It may have been called the British Academy Britannia Awards, but Friday night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel the show had a very American accent for its top awards which went to yanks Meryl Streep, Harrison Ford and Amy Schumer. Pictures from the ceremony have been added to the photo gallery with more information on the show and Meryl’s speech below the previews.

The show opened with the presentation of the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award For Excellence In Film to Meryl Streep. Perhaps aware she is currently playing a major historical British feminist in her Suffragette cameo Streep wasted no time in wryly noting the divide in the gender of past winners. “I am honored to receive this award given to a distinguished group of men and women…. Oh wait, men and men,” she said of the honor and irony of being the first woman to receive it. There was much made of the fact she has received many, many awards including this one, “the first she has gotten in five or six hours” as someone said. It is entirely appropiate as she has played many British roles and even won her third Oscar as one of the most famous Brits of all, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. She also humbly acknowledged a long list of directors with whom she has worked. One of her most recent helmers, Stephen Frears presented the award for which Streep thanked the British Government for giving her ten work permits to make ten movies. “I started my career 40 years ago and if Stephen Frears does a good job with our new movie, it will not have ended,” she joked.

Academy Award winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s documentary, “Song of Lahore”, is gearing up for a star-studded opening in the US. According to a press release, the documentary’s New York and LA premieres will be hosted by Meryl Streep. Song of Lahore is set to release in the US this November with premieres in New York City on the 3rd of November, in San Francisco on the 6th and West Hollywood in Los Angeles on the 9th. The documentary is based on the acclaimed Sachal Studios and their journey to New York, made in collaboration with Andy Schocken. It focuses on the music community of Lahore, which until the late 1970s, was world-renowned for its music and talent. In 2004, Izzat Majeed founded Sachal Studios to create a space for traditional music in a nation that had rejected its musical roots. After convincing a number of master musicians to pick up their instruments again, they quietly released some classical and folk albums, but an experimental album fusing jazz and South Asian instruments brought Sachal Studios worldwide acclaim. Many thanks to Frank and Marci for the heads-up.

As earlier reported, Meryl Streep has attended the Fashion Group International’s 2015 Night Of Stars event at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan to present Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz with the night’s Superstar Award. Lanvin has designed Meryl’s dress at the 2012 Academy Awards, when she won Best Actress for “The Iron Lady”. Pictures from the event have been added to the photo gallery. Edit: Lots of additional pictures have been posted.

Manhattan Theatre Club’s fall benefit will be in celebration of Tony and Emmy winner Christine Baranski. The November 2 event will attract a host of friends and colleagues including “Into the Woods” co-star Meryl Streep, Julianna Margulies, Alan Cumming and Nathan Lane. The evening will also feature appearances by Walter Bobbie, Cherry Jones, Rob Marshall, Paul Rudnick, Max von Essen and more. The benefit will take place at 583 Park Ave. Baranski, who is most recently known for playing Diane Lockhart on “The Good Wife, made her Broadway debut in the Tom Stoppard hit The Real Thing, is a longtime MTC collaborator and board member. All proceeds from the benefit will benefit MTC. For more information on the organization’s slate of Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, visit their official website. Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

After missing the New York premiere for the film, Meryl Streep has attended yesterday’s premiere for “Suffragette” in Los Angeles. Pictures have been added to the photo gallery. “Suffragette” opens in movie theatres in the U.S. on Friday.

Last night, Meryl Streep has attended the 22nd Annual Elle’s Women in Hollywood Awards to honor her “Suffragette” co-star Carey Mulligan. Pictures have been added to the photo gallery with additional information and quotes below.

