Renowned Bangladeshi film critic, screenwriter and journalist Sadia Khalid Reeti has been invited to the Fipresci (International Federation of Film Critics) jury at the upcoming 77th Cannes Film Festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world in which she was a jury member before in 2019 when she became the second Bangladeshi to receive this honour. A Screenwriting graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Reeti has served as a jury member at different international film festivals in Italy, India, England, Nepal, France, Russia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. She also served as a Fipresci jury at the Bengaluru International Film Festival, International Film Festival of Kerala and Dhaka International Film Festival (DIFF), and is currently serving as the Co-Convenor of the West Meets East Screenplay Lab at DIFF, one of the leading script development labs in the country. With 'Tati', Coke Studio Bangla launches season 3 paying homage to Jamdani Reeti became Bangladesh's first international voter for the Golden Globe Awards in 2022. A Berlinale Talents alumna, she attended prestigious mentorship programs with Film Independent and Locarno Open Doors. Alongside her responsibilities as the Cultural Editor of Dhaka Tribune, one of the leading English dailies in the country, Reeti teaches film studies at different universities and institutions. She is a recipient of the Charles Wallace Fellowship from the British Council, as a part of which she trained in surreal filmmaking at the British Film Institute in 2023. Regarding her return to Cannes, Reeti said: “Cannes is the biggest and most prestigious film festival in the world. It’s an incredible honour to be invited back. Having our film critics on the jury board more often will enable us to convey our cultural point of view and help world cinema move away from its Eurocentric lens.” “The invitation always arrives so late that it’s difficult to arrange the visa and other necessities with a green passport,” she said about her travel preparations. “The festival has grown so much over the years that it’s now a logistical nightmare trying to find suitable lodging. Hopefully, when more of us participate in such festivals, the authorities will keep provisions to reduce the stress.” From Bangladesh, Ahmed Muztaba Zamal was the first Fipresci jury at Cannes in 2002, 2005, and 2009. Reeti came next in 2019, followed by Bidhan Rebeiro in 2022. They joined as members of the IFCAB (International Film Critics Association of Bangladesh). ‘Adyontor’ to release their first song ‘Opekkhar Chithi’ tomorrow The 77th annual Cannes Film Festival is due to take place from 14 to 25 May 2024. American filmmaker and actress Greta Gerwig will serve as jury president for the main competition, and the main competition at Cannes will include veteran filmmakers like Coppola, Audiard, Cronenberg, Arnold, Lanthimos, Sorrentino, Abbasi and so on this year.

 A jury on Friday decided Elon Musk didn’t defraud investors with his 2018 tweets about electric automaker Tesla in a proposed deal that quickly unraveled and raised questions about whether the billionaire had misled investors. The nine-member jury reached its verdict after less that two hours of deliberation following a three-week trial. It represents a major vindication for Musk, who spent about eight hours on the witness stand defending his motives for the August 2018 tweets at the center of the trial. Musk, 51, wasn’t on hand for the brief reading of the verdict but he made a surprise appearance earlier Friday for closing arguments that drew starkly different portraits of him. Not long after the verdict came down, Musk took to Twitter — the bully pulpit he now owns — to celebrate. “Thank goodness, the wisdom of the people has prevailed!” Musk tweeted. Musk’s decision to break away from his other responsibilities to sit in on the closing arguments even though he didn’t have to be there may have had an impact on the jurors, said Michael Freedman, a former federal prosecutor who is now in private practice working for a law firm that has represented celebrities and business executives.“It shows he has a presence,” Freedman said. Nicholas Porritt, an attorney who represented aggrieved Tesla investors, said he was disappointed after urging the jurors in his closing arguments to rebuke Musk for reckless behavior that threatened to create “anarchy.” “I don’t think this is the kind of conduct we expect from a large public company,” a downcast Porritt said after discussing the verdict with a few jurors who gathered to talk to him. “People can draw their own conclusion on whether they think it’s OK or not.” During their discussion with Porritt, the jurors told them they found Musk’s testimony that he believed he had lined up the money from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund without a written commitment to be credible. They also expressed doubt about whether Musk’s tweeting was the sole reason for the swings in Tesla’s stock price during a 10-day period in August 2018 covered in the case.The trial pitted Tesla investors represented in a class-action lawsuit against Musk, who is CEO of both the electric automaker and the Twitter service he bought for $44 billion a few months ago. Shortly before boarding his private jet on Aug. 7, 2018, Musk tweeted that he had the financing to take Tesla private, even though it turned out he hadn’t gotten an iron-clad commitment for a deal that would have cost $20 billion to $70 billion to pull off. A few hours later, Musk sent another tweet indicating that the deal was imminent. Musk’s integrity was at stake at the trial as well part of a fortune that has established him as one of the world’s richest people. He could have been saddled with a bill for billions of dollars in damages had the jury found him liable for the 2018 tweets that had already been deemed falsehoods by the judge presiding over the trial.That determination, made last year by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, left the jury to decide whether Musk had been reckless with his tweeting and acted in a way that hurt Tesla shareholders. “It may have not been that difficult for the jury,” Freedman said, “because it sort of became like an up-or-down vote.” Earlier Friday, Musk sat stoically in court during the trial’s closing arguments while he was both vilified as a rich and reckless narcissist and hailed as a visionary looking out for the “little guy.” Over the course of a one-hour presentation, Porritt had implored the jurors to rebuke Musk for his “loose relationship with the truth.” “Our society is based on rules,” Porritt said. “We need rules to save us from anarchy. Rules should apply to Elon Musk like everyone else.” Alex Spiro, Musk’s attorney, conceded the 2018 tweets were “technically inaccurate.” But he told the jurors, “Just because it’s a bad tweet doesn’t make it a fraud.” During roughly eight hours on the stand earlier in the trial, Musk insisted he believed he had lined up the funds from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to take Tesla private after eight years as a publicly held company. He defended his initial August 2018 tweet as well-intentioned and aimed at ensuring all Tesla investors knew the automaker might be on its way to ending its run as a publicly held company.“I had no ill motive,” Musk testified. “My intent was to do the right thing for all shareholders.” Spiro echoed that theme in his closing argument. “He was trying to include the retail shareholder, the mom and pop, the little guy, and not seize more power for himself,” Spiro said. Porritt, meanwhile, scoffed at the notion that Musk could have concluded he had a firm commitment after a 45-minute meeting at a Tesla factory on July 31, 2018, with Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund, given there was no written documentation. In his 90 minute presentation, Spiro emphasized Musk’s track record helping to start and run a list of companies that include digital payment pioneer PayPal and rocket ship maker SpaceX, in addition to Tesla. The automaker based in Austin, Texas, is now worth nearly $600 billion, despite a steep decline in its stock price last year amid concerns that Musk’s purchase of Twitter would distract him from Tesla. Recalling Musk’s roots as a South African immigrant who came to Silicon Valley to create revolutionary tech companies, Spiro described his client “as the kind of person who believes the impossible is possible.”

