Film Production
SRK to be honoured at Dubai International Film Festival
MUMBAI: The Dubai International Film Festival (Diff) has announced this year’s festival will honour Shah Rukh Khan, Oliver Stone and Nabil El-Maleh and for their outstanding contribution to cinema, as part of the Diff Salutes programme.
The festival will run from 10-17 December 2006 at the Madinat Jumeirah. Diff Salutes is a retrospective tribute that celebrates the work of distinguished film makers from Asia, the Arab world, and Hollywood. This follows last year’s In the Spotlight segment, which honoured Oscar-winning American actor Morgan Freeman, the Egyptian “king of comedy” Adel Imam, and Indian producer-director Yash Chopra.
Diff chairman Abdulhamid Juma said, “Within three years, Diff has come a long way in capturing the attention, participation and awareness of the regional and international film industry. The presence of these legends will confirm the festival as a forum that celebrates milestone cinema.
“Retrospective screenings of their acclaimed work will provide further momentum to Diff’s objective of inspiring an emerging generation of film makers, who we think will take the industry to new levels of growth.”
Stone has won the Oscar thrice. Stone won two oscars for the Vietnam films Platoon and Born On The Fourth of July.
At the forefront of several genre trends, his films are well crafted epics that deal with the effect of history on the individual and vice versa. A distinct feature of Oliver Stone’s movies is the unique use of cameras and film formats, as seen in JFK (1991) and Natural Born Killers (1994). Stone’s most recent film, World Trade Center, follows the thread of his earlier works in documenting events in the US that impact people’s lives.
King Khan has appeared in over 55 films. Two of his films were India’s official entries in the Oscars: Paheli (2006) and Devdas (2002).
Film Production
Disney to cut 1,000 jobs under new chief executive
The entertainment giant’s freshly installed boss inherits a restructuring already in motion, with marketing and corporate roles bearing the brunt
CALIFORNIA: Walt Disney is preparing to slash up to 1,000 jobs in the coming weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported, as the entertainment giant’s freshly installed chief executive moves swiftly to trim fat and tighten the ship.
The cuts, less than 1 per cent of Disney’s global workforce of 231,000, will fall hardest on marketing and corporate roles. The planning, notably, began before D’Amaro formally took the top job in March, suggesting the new boss inherited a restructuring already in motion rather than one of his own making.
Driving the push is Asad Ayaz, Disney’s newly appointed chief marketing officer, who in January assumed command of a unified, company-wide marketing operation spanning film, television and streaming. His consolidation drive has been given a suitably cinematic internal name: Project Imagine.
The move is modest by Disney’s recent standards. Between 2023 and 2025, under former chief executive Bob Iger, the company eliminated roughly 8,000 positions across several brutal rounds of cuts, saving $7.5 billion, comfortably exceeding its own targets. As recently as June 2025, several hundred more jobs were axed across Disney Entertainment, hitting film and television marketing, publicity, casting, development and corporate finance.
Disney’s structural headaches are well-documented: shrinking streaming margins, a weakened box office, and fierce competition from Amazon and YouTube gnawing at its flanks. The company is merging its Disney+ and Hulu teams into a single app, has brought in consultants from Bain & Co to guide its broader cost strategy, and is betting heavily on digital growth.
The wider entertainment industry offers little comfort. Sony Pictures, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery have all taken the knife to their workforces in recent years, and further cuts loom if Paramount’s acquisition of Warner goes through.
For D’Amaro, the message is clear: there will be no honeymoon period. The magic kingdom still has some cost-cutting spells left to cast.
