EFA calls for release of Oleg Sentsov

The Board of the European Film Academy (EFA) has called for the immediate release of Oleg Sentsov.

Over the weekend, the Ukrainian director was arrested at his home in Crimea and accused of organising a terrorist attack [see separate story here].

It is believed that Sentsov has been flown to Moscow where he is facing trial.

EFA chairwoman Agnieszka Holland commented: “We know that every time when artists start to be suppressed by a political regime, this regime becomes a dictatorship.”

In a statement, the EFA board added: “In support of its friends and colleagues in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere in the world in their struggle for free artistic expression, the EFA Board cannot tolerate it when people are persecuted for political reasons and wishes to underline its firm belief in the free expression of opinion as an essential and basic value of any democratic society.”