عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Entertainment

Beyoncé Will Perform at Halftime of Ravens-Texans Christmas Day Game on Netflix

Beyoncé appears at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Houston, on Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
Beyoncé appears at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Houston, on Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
TT
TT

Beyoncé Will Perform at Halftime of Ravens-Texans Christmas Day Game on Netflix

Beyoncé appears at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Houston, on Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
Beyoncé appears at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Houston, on Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)

Beyoncé is coming to your home on Christmas — provided you have Netflix and are tuning in to the Baltimore Ravens-Houston Texans game.

Netflix announced late Sunday that the megastar would perform during halftime of a Christmas Day matchup in her hometown of Houston.

The streaming service didn't reveal details about the performance but teased that it would likely feature guest appearances from her “Cowboy Carter” album, which delivered her a leading 11 Grammy nominations earlier this month.

Netflix is streaming two NFL games this Christmas. Its first game will be between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers — setting up the possibility that two of the world's biggest superstars will be part of the events. Taylor Swift, who is dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has attended several of his games so far this year, and will be done with her Eras tour by Christmas.

The NFL games are the streaming giant's latest foray into sports and live programming. The announcement comes two days after Netflix streamed an evening of boxing that included a bout between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul that resulted with the YouTube influencer winning the fight.

That stream was marred by streaming and buffering problems for many users, with at least 85,000 viewers logging problems with the website Down Detector.

Beyoncé has performed at two Super Bowls, in 2013 and 2016.

Most Viewed

 
 
Entertainment

Film's 'Search for Palestine' Takes Center Stage at Cairo Festival

Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi (2nd R) presented his film 'Passing Dreams' at the Cairo International Film Festival this week. Khaled DESOUKI / AFP
Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi (2nd R) presented his film 'Passing Dreams' at the Cairo International Film Festival this week. Khaled DESOUKI / AFP
TT
TT

Film's 'Search for Palestine' Takes Center Stage at Cairo Festival

Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi (2nd R) presented his film 'Passing Dreams' at the Cairo International Film Festival this week. Khaled DESOUKI / AFP
Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi (2nd R) presented his film 'Passing Dreams' at the Cairo International Film Festival this week. Khaled DESOUKI / AFP

The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip -- through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints -- takes center stage in director Rashid Masharawi's latest film, which debuted at this year's Cairo International Film Festival.
"It's a search for home, a search for Palestine, for ourselves," Masharawi told AFP a day after Wednesday's world premiere of his new film "Passing Dreams".
It kicked off the Middle East's oldest film festival, which opened with a traditional dabkeh dance performance by a troupe from the war-torn Gaza Strip.
Masharawi's film follows Sami, a 12-year-old boy, and his uncle and cousin on a quest to find his beloved pet pigeon, which has flown away from their home in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Told that pigeons always return to their birthplace, the family attempts to "follow the bird home" -- driving a small red camper van from Qalandia camp and Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Israeli city of Haifa.

Their odyssey, Masharawi says, becomes a "deeply symbolic journey" that represents an inversion of the family's original displacement from Haifa during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel -- a period Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or "catastrophe".
"It's no coincidence we're in places that have a deep significance to Palestinian history," the director said, speaking to AFP after a more intimate second screening on Thursday.
'From Ground Zero'
The bittersweet tale is a far cry from Masharawi's other project featured at the Cairo film festival: "From Ground Zero".
The anthology, supervised by the veteran director, showcases 22 shorts by filmmakers in Gaza, shot against the backdrop of war.
For that project, Masharawi -- who was the first Palestinian director officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival for his film "Haifa" in 1996 -- "wanted to act as a bridge between global audiences" and filmmakers on the ground.
In April, he told AFP the anthology intended to expose "the lie of self-defence", which he said was Israel's justification for its devastating military campaign in Gaza.
The war broke out following Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel has since killed more than 43,700 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled territory's health ministry.
"As filmmakers, we must document this through the language of cinema," Masharawi said, adding that filmmaking "defends our land far better than any military or political speeches".
Smuggled onto set
Speaking to an enthralled audience, the 62-year-old director -- donning his signature fedora -- called for change in Palestinian filmmaking.
"Our cinema can't always only be a reaction to Israeli actions," he said.
"It must be the action itself."
A self-taught director born in a Gaza refugee camp before moving to Ramallah, Masharawi is intimately familiar with the "obstacles to filmmaking under occupation" -- including "separation walls, barriers, who's allowed to go where".
Like the family in the film, "you never know if authorities will let you get to your location", he said, especially since Masharawi refuses "on principle" to seek permits from Israeli authorities.
Instead, his crew often resorts to makeshift schemes -- including "smuggling in" actors from the West Bank who do not have permission to visit Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
"If you ask (Israeli authorities) for permission to shoot in Jerusalem, you're giving them legitimacy that Jerusalem is theirs," he said Thursday to raucous applause from audience members, many of them draped in Palestinian keffiyehs.
Organizers canceled the Cairo film festival last year after calls for the suspension of artistic and cultural activities across the Arab world in solidarity with Palestinians.
But this week, keffiyehs have dotted the red carpet, while audience members wore pins bearing the Palestinian flag and the map of historic Palestine.
Festival president Hussein Fahmy voiced solidarity "with our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon", where Israel's bombing campaign and ground offensive have killed 3,360 people.
Pride of place, Fahmy said, has been given to Palestinian cinema, with a handful of films showing during the festival and a competition to crown a winner among the 22 filmmakers in "From Ground Zero".