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Jack Thorne has said he wanted to be involved in a film about a Syrian refugee who competed at the Olympics because there needs to be a change in attitudes. Netflix film The Swimmers is based on the inspirational true story of the Mardini sisters, who fled their war-torn home of Damascus in 2015 by boat and helped save the lives of their fellow refugees. The film will show how just a year after their treacherous journey, younger sister Yusra competed in swimming events at the 2016 Rio Olympics as part of the Refugee Olympic team.

Iran has launched drones toward Israel today, in highly anticipated retaliatory strikes that the White House said is “likely to unfold over a number of hours.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Michael Fassbender is in negotiations to star in “The Department,” an espionage thriller series directed by George Clooney. Set to start shooting in London this spring, “The Department” is based on “The Bureau,” the hit French spy show created by Eric Rochant. It has already been given a straight-to-series order by Showtime.

“Imagine yourself operating on a patient when you are being attacked by barrel bombs and missiles. Your hands are shaking, the hospital is shaking, soil could go in the patient’s wounds while you are operating and then you have to wait a while until the strike stops and carry on.”

Halsey has made a statement addressing her silence on the Israel-Hamas war to “admit my regret”.The singer previously expressed her support for Palestine during the 2021 crisis. A series of attacks starting after Israeli police blocked off the Damascus Gate (where Palestinian Arabs typically gather for Ramadan) resulted in the deaths of 83 people in Gaza – including 17 children – and seven in Israel.However, fans noticed the singer had been unusually quiet during the current developments in the crisis.

The headteacher of a primary school has criticised SATs tests after watching pupils break down in tears.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic The sensation of a nation crumbling from within — not in slo-mo deterioration, but amid the chaos of widespread violence and political upheaval — is unimaginable to most people. Yet it’s something many will live to experience. Offering a primer of sorts in that grim prospect is “5 Seasons of Revolution.” Made by the pseudonymous Lina, this very first-person documentary doesn’t offer a lot of explanatory background or big-picture commentary on Syria’s still-ongoing civil war. But in charting the filmmaker’s attempts at reportage alongside the fates of her imperiled group of friends between 2011-15, it provides one vivid perspective on a whole country in freefall.  At that timespan’s beginning, the pro-democracy protests of the Arab Spring reach our English-language narrator’s homeland, where she’s an aspiring video journalist. Her likewise twentysomething close associates, introduced at the start here, are fellow journalists, social workers, activists. All grew up in a de facto police state now controlled by President Bashar al-Assad, whose father presided over the country’s transformation into a military dictatorship decades prior. Defying an official media blackout, she interviews demonstrators and those who witnessed their being fired on by government forces. We see joyful still images of street actions, suggesting a turning point may be at hand.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Davis Guggenheim’s “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” will open the eighth edition of Chicago’s Doc10 documentary film festival on May 4.About Fox’s life, career and work as a public advocate for Parkinson’s research, “Still: A Michael J.

Christopher Vourlias The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival wrapped its 25th edition with a muted closing night on Sunday, with festival organizers scrapping an official award ceremony as Greece continues to mourn the loss of 57 lives in a deadly rail accident on Feb. 28. The awards for this year’s festival — including the Golden Alexander, which went to Heba Khaled, Talal Derki and Ali Wajeeh’s “Under the Sky of Damascus” — were handed out behind closed doors earlier in the day. Artistic director Orestis Andreadakis told Variety prior to the festival’s conclusion, “As a sign of respect, the festival canceled from the very start all ceremonies and festive events. In the same spirit, it was decided to call off the closing ceremony.”

Millions of women in the Muslim world live under the dominion of men, subject to their rules, confined by their power. The documentary Under the Sky of Damascus, making its world premiere tonight at the Berlin Film Festival, examines the alarming gender politics in one ancient locality — the capital of Syria.

Christopher Vourlias Though the world watched — often in silence — as a decade-long civil war tore Syria apart, exiled filmmakers Talal Derki (“Of Fathers and Sons”) and Heba Khaled say an equally brutal but less visible war is still raging. In “Under the Sky of Damascus,” which premieres Feb. 20 in the Panorama strand of the Berlin Film Festival, the duo shifts the lens to the silenced majority of Syrian women who routinely face sexual harassment, violence and abuse in their patriarchal society. The film follows a tight-knit group of young Syrian women who embark upon on a radical project to produce a play that lays bare the culture of misogyny and sexual abuse that has blighted the lives of females in their country for generations.

