Celia Imrie and Jason Isaacs Receive Raindance Icon Award
Celia Imrie and Jason Isaacs are the latest stars to receive the Raindance Icon Award. Both will attend the world premiere of Christopher Anthony feature Heavyweight at the Raindance Film Festival opening night in London gala to receive their awards. Isaac stars in the boxing film alongside Nicholas Pinnock (Top Boy) and Jordan Bolger (Peaky Blinders). Imrie was a Raindance jury member in 2017. “As part of the 33rd Raindance, it’s an honour for us to celebrate this year’s Raindance Icon Award recipients,” said Raindance founder Elliot Grove. “Both are the epitome of our industry with careers that include iconic film and television roles – and both remain champions of independent cinema here in the UK and internationally.” Imrie will next be seen in Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club film adaptation and in the BBC’s celebrty version of The Traitors and is known for roles in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Diplomat and Calendar Girls among others, while Isaacs is starring this year in The Salt Path and Heavyweight among others. He was recently in Season 3 of The White Lotus and has starred in the Harry Potter films, The Death of Stalin and Operation Mincemeat. Previous Raindance Icon Award recipients include Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Winterbottom, Michael Caine, Sally Hawkins, Jude Law, Olivia Colman, Terry Gilliam, Guy Richie and Ken Loach. This year’s fest takes place between June 18-27.
MultiChoice Posts $45M Loss In “Challenging” Year
South Africa-based MultiChoice Group posted an underlying adjusted loss of 800M rand ($45M), but managed to speed up cost savings for the year ended March 31. This was down from a 1.3B rand profit a year earlier and comes as France’s Canal+ continues to press for its takeover of the pay-TV and streaming company to close this year. The loss was put down to “lower trading profit and hedging losses compared to hedging gains in the prior year,” with some offset by smaller losses from repatriating cash from Nigeria. Streamer Showmax posted a trading loss 2.3B rand larger than FY24 despite delivering 44% growth in active paying subs, but around 3.7B rand in cost savings meant trading profit only declined to 4B rand. At the end of 2024, MultiChoice held 5.1B rand in cash and cash equivalents and had access to another 3B rand through borrowing facilities. A cost-saving target of 2B rand for FY26 has been set. “The past two financial years have been a period of significant financial disruption for economies, corporates and consumers across sub-Saharan Africa due to challenging macro-economic factors,” said the company in a statement. On the programming front, MultiChoice noted it had added more than 5,340 hours of local content in 2024, bringing its library to nearly 91,500 hours. Flagship reality show Big Brother Mzansi took a record 3.8 million views for its finale, while Big Brother Naija continued to post solid numbers in its ninth season.
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