My 1st letter to Tony Burke, 13 years ago, regarding my banning by the Screen Australia Board

 The Hon Tony Burke MP

Minister for the Arts

PO Box 156 Roselands

NSW 2196                                                                                                       2^nd July 2013

 

Dear Minister

 

In May 2012 the Screen Australia Board, on the recommendation of Chief Executive Dr Ruth Harley, instituted a ban on myself based on the proposition that I had, in certain correspondence, intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff. This allegation has damaged my reputation and the ban has made it very difficult for me to pursue the career I have been engaged in for the past 40 years.

 

For more than a year now I have been asking Dr Harley, the Screen Australia Board and Caroline Fulton (Director, Screen Industry Section, Creative Sector Development Branch, Office for the Arts) to identify one paragraph, one sentence or even one phrase in my correspondence that bear witness to my having intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff. They refuse to do so. I have tried to acquire evidence of my alleged crimes through FOI legislation and the Commonwealth Ombudsman to insist that Screen Australia provide me with evidence, to no avail.

 

My first question for you Minister is this: 

 

Whom can I ask, other than yourself, to be provided with evidence of the crimes of which I have been charged and found guilty?

 

My second question:

 

Am I entitled, as a banned filmmaker, to be provided with evidence that I am guilty as charged?

 

Please, Minister, do not hand this letter to an Arts Ministry spin doctor who will ‘note’ its contents and ignore my questions – each of which requires but a monosyllabic answer.

 

If I have intimidated or placed at risk any member of Screen Australia staff, I deserve to be banned and to be publicly humiliated. Please insist, Minister, that the Board either make public the evidence upon which their banning of me is based, or lift the ban such that my reputation can be restored and I am able to continue my work as an independent filmmaker without the albatross of the Screen Australia ban hanging around my neck.

 

If the Chief Executive of Screen Australia and its Board are under no obligation to provide evidence in support of the banning of a filmmaker, what other decisions do they make that are not subject to the ideals of transparency and accountability that should apply in the administration of a tax-payer funded organization such as Screen Australia.

 

The enclosed letter to the Screen Australia Board, dated 21^st. June, speaks for itself.

 

best wishes

 

James Ricketson

 

Members of the Screen Australia Board

Level 4, 150 William St

Woolloomooloo 2011                                                                                      21^st. June 2013

 

Dear Board Members

 

Ruth Harley will soon leave the Screen Australia stage – having never been asked or obliged by the Board to provide evidence that I have, in my correspondence, intimidated or placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff. One of the new Chief Executive’s early tasks may well be to make a decision as to whether or not  s/he believes I am entitled to be provided with evidence of the crimes for which I have been tried, found guilty and led to my being banned. Will s/he demonstrate a commitment to the precepts of transparency and accountability by recommending to the Board that I be provided with such evidence? Or will s/he, like Ruth, simply ignore my request that the evidence of my alleged offenses, in the interests of transparency and accountability, be made public? 

 

Is it appropriate that a new Chief Executive be saddled with such a decision? Would it not be more appropriate, before s/he takes over, that the Board make the evidence public and reveal either myself or Ruth to be playing fast and loose with the truth? Or, if there is no evidence (which is my contention) that the Board recommend to Ruth before she leaves that the ban on me be lifted or simply overrule Ruth?

 

The question of the existence or non existence of intimidating correspondence from myself cannot be considered in isolation from Chief Operating Officer Fiona Cameron’s letter to me dated 10^th Nov 2010 - a letter in which the existence of phantom correspondence is first raised. Fiona writes, in relation to my meeting with Ross Mathews and Julia Overton in August of that year:

 

“Unfortunately it appears from your correspondence that you came away from that meeting with an understanding that you application for further development for further development funding for Chanti’s World had been effectively green lit. This is jot the case, nor could it be….It is certainly regrettable that you came away from the meeting with a misunderstanding of its intent, or of remarks made by Mr Mathews.”