A Syrian war film with a difference, Nezouh is a delicate and engrossing entry in Venice’s Horizons Extra section. Director Soudade Kaadan won Lion of the Future for 2018’s The Day I Lost My Shadow, and she continues to impress with this empathetic story of life under siege. 

Netflix has a number of high-profile movies coming to the Toronto  Film Festival, just as it did at Venice and Telluride, but a less heralded title with no instantly recognizable star names was chosen to open the fest tonight, and The Swimmers may turn out to be a surprise winner for the streamer when it debuts this fall. It certainly reverses the curse of some of TIFF’s less successful opening-nighters.

The last decade has seen a plethora of movies about the crisis in Syria, most of them hard-hitting documentaries tracking the brutal effects of the war and the plight of those who’ve left and those who’ve stayed. At the same time, there’s never been a shortage of inspirational sports films where plucky athletes overcome obstacles to realize their dreams.But “The Swimmers,” which opened the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, is a rare mixture of the two: It’s an inspirational sports movie about a pair of Syrian swimmers, sisters Yusra and Sara Mardini, who fled from their home in Damascus during the Syrian civil war in 2015 to Europe, where they might have a chance to advance their athletic careers and swim in the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.TIFF has opened with sports movies in the past, though you might be forgiven for forgetting about the festival’s 2010 opener, “Score: A Hockey Musical,” or 2017’s “Borg/McEnroe,” with Shia LaBeouf perhaps typecast as the petulant John McEnroe. At any rate, “The Swimmers” is more substantial than either of those films.

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Leo Barraclough International Features EditorJi.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival has revealed to Variety the projects that the participants of its 2022 Emerging Producers program are working on. The producers were asked to deliver an elevator pitch for their projects.Every year since 2010, the festival has selected 18 up-and-coming producers of documentary films (17 European and one representing a non-European guest country), which are then provided with educational, networking and promotional support.There are almost 200 alumni of the program, many of whom have gone on to win awards at major festivals.The 2023 participants will be announced by Ji.hlava during the Sarajevo Film Festival on Aug. 15.“All Roads” (working title)Producer: Charlotte Hailstone, Hailstone Films (U.K.)Director: Laura WadhaSynopsis: A decade after the war began, a Scottish/Syrian filmmaker tries to reconnect with her fractured Syrian family, scattered around the world. She embarks on a journey, exploring the breakdown in communication between loved ones she hasn’t seen since 2010, wondering to what extent this has actually been caused by the war.Pitch: Laura’s debut feature builds on her successful short documentaries, including Berlinale Crystal Bear-winning “Born in Damascus.” This intimate film shows the audience what happens long after the initial upheaval of war. A timely light shone on the lasting impact this trauma has on lives and relationships.

The Cure’s Robert Smith and Simon Gallup picked up the Icon Award at tonight’s (May 19) Ivor Novello awards in London.The frontman and the bassist have been part of the band’s lineup since 1978 and 1979 respectively, helping to turn the band into one of the UK’s most beloved and iconic indie acts.During the ceremony at Grosvenor House tonight, Smith and Gallup were presented the Icon Award by their long-time agent, Martin Hopewell from Primary Talent. “The best part of half a century ago when I was a young whippersnapper booking agent, I was persuaded to get down to a small hotel in Crawley, of all places, to see a new and even younger band called The Cure, who were playing halfway up the bill of some sort of talent night,” Hopewell reminisced as he introduced the musicians.“I wish I could say it was some kind of blinding light, road to Damascus experience but nevertheless… when we met up on the street outside afterwards, I agreed to start helping them get some gigs and that makes one of very few decisions I’ve made in my life that I don’t want to go back in time and give myself a clip around the ear for making.”Noting that The Cure had gone from playing “the smallest clubs and colleges to the biggest arenas and festivals”, he celebrated their “famously epic live shows and timeless songs that have inspired countless other artists and embedded themselves into the lives of millions of people”.Hopewell continued to highlight the friendship between Smith and Gallup, while also praising The Cure as a whole for their “unique” artistry.

