Akshay Kumar teams up with Vipul Shah for alien action thriller Samuk; Hollywood creature and action experts join project

Actor Akshay Kumar is set to headline a new large-scale sci-fi action thriller titled Samuk, directed by Kanishk Varma and produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah. Positioned as an ambitious alien survival thriller, the film is currently in development and is expected to go on floors soon. The project marks Akshay Kumar’s return to a full-scale action role and will reportedly combine elements of survival horror, military realism, and alien thriller storytelling. The makers are also bringing together an international technical team with experience across several Hollywood franchise films. Speaking about the project, producer Vipul Shah said, “We always try to challenge ourselves with different genres, and Samuk is something Indian cinema hasn’t attempted before. Our aim is to create a world-class alien thriller for audiences.” Director Kanishk Varma, known for projects such as Sanak and Inside Edge, revealed that the idea for the film emerged from his interest in survival thrillers and elite s...

The Investigator review – harrowing documentary details search for justice after Balkan wars

Viktor Portel’s film follows Czech investigator Vladimír Dzuro as he returns to sites of torture and death, and meets survivors as well as supporters of perpetrators

Revisiting the blood-soaked conflicts that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, Viktor Portel’s harrowing documentary follows Vladimír Dzuro, a Czech investigator committed to bringing war criminals to justice. Drawing from Dzuro’s bestselling book The Investigator: Demons of the Balkan War, the film primarily focuses on the atrocities committed by Serbian forces; as Dzuro returns to sites of torture and death, his encounters with the survivors as well as supporters of the perpetrators are at once riveting and heartbreaking.

The Vukovar massacre, one of the most infamous incidents of the war, is recounted in eye-opening detail. In 1991, in the final days of a battle between the Croatian National Guard and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) during the Croatian war of independence, the latter vetoed an agreement to evacuate the Vukovar hospital and turned it over to Serbian paramilitaries. In the end, nearly 300 people were executed in cold blood and dumped in mass graves. In 1996, Dzuro was a part of a mission to exhume the victims. Flickering archival footage of the campaign shows piles of bodies laid beneath the ground, a chilling visual manifestation of how history can be buried and erased. In contrast with the lo-fi quality of these newsreels, contemporary footage of Dzuro has the stylisation of a crime thriller. The look creates a gripping atmosphere, even if it also occasionally verges on overdramatisation, which the film’s already shocking true stories don’t necessarily need.

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