Soviet Union Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Christopher Vourlias In the fall of 1990, in the dying days of the Soviet Union, fighting broke out in the breakaway republic of Transnistria between Russian-backed separatists and forces loyal to the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, a territory on the cusp of its own successful campaign of independence from Moscow. The Transnistria War hardly registers as more than a footnote in most world history books, but it was nevertheless a formative moment in the making of Moldova, a small nation carved from the flank of Eastern Romania and nestled against the western border of Ukraine. When Moldovan filmmaker Ion Borş was growing up in Chisinau, the capital of the former Soviet republic, he heard stories about the conflict from his father, a veteran of Transnistria. The tales — no doubt embellished for his audience — were “tragic but also comical,” says Borş, driving home the absurdity of a war that likely looks even more confounding to its participants more than 30 years later.

A new eight-part Netflix drama explores the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.

A new dark drama has dropped on Netflix, chronicling the fallout of a nuclear disaster in Japan.

An expert has warned that infighting between the military and Vladimir Putin could be the beginning of the end of the Russian warmonger.

Three Floors” opened with a high-profile belly flop, festival-stalwart Nanni Moretti returns to Cannes with “A Brighter Tomorrow,” a comeback of sorts that also airs a list of grievances and could serve – should need arise – as a closing statement.Not that it likely will. Funny and endearing in some places, and typically grumpy and old-fashioned in others, “A Brighter Tomorrow” should, at very least, keep Moretti far from director’s jail for years to come.

CANNES (Reuters) - Renowned Italian director Nanni Moretti both directs and stars in "A Brighter Tomorrow," which premiered worldwide on Wednesday and is his ninth film to compete for the Cannes Film Festival's top prize. So far he has come home with the Palme d'Or only once - more than 20 years ago, with "The Son's Room" in 2001.

Top tennis player Daniil Medvedev on Sunday claimed his first clay-court title by winning the Italian Open. As the Russian hoisted the trophy at the award presentation, the speakers at the stadium blasted Pet Shop Boys’ 1992 dance hit Go West, a rendition of Village People’s song of the same name.

Before a note is song of their Eurovision entry, Ukraine has already won cultutral accolades in Greater Manchester today. Two Ukrainian Catholic Churches in Salford and Oldham have been granted Grade II listed status.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Animayo, Spain’s leading animation festival, is celebrating its 18th edition with the help of Disney legend Andreas Deja who will be presenting his independently-produced short, “Mushka.” “Having Deja choose Animayo to debut his film in Spain is the greatest honor,” said Damian Perea, founder-director of the festival, which unspools May 3-6 on the island of Gran Canaria. A hand-drawn 2D animated story about an unlikely friendship between a young girl and a Siberian tiger in 1970s’ Soviet Union, “Mushka” is Deja’s directorial debut. His lauded Walt Disney Animation Studio credits include “The Lion King,” “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

“It really is a show about friendship against the backdrop of espionage,” A Spy Among Friends creator Alexander Cary said at a panel for Deadline’s Contenders TV event. Cary was joined by star Damian Lewis to discuss the MGM+ series.

“Tetris.”Not the game of colorful blocks falling from the sky, but the new feature film about how the rights to “Tetris” were maneuvered out of the former Soviet Union by an American programmer and game developer named Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton). It’s a wild and deeply compelling story, the kind of Cold War caper that is even more incredible because it really happened. (Also, anyone who ever spent time with “Tetris” on the original Game Boy will be even more taken with the story.) Produced by “Kingsman” mastermind Matthew Vaughn, the movie has a decidedly poppy tone and visual aesthetic (embroidered with 8-bit flourishes) that makes it even more fun to watch.

The White House has issued a statement condemning Russia’s detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich “in the strongest terms,” and is reiterating State Department warnings that U.S. citizens residing or traveling in Russia “should depart immediately.”

, which tells the real-life story of the high-stakes legal battle that took place to secure the rights to the iconic game.In the film, Taron Egerton stars as Henk Rogers, a Dutch video game designer who travels to the Soviet Union in 1989 to meet the game's creator, Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Yefremov), and attempt to secure handheld rights to the game, so Tetris can be distributed alongside Nintendo's revolutionary new Game Boy system.«I always just feel if you seek to humanize somebody and make them relatable and three-dimensional, then you are doing them the right service,» Egerton says of taking on the role in ET's exclusive behind-the-scenes look at , which also includes interviews with the real-life Rogers and Pajitnov, who recall their first meetings in Russia in a secretive, dimly lit room that «definitely had some KGB guys in there.»«It was strange to watch somebody else be me,» Rogers admitted of watching Egerton, though he praised the actor for doing a «good job.»«Tetris crosses boundaries,» adds Rogers' daughter, Maya, who is now the CEO of Blue Planet Software and managing director of The Tetris Company. «It brings people of all cultures together… Not only is Tetris an amazing game, it was only possible because of this amazing friendship between Henk and Alexey.» premieres March 31 on Apple TV+.

