Russia has reportedly blocked the release of the film “Child 44,” claiming the movie distorts history.
The movie about a Soviet serial killer who targets children in 1952 was set to premiere in the country on Thursday. It is based on a novel by Tom Rob Smith and stars Tom Hardy, Vincent Cassel, and Gary Oldman.
"Films such as 'Child 44' should not go out in our country on mass release, earning money from our cinema audiences, not in the year of the 70th anniversary of victory, not ever," Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky wrote on the ministry's website,
according to Agence France-Presse, which called the move unprecedented.
Medinsky complained that the film depicts Soviet Army officers as "blood-thirsty ghouls," AFP said.
A statement from the distributor and the ministry said the
distributor withdrew a request to release the film, The Guardian reported. The decision came after Russian officials viewed the film during a screening on Tuesday.
Irish director Johnny O’Reilly told The Guardian that censorship in the country is haphazard.
“On the one hand, the ministry of culture seems to be in the grip of an irrational fear of anything that veers from rose-tinted, government-endorsed narratives about Russia. On the other hand, there are plenty of movies being made inside Russia that challenge those narratives,” he said.
Deadline.com reported that the film’s distributor in Russia, Central Film Partnership, is appealing the ban. It was unclear whether the film would be edited to achieve that.