The feature film “Olga,” co-produced by Switzerland, France and Ukraine, has picked up the prize for best screenplay at the 74th International Critics Week, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival.
The winners of this year’s critics week were announced on July 14.
“Olga,” directed by French filmmaker Eli Grapp and co-written with Raphaëlle Desplechin, was shot in Ukraine, as well as in Switzerland and Germany. It follows the story of a Ukrainian gymnast at the turn of the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
Grapp picked newcomer Anastasiia Budiashkina, a Ukrainian gymnast from the eastern city of Luhansk, to play the role of Olga, with support from other non-professional actors.
Budiashkina stars as a 15-year-old Ukrainian gymnast who has fled Ukraine because of threats to her mother’s life – a political journalist reporting from the EuroMaidan protests, settling with her father’s family in Switzerland. Olga is training to compete at the European Championships. She is torn between her career in Switzerland and the stake of her family’s fate and country’s future in Kyiv, where the Revolution of Dignity is in turmoil.
The Ukrainian production company Pronto Film participated in the shootings, which started in 2017. The company’s general producer, Maksym Asadchyi said that the festival’s viewers warmly welcomed the film, thanking the crew for it.
“The audience cried watching footage from the Revolution of Dignity,” Asadchyi said in a statement published by Pronto Film on Facebook on July 15.
Ukrainian gymnast Anastasiia Budiashkina plays the leading role in the feature film “Olga,” co-produced by Switzerland, France and Ukraine. (Courtesy)
The movie had an international premiere at Cannes. It was selected among seven feature and seven short films for the critics week.
The critics week’s SACD Award for best screenplay granted the film a cash prize of 5,000 euros.
The film is set to release in Ukraine in February 2022.