“This is so wonderful, this whole gathering of women,” declared Meryl Streep to the female supporters seated inside the Four Seasons Beverly Hills for Elle Magazine’s annual Women in Hollywood awards on Monday night. “But I mean, you really have to admit,” the beloved actress continued, “That if they had this great big meeting once a year, and they called it ‘Men in Hollywood,’ and they had like, 17% women there – who felt besieged and awkward – and they gave a lot of awards to the men of Hollywood, we would be pissed! Oh wait,” Streep continued, summoning a premature roar of applause. “They have those meetings… every day, in every city, in every country in the world!” Streep continued the sequence of laughs when she honored her friend Carey Mulligan (who she considers to be “a teeny bit of a mystery,” and who recently gave birth to a baby girl). “I saw her on stage in ‘The Seagull,’ and she played Nina, a true innocent – an actual virgin – which is hard to play,” Streep attested to the crowd. “We’ve all tried!”

Streep then praised her costar’s work in “Suffragette,” noting, “This beauty, the beauty of her conversion, the quality of her listening, is just visceral, and it’s a function of her own thinking, accessing, feeling mind, that we witness this. I’m in awe of your talent, I really am,” Streep said. “I’m also in awe of your voice! Mine is gone, you know, but yours is like warm caramel poured over the English language!” Mulligan expressed her gratitude to Streep – who also assisted during their press tour. “It’s really helpful when you have Meryl Streep backstage at events, shouting at people on your behalf, telling them to shut the hell up, because you’ve got a nursing mother here!” she said. For Mulligan, “Suffragette” also prompted a thought. “A woman threw herself in front of the king’s horse in 1913 and changed the course of history, and no one, in 100 years, felt this was a story worthy of the big screen,” she said. “Which made me think, if this monumental moment can go undocumented, imagine how many millions of women’s stories there are for us to tell?”

Last night Streep took to the stage at Koerner Hall with the Takács Quartet to perform a series of readings from author Philip Roth’s death-obsessed 2006 novel, Everyman. It might not have been a singing voice, but it was a voice worth listening to. “It’s best to give while your hand is still warm,” Streep. Excerpts were paired with four works from composers Pärt, Britten, Shostakovich and Schubert, performed by the Takács Quartet at Streep’s side. It was a solemn, meditative evening devoted to the examination of life through death. It explored the bittersweet process of growing old and weighing the marks of life’s purpose against death’s ultimate finality. As a writer, Roth writes exceptionally well for women. The words transcended to become stories about all of us; Everyman.

According to Deadline, the Sarah Gavron-helmed Suffragette opened the London Film Festival last week in its European premiere after bowing at Telluride in early September. On Monday, it started previews in the UK with numbers that just keep going up. Pathé UK has the timely period drama locally which is being distributed by Fox under their pact (Focus releases Stateside on October 23). After four days at the polls, UK moviegoers have spent $2.16M through Thursday. Not only that, but playing on 490 screens, Suffragette jumped in the mid-week from $423K on Monday, to $562K on Tuesday and $600K on Wednesday. Going into the weekend, it’s running No. 2 behind The Martian and coming off the strong early days, Pathé is feeling pretty upbeat. The movie has been able to capitalize on that LFF premiere mixed with the currently amplified debate about equality for women. The complete article can be read here.

Meryl Streep will present designer Alber Elbaz with the Superstar award at The Fashion Group International’s Night of Stars on 22 October 2015. In July it was announced the Lanvin creative director would receive the prestigious prize and now WWD has confirmed who’ll be handing it over. He dressed Meryl in a golden gown for the 2012 Oscars, which makes the actress a good fit for the occasion. “The seamstress that made the dress worked for three days and three nights on the dress, and after she finished, she was sick for three days,” Alber recalled to Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper in 2012. “And you know, with the Oscars, you do the dress and you never know if they will wear it. I wanted so much for (Meryl) to wear it, just for this woman that didn’t go to sleep for three days, and just put so much love into the dress.” Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

On Wednesday evening, Meryl Streep joined Gloria Steinem for a Manhattan screening of Leslee Udwin’s film, “India’s Daughter. The controversial documentary – banned in India – is about the protests following the brutal gang rape of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti Singh on a moving Delhi bus in 2012. India’s Daughter will screen at the Village East Cinema from October 23-29 before its November 16 broadcast on PBS.