European Film Awards

European Filmmakers Express Worry About Fate of Ukrainian Filmmaker Oleg Sentsov

Upon an initiative by the Board of the European Film Academy, an illustrious group of European film professionals has signed the following letter to the the Russian authorities:
 
 To
 
 Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin - President of Russia
 Sergey Evgenyevich Naryshkin – Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation
 Alexander Wassiljewitsch Bortnikow - Director of the FSB
 Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kolokoltsev - Russian Minister of Internal Affairs
 Vladimir Medinsky - Russian Minister of Culture
 Yuriy Yakovlevich Chaika - Prosecutor General
 
 According to the information currently available, the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov was arrested by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) in his house in Simferopol on 11 May and brought to Moscow where he is detained and awaiting trial. There has then not been any official information about the charges brought up against him for almost three weeks.
 
 We, his undersigning European colleagues, are deeply worried and cannot stop wondering how he is and what his future will be. In the light of these circumstances, we respectfully call upon you
 

• to ensure the safety of Oleg Sentsov;
• to make public the whereabouts of the detained;
• to have the detained charged with a recognisable offence or released;
• to instigate a full, prompt and impartial investigation into the apparently arbitrary detention by the FSB in order to bring all those responsible to justice.

 
 Yours faithfully,

Agustín Almodóvar, producer, Spain
 Pedro Almodóvar, director, Spain
 Stephen Daldry , director, UK
 Mike Downey, producer, UK
 Agnieszka Holland, director, Poland
 Aki Kaurismäki, director, Finland
 Mike Leigh, director, UK
 Ken Loach, director, UK
 Wojciech Marczewski, director, Poland
 Rebecca O’Brien, producer, UK
 Daniel Olbrychski, actor, Poland
 Antonio Saura, producer, Spain
 Volker Schlöndorff, director, Germany
 Jerzy Stuhr, actor/director, Poland
 Béla Tarr, director, Hungary
 Betrand Tavernier, director, France
 Andrzej Wajda, director, Poland
 Wim Wenders, director, Germany
 Krzysztof Zanussi, director, Poland

Berlin, 10 June 2014