The film “Olga”, which evokes the Maidan revolt in kyiv in 2013, obviously does not please Beijing: it was withdrawn from the poster on Wednesday when it was to be screened the same evening in China.
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The Franco-Swiss film Olga, which evokes the Maidan revolt in kyiv in 2013, is obviously not to the taste of Beijing, in the midst of the war in Ukraine. The feature film directed by Frenchman Elie Grappe, whose screening was scheduled for Wednesday evening in China, has been removed from the poster and the screening postponed to an unspecified date, the Swiss Embassy in Beijing said on Wednesday.
A first screening, organized last week by Switzerland in a cinema in Beijing, had already been “prevented at the last minute by the Chinese authorities“, indicated the Swiss embassy.
“The reason given was first the Covid, then the content of the film“, added the representation of Bern, which says to have”immediately protested“with the local authorities.
The film had been selected to represent Switzerland in the race for the Oscars. It was to be presented in Beijing as part of the Mois de la Francophonie and 10 foreign ambassadors, as well as around sixty people, had been invited for the March 31 screening.
The film Olga tells the story of a 15-year-old Ukrainian gymnasium forced to train in Switzerland when the Maidan revolt broke out in her country. A revolt covered on the spot by his journalist mother, which was to lead to the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, followed by the annexation of Crimea by Moscow.
This theme may have appeared too sensitive in the eyes of the communist regime, which refrained from condemning the war in Ukraine and refused to speak “of invasion” Russian. Beijing shares with Moscow a hostility towards the United States, which it accuses of being responsible for the Ukrainian crisis because of “expansion” from NATO.