OLGA – Review by MaryAnn Johanson
Olga is the story of a 15-year-old Ukrainian gymnast preparing to compete in the European championships, with an eye on the Olympics beyond. The year is 2013, and Olga (Anastasiia Budiashkina) has just landed in Switzerland, home country of her deceased father, at the Swiss national team’s training center. The adolescent drama that ensues is as you’d expect: Olga is the new kid, and her French isn’t great, which makes it more difficult for her to figure out how to fit in. And as an outsider hoping to land a coveted spot on the competitive roster, Olga’s arrival inevitably stirs up some animosity and resentment, especially from team captain Steffi (Caterina Barloggio).
Olga is a fictional character, and her story is invented, but it is set among real, momentous events, the enormous, months-long protest in Kyiv’s Maidan Square, the pro-Europe, let’s-join-the-EU uprising that would eventually see the corrupt president Viktor Yanukovych fleeing the country and the ushering in of a more democratic Ukraine. Continue reading…