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HBO has cut Miloš Biković from the cast of “The White Lotus” Season 3 following a callout from Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs — a move that Biković says “can create a disturbing precedent shadowing the essence of artistic freedom.”

“We have decided to part ways with Miloš Biković and the role will be recast,” an HBO spokesperson said in a statement.

“Today, a targeted campaign has been unleashed against me,” reads Biković’s statement in response, “seemingly as an external maneuver to influence decisions that can create a disturbing precedent shadowing the essence of artistic freedom. The result of such a narrative is the triumph of absurdity and the defeat of art.”

On Jan. 24, the foreign affairs office made a post on X (formerly Twitter) saying that the Serbian actor and Russian citizen “has been supporting Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion.” The office then named HBO directly,...

Update, Exclusive: Norway’s Nrk has become the third Scandinavian public broadcasting network to join Those Who Stayed as a co-producer.

Previously, Exclusive: A pair of Nordic networks have boarded Those Who Stayed, the Ukraine invasion anthology series we first told you about last year.

Public broadcasters Svt in Sweden and Yle in Finland have joined Film.UA and Red Arrow Studios International on the project as co-producers.

Shooting on the comedy-drama anthology is planned to begin in March. Three production crews are being readied to allow for a fast turnaround and delivery in autumn of 2023 or winter in early 2024.

The scripted series tells stories from the early days of Russia’s attack on neighbour Ukraine nearly a year ago. We first revealed details in August.

The anthology comedy/drama will focus on the immediate aftermath of the February 24 invasion, with each episode telling the story of a group of characters...

When she arrived in Warsaw just weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Yanina Kucher — an entertainment industry veteran with more than a decade’s experience in her country’s film business — wasn’t prepared for an extended stay. She’d left first Kyiv, then Lviv, with her cousin’s wife and young niece in tow, traveling to neighboring Poland to wait out what she hoped would be a short-lived skirmish.

Warsaw felt somehow familiar, less geographically and culturally removed than the alien metropolises of Western Europe. She had a personal and professional network in the Polish capital that was quick to find her a home. Yet her thoughts never strayed far from the war: to the parents who stubbornly refused to leave Kyiv; to the reports of the Russian army’s brutal, terrifying advance. “It’s every day,” she tells Variety. “I have friends who died in this war.

Russia’s plan to film a movie in space this year is moving full speed ahead as actress Yulia Peresild and filmmaker Klim Shipenko have been selected to star in and helm the project, respectively (via BBC). Russia’s Roscosmos space agency has announced the two artists will travel to space October 5. The movie, which has the working title “Challenge,” tells “the story of a female surgeon’s mission to perform an operation on a cosmonaut too ill to return to Earth immediately.”

According to BBC: “Russia’s Roscosmos space agency says Peresild and Shipenko have undergone both a medical and a creative selection process. Their special space flight training is to begin no later than June 1 and will include centrifuge and vibration tests, flights on a zero-gravity plane, and parachute training.”

Peresild reportedly beat out 19 other actresses for the starring role in “Challenge.” The 36-year-old actress is an Honored...