Paris‑based sales company Charades (“Urchin”) has boarded “Bloodsuckers,” a family thriller that marks the sophomore feature of Elin Grönblom (“Ella and Friends”).

Currently in post-production, the film is being showcased today at Göteborg Film Festival’s Works in Progress and will be officially launched by Charades at the EFM where a promo reel will be presented to buyers.

“Bloodsuckers” is produced by Mylla Films, an ambitious genre film and TV label launched by Patrik Andersson, whose credits include Ari Aster’s “Midsommar” and Jakob Abrahamsson, who previously worked at NonStop Entertainment.

The story follows Johanna (38), who heads off on a well-deserved vacation with her family. “A visit to the deep Scandinavian forest leaves her drawn to a mesmerizing dark bog, where relentless mosquitoes seem to awaken something within her. As their bites take hold, her self-preserving instincts emerge, transforming her into a mother driven to extremes to finally find some peace and quiet,” reads the synopsis.

Grönblom is a promising Scandinavian filmmaker who graduated with a MFA in Filmmaking from The New York Film Academy and made her debut feature, “Ella and Friends,” after having directed several acclaimed short films, including “My Dad’s an Alien!” and “Goldfish Love.”

Andersson and Abrahamsson, who are producing via their four-year old vehicle Mylla Films, said, “We are thrilled to be in the hands of Charades and to see the film launched onto the international market with the strongest possible partner for a feature like this, their love for bold, director-driven cinema makes it the perfect home for the film.”

“‘Bloodsuckers’ stands out through its singular blend of psychological thriller, dark humour and an unsettling portrait of family life, exquisitely crafted and executed by Elin Grönblom and Johanna Sonck it’s coming along both deeply Scandinavian and strikingly universal. It’s a film that will hit close to home – wherever home is – and we’re thrilled to be presenting it to the international market at EFM”

Charades’ co-founder Carole Baraton said, “We wanted to be a part of as soon as we heard its pitch, the film blends everything we love in Scandi cinema — (very) dark-humour, sharp social critique and close character study — and refreshingly takes on the sacro-saint institution of the family.” “We can not wait to bring Elin’s radical yet playful voice to audiences,” Baraton added.

Mylla films’ development pipeline includes Michael Marcimain’s “Devastation (“Förhärjelsen”), and Måns Mårlind’s “Before They Were Gods” with Nick Cave and Joakim Thåström.

The project is backed by Film i Väst, Sveriges Television, Good Hand Production and Nonstop Winning Formula, with the support from the Swedish Film Institute (commissioner Hanna Sohlberg), Finnish Film Foundation, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Svenska Kulturfonden and Amos Andersons Fond; in association with YLE, Cinemanse, Nonstop Entertainment, MAEQ Studios and Peter Harrysson Media Invest. “Bloodsuckers” was produced as part of an initiative from the Swedish Film Institute and Sveriges Television called Moving Sweden.

President Donald Trump on Thursday declared a national emergency via an executive order over Cuba, accusing the communist regime of aligning with hostile foreign powers and terrorist groups while moving to punish countries that supply the island nation with oil.

Thursday’s executive order states that the policies and actions of the Cuban government constitute “an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

To address that threat, Trump ordered the creation of a tariff mechanism that allows the U.S. to impose additional duties on imports from foreign countries that “directly or indirectly sell or otherwise provide any oil to Cuba,” according to the order.

The White House said the move marks a significant escalation in U.S. pressure on the Cuban government, aimed at protecting American national security and foreign policy interests.

MADURO’S CAPTURE IS ‘BEGINNING OF THE END’ FOR CUBA’S REGIME, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE CHAIR SAYS

In the order, Trump said Cuba aligns itself with and provides support for “numerous hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups, and malign actors adverse to the United States,” naming Russia, China, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.

The administration said Cuba hosts Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility, which the order states attempts to steal sensitive U.S. national security information. The order also says Cuba continues to deepen intelligence and defense cooperation with China.

According to the order, Cuba “welcomes transnational terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.”

Trump also cited the Cuban government’s human rights record, accusing the regime of persecuting and torturing political opponents, denying free speech and press freedoms, and retaliating against families of political prisoners who protest peacefully.

“The United States has zero tolerance for the depredations of the communist Cuban regime,” Trump said in the order, adding that the administration will act to hold the regime accountable while supporting the Cuban people’s aspirations for a free and democratic society.

CUBA’S SHADOW IN VENEZUELA: HAVANA’S INTELLIGENCE AND MILITARY TIES EXPOSED AFTER MADURO RAID

Under the order, the Commerce Department will determine whether a foreign country is supplying oil to Cuba, either directly or through intermediaries. The State Department, working with Treasury, Homeland Security, Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative, will decide whether and how steep the new tariffs should be if so.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is tasked with monitoring the national emergency and reporting to Congress, while the Commerce Department will continue tracking which countries are supplying oil to Cuba.

In a fact sheet, the White House said the order is designed to protect U.S. national security and foreign policy from the Cuban regime’s “malign actions and policies,” and described the move as part of Trump’s broader effort to confront regimes that threaten American interests.

The administration said the action builds on Trump’s first-term Cuba policy, which reversed Obama-era engagement and reinstated tougher measures against the communist government.

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The executive order is set to take effect Friday.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for additional comment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he plans to increase his armed forces’ lethality as part of a strategy to disarm Moscow and turn a deadlocked negotiating table.

“The task of Ukrainian units is to ensure a level of destruction of the occupier at which Russian losses exceed the number of reinforcements they can send to their forces each month,” he told military personnel on Monday.

“We are talking about 50,000 Russian losses per month, this is the optimal level,” he said.

