The film about paedophilia that shakes the 70th edition of the San Sebastian Festival

[Artaxerxes II]

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The film directed by Austrian director Ulrich Seidl is about paedophilia and other festivals, such as Toronto, have refused to present it.

Director Ulrich Seidl has been at the centre of controversy on more than one occasion, seeking to show the 'B side' of Europe, but his latest film seems to have crossed certain boundaries that have been discovered after a report signed by the German newspaper Der Spiegel, published on September 2.

At this 70th edition of the San Sebastian Festival, the 69-year-old director was presenting his film about pedophilia Sparta, which was shot in 2019 and was already released at the Berlinale. At the last minute, Seidl has announced that he will not attend the festival due to the storm caused by the report by the German media.

According to Der Spiegel, the director deliberately hid from parents and underage actors that the film was about pedophilia, exposing them not only to sexual themes that they were unaware of, but also to violence and alcoholism, themes that were very present during the filming. At the time the film was being made, the non-professional actors who worked with Seidl were between 9 and 16 years old. The Toronto Film Festival decided to cancel the screening of the film this month because of the film. The Hamburg Film Festival will continue its screening, but will withdraw the award of an honorary prize to Seidl.

The San Sebastian Film Festival has not cancelled its screening and its director, José Luis Rebordinos, explained his reasons to El País: “Here we believe in the presumption of innocence. We have carefully read this report, we have confirmed that there is not a single complaint in court in either Austria or Romania, and the entire selection team at the Zinemaldia has seen the film to compare what was shown. Only a court order establishing this would lead us to cancel a scheduled screening.” Seidl wanted to avoid controversy and to be shown in front of the media, so he suspended his participation in the Festival.

“I am very grateful to José Luis Rebordinos for supporting Sparta from the beginning, despite the media pressure and the sudden and unexpected controversy it has sparked. It means a lot to me. My initial impulse was to go to San Sebastian and not leave alone the film that my team and I have worked on for so many years. However, I have realized that my presence at the premiere could overshadow the reception of the film. Now it is time for the film to speak for itself,” he said in his statement. “It is a sad moment. We wanted Seidl to come and defend his work,” was Rebordinos’ response.

There was no press conference on Sunday and no one from the team was present for its premiere. Filmin will distribute the film both in cinemas and via streaming. Beyond the report by the German media, Sparta has been stirring up controversy in Romania for more than a year. The children's guardians have reportedly complained and local Romanian authorities in Satu Mare and the DIICOT agency, which reports to the prosecutor's office, have opened an investigation.

For his part, the Romanian Minister of Culture, Lucian Romaşcanu, told the media that: “This is a serious matter. If you let your child act in a film, you obviously have to see the script, sign a contract and have all the information necessary to make a decision.” “They were informed that the film was about an adult who is attracted to the children and who assumes a certain role of father figure over them,” the director's lawyer simply replied. “If the parents had objections to the filming or how we treat their children, or if the children had felt uncomfortable with us, they would not have continued to collaborate for so long,” the director said in a later statement.
“Needless to say, I never forced any child (or any of the actors) to do anything on camera that they did not want to do. The younger actors were under constant supervision. Next to the set we built rooms where they could rest or play, just as we had done in my other films. When they were not shooting, they could spend time there, accompanied by professionals.” “Contrary to what the weekly mentions, I also explained to the parents, one by one (with the help of interpreters), all the essential elements of the film before the shooting. Including the ambiguity of the character of Ewald, the protagonist, and his relationship with the children.

The journalists from Der Speigel did not ask us for a copy of the script that Veronika Franz and I wrote – which evolved during the shooting in collaboration with the actors – and which served as a starting point for the conversation. The journalists did not even ask to see the film,” Seidl defends the weekly, which in turn claims that the filming crew did not include psychologists.

Sparta, the film

The film is a derivative production of another Seidl work, Rimini. There we meet the current protagonist: Ewald. The film has been carried out with care, almost with too much delicacy.
As I mentioned, it is about pedophilia, that of a man, Ewald, a judo master with tendencies towards pedophilia that in the film never go a step further. There are no nude or explicitly sexual scenes. The children are at most in their underwear and Ewald limits himself to looking at them with a certain forbidden desire and taking photos of them. The children come to him to escape from their miserable lives, where at home, carefree and alcoholic parents await them.