A new ‘Fiddler’ movie

A whole new generation will get to sing along to an upcoming film version of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which hit Broadway in 1964 and was made for the silver screen in 1971. MGM has found a director in Thomas Kail, who directed “Hamilton” on Broadway, but who will star as Tevye in the iconic musical? No news yet on casting, or a target date.

In other ‘Hamilton’ news …

“Hamilton” star and Bay Area native Daveed Diggs is the star of the new TV adaption of “Snowpiercer,” a 2013 feature film by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho, itself an adaptation of “Le Transperceneige,” a 1980s French graphic novel series. The story imagines the last of humanity on a perpetually moving train, divided by class, in an all-too-clear allegory for injustice and class divisions. Diggs plays a detective enmeshed in the mysteries of just who is running the train.

And in other dystopian news…

A 2013 series by the writers of the Israeli hit show “Shtisel,” Yehonatan Indursky and Ori Elon, is now available with English subtitles. “Autonomies” literalizes the divide in Israeli society by imagining two Israeli states, one secular with its capital in Tel Aviv, and one haredi with a capital in Jerusalem. The smoldering, five-episode drama, available via Amazon Prime and elsewhere online, gets pushed to an intense conclusion with stories of smuggling and the fate of a child.

Virtual accolades

Israeli director Nir Bergman’s film “Here We Are” was included in the recently announced lineup of 56 films that will be part of the Cannes Film Festival, which will have online screenings from June 22 to 26. The story follows a man and his autistic son who are facing a life decision neither of them may be ready for. The 2020 festival will be virtual, denying the filmmaker a red-carpet moment but still boosting publicity for Bergman, one of the co-creators of the hit Israeli series “BeTipul,” upon which the HBO series “In Treatment” was based.

A rapper goes TV

Dave Burd started his career in parody rap as Lil Dicky, whose profane and self-deprecating lyrics people either love or hate; a (tame) sample line from Lil Dicky’s track “$ave Dat Money” include “We gonna save that money/Yeah, I’m so Jewish.” Burd said he made his first few videos out of his bar mitzvah fund, which his parents wouldn’t let him touch until he finished college. Now he’s the star of a new sitcom on FXX, “Dave,” that fictionalizes Burd’s life as a white Jew trying to make it in the rap world.

Inventor and star Lamarr gets new biopic

Gal Gadot will star in and produce a miniseries about Hedy Lamarr, who was born in Vienna and came to the United States in the 1930s, where she became a star known for glamour and sex appeal. Lamarr also is known, these days, for her invention of encrypting radio transmissions — she patented a way for guided torpedoes to escape enemy jamming, although it was never used in the war. That almost-lost saga was detailed in the 2017 documentary “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story,” a Jewish film festival favorite.