It’s been a rocky year for Ulrich Seidl. As far back as last February, Rimini was winning over critics at the Berlinale (us included) with its bleak beauty and frankly stunning central turn from Michel Thomas as the washed-up troubadour Richie Bravo. The director’s follow-up, titled Sparta and focusing on Bravo’s brother, was selected to open at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. A week before its premiere, allegations against Seidl emerged from an article published in Der Spiegel. In Sparta, Bravo’s brother (a pedophile played brilliantly by Georg Friedrich) travels to Romania and opens a judo school for young boys. The article alleged, amongst other things, that the child actors in Sparta had not been sufficiently protected on set and that their families had not been made aware of the film’s themes.
Seidl denied any wrongdoing; TIFF pulled the film the morning it was due to premiere.
Seidl denied any wrongdoing; TIFF pulled the film the morning it was due to premiere.
- 4/6/2023
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Ulrich Seidl took top honors Saturday for “Rimini” at Spain’s 60th Gijón-Xixón Film Festival, having hit back at German magazine Der Spiegel’s allegations of impropriety and child exploitation on the set of “Sparta,” “Rimini’s” companion piece.
World premiering at the Berlin Festival, “Rimini,” a “riveting, upsetting Ulrich Seidl slow-burn electrified by a stunning central turn,” said Variety, follows washed up crooner Richie Bravo (Michael Thomas) who is suddenly opportune for money by his estranged daughter.
“Sparta” focuses on Richie’s wayward brother, Eward, who buys an abandoned school in Romania’s Transylvania, converting it into a compound called Sparta where he teaches young children self-defence. That provides a chance for him to photograph them in undress.
Also Germany’s biggest news website, Der Spiegel alleged that Seidl did not reveal “Sparta’s” focus on pedophilia to its young non-pro actors, aged 9-16, nor to their guardians, and...
World premiering at the Berlin Festival, “Rimini,” a “riveting, upsetting Ulrich Seidl slow-burn electrified by a stunning central turn,” said Variety, follows washed up crooner Richie Bravo (Michael Thomas) who is suddenly opportune for money by his estranged daughter.
“Sparta” focuses on Richie’s wayward brother, Eward, who buys an abandoned school in Romania’s Transylvania, converting it into a compound called Sparta where he teaches young children self-defence. That provides a chance for him to photograph them in undress.
Also Germany’s biggest news website, Der Spiegel alleged that Seidl did not reveal “Sparta’s” focus on pedophilia to its young non-pro actors, aged 9-16, nor to their guardians, and...
- 11/20/2022
- by Pablo Sandoval
- Variety Film + TV
Ulrich Seidl is a director of curiosities, of shabby characters, pursued with an uncompromising and sometimes unfashionable gaze. Yet Sparta arrives in competition at the San Sebastian film festival at the head of considerable controversy not from its disturbing themes of pedophilia, but from incidents off-screen.
The Spanish event debuts the movie after the Toronto film festival scrapped its world premiere at the last minute in the fallout of allegations made in Germany’s Der Spiegel. The weekly magazine’s lengthy investigation said Seidl didn’t tell the underage cast and their guardians of the story’s themes and that he underprepared his mainly non-professional performers of the film’s nudity, alcoholism, and violence. Seidl denies the accusations, but canceled his appearance and the accompanying press conference in the Basque Country to support the film.
As to the charges against Sparta, on screen there is adult nudity in the space...
The Spanish event debuts the movie after the Toronto film festival scrapped its world premiere at the last minute in the fallout of allegations made in Germany’s Der Spiegel. The weekly magazine’s lengthy investigation said Seidl didn’t tell the underage cast and their guardians of the story’s themes and that he underprepared his mainly non-professional performers of the film’s nudity, alcoholism, and violence. Seidl denies the accusations, but canceled his appearance and the accompanying press conference in the Basque Country to support the film.
