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ICARUS

Synopsis

When Bryan Fogel sets out to uncover the truth about doping in sports, a chance meeting with a Russian scientist transforms his story from a personal experiment into a geopolitical thriller involving dirty urine, unexplained death and Olympic Gold—exposing the biggest scandal in sports history. 

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The Filmmakers

Bryan Fogel Writer/Director/Producer

Prior to directing his first documentary feature, ICARUS, Bryan co-wrote and starred in the hit International and Off-Broadway play, Jewtopia, and co-wrote and directed the feature film adaptation. Bryan began shooting ICARUS three years ago, believing that what the world watches on its sports fields should not be taken for granted as truth. What followed was a journey he never could have imagined, and a testament to the power of documentary filmmaking to rewrite history.

Dan Cogan Producer

Dan Cogan is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Impact Partners, a fund and advisory service for investors and philanthropists who seek to promote social change through film.  Since its inception in 2007, Impact Partners has been involved in the financing of more than 80 films, including The Cove, which won the 2010 Academy Award® for Documentary Feature; How to Survive A Plague, which was nominated for the Academy Award® for Documentary Feature in 2013; The Hunting Ground; The Queen of Versailles, which won the U.S. Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival; Detropia, which won the Editing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival; Freeheld, which won the 2008 Academy Award® for Documentary Short Film; The Garden, which was nominated for the Academy Award® for Documentary Feature in 2009 and Hell and Back Again, which won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize and Cinematography Awards at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award® for Documentary Feature.

Cogan co-founded Gamechanger Films, which launched in September 2013. Gamechanger Films is the first for-profit film fund dedicated exclusively to financing narrative features directed by women. Gamechanger's first film, Land Ho!, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics.

Cogan received his B.A. from Harvard University, Magna Cum Laude, and attended the Film Division at Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts. In 2014, he was awarded the Leading Light Award at DOC NYC alongside filmmakers Albert Maysles and D.A. Pennebaker, as well as the America Abroad Media Award in Washington, D.C.

David Fialkow Producer

 

David Fialkow is co-founder and managing director of General Catalyst (GC), a venture capital firm with offices in Boston, New York, Palo Alto and San Francisco. Mr. Fialkow’s focus areas at GC include e-commerce, financial services, health and wellness, and travel services. Mr. Fialkow is a member of the film partnership, Impact Partners, which focuses on social justice-themed documentaries. He is a Producer of ICARUS and Executive Producer of BENDING THE ARC and CITY OF GHOSTS. Mr. Fialkow serves on the boards of a number of nonprofit organizations; he currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of The Pan-Mass Challenge, which has raised over $500 million for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His interest and commitment to education has led him to serve on the Board of MIT’s School of Engineering as well as Facing History and Ourselves, an educational curriculum nonprofit. He also serves on the board of The Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams). Mr. Fialkow is a graduate of Colgate University, where he received a bachelor of fine arts degree with a concentration in film. He is also a graduate of the Boston College School of Law. Mr. Fialkow resides in Boston, MA with his wife, Nina Fialkow, with whom he has two grown children.

Jim Swartz Producer

Jim Swartz is a Founder of Accel, a prominent global technology venture capital firm. Entering a fifth decade in venture capital, he has been closely involved as lead investor in numerous industry pioneering technology companies.  An industry leader, Jim is former Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association and the 2007 recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award.  He is a graduate of Harvard University (Engineering Sciences and Applied Physics) and holds a M.S. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

He is Chairman of the Swartz Foundation and Co-Chairman of the Christian Center of Park City, Director Emeritus of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Foundation (established the Borgen-Swartz Education Endowment), Trustee of the Sundance Institute, and a member of the Board of Advisors of Tepper School of Business.   Jim is a Founder of the Deer Valley Music Festival, the YMCA of Martha's Vineyard, MVYouth and FairSport.  He served on the Management Committee of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Winter Olympics of 2002.  He holds a Honorary Doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University, its inaugural Founders Medal, the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from its Tepper School of Business, and an Honorary Doctorate from Western Governors University.  

Together with his wife Susan, Jim founded Impact Partners, a financing and advisory firm advancing independent cinema that addresses pressing social needs.  As Producer of the documentary Icarus, Jim won the Academy Award in 2018 and received an Emmy nomination.

Jim is a keen competitive sailor and has won numerous World and National Championships with his yachts Moneypenny and Vesper.

Festivals & Awards

Academy Awards

2018

Winner: Best Documentary Feature

Emmy-Primetime

2018

Nominee - Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special

Nominee.- Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program

BAFTA Awards

2018

Nominee - Outstanding Documentary Feature

Grierson Trust British Documentary Award

2018

Nominee - Best Single Documentary - International

DGA Awards

2018

Nominee - Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary

 

Cinema Eye Honors Awards

2018

Nominee - The Unforgettables - Grigory Rodchenkov

Nominee - Hell Yeah Prize

Edward R. Murrow Awards

2018

Winner - Best TV Network News Documentary

Sundance Film Festival

2017

Winner - U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award (Orwell Award)

Critics' Choice Documentary Award

2017

Nominee - Best Sports Documentary

Hamptons International Film Festival

2017

Winner - Summerdocs Audience Award

Reviews

ICARUS casts the depth of deception with an immediacy that’s often astounding.”

-Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times

ICARUS may be the best nonfiction movie of the year.”

-Financial Times

A winner...The pleasure here is in learning the behind-the-scenes stories pertaining to a world customarily fronted only by athletes who, in this telling, are reduced to mere pawns in an international chess game dominated by politics, power, prestige and big bucks.”

-The Hollywood Reporter

[A] game-changing documentary.”

-Variety

A hell of a story...shocking...truly absorbing.”

-Indiewire

A wildly timely movie for our current moment, as issues of cheating, illegitimacy and geopolitical bullies take center stage.”

-The Wrap

For ICARUS the case is made clearly and effectively, and it’s that rare doc that uncovers a truth so powerful (and dangerous) that it itself becomes part of the news. As a provocative work it’s effective, as a cautionary tale it’s profound.”

-Birth.Movies.Death