 

For two years I asked Fiona to provide me with copies of the correspondence in which I suggested or even intimated that I had come away from the August 2010 meeting with the belief that Chanti’s World had been green lit. When, after two FOI applications, many letters and blog entries, Fiona eventually identified the correspondence in which I had, supposedly, revealed my belief that Chanti’s World had been green lit, it did not contain any such suggestion from me. The Board has been aware of this fact for the past year at least. 

 

Fiona’s allegation that I had written correspondence that I had not written is one of the main triggers of the long running and, in so many ways, farcical dispute that led to my being banned. And, because Fiona was never obliged to provide evidence that I had written in my correspondence what she claimed I had written, the stage was set for Ruth Harley to do the same – as she did in her letter to me of 10^th May 2010. Ruth knew full well, when she justified her ban on me on the grounds that I had intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff in my correspondence, that she would never be asked by the Screen Australia Board to provide evidence that I had done so. She could make whatever allegations she chose knowing that they would go unchallenged.

 

A precedent has been set in place with my banning such that Screen Australia’s Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer (and anyone else in senior management) can justify the banning, defamation or marginalizing of any filmmaker by making reference to non-existent correspondence secure in the knowledge that the Screen Australia Board will not ask to see the correspondence; secure in the knowledge that they will not be held in any way publicly accountable for decisions made on the basis of this non-existent correspondence.

 

If Fiona Cameron has made it onto a short list to replace Ruth Harley as Chief Executive I trust that the relevant decision-makers will ask her to provide evidence, from my own correspondence, of her assertion that I came away from my meeting believing that Chant’s World had been green lit. Do we want a new Chief Executive who plays as fast and loose with the truth as did Ruth?

 

If the Board find this last statement offensive, please provide me with just one example from my correspondence (or more  if the Board so chooses) in which I have intimidated or placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff; one sentence or even one phrase from my correspondence that suggests I believed Chanti’s World had been green lit. And make these examples public – the very essence of the kind of transparency and accountability the Board should be committed to.

 

If the Screen Australia Board feels ill equipped to decide whether or not the offending correspondence exists or whether or not I (and the industry) should have access to it, perhaps the suggestions I made in May 2012 could, even at this ate date, be entertained.

 

On 17^th May 2012 I suggested a ‘Simple Solution’ – namely that: 

 

“A Conciliator is called in who has no connection with Screen Australia or myself and no vested interest in the outcome – a cross between Judge Judy and a marriage guidance counselor. S/he would be interested in verifiable facts only…I would suggest that such a conciliation meeting occur as soon as possible and that all present agree with whatever findings the Conciliator arrives at and that the matter be put to rest once and for all.” 

 

http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/simple-solution.html

 

A week later, in 23^rd May 2012 ‘Conciliation…Mediation’, I wrote: 

 

“Please Ruth, Fiona, agree to take part in a conciliation/mediation process overseen by someone who has no vested interest in the outcome but who is interested in the facts only.”

 

A great deal of time, energy and angst could have been prevented if the Conciliation/Mediation process I recommended over a year ago had taken place. It should take place now

 

best wishes

 

James Ricketson 

Screen Australia admits that there is no evidence that I intimidated harassed or placed at risk SA staff back in 2012

 

Ms Kirsten Delaney

FOI

Screen Australia

GPO Box 3984

Sydney 2001                                                                                        10^th October 2025

 

Dear Kirsten

 

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.” 

 

In your letter of  3^rd. October you have defined ‘intimidation’ not as an act committed by a perpetrator, but as a subjective feeling experienced by someone who believes themselves to a victim of intimidation.  Your words:

 

Screen Australia notes that the requirement that the documents “containing evidence that [you] intimidated, harassed and placed SA staff at risk” is a subjective assessment. In the interests of openness and transparency, Screen Australia has decided to provide you with all of the documents presented to the Board in 2012 which relate to you. Screen Australia does not and should not be read as making any comment on whether the documents released in response to your request are evidence of the subjective assessment outlined above

 

This word-salad, clearly intended to create the illusion of transparency and accountability, generates cognitive dissonance instead: 

 

Here is the evidence you asked for, James, but Screen Australia does not necessarily consider it to be evidence. 

