American diplomats appeared pleased with Saudi Arabia's new strategy to control editors and journalists, according to a secret State Department dispatch disclosed this week by the watchdog site WikiLeaks that offered a rare peak into the shadowy mechanisms of censorship in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

The May 11, 2009, diplomatic cable titled "Ideological and Ownership Trends in the Saudi Media" noted approvingly that the government seemed to be opening up to a certain amount of foreign cultural influence in the form of Hollywood movies and television shows while cracking down on Islamist messages deemed too extreme even for the state-approved brand of fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam.

But despite the author of the report's apparent hope that shows like "Desperate Housewives" and "Late Night With David Letterman" would serve as an antidote to some of the more conservative trends in the country, the document makes clear that the government has no intention of ceding control over the message, just tweaking it a little.

Saudi regulatory bodies, which are beholden to the royal family, have evolved to thrive in a dynamic new media environment, switching to a more subtly coercive and decentralized approach. "Instead of being fired or seeing their publications shut down, editors now are fined [$10,600] out of their own salaries for each objectionable piece that appears in their newspaper," the cable read. "Journalists, too, are held to account."

Pomp and circumstance marked the ending of the the nearly monthlong shoot of the fourth "Mission: Impossible" movie with the ghostly title "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol" in Dubai.

Pictures published in the local media showed "Mission: Impossible" star Tom Cruise posing with Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid al-Maktoum and Dubai authorities mingling with the cast and crew during the farewell meeting, which took place some days ago.

As a token of appreciation to the glitzy Persian Gulf hub, Cruise and "Mission: Impossible" director Brad Bird and producer Bryan Burk gave Sheikh Maktoum a director's chair with his name on it and a clapboard with autographs of the stars of the film.

As they declared the mission accomplished in Dubai, the team also thanked Dubai authorities for their cooperation during the filming, said local Arab media reports. 

The Iranian director of a controversial show depicting the story of Jesus has criticized Lebanese Christian groups who protested the airing of the serial, which was pulled from the air by two local Muslim-owned stations last week.

"The film was immediately purchased ... by several Latin American countries, which are among major Christian Catholic countries," Nader Talebzadeh reportedly told Iranian TV Channel 2 on Sunday. "Therefore, [Lebanese Christian groups'] protest seems to be political to some extent."

Talebzadeh went on to say that his original 2007 film, which was bought and heavily promoted by the local channels as a religious serial for the holy month of Ramadan, received an award from the Vatican for promoting interfaith dialogue.

But rather than foster dialogue, "The Messiah" sparked angry words from Christians in Lebanon who objected to the film's version of Jesus' story, which is based on a gospel that has been rejected by much of the Christian community but is very close to the Koran's version of events.

In a counterstrike of psychological warfare, Iran will use the United States' own greatest propaganda weapon against it by shooting a Hollywood-style spy thriller based on the alleged kidnapping and return of Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, said news reports this week.

Amirhossein Ashtiyanipour, a director at an Iranian production company called Sima Film, told Agence-France Presse that a "young group of movie school graduates" had been hired to write the script. The project was confirmed by Fars news agency, which called the affair a "disgraceful defeat" for the American intelligence services.

Amiri has been at the center of a deepening mystery since he disappeared while on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in 2009. He surfaced later in the United States, appearing in two separate and contradictory videos on YouTube, one in which he claimed he was in the US to pursue his graduate studies, and the second in which he claimed he was being held by intelligence services against his will in Arizona.

Instead of inspiring the nation's artists to ever greater heights, Iran's supreme leader delivered a blunt warning to filmmakers to avoid subjects that challenge his vision of the Islamic Republic.

 "Our film directors should offer products in which positive points eclipse negative and dark points of our society," Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told a group of filmmakers Saturday. "If you magnify negative points, the society will plunge into disenchantment."

Khamenei is God's representative on Earth, according to Iran's unique form of government. His words, published in Persian on his official website, are often taken as marching orders by the nation's hard-line enforcers of cultural and morality standards. 

They must have sent a chill down the spines of an Iranian film scene that only a few years ago produced internationally recognized gems by directors such as Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi, who recently was jailed for trying to make an underground movie. Other directors are simply silenced by not being granted permits to make films by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. 

Khamenei dismissed complaints that censorship was getting out of control.

Amid the glitter and gaiety of the 63rd Cannes Film Festival opening, one of the nine chairs for jury members remained empty. 

Internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, slated to serve as a jury member at the festival, couldn't attend because he was being held  in Tehran’s Evin prison.

In March 2010, plainclothes security officials raided Panahi’s Tehran home and arrested him along with his wife, daughter and 15 house guests. Though Iranian authorities shortly released the others, they held on to Panahi, accusing him of “making a film against the regime following the post-election events," according to the French daily Le Figaro.

Despite this, the prosecutor's office in Tehran argues that Panahi’s imprisonment has no political motive. 

"The arrest of Jafar Panahi is not because he is an artist or for political reason[s]," prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the Iranian Students News Agency. 

"He is accused of some crimes and was arrested with another person following an order by a judge," reported BBC News.

