EXCLUSIVE: Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson, the Academy Award-nominated writing duo behind films like The Fighter and Patriots Day, has been enlisted to pen a film telling the extraordinary true story of FC Shakhtar Donetsk — Ukraine’s resilient, top-flight soccer club, which has been forced to play without a home amid the ongoing war with Russia.
Founded in 1936, Shakhtar is one of Ukraine’s most decorated clubs, yet has been in exile since 2014, when Russian-backed forces seized the Donbas region. The club has since staged “home” matches across the country — from Kharkiv to Kyiv and currently in Lviv, where game attendance is dictated not by stadium capacity but by the size of the bomb shelter. International matches are played in Poland and Germany, and with Ukrainian airspace closed, travel beyond borders often takes two days.
The film will specifically hone in on Shakhtar’s remarkable 2022 season, which saw the club stripped of its foreign players following FIFA’s unprecedented ruling allowing them to leave due to the war. The year culminated in Shakhtar defying all odds and continuing to compete on the world stage, just as the full-scale Russian invasion began. It’s being approached as the centerpiece of a global brand evolution for Shakhtar, with brand consultancy Interbrand — part of Omnicom — spearheading the relaunch.
Christian Tureaud (The Perfect Game, The Hornet’s Nest) and Ren Trella (Straight Lies) are producing the film on the football club, with Tamasy, Stuart Pollack, David Salzberg, and Andy Raymer on board as executive producers. The team will formally announce the project during an invitation-only private event today at the Toronto Film Festival. JET365 is hosting the gathering at the Vintage Conservatory, a members-only club in downtown Yorkville.
In a statement to Deadline on the project, Tamasy & Johnson said, “We’re incredibly honored to be able to tell this story. It is everything we love in a movie — emotional, inspiring, thrilling — and above all else a gripping account of the triumph of the human spirit and of the enduring strength of our most cherished values: freedom, compassion, and courage.
“Shakhtar,” the scribes continued, “which means “miner” in Ukrainian, reflecting the club’s deep roots in their hardscrabble coal country, have become a symbol of hope to a nation caught in a deeply perilous time, “the light in the darkness,” a reminder of who we are supposed to be. We are Shakhtar.”
Producers Tureaud and Trella said that when they first heard Shakhtar’s story, “we were awe-inspired, and knew this story deserved to be turned into a film.”
The duo continued, “We are thrilled to have Paul and Eric penning the script, their body of work is legendary, filled with compelling true stories encompassing sports, war and historic events. When we learned about their love for ‘The Beautiful Game’, we knew it was meant to be.”
