Longest movie shoot yet set for Abu Dhabi

Also, NYUAD unveils first season of shows; film debut for Miss India UAE; original Star Wars films get Chinese premiere; Liam Neeson is top option for ad men; Sam Shepard faces drink-driving charge; Actress Kelly Rutherford says custody order was violated; and photographer Mary Ellen Mark dies.

Miss India UAE Nivetha Pethuraj. Ravindranath K / The National

Another Bollywood blockbuster is coming to film in Abu Dhabi. The announcement that Dishoom will shoot in the capital in October was made in Mumbai on Tuesday night, May 26, during an event for the Bollywood filmmaking community hosted by twofour54 and the Abu Dhabi Film Commission, with the Film & Television Producers Guild of India. Dishoom, which will be directed by Rohit Dhawan, will shoot for five weeks at more than 30 locations in Abu Dhabi, making it the longest shoot in the emirate to date. The film's producers said that they were attracted by the unique locations, ease of accessibility from India, the Abu Dhabi Film Commission's 30 per cent production rebate and the city's ever-expanding filmmaking infrastructure. More than 90 cast and crew will be involved in the filming. Emiratis will have the chance to work as interns on the production. Twofour54 has attracted several major film productions to Abu Dhabi in the past two years, including Furious 7, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Bang Bang, Baby! and Deliver Us from Evil. – The National staff

NYUAD unveils first season of shows

Acclaimed world-music group Les Ambassadeurs will perform a free show at New York University Abu Dhabi's inaugural performing arts season. The Malian group, which features big names, including Salif Keita and Amadou Bagayoko (from Grammy-nominated Amadou and Mariam), will make their UAE debut at the Abu Dhabi campus on November 18. The Arts Center fall 2015 and spring 2016 line-up will open with shows on September 2 and 3 by American folk singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon, who will present a concert version of his work-in-progress opera, Octavia E Butler's Parable of the Sower. On October 14, the South Indian dancer and choreographer Aparna Ramaswamy will present her new solo work Ragamala Dance: They Rose At Dawn. All shows are free. For more details, visit www.nyuad-artscenter.org – The National staff

Film debut for Miss India UAE

Miss India UAE winner Nivetha Pethuraj is set to make her acting debut. Nelson Venkatesan, the director of the Tamil drama Oru Naal Koothu, said the Dubai resident won the role thanks to her Tamil-speaking ability and good looks. "We had been looking for an actress with the combination of good looks and the ability to speak good Tamil," he said. "We came across Nivetha through a common friend and we felt that she was perfect for the character. She's a Tamilian settled in Dubai for more than 13 years and her Tamil is impeccable. She plays a modern, IT girl in a software department and is paired opposite 'Attakathi' Dinesh." The film also stars Malayali actress Mia George. – IANS

Original Star Wars films get Chinese premiere

In the run-up to the December release of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, which was partly filmed in Abu Dhabi last year, the original films in the sci-fi saga are to be screened in China for the first time. Episodes I to VI will be screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival, which runs from June 13 to 21. Although the films have been available on home video and DVD, the original trilogy – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) – have never been shown in Chinese cinemas. – The National staff

Liam Neeson is top option for ad men

Advertising executives looking for the best celebrity to endorse their products can’t do much better than actor Liam Neeson. The Nielsen company rated celebrities who made commercials during the first three months of this year and ranked them based on likeability, public awareness, influence and other factors. Its first N-Scores, released on Tuesday, May 26, showed that Irish actors Neeson and Pierce Brosnan had identical scores of 94, although Neeson was judged to have a greater influence in getting products sold. Neeson, who has been featured in an American TV advert for Supercell Games, is viewed positively by 78 per cent of Americans who are familiar with him, Nielsen said. Brosnan and Matthew McConaughey, who featured in car commercials, also scored well. Jeff Bridges stood out among celebrities for the amount of influence he carried with his fans, according to Nielsen. Other celebs who scored well included Jennifer Garner, Natalie Portman, Sofia Vergara, Jim Parsons, Dennis Haysbert and J K Simmons. –AP

Sam Shepard faces drink-driving charge

Actor and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard was arrested on Monday on suspicion of drunken driving, after security staff at a restaurant in Santa Fe California called police. The 71-year-old told police he had two tequila drinks and was planning to drive home, said Santa Fe police Lt Andrea Dobyns. "Our officer could smell alcohol on his breath and he had bloodshot, watery eyes," she said. The actor declined to take a breath test, but performed a field-sobriety test, which he failed, Dobyns said. Shepard won a Pulitzer for his 1979 three-act play Buried Child. His film credits include Baby Boom, Steel Magnolias, Thunderheart, Black Hawk Down, The Notebook, and Walker Payne. Shephard was arrested in January 2009 on charges of speeding and drunken driving in Illinois. He pleaded guilty and was fined US$600 (Dh2,200) plus court costs, placed on 24 months supervision, and was ordered to complete an alcohol-treatment programme and 100 hours of community service. – AP

Actress Kelly Rutherford says custody order was violated

A judge has ordered the ex-husband of American actress Kelly Rutherford to return their two children to her over concerns that a custody order was violated. Rutherford, who starred on Melrose Place and Gossip Girl, filed an emergency petition on Friday, May 22, stating that her ex-husband had petitioned a court in Monaco to change the citizenship of their 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. Los Angeles Superior Court judge Mark Juhas ordered that Daniel Giersch must return the children to the United States pending a court hearing on June 15. Rutherford, 46, did not give her ex-husband notice of the emergency hearing, saying that she was concerned that Giersch would have kidnapped the children. The order expresses concern that Giersch has repeatedly violated a 2013 custody order allowing the children to live with him abroad while he sorted out a US visa issue. Giersch and Rutherford married in 2006 and filed for divorce two years later. They continued to fight over custody until the 2013 order allowed Giersch to keep the children abroad. – AP

Photographer Mary Ellen Mark dies

Documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark, once described as "a snake charmer of the soul" because of her gift for capturing searing images of human vulnerability, died at the age of 75 on Monday, May 25, at a hospital in New York. She had fought a long battle with a blood illness caused by bone-marrow failure, her friend Kelly Cutrone said. Mark's subjects ranged from runaway children and heroin addicts to celebrities and world leaders. She also photographed members of the Ku Klux Klan, a women's security ward in a mental institution and celebrities. Over the decades, "what resulted was, in fact, a lamentation: one of the most delicately shaded studies of vulnerability ever set on film," wrote the late Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes. A collection of Mark's photographs in a book titled Streetwise documents the life of Tiny Blackwell, a Seattle prostitute and drug addict whom Mark met in the 1980s when Tiny was 13. A new book on Blackwell, titled Tiny: Streetwise Revisited, photographed over the decades is yet to be published. Mark's work appeared in prominent publications including Life, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. She also published 18 books. Her latest project, for CNN, was about New Orleans on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Mark is survived by her husband, filmmaker Martin Bell, who directed the documentary Streetwise based on her images. A memorial is planned for September 10 in New York. – AP