Iranian director Panahi banned from Venice fest

Noted Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been barred from attending the 67th Venice film festival by Tehran.
In a statement issued to festival bosses, the director, who was released from jail earlier in 2010, said he was denied a request to attend the event by the government, Contactmusic reported. Panahi’s short film The Accordion was screened at the festival that opened on Wednesday with Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller Black Swan.
“Despite having been released, I am still not free to travel outside my country to attend film festivals,” the 50-year-old director said.
“When a filmmaker is not allowed to make films, he is mentally imprisoned,” said Panahi, whose arrest in March led to widespread protests in the international film community.

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McConaughey airbrushed
London: It is not just the ladies who are being given the air brush by fashion labels, Hollywood hunk Matthew McConaughey has been digitally altered to look waif-like in the latest Dolce & Gabbana campaign.
The 40-year-old movie star who is renowned for his muscular physique has been airbrushed to look slimmer in his new Dolce & Gabbana campaign for The One Gentleman scent.
The actor who was voted People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2005, looks skinny wearing a tuxedo in the promotional image, reported Daily Mail online.
It’s a far cry from the hunky, muscular surfer who is often spotted out on the beach in Malibu either alone or with his girlfriend Camila Alves and their two children, Levi and Vida.
—PTI

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Man has surgery to look like Gaga
New York: She has been at the receiving end of many scathing comments over her looks, but a Bulgarian fan of popstar Lady Gaga is undergoing a sex change operation to become her body double.
Penio Daskalov, 24, plans to have a full sex change operation and is enlisting cosmetic surgeons to turn him into a copy of Lady Gaga, reported New York Post online. The aspiring popstar has already contacted the Poker face hitmaker’s management as he wants to record a duet with his idol. “I really admire the way she has created herself, so when I’ve had my operations I won’t be quite a man or quite a woman,” Daskalov said. —PTI

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