 

Have you been instructed by Dierdre Brennan or the Board to engage in obfuscation of such Kafkaesque proportions? Or is your choice of weasel words here, this exercise in casuistry, standard operating procedure when responding to Freedom of Information requests?

 

Either way, they are an insult to my intelligence and an embarrassment to your professional obligation, as FOI officer, to be clear and concise and not to engage in such crude spin doctoring. 

 

What your words reveal is that in ‘Screen-Australia-World’ in 2025 any member of staff who feels that they have been intimidated can declare that they have been intimidated. No evidence of intimidation is required, only a staff member’s subjective experience. Screen Australia will make no comment on the validity or otherwise of this subjective experience but can and will ban a filmmaker based on it – a filmmaker who makes criticisms of SA policy or  who asks questions SA staff do not want to answer. This subjective experience is sufficient, even in 2025, for the current Board, made up in part of film and TV professionals, to threaten with banning a fellow filmmaker such as myself who has been asking, for thirteen years, for evidence of intimidation that you have admitted in a very roundabout way, in your letter of 3^rd October, does not exist. 

 

We are in Alice in Wonderland territory here and you all – SA staff and Board members alike – know this to the case. And yet, despite not being able to point to one paragraph, one sentence or even one intimidatory word, continue to cast me in the role as a villain so dangerous to the emotional well-being of SA staff and Board members that the threat of a fourth ban on me is a fair way of dealing with my request for evidence.

 

This is not my last comment on this latest FOI request but thank you for acknowledging, in a very convoluted roundabout way, that there is no evidence that I intimidated or placed at risk any member of SA staff. ‘Subjective assessment’ will not stand up in a law court, and nor should it. 

 

I suggest that those to whom this letter is copied familiarise themselves with my letter to Fiona Cameron dated 25^th November 2010 – presented to me, by yourself, as evidence in support of the allegations of intimidation etc. made against me fifteen years ago. I invite Screen Australia staff and Board members to find evidence of intimidation in it and please either share this with me or declare that you can find no evidence.

 

As should be obvious to SA staff and board by now, I am not going to give up in my to have my name cleared of the false allegations that led to my being banned in 2012.

 

I offer, yet again, to meet with Screen Australia staff and/or Board members to discuss this dispute and bring it to an equitable end.

 

cheers

 

James Ricketson

 

cc  CEO Dierdra Brennan

Screen Australia Board Members

Endemic lack of transparency and accountability within Screen Australia's bureaucracy continues...

 

This September 25 letter exchange between myself and the Screen Australia Board took place a couple of months before SA confirmed, as a result of an FOI request, that I had never intimidated or placed anyone working in the organisation in 2012. Close to mid-January 2026, no effort has been made by anyone at Screen Australia to meet with me to sort out what was a bureaucratic cock-up back in 2012, or even to acknowledge in non-bureaucratic language that it took place.

Mr. M. Ebeid AM, Chair

Members of the Screen Australia Boad

Screen Australia

GPO Box 3984, Sydney 2001                                                               11^th September 2025

 

Dear Mr. Ebeid and Members of the Screen Australia Board

In the Board’s letter of 5^th September, you have placed on record demonstrably untrue accusations and assertions, twisted my own words, engaged in ‘straw man’ argumentation, and threatened to ban me again. I have no choice but to place a detailed response on record that challenges those aspects of the Board’s narrative that are false or misleading. If you choose to see this letter as ‘harassment’ and ‘intimidation’ so be it. I have no intention of making another application to Screen Australia. I am concerned here only with my reputation.

Dear Mr Ricketson 

I refer to your recent correspondence of 14, 20 and 26 August 2025 addressed to myself and various board 

members and staff, delivered by email and physical post. 