Video analysis, Zelenskyy recently said, showed 35,000 confirmed kills in December 2025, up from 30,000 in November and 26,000 in October. But on Monday, he clarified that the 35,000 were “killed and badly wounded occupiers”, who would not be returning to the battlefield.

His commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, conservatively estimated “more than 33,000” confirmed kills in December.

Ukraine believes it has killed or maimed 1.2 million Russians since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies recently estimated that Russia had suffered 1.2mn casualties, including at least 325,000 deaths, and Ukraine up to 600,000 casualties, with as many as 140,000 deaths.

Al Jazeera cannot confirm casualty estimates from either side.

The war is currently stalemated, with Russia struggling to make meaningful territorial gains.

Russia held just more than a quarter of Ukraine a month into its full-scale war, in March 2022, according to geolocated footage.

The following month, Ukraine pushed Russian forces back from a string of northern cities – Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv – leaving Russia in possession of one-fifth of the country.

In August and September 2022, then-ground forces commander Syrskii masterminded a campaign to push Russian forces east of the Oskil River in the northern Kharkiv region, and Russia itself withdrew east of the Dnipro River in the southern region of Kherson, leaving it with 17.8 percent of the country.

In the last three years, Russia increased that number to 19.3 percent.

For almost six months, Russia has struggled to seize two towns it has almost surrounded with 150,000 troops in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

“In Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, the Ukrainian Defence Forces continue to contain the enemy, which is trying to infiltrate the northern districts of both cities in small groups,” Syrskii said last week.

Russia claimed it had captured the northern city of Kupiansk last month, but Russian military reporters say Ukrainian forces have retaken control of the town and surrounded the Russian assault force within it.

The engine of war

Zelenskyy’s strategy involves increasing domestic drone production and honing the skills of drone operators, because drones now hit 80 percent of targets on the battlefield.

“In just the past year alone, 819,737 targets were hit – hit by drones. And we clearly record every single hit,” he said on Monday.

The military has instituted a point system, rewarding drone operators for the number and precision of their hits.

That reflects a system put in place in April 2024, offering financial rewards to ground troops for destroying Russian battlefield equipment, culminating in $23,000 for capturing a battle tank.

Zelenskyy appointed Mykhailo Fedorov as defence minister this month, who previously served as digital transformation minister and deputy prime minister for innovation, education, science and technology.

Last week, Fedorov began to appoint his advisers. They include Serhiy Sternenko, who last year created Ukraine’s largest non-state supplier of military drones, to step up drone production. Fedorov’s former deputy at the digital transformation ministry, Valeriya Ionan, was put in charge of international collaborations, thanks to her experience with Silicon Valley giants like Google and Cisco. Fedorov also appointed Serhiy Beskrestnov as technological adviser. Beskrestnov is an expert on Russian drone and electronic warfare innovation.

Russian assaults pound Ukraine

Zelenskyy’s war aims stem in part from the fact that Russia refuses to give up its campaign to seize more of Ukraine.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s efforts to bring about a ceasefire, talks remain deadlocked over the future of Donetsk.

Russia’s worst attack against Ukrainian cities and energy facilities last week came on Saturday, involving 375 drones and 21 missiles, as Russian, US and Ukrainian delegations were negotiating a ceasefire in Abu Dhabi.

The strike left 1.2 million homes without power nationwide, including 6,000 in Kyiv.

Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said 800,000 homes in Kyiv were still without power following three previous strikes this month. “Constant enemy attacks unfortunately keep the situation from being stabilised,” he wrote on social media.

Zelenskyy told Ukrainians in an evening video address that electricity supply problems were still widespread in Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro and in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions.

“We are scaling up assistance points and warming centers,” he said, adding that 174 [crews] were working to fix the damage in Kyiv alone. Shmyal said 710,000 people were still without power in Kyiv.

A Czech grassroots initiative fundraised $6m to buy hundreds of electric generators for Ukrainian households. On Friday, the European Commission said it was sending 447 generators to Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Russian drones killed three people. Two of them were a young couple in Kyiv killed when a drone struck their apartment building. Rescuers found only their four-year-old daughter alive.

“When I carried her out, the girl started crying very hard, and then she began to shake violently,” said Marian Kushnir, a journalist who was a neighbour of the couple.

At least five more people died when a drone struck a passenger train in the northern Kharkiv region, and two children and a pregnant woman were wounded when 50 drones rained down on the southern port of Odesa.

Talks in Abu Dhabi ended without a ceasefire. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said before they began that Russia was not willing to compromise on any of its territorial demands.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said talks were focusing on the nub of disagreement between the two sides, which is Ukraine’s refusal to hand over the remaining one-fifth of Donetsk that Moscow does not control.

Talks are scheduled to continue in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, officials said.

Unvarnished truth from Zelenskyy

In a scathing speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zelenskyy accused his European allies of “wait-hoping” the Russian threat would disappear after almost four years of war in Ukraine.

“Europe relies only on the belief that if danger comes, NATO will act. But no one has really seen the Alliance in action. If Putin decides to take Lithuania or strike Poland, who will respond?” Zelenskyy asked.

US President Donald Trump’s threat to take Greenland by force on January 17, he said, revealed Europe’s lack of readiness when seven Nordic countries sent 40 soldiers to the island.

“If you send 30 or 40 soldiers to Greenland – what is that for? What message does it send? What’s the message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin? To China? And even more importantly, what message does it send to Denmark – the most important – your close ally?”

In contrast, said Zelenskyy, Trump was willing to seize Russian tankers selling sanctioned oil, and put Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on drug charges, while Putin, an indicted war criminal, remained free. “No security guarantees work without the US,” he said.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte echoed those sentiments in a speech to the European Parliament on Monday [January 26].

“If anyone thinks here . . . that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming,” he said. “You can’t.”