Director Elie Grappe’s debut film, showing for free at the European Film Festival from 21-23 October, has a stinging, unintended relevance to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. Set in 2013, it follows Olga, a teenage Ukrainian gymnast chasing dreams of the Olympic games. Her mother is an outspoken investigative journalist whose public criticisms of president Viktor Yanukovych have made her a target for intimidation and assassination. Out of concern for her safety, Olga is sent to compete for Switzerland (the country of her late father) in the European championships. Shortly after arriving, the crackdown on the Euromaïdan protests turns her country into a war zone, forcing the 15-year-old to make huge decisions about her life. 

The film was released in 2021, before the invasion, but Olga’s exile in Europe and the guilt and pain of being separated from her home and loved ones is a tragically relatable Ukrainian experience at the moment. Indeed, the actress who plays Olga, Anastasiia Budiashkina, has herself recently been forced to flee Ukraine and has also been living in Switzerland. 

Production still of Anastasiia Budiashkina in ‘Olga.’ Image: courtesy of the European Film Festival

Production still from ‘Olga.’ Image: courtesy of the European Film Festival

To compete for the Swiss team, Olga would have to become a Swiss citizen, which means forfeiting her Ukrainian passport since it doesn’t allow dual citizenship; but if she chooses to return and join her family and friends behind the barricades of Maïdan Square, she may never be able to leave the country, and lose her opportunity to compete at a high level. (or possibly lose her life in the frenzy of police brutality.)

Her struggle to choose her national identity seems to mirror that of Ukraine itself – it was Ukraine’s desire to be part of the European Union that sparked the Euromaïdan protests. Olga is given the choice that her country wasn’t, but for her choosing Europe means being separated rather than included.

Olga is constantly having opinions barked at her compelling her to remain in Switzerland – her mother asks her to stay so that she’s safe; her coach insists that going home will do nothing to help Ukraine; and her Swiss family doesn’t understand Ukraine’s fight for freedom or even recognise it as a revolution. Few sympathise with her agony at seeing videos of her friends and family fighting back home. 

Protesters on a barricade. Production still from ‘Winter On Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom’. Image: courtesy of Netflix

Production still from ‘Olga.’ Image: courtesy of the European Film Festival

The ping of her phone comes to portend scenes of carnage – the film incorporates actual footage from Kyiv, each clip more brutal than the last. Having Olga as our eyes, we experience it as if it were our own home. From the first video she sees, the cinematography changes and breathes, creating an erratic daze that swings with her forced calm and erupting directionless anger.

These turbulent emotions manifest in her obsessive training. Budiashkina formerly competed in the Ukrainian national team in real life – her command of each apparatus allows her to communicate vastly differing mental states with the same routine. The gymnastics in the film is world-class but it’s used as a language to communicate the story rather than a spectacle. Grappe wields the sounds, rhythms and effervescent social dynamics of the gym to create colourful and dramatic scenes out of what might have been repetitive practising.

Grappe’s portrayal of Olga’s flux between child and adult is also handled expertly. In an early scene she seems childishly entitled, accusing her mother of neglect because she works so hard, but moments later, when she is hurt in a terrifying accident, it is she who comforts her mom. Olga looks up with the bewildered yet discerning expression of a child still learning how to react, and then makes a visible decision to stifle her own fright and assure her mother; a fantastic performance by Budiashkina.

Production still from ‘Olga.’ Image: courtesy of the European Film Festival

Olga is often shown alone in large spaces, such as a running track or a gymnasium hall. As a viewer we are acutely aware of her vulnerability, a girl who still travels with a teddy, alone in a foreign country with nobody watching her back. She’s also spiritually alone – unable to integrate with her Italian- and French-speaking teammates, underestimated by her coach, and shamed by her Ukrainian friends for not being there with them. 

Olga extends our attention to those in our periphery who have escaped the mayhem of Ukraine, Afghanistan or Somalia, but still live with the guilt, terror and alienation of exile. Grappe struggles to resolve the story, opting for a slow, vaguely optimistic open ending that is pitifully ironic given what we now know, a bright scene informed by the brief peace which Ukrainians still hoped for before Putin’s war came crashing down. DM/ML 

Olga is available in South Africa at the European Film Festival: Screening is free online from 21 to 23 October. Live screenings are on 16 October: Ster Kinekor – The Zone (Joburg) at 5pm and the Labia Theatre (Cape Town) at 6pm.

You can contact We’re Watching via [email protected]

In case you missed it, also read Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom now on YouTube

Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom now on YouTube