As to the charges against Sparta, on screen there is adult nudity in the space...
- 9/20/2022
- by Ed Frankl
- The Film Stage
Ulrich Seidl’s “Sparta” has been pulled from the Toronto International Film Festival amid allegations of impropriety and child exploitation against the director, but its premiere at next week’s San Sebastian Film Festival will continue as planned, Variety can reveal.
A spokesperson for the Spanish festival tells Variety on behalf of festival management that “Sparta” will remain in competition.
Providing a three-point list explaining their reasoning, San Sebastian said “the festival team assesses the films after their viewing according to their interest and quality” and that the event “does not have the ability to judge how a film has been shot and whether a crime has been committed in the course of the filming. If anyone has any evidence of a crime, they should report it to a judge.”
The statement concludes: “Only a court order would lead us to suspend a scheduled screening.”
This means that “Sparta” is...
A spokesperson for the Spanish festival tells Variety on behalf of festival management that “Sparta” will remain in competition.
Providing a three-point list explaining their reasoning, San Sebastian said “the festival team assesses the films after their viewing according to their interest and quality” and that the event “does not have the ability to judge how a film has been shot and whether a crime has been committed in the course of the filming. If anyone has any evidence of a crime, they should report it to a judge.”
The statement concludes: “Only a court order would lead us to suspend a scheduled screening.”
This means that “Sparta” is...
- 9/10/2022
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
The Toronto International Film Festival has withdrawn the film “Sparta” following allegations of on-set impropriety and child exploitation against Austrian director Ulrich Seidl.
“Sparta” was due to have its world premiere in Toronto on Friday afternoon. However, there had been speculation as to whether the film would remain in the festival after allegations against Seidl and the production were published on Sept. 2 in German news magazine Der Spiegel.
The investigation alleges that Seidl did not communicate the film’s theme of paedophilia to its young actors, who were between the ages of 9 and 16 and not from professional backgrounds. It’s also alleged that the actors were confronted with alcoholism, nudity and violence during the production without adequate preparation or support.
Der Spiegel says its journalists spent more than six months investigating the production of “Sparta” in Germany, Austria and Romania, and spoke to dozens of crew members, including some actors.
“Sparta” was due to have its world premiere in Toronto on Friday afternoon. However, there had been speculation as to whether the film would remain in the festival after allegations against Seidl and the production were published on Sept. 2 in German news magazine Der Spiegel.
The investigation alleges that Seidl did not communicate the film’s theme of paedophilia to its young actors, who were between the ages of 9 and 16 and not from professional backgrounds. It’s also alleged that the actors were confronted with alcoholism, nudity and violence during the production without adequate preparation or support.
Der Spiegel says its journalists spent more than six months investigating the production of “Sparta” in Germany, Austria and Romania, and spoke to dozens of crew members, including some actors.
- 9/9/2022
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Richie Bravo (Michael Thomas) is a sleazy schlager superstar in disgrace. If he was ever truly popular at all it’s hard to tell, he now only sings to old people in the tacky lounges and restaurants of mediocre hotels. Absurd and unsettling, Ulrich Seidl’s Rimini proposes a brilliant study of a decaying middle-age masculinity, where poor choices and poor taste mask profound crises.
Just as Rimini is cold and deserted, almost against its nature – a summer tourist resort in winter – Richie Bravo is also out of season. He gambles all the money he has left or spends it on drinks and he’s clinging to a fake persona and a nostalgic past. As do his lamentably loyal (mostly female) senior fans, so very enamoured with his Italian-language crooners. Dressed in glitzy costumes, he can barely still fit in and in front of sparkly backgrounds, Richie’s shows are a painfully awkward.
Just as Rimini is cold and deserted, almost against its nature – a summer tourist resort in winter – Richie Bravo is also out of season. He gambles all the money he has left or spends it on drinks and he’s clinging to a fake persona and a nostalgic past. As do his lamentably loyal (mostly female) senior fans, so very enamoured with his Italian-language crooners. Dressed in glitzy costumes, he can barely still fit in and in front of sparkly backgrounds, Richie’s shows are a painfully awkward.
