Netflix announced today it will make Bryan Fogel's ICARUS, a riveting and surprising journey through the netherworld of global sports doping, available exclusively to its members across 190 countries later this year. Premiering to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, ICARUS takes viewers on an improbable odyssey that starts out in the world of amateur cycling and ends up upsetting the Olympics world order.
Taking a cue from Super Size Me, Fogel, an endurance cyclist, sets out to investigate doping in sports by doping himself, documenting the changes in his performance over a pair of races, seeing if he can avoid detection.
Over the course of his investigation however, the film pivots more toward
CITIZENFOUR when Fogel meets Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of Russia's government anti-doping program. Over dozens of Skype calls in which the Russian expert instructs Fogel how to meet his goals, the two forge a deeply personal bond. As shocking allegations emerge that Rodchenkov actually ran a large-scale doping scheme during the Sochi Olympics, and as accusations of illegality leading all the way to the Kremlin, the two collaborate to reveal the biggest international sports
SCANDAL in living memory. As a global cat and mouse game unfolds, the two men experience what it truly means to stand up for the truth and where even a small miscalculation can be deadly.
"Fogel's incredible risk-taking has delivered an absorbing real-life thriller that continues to have global reverberations," said Lisa Nishimura,
Netflix VP of Original Documentaries. "By ripping the cover off of an international doping-industrial complex, ICARUS is an incredible story that shows how far some people will go to uphold national pride."
Bryan Fogel said, "This has been an intense 3.5 year personal journey that exposed the biggest
SCANDAL in sports history. To be able to work with Netflix, a company that is able to launch this story globally in such a big way, with such potential for social and political impact, is a spectacular honor."
The film is an Impact Partners presentation in association with Chicago Media Project, Diamond Docs and Alex Productions. ICARUS was written by Bryan Fogel, Mark Monroe and Timothy Rode and produced by Dan Cogan, Bryan Fogel, David Fialkow and Jim Swartz.
About Netflix:
Netflix is the world's leading Internet television network with over 93 million members in over 190 countries enjoying more than 125 million hours of TV shows and movies per day, including original series, documentaries and feature films. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.
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