‘Icarus: The Aftermath’ Film Review: Sequel to Oscar-Winning Documentary Finds Emotion in Sporting Scandal

An Oldham councillor has been arrested by Greater Manchester Police on suspicion of rape.

Marta Balaga Acclaimed cellist Lukas Stasevskij pursues his dream of cinema with documentary “My Ukraine,” currently in development and set to make a bow next week during film industry event Finnish Film Affair. The film is produced by Tero Tamminen (East Films) and Ilona Tolmunen (Made), also behind Aino Suni’s “Heartbeast,” recently snapped up by France’s Wayna Pitch. “When Lukas approached Tero Tamminen and then they called me, we were both immediately interested,” Tolmunen tells Variety, praising Stasevskij’s “universal” story about finding one’s identity and understanding the meaning of roots.

Naman Ramachandran “Vikram Vedha,” starring Hrithik Roshan, Saif Ali Khan and Radhika Apte, is releasing worldwide in over 100 countries, making it one of the widest openings for a Bollywood film. Besides India, the film is releasing in territories where Bollywood films normally release day-and-date, including North America, U.K., the Middle East and Australia and New Zealand, on Sept. 30. What is remarkable is that the film is also releasing day-and-date in countries where Bollywood fare releases after it has had its initial run in the traditional territories. “Vikram Vedha” is opening across 22 countries in Europe and 27 countries in Africa and Latin America, including Japan, Russia, Panama and Peru, all non-traditional territories for Bollywood.

A few minutes before the North American premiere of “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” director Evgeny Afineesvky summed up his state of mind in a single word: “exhausted.”That makes sense, because “Freedom on Fire” screened at the Toronto International Film Festival about six months after Afineevsky and his team began working on it, barely more than a month after its final footage was filmed and only a few weeks after Helen Mirren recorded narration for a scene that comes early in the documentary.For Afineevsky, who landed Oscar and Emmy nominations for 2015’s “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” this sequel of sorts was made in a six-month rush, including just three months of editing after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February of this year. “The urgency of the movie,” the Russian-born director told the audience before the Tuesday morning TIFF screening, “is to not neglect the situation right now.”Certainly, urgency is a hallmark of “Freedom on Fire,” a harrowing document shot by dozens of people inside Ukrainian cities as the Russian army conducted a bombing campaign and an invasion that seemingly targeted civilians, despite Vladimir Putin’s claims that Russia was there to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the country, and to somehow “free” it – though as more than one person in the film points out, the Russian offensive has resulted in ordinary citizens being freed from their lives, their homes, their families.The director’s first film about Ukraine, “Winter on Fire,” was an on-the-ground look at the 2013-2014 Maidan uprising, in which student protests against the Russian-backed president drew a brutal response but resulted in the removal of the president.

Naman Ramachandran The subject of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the topics of discussion at the Venice Film Festival, bubbled to the surface again on Tuesday with Tilda Swinton making a statement with her hair dyed yellow. “It’s my honor to wear half of the Ukrainian flag,” Swinton said at the press conference for Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter,” when complimented on her look by a journalist. Swinton expressed that it was an honor later during the conference as well. The star wore a light blue top, which complements the dark blue of the Ukraine flag. Shot during lockdown, “The Eternal Daughter” follows an artist and her elderly mother who confront long-buried secrets when they return to a former family home, now a hotel haunted by its mysterious past. Swinton plays both mother and daughter. The names of the mother and daughter in the film are Rosalind and Julie, the names for Swinton and her real life daughter Honor Swinton Byrne in Hogg’s “The Souvenir” and “The Souvenir Part II.”

Naman Ramachandran Vice has signed a worldwide license deal for director and producer Jason Loftus’ “Eternal Spring: The Heist of China’s Airwaves,” Canada’s entry in the Oscars’ international feature film category. Sales agent Sideways Film, which represents the production on behalf of Lofty Sky Entertainment, has also scored domestic deals on the film with Arte for France and Germany, RTS for Switzerland, VG for Norway, Current Time for Russian language European territories and Al Jazeera Doc for the Middle East and North Africa. Through the lens of celebrated comic book artist Daxiong (“Justice League”), the documentary explores a plot by Falun Gong adherents in China to hack state television and expose repression.