As I noted in my letter of 1 August, I will not be entering into further correspondence regarding the matters you raised in your earlier letter dated 17 July. These are all matters that have been comprehensively canvassed in the agency’s various responses to your letters and emails, including the CEO Deirdre Brennan’s recent letter of 5 August. 

The word ‘canvassed’ is only ever used these days by bureaucrats who wish to create the illusion, on file, that questions have been answered when they have not been. The Board has deliberately misrepresented here the interchange between myself and Ms. Brennan in relation to her letter to me of 5^th. August. I have enclosed it in full – further evidence in your minds, perhaps of ‘harassment’ on my part.

Any reasonable person would consider the volume of correspondence the agency is receiving from you as unacceptable and as having an intimidatory and harassing effect on the staff involved. 

Any ‘reasonable person’, any independent observer with an open mind, on reading through this and my previous letters would separate facts from spin and wonder why SA did not simply deal with the questions I sought answers to at the outset. This hypothetical ‘reasonable person’ would wonder why, over a period of nine months now a filmmaker with 55 years of experience has been unable to secure a conversation with any member of SA staff or Board?

 

If Screen Australia were truly committed to the precepts of transparency and accountability staff would respond to questions and not leave filmmakers such as myself with little choice but to continue to ask the same questions. Better still, SA staff would speak with filmmakers in person on the telephone, thus saving both them and staff a lot of time. More importantly, such conversations, such dialogue would be more in keeping with the idea that Screen Australia collaborateswith filmmakers in a collegial as opposed to adversarial manner, as was the case with the Australian Film Commission.

 

However, having regard to your recent correspondence, there are two matters that I consider necessary to clarify. Let me be very clear and confirm that I had no knowledge of the events in 2012 that you raised until I received your letter of 17 July. I also had no knowledge of any such ban on yourself from the agency until I received your letter. Accordingly, your supposition that Screen Australia has a pre-existing bias against you or is otherwise exercising an agenda to collude or conspire to decline your recent application for funding is wildly inaccurate and fundamentally misplaced. 

Your ’Let me be very clear’ preface, a politician’s cliché, is unnecessary. I accept that you had no knowledge of the ban. However, your use of the word ‘accordingly, connecting as it does your lack of knowledge to my alleged ‘supposition of a pre-exiting bias etc.’ is a crude ‘straw man’ argument. I used the qualifying word ‘seems’ a few times, my suspicions that an informal ban might still exist, amplified by Screen Australia staff’s refusal to meet with me, to speak on the phone with me or to answer questions. I know of other filmmakers who have not been banned but whose public criticisms of Screen Australia have rendered them persona non grata. This is common knowledge within the industry.

Please point out to me where I made the ‘supposition that Screen Australia has a pre-existing bias against you or is otherwise exercising an agenda to collude or conspire to decline your recent application for funding.’ 

Secondly, and for the record, Screen Australia’s recent decision to decline your 2025 application for your documentary project Chanti’s World was made solely on the merits of your application and without reference to the events of 2012. 

The only connection I have made is between my application to SA in Jan this year, knocked back by Richard Hiuddleston with a form letter, is to my correspondence with Richard when he was Head of Documentary at the ABC. In that role, in 2019, he knocked back a ‘CHANTI’S WORLD submission that I had not made to the ABC; a submission that he knew I had NOT made. He then placed on record that the submission I had not made had been assessed.  Given this verifiable fact, Richard could (and I believe should) have recused himself from the assessment round. When the circumstances of Richard’s prior knocking back of a non-existent submission became known, due diligence on the part of Dierdre Brennan should at least have raised the possibility in her mind that Richard was not the right person to be recommending to me that I liaise with him regarding making another application. 

On 29^th November 2024 I wrote to Screen Australia: “The circumstances surrounding my development of 'CHANTI'S WORLD are such that I feel it would be valuable to have an informal conversation with someone at Screen Australia about these before making an application - if only to find out whether or not I want/need money for renders me eligible to make an application.”

