Nigella Lawson to be in court on Wednesday
Nigella Lawson will appear in court in the case against her former employees, Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo, who are accused of stealing almost £700,000 (Dh4.2 million) from Lawson and her ex-husband, Charles Saatchi. Lawson will appear as a witness for the prosecution but is battling to clear her name and save her career. The Grillo sisters claim that they were allowed access to credit cards in return for covering up Lawson's use of cocaine, cannabis and prescription drugs. Saatchi says that he has no knowledge of Lawson ever taking drugs, days after the release of an email in which he referred to the celebrity chef as "drug-addled". He says he has "never seen any evidence of Nigella taking any drug whatsoever". – AP
Big B wants to play his father
Amitabh Bachchan says if there was a person he would like to bring alive on screen, it would be his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan, as depicted in his autobiography In the Afternoon of Time. In New Delhi at the Penguin Annual Lecture 2013 on Friday night, a fan asked Bachchan to pick a beloved character he'd like to play in a film. "Maybe I'd like to play the role that my father played in his autobiography," the 70-year-old actor said. "It's a tough call, but I want to try." – The National staff
Beatriz’s War closes India fest
The 44th International film festival of India (IFFI) closed on an emotional note as Beatriz's War, East Timor's first feature film in its post-colonisation period and one that marks the debut of its co-director Bety Reis, won the Golden Peacock award for Best Film and a prize money of 40 lakh rupees (Dh235,000). A tearful Reis said that one of the world's oldest and biggest industry (India) had reposed faith in the world's newest and smallest film industry in East Timor with the Golden Peacock. Kaushik Ganguly, the director of the Bengali film Apur Panchali, was awarded the Silver Peacock and 15 lakh rupees for his dedication "to the iconic filmmaker Satyajit Ray". – The National staff
South Africa warms to Mandela, critics unimpressed
The film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom won rave reviews from South Africans who flocked to its opening night, but critics were unimpressed, with one describing the latest biopic about the anti-apartheid leader as overly reverential ANC propaganda. With South Africa's first black president now 95 and in poor health, cinemagoers were in an emotional mood at Thursday's first screening of the 150-minute film, which stars the British actors Idris Elba as Mandela and Naomie Harris as his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. – Reuters
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