Selome Hailu The world premiere of “Tetris” gave the crowd at South by Southwest a whole new look at Taron Egerton. From Egerton’s first appearance on screen, the Austin audience couldn’t keep quiet, cheering and applauding for his impassioned speeches, dad jokes and 1970s porn-stache. The film, which reveals a political thriller hidden within the history of its titular video game, stars Egerton as video game entrepreneur Henk Rogers. After a simple deal at a Las Vegas electronics convention goes wrong, Rogers finds himself embroiled in overlapping conflicts between every gaming company worth its salt, an English billionaire and the Soviet Union itself, with his life threatened multiple times along the way.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic At last, a video game movie that’s more than just a video game movie. In theory, “Tetris” — that primitive and highly addictive block-stacking strategy game — doesn’t lend itself to the big-screen treatment any more than Rubik’s Cube or Tic-Tac-Toe might. But Noah Pink has found an ingenious solution to a classic puzzle. The screenwriter realized that there’s more to Tetris than most people knew. Namely, there’s a terrific backstory about how this Soviet-hatched computer software made its way over the Iron Curtain, and telling it could play like a Cold War thriller as three teams of Western rivals race one another to Russia to secure the rights.

Axios confirmed to Vanity Fair that Montgomery is no longer with the company but did not elaborate. The news website is based in Arlington, Virginia. It was launched in 2017 by former Politico journalists Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz.Perhaps he should have considered being a journalist, not an activist or propagandist.The email sent from the Florida Department of Education Press Office billed the upcoming DeSantis-hosted event as “exposing the diversity equity and inclusion scam in higher education.” DeSantis has previously called his state “where woke goes to die.” A recent ban of more than 80 titles in Martin County schools that included works by Jodi Picoult, James Patterson and Toni Morrison went into effect earlier this month.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The story of Kim Philby is perhaps too good to make up. The British spy, a double agent for Moscow, operated at the highest levels of the intelligence community; his ability to disseminate information to the Soviet Union, to which he eventually defected, is proof, perhaps, of the power of personal charm and erudition to cover over what’s lying in plain sight. That’s the powerfully told story of “A Spy Among Friends,” which streamed on ITVX in the United Kingdom last year and which now arrives on nascent streamer MGM+. Guy Pearce plays Philby, who has at the series’ outset been a valued Soviet source for many years; likely his closest friend in tradecraft, Nicholas Elliott (Damian Lewis), must get a confession from him. We see the pair’s relationship over time in layered flashbacks, adding context and understanding to Elliott’s failure to nail down Philby.

.“These are big shoes for us to fill with our film. I don’t mean to compare our film to what some of our predecessors went through, but it is very moving to be even remotely connected to this history that “All Quiet” has,” Grunert told TheWrap. “We’ve managed to capture something that is obviously horrific, and we tried to come to what we can only imagine is an emotional truth of our main character, and how it could possibly feel to him,” Grunert said.

Paul Mescal has clocked his first Olivier Award nomination for his leading performance in Rebecca Frecknall’s buzzy stage adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire. Scroll down for the full list of nominees.

Christopher Vourlias Latvian director Viesturs Kairiss, who won the international narrative competition at the Tribeca Film Festival last year with his coming-of-age drama “January,” is prepping his next feature film. “Ulya” is based on the real-life story of Ulyana Semjonova, a girl raised in the Latvian countryside who reaches a height of seven feet and would go on to become a famous professional basketball player. Set in the 1970s in Latvia, which was then part of the Soviet Union, the film follows its titular heroine from the time she leaves the countryside at the age of 14 and travels to Riga to play basketball. Kairiss described that as a “crucial stage” in Semjonova’s life, as her body was undergoing dramatic — and traumatic — changes for a teenage girl, while she also began to learn how to overcome adversity and, through basketball, find her place in life.

