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Boy's Word: Blood on the Asphalt vividly reenacts the brutal life of blue-collar kids in the last years of the Ussr, showcasing the themes of brotherhood and coming of age. The show has faced criticism and accusations of propaganda from both sides of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, highlighting the less-than-attentive care of parents and the state. Boy's Word: Blood on the Asphalt has become a viral TV hit due to its nostalgic portrayal of life behind the Iron Curtain and its willingness to explore an ignored aspect of society, resembling popular crime dramas like Menace II Society.

As we watch hoodlums ascending the social ladder one stolen purse and broken nose at a time, Slovo Patsana (translated from the Russian title: Boy’s Word: Blood on the Asphalt) vividly reenacts what happens as one kind of empire replaces another. The tagline “The boys don't apologize” says it all. As seen in this subtitled trailer,...

Exclusive: The Matrix and Joker co-producer Village Roadshow Pictures is teaming with Matt Reeves’ 6th & Idaho (The Batman) and XYZ Films (Mandy) for the English-language remake of recently-released Russian sci-fi-thriller Sputnik.

Set in the Soviet Union in the 1980s during the Cold War, the film follows a young female doctor who is recruited by the military to assess a cosmonaut who survived a mysterious space accident and returned to Earth with a dangerous organism living inside him. The English-language remake is currently in development.

Producers for the remake include Matt Reeves, Adam Kassan and Rafi Crohn for 6th & Idaho, Mikhail Vrubel and Alexander Andryushenko for Vodorod Pictures, Fedor Bondarchuk for Art Pictures and Ilya Stewart for Hype Film.

Egor Abramenko, Murad Osmann, Pavel Burya, Alina Tyazhlova and Mila Rozanova are executive producers. XYZ Films also serves as executive producers. Jillian Apfelbaum (Late Night) will oversee for Village Roadshow Pictures.

The...

If you consider running-time alone, Russian content fills a considerable chunk of space in the official sections of the 2020 Berlinale.

This is primarily because of Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s mind-boggling large-scale simulation of the totalitarian Soviet system, the “Dau” project, which comprises 14 features — two are unspooling at Berlin, accounting for more than eight hours of screen time. “Dau. Natasha,” clocking in at two hours and 19 minutes, premieres in competition.

Described by the Dau website as “a tale of violence that is as radical as it is provocative,” it follows two waitresses in a top-secret Soviet scientific institute who strike up a cautious friendship when one is seduced by a foreign visitor, until the ministry of state security intervenes.

Meanwhile, the Berlinale Special title “Dau. Degeneratsia” has a running time of just over six hours. The story unfolds at the same institute shown in “Natasha,” where scientific and occult experiments aimed at...

Variety has been given exclusive access to the Imax trailer, dubbed into English, to Fedor Bondarchuk’s sci-fi actioner “Invasion,” the sequel to his 2017 blockbuster “Attraction.”

In the first film Moscow becomes the battleground for all-out war against an army of alien invaders. In the sequel, an alien spaceship crash lands in Moscow, and an ordinary girl gains superpowers that make her the focus of study in secret government labs. But it’s not only the humans who are interested in her new powers, and she will have to decide which side she is on.

The cast includes Irina Starshenbaum, Rinal Mukhametov, Alexander Petrov and Yuriy Borisov. The script is written by Andrew Zolotarev and Oleg Malovichko. Sony Pictures will release the film, produced by Bondarchuk’s Art Pictures Studio, in Russia and Cis on Jan. 1, 2020. In January it will be released in Germany, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ex-Yugoslavia, Сyprus and Israel.