A 32-year-old man who grew up on the same streets in the same gang as Nipsey Hussle was found guilty Wednesday of first-degree murder in the 2019 shooting of the Grammy-winning rapper, who rose above his circumstances to become an inspiration to the neighborhood where he was eventually gunned down. The Los Angeles County jury also found Eric R. Holder Jr. guilty of two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter for gunfire that hit other men at the scene. Prosecutors had sought two counts of attempted murder. Holder also was found guilty of two counts of assault with a firearm on the same men. Holder, wearing a blue suit and face mask, stood up in the small court room next to his lawyer as the verdict was read. He had no visible reaction. His lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Aaron Jansen, conceded during the trial that Holder shot Hussle, 33, whose legal name is Ermias Asghedom, but had sought a lesser verdict of voluntary manslaughter. Also read:Surgeon: Johnny Depp's severed finger story has flaws Jansen said in an email that he was deeply disappointed in the first-degree murder verdict. “It was always going to be tough given the high profile circumstances surrounding the case,” Jansen said. He added that he and Holder were grateful that the jury agreed that the attempted murder counts were overcharged. They plan to appeal the murder conviction, he said. A jury of nine women and three men deliberated for about six hours over two days before reaching the verdict. Most of their deliberations took place Friday, and they promptly came to their unanimous decision Wednesday, briefly reconvening after a four-day break. A pair of typos on the verdict form discovered as the results were read forced jurors to briefly return to deliberations before the outcome could be made official, but they had no bearing on the outcome. “We are both proud and I am a little relieved that the verdict came in a complete, absolute agreement with the charges that Eric Holder murdered Ermias Asghedom in cold blood,” Deputy District Attorney John McKinney said outside the courtroom. “We hope that today is a day in which the Asghedom family and the friends and fans of Nipsey Hussle around the world will find some measure of closure.” No relatives of Hussle were in the room when the verdict was read, nor did any attend the trial. The judge has a wide range of options when he sentences Holder on Sept. 15. The first-degree murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. “Obviously nothing that happened here today can heal the wound, nothing that happened here today can restore Mr. Asghedom to this world, but we hope that there is some resounding peace in the fact that his killer will be in prison likely for the rest of his life,” McKinney said. The verdict brings an end to a legal saga that has lasted more than three years and a trial that was often delayed because of the pandemic. Hussle and Holder had known each other for years growing up as members of the Rollin’ 60s in South Los Angeles when a chance meeting outside the clothing store the rapper opened in his neighborhood led to the shooting, and his death. The evidence against Holder was overwhelming, from eyewitnesses to surveillance cameras from local businesses that captured his arrival, the shooting and his departure. The shooting followed a conversation the two men had about rumors that Holder had been acting as an informant for authorities. Jansen argued that being publicly accused of being a “snitch” by a person as prominent as Hussle brought on a “heat of passion” in Holder that made him not guilty of first-degree murder. Hussle’s close friend Herman “Cowboy” Douglas, who was standing next to him when he was shot and testified at the trial, said the conversation he heard does not explain the killing for him. “It feels good to get some closure, but I still need to know why,” Douglas said after the verdict. After years of grinding that won him underground acclaim — his nickname was both a play on the name of comedian Nipsey Russell and a nod to the hustle the future hip-hop star showed in making music and selling CDs — Hussle had just released his major-label debut album and earned his first Grammy nomination when he was killed. He was a widely beloved figure in Los Angeles, especially in the South LA area where he grew up and remained after gaining fame, buying property and opening businesses. A year after his death, Hussle was mourned at a memorial at the arena then known as Staples Center, and celebrated in a performance at the Grammy Awards that included DJ Khaled and John Legend. It was more than two years after that when the man who shot him would go on trial. “Today was really about Nipsey Hussle and the legacy that he leaves behind,” McKinney said Wednesday. “This verdict and the story of his life will be talked about for sure at Crenshaw and Slauson, but the meaning of it will carry far beyond those streets.”

The jurors seated so far in the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd's death are a diverse group, an element being closely scrutinized in a case where race plays such a central role.

Chicago, OCT 4 (AP/UNB) — A jury has convicted a man of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a 9-year-old Chicago boy who was lured into an alley with the promise of a juice box.