Christopher Vourlias The pursuit of justice in the wake of unspeakable war crimes is at the heart of Ukrainian documentary filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s timely new feature, “The Kiev Trial.” Produced by Atoms & Void for the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, the film had its world premiere out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. The trailer can be viewed below. Held in January 1946 in the former Soviet Union, the film’s titular trial was among the first court cases to hold Nazis and their collaborators accountable for atrocities committed during World War II — acts that would come to be known as “crimes against humanity” during the historic tribunals held in Nuremberg, Germany.

Evgeny Afineevsky released his Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom in 2015, documenting the Euromaidan protests the previous year in the city of Kyiv that led to the collapse of the Russia-aligned Azarov government and the removal and exile of Putin ally Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s president. Afineevsky returns to Venice this year with Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, a follow-up that details the real stories of the people of Ukraine as they continue their fight against Russia’s invasion of their country.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Most of the time, documentaries don’t get sequels, which is strange. Unlike their scripted fiction counterparts, the story doesn’t end when the cameras stop rolling. If you’ve ever attended a filmmaker Q&A after the screening of a great documentary, you know the first question from the audience is almost inevitably either “What’s happened since?” or “Where are they now?” Bryan Fogel must have heard that more times than he can count in the five years since his game-changing Russian sports doping doc “Icarus” won the Academy Award. “Icarus: The Aftermath” is his response, a daring and sure-to-be-divisive movie that’s even more shocking than the 2017 original, even if the big news is already out of the bag.

2019 dinner that Zuckerberg and fellow tech billionaire Peter Thiel attended at the White House. The October gathering, NBC News reports, happened during a trip to Washington, D.C. when the Meta executive testified before Congress about Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra.“‘Sir, I’d love to have dinner, sir.

Christopher Vourlias On the eve of the 79th Venice Film Festival, where his powerful Ukraine war documentary “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” will premiere out of competition on Sept. 7, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky was in a frantic race against time. Footage was still being shot in Ukraine into the second week of August, with Afineevsky only completing the film on Aug. 31 — the same day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the A-list celebrities and foreign press at the festival’s opening ceremony, urging the world not to forget the war in Ukraine with the impassioned plea: “Don’t turn your back to us.”

Timothée Chalamet‘s new movie received an almost nine-minute standing ovation at Venice Film Festival. The actor arrived in Italy for the premiere of his second film with Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino on Friday (2 September). Chalamet plays a cannibal in the film, which is titled Bones and All.

For all its discussion of weighty topics such as morality, espionage, and whistleblowing, Bryan Fogel’s Oscar-winning documentary “Icarus” was, at its heart, a buddy comedy. Existential and, at times, terrifying? Sure.

Vladimir Putin demands absolute fealty to the Russian state, and woe to anyone who defies him.

Nazis, Bolsheviks, and werewolves: oh my. Far from Oz, and on a road that’s paved in genocide rather than yellow bricks, the story that unfolds in “Burial” is likewise the stuff of fairytales.

As a child growing up in the United States, you’re taught that betraying the country is a terrible act, punishable by death. Every morning, in most public schools, you’re forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which overtly puts your patriotism at the forefront of the day’s events.

Given the fragile state of world peace at the moment, it seems like a good time for the latest film from Hoop Dreams director Steve James, a piece of little-known history from the cold war that could potentially have devastating consequences today. Sadly, James’ Venice Film Festival out of competition title A Compassionate Spy just doesn’t deliver the drama and tension you might expect from the high-stakes story of a mild-mannered American scientist who passed sensitive nuclear secrets to the Russians out of a mixture of idealism and naivety.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine made an impassioned speech on Wednesday during the Venice Film Festival’s opening ceremony, pleading for the global film community to rally to the country’s cause as it suffers a a mounting death toll amid fierce fighting with Russia. “Personalities of culture: directors, producers and actors, screenwriters, cameramen, composers, artistic directors, set designers, critics and many, many more, from many countries in the world, all belonging to the same family of cinema!,” Zelenskyy said in a recorded speech beamed onto the festival’s Sala Grande screen. “Your opinion is important and your voice counts.”