Recently, Austrian director Ulyssey Seidel’s new film Sparta was originally invited to participate in the “Contemporary Global Film” unit of the Toronto Film Festival! Unexpectedly, on September 9, a few hours before the screening, “Sparta” was suddenly cancelled by the film festival unilaterally, which shocked all film fans.
The reason is that Germany’s Der Spiegel published a news investigation on September 2, condemning the abuse of minors during the shooting of Sparta.
Ulyssey Seidel, who is 70 years old, is a gold medal director in the Austrian film industry. He won the jury award of the Venice Film Festival in 2001 with his debut feature film Dog Days. His works, such as Import and Export, Paradise Trilogy and Rimini, were also shortlisted in the main competition units of the three major European film festivals.
Sparta favored Georg Friedrich, the best actor winner of the Berlin Film Festival in 2017. His hero, Aiwade, is an Austrian who lives in a small town in Romania. On the surface, he conscientiously guides a group of children to practice judo. In fact, he has a tendency of paedophilia, which gradually makes parents in the town suspicious.
It is said that in the life of a little boy, there was a father who was addicted to alcohol and often punched and kicked him. The reason why the director singled him out for this play was because he knew his real life background beforehand. It is estimated that he thought that this would achieve more realistic performance effects.
On the other hand, as mentioned above, audiences familiar with Ulyssey Seidel’s works know that he is very fond of this kind of creative approach, which is true and false. However, this time it involves minors, and the situation is naturally different.
This year’s Toronto Film Festival was plagued by disasters. For example, the opening film “Swimming and Dancing Sisters” encountered the problem of ticket website downtime. According to local media reports, many viewers who bought tickets failed to swipe their booked e-tickets after the film began, causing many complaints.
The temporary cancellation of the screening of Sparta has made countless audiences complain! However, it is also hoped that no abuse of minors will occur in any film, so that the film can not be shown at all.