Soviet Union: Last News

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent“January,” Viesturs Kairiss’s autobiographical film set in the former Soviet Union, has been acquired for world sales by The Yellow Affair. The movie will have its world premiere at Tribeca in the international narrative competition. The coming-of-age film sheds light on the political upheaval in the early 1990’s.

Die Zeit. “It simply isn’t right to romanticise Russia with lyrics like: ‘I follow the Moskva/ Down to Gorky Park…Let your balalaika sing’“.The band have changed the lyrics to: “Now listen to my heart/ It says Ukrainia/ Waiting for the wind to change,” which are projected on a screen behind the band as they perform.Released in 1991, the perestroika power ballad is the German hard rockers’ most famous song; it was voted song of the 20th century by viewers of the public broadcaster ZDF in 2005.Even though the song was released over a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is widely remembered as the soundtrack to the era of economic and social changes in the former Soviet Union that heralded the end of the cold war.Meine said he composed the words on September 3 and 4, 1989, a month after Scorpions performed at the Moscow Music Peace festival.Elsewhere in the interview with Die Zeit, Meine discussed his friendship with Hanoverian ex-chancellor turned Russian gas lobbyist Gerhard Schröder, whose fifth wedding party he attended in 2018.“I haven’t spoken with Gerhard Schröder for a while,” Meine said.

Christopher Vourlias In the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, organizers of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival quickly shifted gears to offer whatever support they could.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticThe world is not the same place it was in 1986, when “Top Gun” ruled the box office. In Ronald Reagan, America had a movie star for a president, and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson as its honorary ministers of propaganda.

Alexander Gabelia Veteran Georgian director/writer Lana Gogoberidze is editing documentary feature “Returning to Life.” The film is about her mother, Nutsa Gogoberidze, who was the Republic of Georgia’s first female film director, according to Film New Europe.Born into a rural teacher’s family in Saingilo, she studied philosophy in Germany, before becaming a film director. But her career ended abruptly in the years of the Stalinist terror.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentVersatile British actor Ben Whishaw, best known globally for playing Q in five James Bond films, has been cast in what’s bound to be the one of the most complex roles of his career.The actor will play the titular character in “Limonov, The Ballad of Eddie,” a new English-language film by revered Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov (“Petrov’s Flu,” “Leto”), about radical Russian poet and political dissident Eduard Limonov.The film, which will be presented as a promo reel to buyers in Cannes on May 17, is inspired by the best-selling novel “Limonov” by French writer and director Emmanuelle Carrère, which was translated in 35 countries.“Limonov” delves into the story of Eduard Limonov, who lived many lives. He was an underground writer in the Soviet Union who escaped to the U.S.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentIconoclastic Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov (“Leto,” “Petrov’s Flu”) will be unveiling footage in Cannes from his new work-in-progress film “Limonov, the Ballad of Eddie,” starring Ben Whishaw as radical Russian poet and dissident Eduard Limonov and Viktoria Miroshnichenko (“Beanpole”) as his wife Elena.Serebrennikov, who will coming to Cannes with his latest completed work “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” premiering in competition, was shooting “Limonov” in Russia when the war broke out. The director has since been able to leave the country and will complete the rest of the shoot in Europe.A “Limonov” promo reel will be unspooled for buyers in Cannes on May 17.

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West of preparing to invade Russia and told soldiers they are fighting for the future of their 'motherland' in a Victory Day speech in the country's capital on Monday (9 May).

Vladimir Putin has flexed his military supremacy and arsenal of nuclear weapons in a chilling new threat to the West.

Amber Heard must be immediately discounted, a prominent psychologist has said. Dr Taylor says similar arguments can be made about borderline personality disorder which she branded ‘yet another junk diagnosis thrown at women’ Dr Jessica Taylor’s warning comes after a psychologist hired by Johnny Depp’s legal team to evaluate Ms Heard, his ex-wife, testified she has borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder.

From today, April 15th, Operation Mincemeat is in cinemas. Colin Firth takes the lead role in this blockbuster portrayal of a bonkers operation carried out by British intelligence during World War II.

The new season of “Stranger Things” promises an epic battle unlike any seen before.

Eleven has lost her powers at the end of Stranger Things’ third season and they don’t appear to have returned in the first trailer for the long-delayed fourth season of the Netflix supernatural drama series.

The Death Of Stalin.The actor said in a new interview that Putin’s briefings could be outtakes from Armando Iannucci’s satire on Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union leader’s legacy.“The Death of Stalin is so prescient; some scenes could be directly ripped from the news,” he said in a fan Q&A published by The Guardian.“Putin’s press conference where he lined up all of his cabinet members could have been a monstrously less funny outtake. I find it terrifying that one of the best hopes is that somebody in Putin’s circle will reach across that 300-foot table and put an end to this.

A Killing Eve spin-off looking into the early life of MI6 spymaster Carolyn Mertens is in the works at BBC America and AMC Networks.

Tesla founder Elon Musk has acquired 73.5 million shares in Twitter, or 9.2% of the company, sending its shares up more than 20% but prompting uneasiness about his intentions.

De’Graft Mensah, leads the morning bulletin with a piece about World Book Day. This may not be news in the traditional sense, but is justifiable, says Guru-Murthy. “As a parent, I know it’s hugely significant – it’s what kids are talking about that day – so in terms of their world it’s the big story.

The current invasion of Ukraine by Russia with its appalling loss of life and destruction of cities seems steeped in another era. From the end of the Second World War until 1991 a Cold War, existed between the US and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, in the Eastern and Western Blocs.

Lise Pedersen “Novorossiya” by Enrico Parenti and Luca Gennari, which had its world premiere this week at CPH:DOX, is a rare film that shows the ongoing conflict in Ukraine’s Eastern Donbas region from the Russian perspective.Gennari, an experienced cinematographer, was shocked at the way the war in the Luhansk and Donetsk region, where pro-Russian separatists have proclaimed the state of Novorossiya (literally “New Russia”), no longer received any media attention once the Maidan revolution was over.In 2017, he decided to head to the Donbas region with his camera to see what life was like there.The film follows the parallel stories of a handful of characters, ranging from a communist U.S. fighter from Texas to a young Ukrainian soldier, a captain in the separatist army who dreams of rebuilding the Soviet Union, an opera singer from the Donetsk opera house, two young men from a heavy metal band and two elderly women who live in a bunker.

Scotland will be in their first World Cup Finals draw since the 1998 tournament today in Qatar and it's 40 years since the Scots were at the centre of the most farcical draw in football history.

Emiliano Granada HBO Max has boarded Nikolay Stefanov’s debut feature doc “No Place for You in Our Town” which it is co-producing with Bulgaria’s Smarty Pants Shooter, headed by writer-producer Ralitsa Golemanova.Premiering at Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX, “No Place for You in Our Town” marks HBO Max’s first original from Bulgaria. The film will drop on HBO Max in fall 2022.It revolves around a group of soccer hooligans in Pernik, a mining town in Bulgaria whose industry has slowly decayed since the fall of the Soviet Union.