‘Urgent’ War Thriller ‘Unspoken’ to Pitch at Series Mania: ‘Ukraine is Fighting for Our Freedom’ (EXCLUSIVE)

“Morning Joe” pushed back against former President Donald Trump on Monday after he told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) over the weekend that he is the only 2024 candidate who can “prevent, and very easily, World War III” and that he would settle the Russia-Ukraine war in “no longer than one day.” In response to Trump’s claim, Willie Geist pointed out that one “big reason” why Russia has not taken over Ukraine is because of the “strength of NATO” and the United States and Europe’s support of the organization. “His administration officials and people who worked alongside him said he wanted to pull the United States out of NATO, which would’ve effectively made it dissolve,” Geist added.

Naman Ramachandran Documentary “The First Code,” which explores how Ukrainian techies are an integral pillar of the global IT industry, will debut in the spring. The film, from EASE (the European Association of Software Engineering), chronicles the birth and formation of Ukrainian IT, from the creation of the first computer by Ukrainian engineers in the 1950s to the present day, where it has become a powerful industry and an important front in the war with Russia. The film was made based on interviews with representatives of leading Ukrainian IT companies, including EPAM Ukraine, 3DLOOK, ELEKS, Looksery, Techiia holding, Sigma Software Group, SoftServe, Uklon, Infopulse Ukraine and Preply. The V. M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, have also participated in the film.

Manchester City Centre came to a standstill today as there was a huge turnout in solidarity with Ukraine one year and one day after the country was invaded by Russian forces. The positivity and togetherness on show through music and chants were emotionally charged as people still feel the pain of parts of their country being under occupation.

EXCLUSIVE: Pope Francis is issuing a renewed plea for peace in Ukraine after attending an extraordinary screening at the Vatican of Evgeny Afineevsky’s documentary Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom.

Sean Penn is doubling down on his call for the United States to supply Ukraine with modern fighter jets amid the country's war against Russia. The 62-year-old actor, who first pressed the White House on Ukraine's need for jets last March, said President Joe Biden's surprise trip to Kyiv this week to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion was "extremely encouraging." However, he stressed that the U.S. continue sending military aid, including modern aircraft, to the war-torn nation.

Russian troops invaded Ukraine and, like many people around the world, he felt helpless at the images of people fleeing their homes.“The world felt like it was in a new place that it hadn’t been in decades,” the three-time Grammy winner recalls.On Friday, the one-year anniversary of the war’s start, Paisley is releasing a new song called “Same Here,” featuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaking proudly about his country and people.The song is Paisley’s first from his new record, “Son of the Mountains,” to be released later this year on Universal Music Group Nashville.The West Virginia native wrote the song with Lee Thomas Miller (co-writer on Paisley hits “The World” and “Perfect Storm”) and Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith. It’s a three-part narrative that reflects on universal similarities, despite distance and language.While it doesn’t mention Ukraine specifically, the song ends with Paisley and Zelenskyy in conversation, recorded during a video call.

EXCLUSIVE: On February 24, 2022 Sean Penn and his documentary filmmaking team got up before dawn in Kyiv in anticipation of a planned interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Suddenly, explosions shattered the quiet and missile fire turned the darkened sky to malevolent orange. Russia’s full-scale attack on its neighbor had begun — what President Vladimir Putin later that day euphemistically dubbed a “special military operation.”

When Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is understood that he believed a takeover would only take a few days.

Today marks one full year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began and fears remain that it could last for another.

A year ago today, the world woke up to war.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Watching “Kiss the Future,” a documentary about the band U2’s relationship with wartorn Sarajevo in the 1990s, it’s hard not to think: “We’ve seen this movie before.” That’s not to do with the doc itself so much as how aspects of the 30-year-old footage from Bosnia’s brutal civil war parallel what we’ve seen in the news coverage coming out of Ukraine for the past year. Both involve stranger-than-fiction (or stranger-than-fascism) scenarios of cosmopolitan cities suddenly subject to state terrorism, which makes the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck-produced film coincidentally timely, for all its belatedness. In a sense, “Kiss the Future” is the story of a long-distance romance, between a superstar rock quartet reaching its peak and a once-grand metropolis that’s bottoming out. In the early ’90s, genocidally minded Serbian president Slobodan Milošević tried to subject the happily mixed population of Sarajevo to ethnic cleansing by any means necessary. The area’s young people fought back in whatever spirit-lifting way they could — including founding underground discos, forming punk bands and otherwise keeping the arts alive as they dodged shelling and snipers. An American activist, Bill Carter, had the idea to enlist the stadium-filling U2 in publicizing their plight, which led to nightly satellite appearances by Sarajevo locals on the giant screens of the “Zoo TV” tour’s European leg.