Writer and director Michael Patrick King envisioned "Sex and the City 2" unfolding in an earthly paradise where self-indulgence and excess never raises an eyebrow.

So naturally, he flew the four fabulous ladies, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis), to the Persian Gulf.

"I thought about where's there a lot of money with no shame attached," King told Collider.com, the entertainment website. "Then I thought about the Middle East because of Dubai and Abu Dhabi and their extravagance. It's the new Middle East and the future."

But the vision was immediately clouded by the Arabian Gulf's perplexing contradictions, as one smooching British couple recently learned.

Though the film's masterminds originally wrote the script with the divas vacationing in blingy Dubai, they had to substitute it with the neighboring United Arab Emirates state of Abu Dhabi and film it in Morocco after authorities rejected permission to film there because of the word "sex" in the movie's name.

A couple weeks ago, Babylon & Beyond reported on the controversial comparison between the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and that of the Na'vi people featured in the hit movie "Avatar." 
On Friday, Palestinians in the West Bank took the analogy to heart, dressing up as the blue natives of the planet Pandora for their weekly protests against the Israeli occupation and the ongoing construction of a barrier in the town of Bilin. 
The eye-catching publicity stunt, which took place a day after the Israeli government began to reroute the barrier to give Palestinians access to more land, drew journalists, as shown in the video above. 
At first protesters look like they're having fun.

But the Na'vi costumes failed to impress the Israeli soldiers, who fired teargas at them. 
The video splices footage and audio from the movie with scenes from the protest.
"We are here Avatars and Na'vis fighting against the sky people who are taking away our land, and occupying our people," an activist says. "Here, as opposed to Hollywood, this is real."
— Los Angeles Times
Videos: Scenes from a protest. Credit: YouTube. Photo: Screen grab from video.

As Iran kicked off its biggest cinematic and cultural event of the year today, a glaring number of politically motivated no-shows became evident.

Famed British film director Ken Loach (pictured) and theater director Peter Brook, also from the U.K., were among the Western artists originally scheduled to participate in the Fajr International Film Festival who didn't attend amid calls for a boycott over Iran's crackdown on the government opposition.

"It is the request, first and foremost, from the Iranian filmmakers that makes you think and makes you want to support them," the Independent quoted Loach as saying. 

"There are many repressive regimes and you can't go on individual boycotts," he said. 

"But when the people themselves say, 'Don't come because you will be endorsing the regime that is perpetrating the violence,' you have to stop and think carefully," he added 

Packed with prominent film directors, actors, international artists and a crème de la crème of Iran's cultural elite, Tehran's Fajr International Film Festival is undoubtedly Iran's biggest and most popular cinematic and cultural event of the year. 

Each year, the festival attracts thousands of Iranian film and theater fans, especially young students. People flock to the event to see the latest Iranian films, a selection of productions from abroad and, perhaps, catch a glimpse of their favorite director, actor or actress.

But this year's festivities risk being overshadowed by politics and current unrest in the country. Some Iranian artists have called for a boycott of the festival, which is scheduled to kick off Jan. 25. Those urging a boycott are said to be angry about crackdowns on the political opposition.

Calls to boycott the festival also recently surfaced in media reports and on blogs and social-networking sites.

Radio Zamaneh, a Dutch-funded Persian-language radio station, reported that a group of Iranian filmmakers had issued a statement asking foreign artists to boycott this year's Fajr film festival over what they said was the Iranian "government’s violent treatment of the people."

"Your presence in this year’s Fajr Festival will be akin to ignoring the struggles of oppressed people of Iran for their rights," read the statement, according to Radio Zamaneh.

Scores of veiled women, men and families poured into a cultural center in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Tuesday night for the opening of the third annual Iranian film festival in Beirut. 

The festival is sponsored by the Iranian cultural center in Beirut and Hezbollah’s TV channel Al-Manar, among other organizations, and highlights the intertwined relationship between the two countries. 

For the next four days, festival-goers can watch two Iranian films per night at the festival center, located two floors underground. 

For the opening, the festival committee chose to screen the 2006 release “In the Name of the Father” by the award-winning Iranian filmmaker Ebrahim Hatamikia.

The film is about a young female archaeologist finding mines at a dig site that her own father, a former military commander in the Iranian army during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, placed there.

Hatamikia, one of Iran's greatest contemporary directors, traveled to Beirut to attend the opening ceremony of the festivities.

“It’s the first time in two years I talk…. but Lebanon is special,” he told the audience in the jampacked auditorium where women had been seated to the left and men were asked to take their seats to the right of the stage.

No popcorn thrillers for Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran's highest spiritual and political authority blasted Hollywood on Monday during a meeting with artists and directors, engaged in the production of the television serial "Hazrat Yousuf," a tale from the Koran that is airing on Iran's state-owned television.

Khamenei said Hollywood epitomizes political interference in the arts. In Iran, all movies must be approved by the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance.

Hollywood films, he said, are politically charged propaganda with artistic veneers. 

"Most of the movie-making companies in Hollywood are under the political influence of an interconnected system which is behind American politics and even at times goes far beyond governments," he said.