Pulsar Content has come on board “Olga,” Elie Grappe’s coming-of-age tale set in the competitive world of youth athletics, seen through the eyes of an Ukrainian gymnast living in exile in Switzerland.
The film follows Olga, a talented and passionate 15-year-old Ukrainian gymnast who does her best to fit into the national team. As Olga prepares for the European Championship, the Euromaidan revolt erupts in Kiev in 2013, involving those closest to her, and shakes up everything in her life.
“Olga” (first still, above) was written by Grappe and Raphaëlle Desplechin, whose screenwriting credits include “Nos Batailles” and “Curiosa.” Now in post, the movie is produced by Tom Dercourt at Cinema Defacto in France and Jean-Marc Frohle at Point Prod in Switzerland.
Pulsar Content will launch pre-sales this week at UniFrance’s virtual Rendez-Vous market with the script, and will unveil a promo at Berlin’s virtual European Film Market. “It’s a beautiful script and when we read it we instantly believed in this young filmmaker’s vision,” said Marie Garrett, Pulsar Content’s co-founder.
“Grappe is highly knowledgeable about the Ukrainian civil war and he was able to weave some striking archive footage of the revolution into his film,” said Garrett, who added that “Olga” is about the identity struggle of a woman torn between her personal ambition and her attachment to her homeland.
Grappe, a promising 26-year-old helmer, started his career with the award-winning documentary short “Repetition,” and also directed the fiction short “Suspendu.”
“Although ‘Olga’ is a fiction, Grappe chose to cast all non-professionals, notably Nastya Budiashkina, Sabrina Rubtsova and Jérôme Martin, who are real gymnasts and deliver truly genuine performances,” said Garrett.
While in development, “Olga” won prizes at the Atelier Grand Nord in 2019, and at the Premiers Plans festival in Angers.
At the UniFrance Rendez-Vous, Pulsar Content is hosting the virtual market premiere of Kike Maíllo’s “A Perfect Enemy,” based on Amélie Nothomb’s bestseller.
