In the first three months of this year, ticket sales for American-made films in the world's second-largest cinema market took an unexpected nosedive. Hollywood's revenues fell by about two thirds in China, compared with the same period a year earlier, to about $A195 million, as big-budget titles such as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey failed to impress.

David Pountney, who is also the company's artistic director, was awarded the Order of Merit at a ceremony in Vienna. It recognises outstanding contributions to co-operation between Poland and other nations. He was honoured for staging Polish opera in his role as director of the Bregenz festival in Austria since 2003.

Some of the best Malay movies from Singapore's yesteryears will showcase great performances by well-known names in local theatre in Mexico under a cultural exchange between the National Museum here and the Mexico Embassy.

"The Gatekeepers," which features candid – and sometimes damning – interviews with all six surviving heads of the Shin Bet security service, caused a stir among Israeli officials, with many of them accusing the film of being anti-Israel and some going so far as to call for a boycott.

“I replied to them that in my personal opinion, the further Israeli films move away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the better they are, the more credible they are and the more artistic they are...Levy, who has apparently confused hasbara – so-called “public diplomacy” – with art, continued: “This is the reason there are so many films dealing with great relish with the Palestinian victim – uprooting of trees...discrimination and so on. But there are very few Israeli films dealing with the Israeli victim.

Argo won for Best Picture, of course, but in my view it merited an additional Oscar. And so did the far more controversial Zero Dark Thirty. Consider that Hollywood hands out awards for everything from “Sound Mixing” to “Best Picture”. But over the decades no Oscar category existed to honor movies for intellectual or political integrity. Perhaps that reflects, to be cynical, the recognition that in any given year there’d be too few nominees to fill out the category. But this year that was not the case. It was a banner year for Hollywood integrity.

Two Afghan teenagers -- Fawad Mohammadi and Jawanmard Paiz -- whose film 'Buzkashi Boys' was recently nominated at the Oscars, capturing the attention of Hollywood for their impressive acting, look up to Indian superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Sunny Deol as their idols.

Sunday night, Argo—the Ben Affleck film portraying the rescue of U.S. Embassy staffers from Iran—won best picture at the Oscars. Iran may have boycotted this years’ Academy Awards by pulling its film submission, but it certainly didn’t ignore Argo’s Oscar win. The biggest winner may have been U.S. public diplomacy efforts, given Argo’s recent underground popularity in Iran.