Ravers danced and swayed to the loud bass at a popular night club in the heart of the city of Beirut. It was another sold-out Saturday in the party capital of the Middle East.

What was different this time was the DJ at the helm. Before putting on his headphones, he had been leading a Mass at a Lebanese Catholic university.

Brigitte Bardot's funeral was being held on Wednesday with a private service and a public homage in Saint-Tropez, the French Riviera resort where she lived for more than half a century after retiring from movie stardom at the height of her fame.

The animal rights activist and far-right supporter died Dec. 28 at age 91 at her home in southern France.

Leonardo DiCaprio emphasized the importance of creating cinema over content at the Palm Springs Film Festival Friday night.

"Movies are still meant to be experienced, together, in a theatre. Right now, that belief matters more than ever. Original films are harder to make and harder to protect. But movies still matter, not content, but cinema. Stories made by people meant to be shared in a dark room in a communal experience," he said.

Each January, an odd and beautiful thing happens in the frigid northeastern Chinese city of Harbin.

Some would argue that the place, the capital of Heilongjiang province, has enough ice already. But sculptors converge on the town not far from China's border with Russia to bring out more of it, and to compete for the best ice sculpture of the year.

The funeral for Brigitte Bardot will be held next week in Saint-Tropez, the glamorous French Riviera resort she helped make famous and where she lived for more than a half-century, local authorities said.

The cinema star and animal rights activist died Sunday at the age of 91 at her home in southern France.

French film icon Brigitte Bardot, a symbol of sexual liberation of the 1950s and sixties who turned her back on cinema to devote herself to protecting animals, has died aged 91, her foundation said Sunday.

Mohammad Bakri, a Palestinian director and actor who sought to share the complexities of Palestinian identity and culture through a variety of works in both Arabic and Hebrew, has died, his family announced. He was 72.

Bakri was best known for "Jenin, Jenin," a 2003 documentary he directed about an Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank city the previous year during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The film, focusing on the heavy destruction and heartbreak of its Palestinian residents, was banned by Israel.

In a seismic shift for one of television's marquee events, the Academy Awards will depart ABC and begin streaming on YouTube beginning in 2029, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday.

ABC will continue to broadcast the annual ceremony through 2028. That year will mark the 100th Oscars.

Arab female film directors have helped change the landscape of Arab cinema in recent years, presenting stories that haven't been told before and claiming space in an industry in a region that rarely makes room for women to grow.

Four influential female directors took part in this year's Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, paving the way for more diverse narratives in Arab cinema.

A restored statue honoring late martial arts legend Bruce Lee was returned to its rightful place Wednesday in a Bosnian town, more than a year after it was stolen, local media reported.