A new mum has described how a 'Damascus moment' led to her shedding 13 stone after years of struggling with her weight. It was almost three years ago that Carla Piera FitzGerald realised she needed to make a big change in her life.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentMK2 Films, the banner behind Joachim Trier’s Oscar-nominated “The Worst Person in the World,” has boarded “Nezouh,” from Syrian director Soudade Kaadan.The drama, set against the backdrop of the conflict in Damascus, marks Kaadan’s follow up to her 2018 feature debut, “The Day I Lost My Shadow,” which won the Lion of the Future prize at Venice. Her 2019 short “Aziza,” meanwhile, won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.Co-financed by BFI, which awarded National Lottery funding, and Film4, “Nezouh” is an allegorical tale of female emancipation.The movie follows 14-year-old Zeina and her family, whose lives are shaken after a bomb rips a giant hole in the roof of their building, exposing them to the outside world.

In one of Syrian-born artist Mohamad Hafez’s stunning 3D pieces, a figurine of the Virgin Mary stands before an ornate portal, her hands joined in prayer. The building around her, rendered in plaster, paint, rusted metal and found objects, is blasted to ruins.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentHollywood-based Chinese film financier Peter Luo and Oscar-winning producer Donna Gigliotti (“Shakespeare in Love”) have boarded upcoming female-led Syrian war drama “Nezouh,” directed by Soudade Kaadan, whose debut “The Day I Lost My Shadow” won the 2018 Venice Film Festival’s Lion of the Future.“Nezouh,” which is Kaadan’s followup to “Shadow,” is set against the backdrop of the Syrian conflict in Damascus where a young woman named Zena and her family

EXCLUSIVE: Dean Cain has reteamed with Damascus Road Productions to develop In God’s Time, a biopic based on Robert Fraley’s book Blessings of Obedience.

#AChildIsAChild— UNICEF Palestine (@UNICEFpalestine) May 16, 2021The attacks began after Israeli police blocked off the Damascus Gate, where Palestinian Arabs typically gather for Ramadan. A UN Security Council meeting is taking place today (May 16) as the attacks enter their seventh day, with the hopes of brokering a ceasefire.Protests have taken place around the world this weekend, seeing people take to the streets to show their support for the Palestinian people.

Rage Against The Machine, Halsey and Rihanna are among the artists to have spoken out over the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.It comes after a series of attacks which started at the weekend after Israel police blocked off the Damascus Gate, where Palestinian Arabs typically gather for Ramadan.That led to an attack on Orthodox Jews, which in turn led to the Israeli police raiding the al-Aqsa Mosque, according to various news outlets including Vox.A series of airstrikes and rocket attacks followed

Perthshire humanitarian hero is urging fellow Scots to join a fundraiser – to walk, run or cycle 154km over 31 days – to aid some of the 11 million Syrians forced to flee their homes. Those people who left Damascus travelled that distance to reach the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, to escape the brutal conflict brought about by the Assad regime which has killed more than 500,000 Syrians.

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The Syrian refugee and film-maker who became an NHS cleaner during the pandemic said he is ‘massively relieved’ to have been granted the permanent right to remain in the UK. The 33-year-old, who fled Damascus after being tortured by Assad’s regime, arrived in the UK in 2015, filming all 87 days of his perilous journey from Syria.

Hatem Ali, the Syrian filmmaker and director of hit TV shows, has died at the age of 58, according to multiple local news reports citing family confirmation.

Also Read: 'Nomadland' Wins Audience Award at Toronto Film FestivalSharrock explained that he majored in Arabic and politics at university and spent a year living in Syria the year before the civil war started there.

Salford schoolgirl has eight GCSEs and dreams of becoming a doctor.

Syria for a new life in Scotland and has spent the past few months on the NHS frontline fighting ­coronavirus.Now working in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, the medic, who fled Damascus at the height of the conflict, has told how the barbarity of war helped him deal with the horror of Covid-19.A qualified doctor in his homeland, he was helped into work by a special government project, where he could put his life-saving skills in use to help the NHS.Ahmed is backing the Disasters Emergency ­Committee

By Matthew Carey

By Matthew Carey