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OSpike Lee is Cannes Film Festival Jury President SCAR winning filmmaker, Spike Lee, will get his chance to preside over the jury of the 2021 edition of the Cannes International Film Festival, which will run from July 6 to 17, after being pushed back from its usual May slot due to the ravaging pandemic. Lee, who has made numerous films and received rave reviews, was announced as Jury President for the 73rd edition back in January 2020 but that edition of the festival was cancelled in the light of the growing concern over the Coronavirus pandemic. President of the festival, Pierre Lescure, disclosed that preparations are in full swing with a large number of films being viewed by the selection committee. “The festival will have opportunity to outline in more details, the programme of the 74th edition in the coming weeks,” Lescure said, adding, “throughout the months of uncertainty, we have just been through, Spike Lee has never stopped encouraging us. This support is finally coming to fruition and we could not have hoped for a more powerful personality to chart our troubled times.” With his re- appointment, Lee who has had seven films premiere at the Cannes filmfest, including Jungle Fever ( 1991), Summer of Sam ( 1999) and Blackkklansman ( 2018) will go down in history as the first African- American to serve as Jury President and the first person from African Diaspora to be jury president of the prestigious Cannes Filmfest. The official selection and the rest of the jurors will be named in the coming weeks.
Beckham To Give Keynote At MIPTV
GLOBAL sporting icon, David Beckham, will make his debut television industry keynote at Digital MIPTV, which will open on April 12. The organisers confirmed that the football club owner, entrepreneur and founder of production company Studio 99 has accepted to give the keynote speaker at this exclusively online edition, which will run through to April 16. The sports icon is expected to talk about launching his own production company, his global ambitions for studio 99 and current projects in production and development for a variety of global network including, A Whole New Ball Game, World War Shoe and the upcoming definitive David Beckham biopic. A Whole New Ball Game charts the contemporary history of the Premier League while World War Shoes is a
documentary on the untold story behind sports brands Adidas and Puma. There will be a conversation with Beckham on Tuesday April 13 at 18.000 CEST. The conversation will be hosted by award winning director and producer Ben Winston. Beckham, OBE, is one of the world’s most recognised celebrities. After retiring from football, David has established himself as a successful entrepreneur, working strategically and creatively with many of the world’s leading brands. In 2019, Beckham founded Studio 99 alongside long- time partner, David Gardner and Nicola Howson, and together they have built the studio into a global production and content studio, which focuses on documentary films, series and format development. Now in its 58th year, MIPTV is the yearly spring market for the international television industry. It brings together global distributors, producers, buyers and programme commissioners for a curated week of personalized business meetings, exclusive market intelligence, conference sessions and global networking. Information on the festival can be sourced at www. miptv. com
Entry For Pitcher Festival Of Creativity Closes
ENTRIES for the Pitcher Festival of Creativity tagged, ‘ Africa Celebration of Creativity’ is expected to close on March 31, the organisers, CHINI Africa, have announced. The festival’s programme include, Pitcher award — promoted as the new Pan- African benchmark for creative excellence, Future Creative Leaders Academy — an intensive professional immersion and competitions for university students on their way into the creative industries, and the Young Professional Academy — an intensive training session and life changing competitions for creative, media, digital and marketing professionals under 30. There is also ‘ Creating a Better Africa’, which is an initiative aimed at mobilising the private sector towards greater participation in development projects in Africa, See It Be It Africa — an extension of the Cannes Lions Initiative that addresses the gender imbalance in senior creative leadership and the Pitcher Talks, which provides a unique regional platform for leading industry professionals to deliver top notch seminars and conduct hands- on workshops that addresses critical issues affecting the industry. The Pitcher Award, which is the flagship event of the well- attended festival, is open to work created or implemented anywhere in Africa. CHINI Africa is Cannes Lions Official Festival Representative in Nigeria and winner of the 2019 Cannes Lions Representative of the Year silver Award. Information on the festival can be sourced at www. pitcherfestival. com or through info@ pitcherfestival. com.