Global Showbiz Briefs: Qatar, Europe

‘Black Gold’ Will Open Doha Tribeca Film Festival The premiere of Tarak Ben Ammar’s Black Gold will kick off the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, organizers said today. Backers of the film, billed as the biggest ever produced in the Middle East, also said that James Horner (Titanic, Avatar) had recently completed the score at Londons Abbey Road Studios. Warner Bros and Universal Pictures are set to release the film globally on November 23. The festival, which runs Oct. 26-30, recently announced its jury and most of its slate. Study: Cable Revenues, Usage On The Rise In Europe Europeans seem to be resisting the cord-cutting trend, or maybe they just haven’t gotten around to it. TheEuropean cable market continued to expand in 2010, with revenue throughout the E.U. rising by nearly 8% for the year on the strength of double-digit growth in digital TV, broadband and telephony subscribers, according to a new study from IHS.Guy Bisson, TV research director forIHS, said that the results show “that cord cutting doesn’t mean the end of the world. Strong increases in E.U. cable, Internet and telephony subscribers are more than compensating for increasing competition in the cable television business. The number of individual subscribers rose above the 100 million level for the first time, reaching 101.1 million in 2010. Film Movement Nabs FrenchThriller ’Free Men’ Film Movement has acquired North American rights to Free Men by Ismal Ferroukhi (Le Grand Voyage). The French thriller, currently screening at the Toronto Film Festival, is based on the true story of a Muslim Algerian immigrant living in Vichy, who was inspired to join the resistance because of a friendship with a Jewish singer. It was the second pickup in as many days for Film Movement, which earlier bought the U.S. rights to Spanish filmmaker Fernando Leon De Aranoas Amador, a portrait of a young immigrant woman living in Spain. The company plans limited theatrical runs anda day-and-date VOD release for both films in the second quarter of 2012.