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Hollywood's Child 44 pulled in Russia after falling foul of culture ministry
Source: The Guardian
Hollywood's Child 44 pulled in Russia after falling foul of culture ministry
Shaun Walker in Moscow
Wednesday 15 April 2015 17.37 BST
A Hollywood film about a Soviet serial killer has been pulled from cinema schedules in Russia just days before it was due for release. Child 44, which stars Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman and is produced by Ridley Scott, was deemed “historically inaccurate” by Russia’s culture ministry.
While the ministry claimed the distributor decided not to release the film, industry experts said such a move would be unprecedented, and suggested it was another case of the ministry intervening to block culture it has deemed “ideologically incorrect”. The director of a Siberian opera house was fired recently after a staging of a Wagner opera featured controversial images of Jesus Christ.
The plot of Child 44 revolves around the search for a serial killer set in the early 1950s, and is based on the novel of the same name by the British author Tom Rob Smith. The author has said his book is loosely based on the story of the real-life mass murderer Andrei Chikatilo, although the action is set decades before Chikatilo’s killings took place. It was due for release across Russia at the end of this week, but mysteriously disappeared from schedules on Wednesday morning.
Later, a joint statement from the distributor, Central Partnership, and the culture ministry said the company had withdrawn its request to show the movie in Russia, “accepting all commercial consequences of this decision”.
“The Russian ministry of culture received questions about the contents of the film, particularly the distortion of historical facts and the interpretation of events before, during and after the Great Patriotic War (the second world war), as well as the character and spirit of Soviet citizens of this historical period,” the statement read.
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Shaun Walker in Moscow
Wednesday 15 April 2015 17.37 BST
A Hollywood film about a Soviet serial killer has been pulled from cinema schedules in Russia just days before it was due for release. Child 44, which stars Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman and is produced by Ridley Scott, was deemed “historically inaccurate” by Russia’s culture ministry.
While the ministry claimed the distributor decided not to release the film, industry experts said such a move would be unprecedented, and suggested it was another case of the ministry intervening to block culture it has deemed “ideologically incorrect”. The director of a Siberian opera house was fired recently after a staging of a Wagner opera featured controversial images of Jesus Christ.
The plot of Child 44 revolves around the search for a serial killer set in the early 1950s, and is based on the novel of the same name by the British author Tom Rob Smith. The author has said his book is loosely based on the story of the real-life mass murderer Andrei Chikatilo, although the action is set decades before Chikatilo’s killings took place. It was due for release across Russia at the end of this week, but mysteriously disappeared from schedules on Wednesday morning.
Later, a joint statement from the distributor, Central Partnership, and the culture ministry said the company had withdrawn its request to show the movie in Russia, “accepting all commercial consequences of this decision”.
“The Russian ministry of culture received questions about the contents of the film, particularly the distortion of historical facts and the interpretation of events before, during and after the Great Patriotic War (the second world war), as well as the character and spirit of Soviet citizens of this historical period,” the statement read.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/15/hollywoods-child-44-pulled-in-russia-after-falling-foul-of-culture-ministry