- 2/27/2022
- by Dora Leu
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Anyone seeking a peek into Ulrich Seidl’s worldview–perhaps his soul–could do worse than Rimini, his first film since Safari in 2016 and first narrative feature in almost a decade. It swells with Seidl ephemera: hunting trophies, Austrian basements, and lovelorn holiday-makers of a certain age. And then there’s the mood. Consider a shot near the end of its first act: a ghostly, out-of-season water park looming over an out-of-season man; mist clouds so dense they hang over the park’s slides; and just to the right, still as statues, a group of hooded refugees.
Rimini, a dense and discomforting character study, stars an astonishing Michael Thomas as Richie Bravo, a once-popular singer of German Schlager music (a derided and sentimental genre that came to fame in the postwar years), now making ends meet as a washed entertainer in holiday resorts where he serenades, occasionally seduces (for a little extra income) aging fans.
Rimini, a dense and discomforting character study, stars an astonishing Michael Thomas as Richie Bravo, a once-popular singer of German Schlager music (a derided and sentimental genre that came to fame in the postwar years), now making ends meet as a washed entertainer in holiday resorts where he serenades, occasionally seduces (for a little extra income) aging fans.
- 2/12/2022
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
‘Rimini’ Review: A Riveting, Upsetting Ulrich Seidl Slow-Burn Electrified by a Stunning Central Turn
Freezing winter in a place designed for frolicsome summer can be a doleful time. A case in point: the empty hotels, shuttered waterparks and endless fog banks of the Italian beach town that gives Ulrich Seidl’s challenging but riveting Berlin competition film its name. Along with the hazy gray shoreline and lonely iced-over thoroughfares, they’re the visual markers of a low season in which the “low” refers as much to mood as occupancy rates, though for the city’s tourist industry, it’s a gloom that will lift with the coming of spring. For Seidl’s film, a shiveringly precise slow burn that continues to burrow new tunnels in the mind long after it ends, no such renewal is in the cards. In “Rimini,” low season can always get lower.
The brilliantly named Richie Bravo (Austrian actor Michael Thomas giving such an astoundingly deep-dive performance it barely feels...
The brilliantly named Richie Bravo (Austrian actor Michael Thomas giving such an astoundingly deep-dive performance it barely feels...
- 2/12/2022
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Austrian director Ulrich Seidl, whose latest feature “Rimini” plays in the main competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, is winding down production on his next film, Variety can reveal.
“Sparta” is a companion piece to Seidl’s competition entry and revolves around the brother of that film’s protagonist, the washed-up singer Richie Bravo. “[‘Rimini’] actually originated as a much larger story,” the director told Variety. “This original story that I started writing was about the two brothers and their father.” Though Seidl wouldn’t share further details about the plot of “Sparta,” he noted that “both protagonists are caught up by their past.”
Marking the director’s return to the Berlinale’s main competition since 2013’s “Paradise: Hope,” “Rimini” is the story of a faded middle-aged crooner trying to make ends meet in the titular Italian resort town during a bleak, blustery off-season. His precarious world is...
“Sparta” is a companion piece to Seidl’s competition entry and revolves around the brother of that film’s protagonist, the washed-up singer Richie Bravo. “[‘Rimini’] actually originated as a much larger story,” the director told Variety. “This original story that I started writing was about the two brothers and their father.” Though Seidl wouldn’t share further details about the plot of “Sparta,” he noted that “both protagonists are caught up by their past.”
Marking the director’s return to the Berlinale’s main competition since 2013’s “Paradise: Hope,” “Rimini” is the story of a faded middle-aged crooner trying to make ends meet in the titular Italian resort town during a bleak, blustery off-season. His precarious world is...
- 2/10/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
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