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‘Propaganda of sodomy’: Georgian far-right protests against Swedish Oscar film

Hundreds of far-right activists burned a rainbow flag and cried "Shame!" during a protest in the Georgian capital against an Oscar-nominated Swedish-Georgian gay-themed film which premiered amid a heavy police presence.

'Propaganda of sodomy': Georgian far-right protests against Swedish Oscar film
Protesters massed outside the Amirani cinema in Tbilisi. Photo: Vano Shlamov / AFP
Set in Georgia, “And Then We Danced” — Sweden's official Oscar submission in the best international feature film category — is a love story about two male dancers in Georgia's national ballet company.
   
The drama has won worldwide critical acclaim but was denounced by the Caucasus country's influential Orthodox Church as an “affront to the traditional Georgian values”.
   
In front of the Amirani cinema in the capital Tbilisi, the anti-gay protesters chanted “Long live Georgia!” and “Shame!”. They burned the rainbow flag as an Orthodox priest recited a prayer.
   
The interior ministry said 11 protesters were arrested for “disobeying police”.
 
 
The cinema, which had earlier posted a video on Facebook of policemen checking the cinema's seats with sniffer dogs. let ticket holders inside for the evening premiere showing and then shut the doors.
   
“Georgian folk dance is an epitome of the Georgian spiritual values, we will not let them defile our national traditions,” said one of the far-right protesters, 35-year-old housewife Teona Gogava.
   
Maka Kiladze, a forty-year-old choreographer who was among the audience in the cinema, said: “There is huge interest towards the film in Georgia. It's anomaly that we have to face an angry mob to attend a film screening”.
 
'Dark times'
 
Earlier this week, Sandro Bregadze, a former junior minister in the ruling Georgian Dream party's government, said his nationalist Georgian March group would not allow the film to be screened in Tbilisi, calling it “propaganda of sodomy”.
   
Levan Vasadze, a Georgian businessman with links to Russia's anti-Western and far-right groups, said his supporters will “enter screening rooms in the six cinemas in Tbilisi and turn off the projectors,” also vowing to “shove back police if need be”.
   
“Some far right groups and the Church have basically condemned the film and are planning to stop people from entering the sold out screenings,” the film's director Levan Akin, a Swede with Georgian roots, wrote on his Facebook page
earlier Friday.
   
These are “dark times we live in,” he wrote, adding that it is important to “stand up against these shadowy forces in any way we can”.
   
Georgia's interior ministry issued a statement, promising to ensure “the protection of public safety and order, as well as the freedom of self-expression”.
   
“We address everyone: obey the law. Otherwise, police will use their lawful mandate and suppress unlawful acts immediately,” the statement said.   
 
Homosexuality is still highly stigmatised in Georgia, a socially conservative Black Sea nation where the immensely influential Orthodox Church has previously clashed with Western-leaning governments over social issues.
   
Homosexuality was banned in Georgia after the country was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1921.
   
After the Soviet Union's collapse, the ban was not enforced, but officially homosexuality was only decriminalised in 2000, with anti-discrimination laws adopted in 2006.
   
Critics of the ruling Georgian Dream party have accused the government of giving tacit support to homophobic and nationalist groups which traditionally support the party in elections and have staged protest rallies against pro-Western opposition parties.

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OSCARS

‘Another Round’: a spirited Oscar-winning ode to life

Danish film ‘Another Round’ (‘Druk’ in the original Danish), which won an Oscar on Sunday for best international feature film, is a dark existential comedy about the joys and dangers of being drunk, and letting go to embrace life.

'Another Round': a spirited Oscar-winning ode to life
Thomas Vinterberg accepts the Oscar for International Feature Film on behalf of Denmark.Photo: A.m.p.a.s/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix

It is the fourth Danish film to win an Oscar for best non-English language film, after ‘In A Better World’ in 2011, ‘Pelle the Conqueror’ in 1989 and ‘Babette’s Feast’ in 1988.

Filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg, who is also nominated for best director, gave a moving, tearful speech, paying tribute to his daughter Ida, who was killed in a car accident four days after shooting began in May 2019.

“We ended up making this movie for her, as her monument,” Vinterberg said at the gala in Los Angeles.

“So, Ida, this is a miracle that just happened, and you’re a part of this miracle. Maybe you’ve been pulling some strings somewhere, I don’t know. But this one is for you.”

The movie is set around four old friends, all teachers at a high school near Copenhagen. Martin, played by Mads Mikkelsen, is a history teacher going through a midlife crisis, depressed about his monotone life.

To spice things up, the quartet decides to test an obscure theory that humans are born with a small deficit of alcohol in their blood, resolving to keep their blood alcohol level at a constant 0.05 percent from morning till night.

At first, they experience the liberating joys of inebriation, before things quickly go from bad to worse. 

But the film refrains from passing moral judgement or glorifying alcohol.

“‘Another Round’ is imagined as a tribute to life. As a reclaiming of the irrational wisdom that casts off all anxious common sense and looks down into the very delight of lust for life … although often with deadly consequences,” Vinterberg said when the movie came out last year.

Vinterberg was devastated by the loss of his daughter, and production on the movie was briefly halted, but he soon resumed shooting.

He said he was spurred on by a letter she had written about her enthusiasm for the project, in which she was to have had a role.

But the film took on a new dimension.

“The film wasn’t going to be just about drinking anymore. It had to be about being brought back to life,” Vinterberg said in the only in-depth interview he has given about her death, in June 2020 to Danish daily Politiken.

Selected for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival which ended up being cancelled due to the pandemic, ‘Another Round has already won several awards, including a BAFTA for best film not in the English language, and a Cesar in France for best foreign film.

The film is carried by Mikkelsen, who previously teamed up with Vinterberg in the 2012 psychological thriller ‘The Hunt’ (‘Jagten’).

In one of the most talked-about scenes in ‘Another Round’, Mikkelsen even shows off his dance talent — the former Bond villain was a professional contemporary dancer before becoming an actor.

READ ALSO: How Danish Oscar-nominated dark booze comedy was inspired by director’s tragic loss

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