Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron won the Golden Lion top prize at the Venice film festival Saturday for “Roma”, which critics have called not merely a movie but “a vision”. With its highly emotional story centred on an indigenous maid working for a middle-class family in Mexico City in 1971, it has been hailed as Cuaron’s most personal film — and also his best.

Hot documentaries, reboots of classic horror franchises, plenty of politics, and of course Oscar-bait galas will be served up at this week’s Toronto International Film Festival. More than 300 feature and short films from 74 countries — 31,300 minutes of film in total — will be screened at the 43rd TIFF, the biggest film festival in North America, which opens Thursday and runs through September 16.

A stone cemetery was found roughly 300 meters northeast of the pyramid of King Senusert I, the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry announced on Wednesday. It was discovered by an Egyptian archaeological excavation mission working in the Lisht, the site of the Middle Kingdom s royal and elite burials.

Ninety elephant carcasses have been discovered in Botswana with their tusks hacked off, a charity said Tuesday, in what is believed to be one of Africa s worst mass poaching sprees. Most of the animals killed were large bulls carrying heavy tusks, Elephants Without Borders said. The grim discovery was made over several weeks during an aerial survey by Elephants Without Borders and Botswana s Department of Wildlife and National Parks.

Irish rock group U2 was forced to cut short a concert in Berlin before thousands of fans after performing only a few songs when lead singer Bono lost his voice. “We re so sorry for tonight s cancellation,” the group said in a statement on its website about the Saturday night show. “Bono was in great form and great voice prior to the show and we were all looking forward to the second night in Berlin, but after a few songs, he suffered a complete loss of voice.”

An Egyptian-French mission at the Tell el-Samara site in the Delta governorate of Daqahliya has recently uncovered one of the oldest villages ever discovered in the Nile Delta. The joint mission excavated the remains of a Neolithic settlement, whose occupation lasted until the 2nd dynasty (ca. 4200-2900 BC), at the bottom level of the El-Samara site, .

Hollywood superstar Partick Dempsy will be the guest of honor at this year s Gouna Film Festival, the festival s official website announced. In a press conference, singer and actress Boshra (the festival s co-founder) announced Dempsy s participation, referring to his character in the popular medical drama, “Grey s Anatomy”.

More than 300 endangered sea turtles were found dead near the southern coast of Mexico, the country s environmental officials said. It appears that hundreds of Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) sea turtles died after they became entangled in an illegal fishing net off the coast of La Barra de Colotepec, Mexico s federal agency for environmental protection said Tuesday.

Egyptian singer Amr Diab s new album “Kol Hayati” (All My Life) is likely to be released to markets in September of this year, after the album s singles topped Egypt s iTunes and Apple Music charts. Diab s latest single, “Hadded”, was the most active video on Egyptian YouTube in the two weeks since August 15.

An isolated Amazon tribe with no known contact with the outside world has been spotted by a drone flying over the Brazilian jungle, according to the country s National Indian Foundation. Footage released this week shows several people walking through a wide clearing made in a patch of dense jungle in the Javary River valley, near the border with Peru.

They are the biggest five in Egypt s music industry, and this time they re going against each other. The BAMA Music Awards has gotten the top five Egyptian artists to compete for the “Best Egyptian Act” award of 2018, according to an announcement on BAMA Music Awards 2018 official website. The competing artists are Amr Diab, Mohamed Hamaki, Mohamed Mounir, Sherine Abdel Wahab and Tamer Hosny. The category is accompanied by 31 others, all designed to honor the best talents from different regions including: Best Afghan Act, Best Indonesian Act, Best French Act, Best Japanese act, among many others. Among other prominent Arab artists in different categories are Samira Said and Saad Lemjarred; who are both competing for the best Moroccan act and international stars Cheb Khaled, Saber Rebai and Latifa, all competing for the “Best Algerian and Moroccan Act.” Ahlam, Balqees and Hussein Aljasmi are also possible award recipients, with all of them running for Best Emirati Act along with Fayez al-Saeed and Shamma Hamdan. Fans will determine the winners in a month through a social media vote, and the awards will be given out at Hamburg, Germany in November. Nicknamed “al-Hadaba” (The Plateau) to reflect his sheer greatness, Amr Diab has had a long spanning career since he began creating music in 1983. Over the past three and half decades, Diab has managed to stay as one of Egypt s and the Middle East s top singers, winning awards and selling records. In 2009, Amr Diab won four 2009 African Music Awards in the following for Best Artist, Best Album, Best Vocalist and Best Song for “Wayah”. He is also the only Middle Eastern artist to have received seven World Music Awards, among other achievements. Born in 1975, Mohamed Hamaki rose to fame in the 2000s after releasing his first single in 1997. He then cemented his trip to stardom with “Wahda Wahda” (One Step at a Time), which he tailored for Ahmed Helmy s movie “Ga alatni Mogreman” (She Made Me a Criminal). Since then, the singer rocketed to fame, receiving prestigious awards such as the Best Middle Eastern Artist by MTV, the Best Selling Middle Eastern Artist by EMI and also winning MTV music awards as Best Arabic Singer in the Middle East 2010 and Best Singer 2008. “The King” Mohamed Mounir was born into in 1954 and has had more than three successful decades as one of Egypt s top singers. He is notable for fusing different types of music such as classical Egyptian Music, Nubian music, blues and jazz. Some of Mounir s top songs are Shababeek (Windows) Lama Al-Nasim Ya adi (When the Wind Passes) and Albi Masaken Sha abyia (My Poor Heart). Born in 1980, Sherine Abdel Wahab left her mark on Egyptian music with her warm voice and popular music. She is also considered one of the biggest contemporary female Egyptian stars. She began her individual career with successful songs such as “Ah Ya Leil” (Oh Night), which made her a household name, “Kol Ma Aghanni” (Everytime I sing) alongside Tamer Habib and “Masha er” (Feelings). Sherine also served as a Jury Member on the show “The Voice: Ahla Sout” until 2017. Nicknamed “Negm El Geel” (Star of the Generation), Tamer Hosny achieved not only local but international success. Hosny released his first solo album in 2004 titled “Hob”(Love), where his music video song “Arrab Habiby” (Come Closer my Love), became a great success. He then followed the album with several others that surpassed its fame like “Enayyah Bethebbak” (My Eyes Love You), “Ya Bent El-Eih” (Naughty Girl) leading up to his 11th and latest album “Omri Ebtada” (My Life Began). Hosny also made a name by collaborating with international stars such as Snoop Dogg, Shagi, Akon, Quincy Jones and RedOne who produced “Bokra”, a charity song which saw Hosny collaborate with some of the Arab world s biggest stars. He s even ventured into cinema, cementing his name as an actor through comedy movies such as Omar w Salma, Captain Hima and Tesbah Ala Kheir (Good Night). Hosny made history by becoming the first ever Egyptian/Arab artist to leave his footprint at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California alongside some of the world s most famous stars. BAMA Music Awards is an international multicultural music award show created by Daf Entertainment based in Hamburg, Germany. The award aims to “immortalize creativity, unity and enjoyment among the global music lovers until the end of time”, according to BAMA Music Awards official website. In 2016, BAMA awarded Mohamed Mounir a “Legend Award”. He is so far, the only Egyptian to win such award.