Broadcast and cable networks are planning specials, a town hall and other coverage Thursday tied to the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Correspondents also will report from sites around the country, with Vladimir Putin’s regime mounting a winter offensive.

once again called for red states to secede from the United States, “The View” host Sunny Hostin is pretty sure the Georgia congresswoman is unaware of how and why the Civil War actually started.Shortly after the reveal that President Joe Biden secretly traveled to Ukraine on Monday, Greene claimed Biden “chose Ukraine over America” by visiting the wartime nation on a federal holiday. She later tweeted, “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government.

Berlinale Series Market’s annual project pitching event, “Tipping Point” walked off Tuesday morning with the Series Mania Award. The prize is an invitation to the production’s team to present again at the industry centrepiece at next month’s Lille-based get-together, the Series Mania Forum’s Co-Pro Pitching Sessions. “Tipping Point” joins 15 other projects as a sixteenth project presented out of competition in partnership with the Berlinale Co-Production Market.  Set in the extraordinary Svalbard – an archipelago half way between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole, it  turns on a feisty young eco-activist at constant odds with her father, an oil exec, until he is murdered. Teaming with some of his friends to investigate his death, she discovers another man from the one she knew, as she chases a stolen software which could solve climate crisis or destroy the world.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In “Golda,” Helen Mirren, acting with deft skill and control beneath one of those startling transformative prosthetic makeup jobs, portrays Golda Meir during the three-week cataclysm of the Yom Kippur War, which shook Israel to its bones in the fall of 1973. As the actor stands (or, more often, stoops) before us, we can believe our eyes that this is the Iron Lady of Israel. For here is that frown, those beetle brows, that coarse wavy hair tied into a bun like challah bread, that pugnacious nose, that stare of implacability designed to bore a hole in its beholder. Here, as well, is the woman who lit a thousand cigarettes, chain-smoking her way through the war-room anxiety and through the secret medical treatments she was undergoing at the time for lymphoma.

Christopher Vourlias Croatian-Ukrainian crime drama “The Silence,” whose first season sold wide last year for Munich-based Beta Film, is heading to Kyiv for Season 2, Variety can reveal. The series is based on the critically acclaimed fact-based books by investigative journalist Drago Hedl that examine human and weapons trafficking throughout Eastern Europe. The first season spent 25 days shooting in the Ukrainian capital. Season 2 will return for three days and be directed remotely, due to the security risk, but will shoot several scenes featuring key Ukrainian cast, including star Kseniya Mishina, as well as some establishing shots. Production in Kyiv is due to wrap Feb. 25.

On 24 February 2022, the world watched in horror as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Missiles were soon raining down on major urban conurbations, including the capital Kuiv, destroying homes, and communities and forcing millions to flee in search of safety. Within weeks, the UK Government launched the Homes for Ukraine programme, encouraging Brits to welcome refugees into their homes.

Just after 5 AM ET on Monday, networks started to break in to regular programming for special reports that President Joe Biden had made a surprise trip to Ukraine.

There is a particular kind of audacity reserved for the wealthy and the well-meaning. Multi-award-winning actor and humanitarian Sean Penn co-directs “Superpower” with Aaron Kaufman, known mostly for his commercial work and his collaboration with writer-director Robert Rodriguez.

Naman Ramachandran A first trailer has been unveiled for Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann’s documentary “The Klezmer Project,” which will have its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival’s Encounters strand. The documentary follows Argentinian cameraman Leandro who makes a living from filming Jewish weddings. At one of his jobs, he falls in love with Paloma, the clarinetist of the Klezmer band. To seduce her he pretends to be shooting a documentary film about traditional Yiddish folk music. What Leandro does not know is that his “fake” film project will take him on an unscripted journey throughout Eastern Europe in search of the last remaining Klezmer melodies.