Did director Ulrich Seidl abuse children for the filming of his pedophilia movie?

The Austrian director of Dog days (Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival),Import Export (selected at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival) e of the trilogy of Paradise (Love, faith and hope, selected in Cannes in 2012, at the Mostra in 2012 and at the Berlinale in 2013) has live hell for the kids while filming your movie, Sparta ? This was revealed by an investigation by the investigative media Der Spiegelpublished on September 2, 2022.

A shooting that would mistreat children for a movie about pedophilia

The German weekly investigated for six months, gathering the testimonies of a dozen people while filming the film in Romania from winter 2018 to summer 2019. Sparta. The plot revolves around a judo teacher who discovers a sexual attraction for children (without acting a priori).

To embody these, the director would have chosen in particular young non-professional actors aged 9 to 16, recruited in a small Romanian village in a poor region, without specifying the true subject of the film to their parents : the turning point from pedophilia to pedophilia.

Der Spiegel it therefore refers to a distorted consent, in particular to acting out scenes in underwear, and to the lack of psychological support for these children suddenly exposed to scenes of alcoholism, violence and nudity. Some episodes of psychological and even physical violence against children is also described, actually in the service of fiction.

Ulrich Seidl, a director with a raw, almost documentary aesthetic

Director Ulrich Seidl, through his lawyer, denies these allegations, ensuring that parents and children knew what they were getting into.. Already, in July 2019, the Romanian authorities had opened an investigation into the alleged “ various acts of violence “, Before closing the file in February 2022. It will be reopened following this new investigation by Der Spiegel ?

Note that this controversial film, Spartabenefits from multiple financial support, including the Austrian Film Institute (equivalent to the French CNC), the cultural fund of the Council of Europe, as noted Publication. It is part of a diptych whose first part, Rimini, will be released in France on November 23, 2022. And we can expect Ulrich Seidl to continue his raw, almost documentary aesthetic, with the help of wild castings of non-professionals to represent the horrors of humanity in his fiction. But at what price, really?

Front page photo credit: Ulrich Seidl, Austrian Film Prize 2013 in Vienna City Hall Ballroom, photographed by Manfred Werner – Tsui / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported