(Vienna) The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has canceled the world premiere screening scheduled for Friday of the feature film dealing with pedophilia Spartadirected by Austrian Ulrich Seidl, after accusations of ill-treatment while filming in Romania.
Posted at 9:01 a.m.
“This film has been removed from the festival. We apologize for any inconvenience, ”we can read without further details on the TIFF website.
Contacted by AFP, the production company Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion GmbH refused to make any statement “concerning the cancellation”.
Sparta is about an Austrian judo trainer, played by award-winning Berlin actor Georg Friedrich, who tries to combat his pedophile tendencies by starting a new life in a remote region of Romania.
Last week, the German weekly Der Spiegel had published anonymous testimonies from members of the film crew as well as children who had played in the film and claimed to have been brutalized there.
Parents are also quoted and say they were not properly informed about the subject of the film, still on condition of anonymity.
These allegations were brushed aside by the 69-year-old director, twice winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, in 2001 for Dog Days and in 2012 for paradise: faith.
“No child was filmed naked in a situation, a pose or a sexualized context”, reacted Ulrich Seidl on his website after the publication of the article.
“I informed the parents of all the essential content of the film during numerous individual meetings with a translator before shooting,” he added.
An investigation by the Organized Crime and Terrorism Investigation Directorate (DIICOT) is underway in the county of Satu Mare (northwestern Romania), where the shooting took place, according to a Romanian judicial source interviewed by AFP.
Sparta was co-produced in Austria, Germany and France, notably by Philippe Bober, who had already participated in the financing of The Squareby Swede Ruben Östlund, Palme d’or at Cannes in 2017.
This is the second part of a diptych after Riminipresented in Berlin in February by Ulrich Seidl.
The quasi-documentary style, where nothing is spared to the spectator, of this director accustomed to festivals, has often been criticized by critics, who denounce for some the sordidness of his works.
Sparta is still programmed in competition at the San Sebastian festival which begins on Friday 16 September.