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"Selma" director Ava DuVernay will lead the international competition jury at this year's Mumbai Film Festival, which runs from Oct. 29 to Nov. 5. The 17th edition of the festival opens with director Hansal Mehta's Hindi-language "Aligarh," which follows a professor in central India suspended from his position after he's accused of being gay. The filmmaker, whose other films include "I Will Follow" (2010), "Middle of Nowhere" (2012), and the Espn "Nine for IX" documentary "Venus Vs.," is currently at work developing Natalie Baszile's novel "Queen Sugar" into a scripted original series for Own, the Oprah Winfrey Network. (She also directed the pilot for the CBS drama "For Justice," starring Phylicia Rashad and set inside the FBI's Civil Rights Division.) Like other indie auteurs, including Steven Soderbergh ("The Knick") and Jill Soloway ("Transparent"), DuVernay has seized the...

In the fall of 2003, James Cameron filmed the record-breaking “no limits” free dive of Pipin Ferreras, which was a special event commemorating the death of Ferreras’s wife, Audrey Mestre. A year earlier, she drowned attempting the same feat of reaching a depth of 170 meters (557.7 feet) while holding her breath. During the press conference for the 2003 dive, Cameron confirmed earlier reports from that summer that he would be making a movie about the couple, and it would wind up being based on Ferreras’s 2004 memoir, “The Dive: A Story of Love and Obsession.” More than a decade later, Cameron has been focusing his directorial interests on the Avatar movies, but he’s continued developing the project with other filmmakers coming on board to take the helm. Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) became attached back in 2012, and now Francis Lawrence is the latest substitution, according to The Wrap. He also has an actress joining him for the role...

The Twilight movie series has wrapped for good - but its spirit lives on in the friendships formed over several movies together. Actresses Ashley Greene and Nikki Reed were reunited Thursday night at the Heineken U.S. Open Kickoff Party at the Dream Downtown hotel in N.Y.C., and they were excited to catch up with each other. Both stars travel, move between coasts and take on varied projects, such as Reed's current directorial project for Espn, Nine for IX, so it's a rare moment when they find time to reconnect, the pair told People. "We worked so closely...

The Twilight movie series has wrapped for good - but its spirit lives on in the friendships formed over several movies together. Actresses Ashley Greene and Nikki Reed were reunited Thursday night at the Heineken U.S. Open Kickoff Party at the Dream Downtown hotel in N.Y.C., and they were excited to catch up with each other. Both stars travel, move between coasts and take on varied projects, such as Reed's current directorial project for Espn, Nine for IX, so it's a rare moment when they find time to reconnect, the pair told People. "We worked so closely...

Tune in alert for the remaining Nine For IX documentaries airing on Espn throughout August. The remaining films are The Diplomat (August 6), Runner (August 13), The '99Ers (August 20), and Branded (August 27). Nine For IX Produced by Robin Roberts and Jane Rosenthal The Diplomat August 6 at 8:00Pm Et Director | Jennifer Arnold and Senain Kheshgi Cast | Katarina Witt, Brian Boitano At the height of the Cold War, Katarina Witt became one of East Germany’s most famous athletes. Trained in an ice rink that gave rise to socialist heroes, Witt dominated her field by winning six European skating titles, five world championships and back-to-back Olympic gold medals to become arguably the world’s best figure skater.

The illustrious Black Film Center/Archive (Bfc/A) at Indiana University will kick off its fall 2013 program with a 7-film series, featuring the work of Ava DuVernay and the distribution company she spearheads, aka Affrm. Included in the lineup are DuVernay-directed dramas and documentaries, I Will Follow, Middle Of Nowhere, My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women in Hip-hop and her upcoming contribution to Espn's Nine For IX series, Venus Vs, amongst other titles. Non-DuVernay-directed titles that complete the 7-film series include Affrm releases Better Mus’ Come, directed by Storm Saulter, and Neil Drumming’s Big Words, the company's next release, which will...