Netflix Drops A Trailer & Release Date For Russian Doping Exposé ‘Icarus’

“Were you the mastermind that cheated the Olympics?” filmmaker Bryan Fogel asks at the start of this new trailer for Netflix’s Icarus. And with the one-word answer from Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov — “Yes” — the doping exposé is off to the races.

Icarus nabbed the Sundance Film Festival’s inaugural Orwell Award this year, and last month it opened the 2017 AFI Docs fest in Washington, D.C. The film won an audience award at Sundance London.

The film chronicles the Fogel’s investigation into the international world of sports doping. An amateur bike racer, he contacted Rodchenkov, ostensibly the head of Russia’s anti-doping program but accused of being “at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program,” Netflix says.

“When the truth is more complex than imagined and accusations of illegalities run to Russia’s highest chains of command,” the streaming service says, “the two realize they hold the power to reveal the biggest international sports scandal in living memory. Exemplifying the special bond between filmmaker and subject, this is a vital portrait of the sacrifice some people will make to stand up for truth. Icarus places you at the heart of an international game of cat and mouse, where a miscalculation can cost you your life.”

The film will open in theaters and launch globally on Netflix on August 4.