with frescoed suites, grand staircases and fountains overlooking the lake on land once owned by Pope Innocent XI.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted a final message to Canadian citizens, a bit of a pep talk amid Donald Trump‘s threats of ever-more punitive tariffs and talk of the country becoming the U.S.’s 51st state.