Christopher Vourlias When a young Viesturs Kairiss started to dream about becoming a filmmaker thirty-some-odd years ago, he knew his path wouldn’t be straightforward or easy. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, aspiring Latvian directors would have to travel to Moscow or St. Petersburg to enroll in venerable Soviet film schools. After independence, Kairiss was among the first class of graduates from the newly launched film studies program at the Latvian Academy of Culture, one of many ways in which the small Baltic republic attempted to assert its own identity after half a century of Soviet rule. “We didn’t have any technique,” Kairiss admits of he and his film school peers, laughing. For his first feature film, “Leaving by the Way” (2001), he enlisted friends for below-the-line work and recruited actors from the local theater school. When the film bowed in the Crystal Globe competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, it was the culmination of what he describes as “a totally crazy, passionate journey” for a group of filmmakers laboring in an industry that didn’t truly exist.

The first trailer for Apple’s “Tetris” film has been released. The film depicts the incredible true tale of the battle for the rights to Alexey Pajitnov’s iconic game between Western publishers, Nintendo and the Soviet Union.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights from Participant to “A Compassionate Spy,” the new documentary from Steve James (“Hoop Dreams,” “Life Itself”). The film, which world premiered at the Venice Film Festival ahead of its North American launch at Telluride, is a real-life spy story about Manhattan Project physicist Ted Hall, who provided nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, told through the perspective of his wife Joan, who protected his secret for decades. Magnolia will release the film in theaters later this year. “A Compassionate Spy” is presented by Participant and is a Mitten Media and Kartemquin Films production produced by Mark Mitten p.g.a., Dave Lindorff, and Steve James. Executive producers are Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann, Tim Horsburgh and Gordon Quinn.

EXCLUSIVE: Writer-director Aysulu Onaran (Balaban) has wrapped principal photography on her latest feature film, Rebirth Island. The film is a historical spy thriller based on true events from the Cold War.

First-Look Image From Kiah Roache-Turner’s ‘Sting,’ Cornerstone Inks DealsProduction has wrapped in Sydney, Australia, on Kiah Roache-Turner’s Sting. Cornerstone is handling worldwide sales and distribution on the pic. Studiocanal has inked a deal to release in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Benelux. Additional deals include Lucky Red (Italy), Diamond Films (Latin America, Spain, Portugal), Nordisk (Scandinavia), Kinoswiat (Poland), Pasatiempo Pictures (Baltics, CIS), Karantanija (Ex-Yogoslavia), Italia (Middle East), Filmfinity (South Africa) and Terry Steiner International (airlines). The film synopsis reads: One cold, stormy night in New York City, a mysterious object falls from the sky and smashes through the window of a rundown apartment building. It is an egg, and from this egg emerges a strange little spider… Check out the first image from the pic above.

Christopher Vourlias Alexander Rodnyansky, the Oscar-nominated producer behind “Leviathan” and “Loveless,” has boarded “The Dissident,” a Cold War drama that follows a former Ukrainian resistance fighter trying to rebuild his life after his release from a Soviet prison camp. The film marks the fiction feature debut of directors Andriy Alferov, a renowned Ukrainian film critic, and Stas Gurenko, a veteran commercial and music video director. Rodnyansky is producing alongside Oleksandr Omelyanov. Set in 1960s Ukraine, at a time when many in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc were re-evaluating the socialist system, pic follows Oleg, a former soldier in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army that fought against both Nazi Germany and the communist Soviet Union for Ukrainian independence during World War II. After an amnesty deal is reached, Oleg is released from prison camp and returns to Ukraine, where he tries but fails to find his place in peacetime society.

EXCLUSIVE: The career of John Madden will be the subject of a limited series to be directed by Gavin O’Connor, and written by Alex Sohn (Vegas). In the huddle on the telling the life story of the Hall of Fame Raiders head coach, groundbreaking broadcaster and video game icon are Todd Lieberman’s Hidden Pictures, Lit Entertainment Group’s Adam Kolbrenner, Religion of Sports’ Gotham Chopra, Ryan Stowell, and Tom Brady’s 199 Productions.

EXCLUSIVE: Lance Bass, a member of pop group NSYNC and a trained Russian cosmonaut, is hosting a new podcast series about space.

Indiana Jones is returning to screens next year with the fifth instalment to the action adventure franchise.

EXCLUSIVE: Svetlana Efremova (The Americans) has been cast as a series regular in the upcoming fourth season of Apple TV+’s space drama series For All Mankind.