El Diesel”, a film with Egyptian star Mohamed Ramadan, has so far achieved the highest revenues in this Eid s movie season, with the Arab Distribution Company announcing profits of LE 3,212,110, according to Al-Ahram. Ramadan s movie was followed by Egyptian singer Tamer Hosni s “Al-Badla” (The Suit), which came in second with revenues of LE 2,615,356. In third place came Asser Yassin s “Torab Al-Mass”(Diamond Dust) with LE 1,295,088, followed by “Al-Kwyesseen” (The Good People) which took home fourth place with LE 1,236,280.

The craze for “Crazy Rich Asians” is hitting Asia, with a premiere in Singapore followed by openings in several neighboring countries later this week. Much of the over-the-top romantic comedy was set in this wealthy city-state. As the stars streamed past flashing lights down the red carpet Tuesday evening, fans and tourists swarmed around them taking photos and asking for selfies.

US actor Kevin Spacey s latest movie has flopped big-time at the box office, taking in a mere $618 as it opened to dire reviews in a handful of theaters across the country. Billionaire Boys Club,” a crime drama based on a true story, in which Spacey co-stars alongside Ansel Elgort (“Baby Driver”) and Taron Egerton (“Kingsman,”) earned a measly $126 on Friday according to industry magazine The Hollywood Reporter.

Saturday was a dark day for puppet enthusiasts as Egyptian puppeteer Nagy Shaker lost his battle to illness, passing away at 86. The Ministry of Culture expressed their condolences, saying that Egypt lost one of its star designers and a pioneer in puppet designs. Their statement added that Shaker s works remain a guide for Egyptian artists in the field of cinema and theater, and that his passing is a huge loss for Egyptian and Arab art.

The Ministry of Antiquities announced on Sunday that archaeological studies on the skeletons from the Alexandria sarcophagus discovered in July have identified the genders, ages and height of the remains through anthropological screening. Chief of the Central Administration of Antiquities in Lower Egypt, Nadia Khadr said that “The first skeleton was a woman aged between 20 and 25 years-old, and was between 160 and 164 cm. The second was a man aged between 30 and 35 years-old, measuring between 160 and 165.5 cm.”

In the Egyptian Museum since the 1900s, the mummy affectionately known as Fred has provided scientists with the recipe used for ancient embalming. It also shows bodies were embalmed 1,500 years earlier than thought. The 3,600-year-old mummy called Fred at the Turin Museum had been untouched by modern chemicals and had not been previously studied by scientists. He was therefore an ideal subject for study under the microscope for the components of the paste used to embalm him.

Egyptian actor and UNICEF goodwill ambassador Khaled Abol Naga restated his support for gay rights on Twitter, writing that denying the rights of homosexuals to be recognized by society is exactly the same as racism. “Gay people are born with romantic tendencies toward the same sex and this is scientifically documented now, just like the roundness of the Earth. Ignorance of these facts is what society lacks to understand what homosexuals are suffering,” he added.

Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is screening two Egyptian films in its Middle East and Africa category: “Sheikh Jackson”, and “Yomeddine” (Judgement Day). Yomeddine is the first full-length independent Egyptian film to be nominated for the Palme d Or, in Cannes Film festival this year. The dramatic film is written and directed by the Egyptian-Austrian Abu Bakr Shawky, and it portrays the story of a real-life leprosy survivor who embarks on a journey to find his father.

Beloved Lebanese singer Elissa has released a new video titled “Ila Kol Elli Bihebbouni” (For all those who love me), detailing her battle with breast cancer and calling on women to perform early detections. Elissa, 45, broke taboos in the Arab world surrounding the disease by utilizing a song that narrates her journey struggling against the cancer. She was diagnosed back in December, but kept the illness a secret and even collapsed on stage while performing in February.