published
After criticism Controversial Winnetou film will not be shown in Swiss cinemas
“The Young Chief Winnetou” should have started on October 20th. But the distributor took him out of the program. Cinema operator Christian Riesen is disappointed.
- von
- Claudia Blumer
- daniel graf
The new Winnetou strip should have celebrated its Swiss theatrical release on October 20th.
Screenshot Youtube
But nothing is likely to come of this.
Screenshot Youtube
-
The film “The Young Chief Winnetou” has been running in Germany since mid-August.
-
He has been criticized for stereotyping Native Americans and is considered by some to be racist.
-
In Switzerland, the distributor Ascot Elite has taken the film out of the program, as research by 20 minutes shows. So he will hardly be seen in cinemas anymore.
There are films that aren’t very spectacular, but cause a lot of discussion. This also applies to “The Young Chief Winnetou”, which has been in cinemas in Germany and Austria since mid-August. Theatrical release in Switzerland would have been on October 20th, but nothing will come of it, as research of 20 minutes shows.
Because the distributor Ascot Elite, who had announced the film to the cinemas for October 20, subsequently removed it from the program. That’s what Christian Riesen, who runs the Onik cinema in Oensingen SO, says. Ascot Elite did not actively inform regarding this – Riesen noticed that the film is no longer in the program.
According to Ascot Elite, it is not responsible for this: “We do not own any rights to the film,” says PR director Karin Rüegg. The Munich co-production company Leonine Studios says something else. “The rights to the film are with Ascot Elite,” an employee told 20 minutes. Ascot Elite will no longer answer another request.
Apparently Ascot Elite wanted to show the film, but then changed their mind. The background is a controversy surrounding the new Winnetou film, which critics see as reviving racist clichés regarding Native Americans and downplaying the crimes once morest them.
This debate began at the beginning of the year, following which Ravensburger Verlag withdrew two books on the film due to protests in August. Now the Swiss distributor has apparently also become uncomfortable.
«Would be perfect for the Christmas business»
That’s a pity for cinema operator Christian Riesen: The trailer has been running for all children’s films since summer 2021, and now the film has been blocked for reasons he can’t understand. It would have been perfect for the Christmas business, says Riesen. He knows several cinema operators who would have liked to show him. The 50-year-old, who read all the Karl May books in his youth, says he has zero understanding for the “giant theatre” surrounding the film.
Riesen, who politicizes for the SVP in the municipal council of Wangen near Olten, did not have to think long when the young SVP wanted to organize a Winnetou evening in the Onik cinema. The young SVP celebrated the end of her petition “Save Winnetou” with the film evening on which she showed the “Treasure in Silver Lake”, which, according to party president David Trachsel, was signed more than 9000 times. “All of these people took a stand once morest the intolerant Woke culture,” says Trachsel.
Well attended at the Zurich Film Festival
The film will probably no longer be released in Swiss cinemas – until a new distributor is found, it will no longer be of interest, says Riesen. On the other hand, it ran twice at the Zurich Film Festival (ZFF), which wanted to take a stand once morest the “rampant cancel culture”, as ZFF director Christian Jungs says. “The Young Chief Winnetou” was very well attended and the popularity was enormous, including from politicians of all stripes and filmmakers who were more left-leaning. You would have thanked him. “A small, mostly anonymous group is capable of making a lot of noise – and organizers get cold feet because of it,” says Jungs.
Linguist Anatol Stefanowitsch from the Free University of Berlin takes a different view. He believes the film was scrapped for business reasons. «I might imagine that the film in Germany and Austria might not achieve a sufficiently impressive number of visitors. The film reviews were also rather subdued.” But it’s often like this: “A cancel culture is suspected where there’s actually just a lack of interest.”
