city Damascus: Last News

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.

George Clooney is set to direct and produce a political espionage thriller series for Showtime under the working title The Department.According to Deadline, the network ordered the series as an adaptation of the French drama The Bureau (Le Bureau des Legendes), which aired for five seasons from 2015 to 2020. Based on actual accounts by former spies and inspired by contemporary events, the series focused on intelligence officer Guillaume 'Malotru' Debailly, who returns to the French capital after six years undercover in Damascus. The Bureau centered on the daily lives of French agents within the nation's leading external security service - their equivalent of the CIA - who trained and led long-term missions in areas with French interests. Living under false identities for years, these agents aim to identify and recruit good intelligence sources. This comes after Clooney as seen filming Wolves in New York City.  He's on board: George Clooney, 61, is set to team up with Showtime to direct and produce a political espionage thriller series under the working title The Department Coming to the small screen: Showtime ordered the series as an adaptation of the French drama The Bureau (Le Bureau des Legendes), which aired for five seasons from 2015-2020 He has to face the challenge of reconnecting with his daughter, ex-wife, colleagues, and even his old self. In 2019, the New York Times lauded The Bureau as one of the Best International TV Shows of the Decade.In June 2020, NPR also praised the show saying, 'It may well be the best TV show in the world right now.' Chris McCarthy, President/CEO at Showtime and Paramount media, said, 'Just as Homeland elevated global espionage to new heights, The Department will take viewers even

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.

Assassin’s Creed.It was an instant hit when it released in November of that year, allowing players to explore the Crusades and immerse themselves into the medieval cities of Jerusalem, Damascus and Acre.Two years later, they followed it up with a sequel set in Renaissance Italy, exploding the potential of the franchise.Since then, there have been 12 main instalments set across the globe from colonial America, to ancient Egypt, industrial-revolution London to pillaging Vikings in Scandinavia.For years, the series was an action-adventure franchise, but after the technical catastrophe is Assassin’s Creed Unity in 2014 and the diminishing returns of Unity the following year, publishers at Ubisoft made a change.Assassin’s Creed Origins turned the franchise into a full-blown RPG, but despite its success, it immediately divided the fanbase.Two games later, Mirage is coming with the hopes of uniting them again with a game that is bringing the series back to its roots.It comes ahead of Ubisoft Forward, which will officially reveal the game on September 10.Information on the recently confirmed Assassin’s Creed Mirage remains limited, but now that Ubisoft is preparing to fully unveil the game at Ubisoft Forward, information is slipping through the cracks.According to rumours, the game could be closely tied to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, via the main protagonist.People who played that Viking-era game will remember Basim Ibn Ishaq, one of the members of the Hidden Ones.Mirage will reportedly follow him in his younger days when he was just a thief, following his journey as he joins the organisation and becomes an assassin.One of the most exciting parts of a new instalment in the franchise is the location and time period, and reports

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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.

Irish Mirror, Carla said: "I actually had a realization in July 2019 that everything I thought about myself was a lie. "I was literally driving down the N7 on my way to have a massage with my partner, and I had been doing a bit of journaling, a process called the morning pages and a couple of other things, and things had started to kind of stir within me… my doctor calls it a Damascus moment."Carla had been struggling with negative thought, but realised it “wasn’t actually my voice”.She noted: “This person that is speaking constantly in my head isn't actually anything to do with me.“This is stigmas that I picked up from society and from people around me.”And, Carla explained that she had struggled with her weight for a long time.She said: “I tried to lose weight my whole life.

Russia students have formed a giant Z formation to show support for the war in Ukraine. Students and teachers took part in the protest at Damascus University in Syria on Wednesday (March 9). The crowd assembled into the shape of a giant letter Z at the demonstration, with many people also waving Russian flags.