Such a conversation never occurred. After receiving a form letter of rejection, no reasons given, no assessors comments attached, this dispute began. Richard informed me that Screen Australia did not fund the digitising of footage, then changed his mind and said that it did. (See correspondence) I asked Richard to nominate an Investment/Development Manager for me to speak with before considering making another application. He told me that I had no right to one until as my application had not been successful. And yet, Screen Australia recommends to applicants, under: 5. Seek Expert Advice: For projects that may fall outside typical funding parameters or if you are unsure, discuss your project with a funding body’s investment manager to understand eligibility and expectations. Does this sequence of events strike Board as being fair? 

I can categorically confirm that there is no existing ban as you allege and I reject any suggestion that Screen Australia’s funding decisions are influenced by improper or irrelevant considerations. 

And yet, despite Screen Australia’s own guidelines, I had to make two FOI applications to acquire unredacted copies of assessor’s comments! Do these verifiable facts not raise any questions in your mind as to why Richard behaved in this way?

Please point out to me where, in my correspondence, I suggested that SA’s funding decisions were influenced by improper or irrelevant considerations? I have asked questions of assessors because some observations made could only have been made if they had not viewed the audio-visual materials I submitted.  

When I did acquire unredacted assessors’ comments as a result of a second FOI submission, it became apparent that it was Richard, not the assessors, who had not watched the material. It seems he had decided that he needed to place on record what would have been a very good reason to knock it back if it was true – namely that my relationship with Chanti had already been dealt with in the two ABC programs. It had not been. My pointing this out (easily verified) became one of the examples of ‘harassment’ that you refer to.

If the sequence if events I have described here were a matter of any concern to Dierdre Brennan would looked at it impartially, dealing with verifiable facts. She did not. SA’s modus operandi today, as it was in 2012, is to circle the wagons around staff members regardless of their behaviour. And the SA Board does likewise – circles the wagons to protect the CEO. If this involves spin doctoring or the placement on file of untruths, so be it. SA staff must be protected from criticism always. If filmmakers such as myself need to be silenced to maintain the illusion of transparency and accountability, so be it.

What the Board is implying in this 5^th September letter is that at no point must an applicant ask questions of assessors, or SA staff, point out factual errors in what they have written or criticise SA’s policies..

In addition, I find suggestions that Screen Australia’s senior executives and Board have conspired in a constructed or revisionist history in order to unreasonably target a particular individual to be inappropriate, unacceptable and frankly, deeply insulting. 

What the Board has presented here is a ‘straw man’ argument, enabling it to be righteously indignant, adopt the high moral ground, and be ‘deeply insulted. Point out to me where I have suggested that  ‘Screen Australia’s senior executives and Board have conspired in a constructed or revisionist history.’ This would be a damming indictment of me if it was true but, as the Board knows, it is not. If you insist that it is true, please place on record your evidence that I hacve accused you of being engaged in a conspiracy.

I am advised that your project, Chanti’s World has been the subject of 6 unsuccessful applications for Screen Australia funding over a period spanning 15-plus years. 

I have learnt over half a century of communications with bureaucrats that when one prefaces a statement with ‘I am advised’s/he is leaving him/herself with an opportunity, when the truth is known, to say, ‘Well, that is what I had been advised was the case.’ In so doing, s/he can place a false statement on file but not be held accountable for it if its falsity is exposed. If need be, I can and will point out the ways in which your assertion is false. You know that it is. You have placed this assertion on file for your own bureaucratic reasons – these being to avoid the question that began this current bout of letter writing: Please provide me with evidence of my crimes?

It has been reviewed by no less than 5 different assessors during this period. On every occasion, each of those assessors have independently arrived at the conclusion that Chanti’s World was uncompetitive and did not warrant Commonwealth funding. Any objective bystander would likely conclude that your recent correspondence with Screen Australia is prompted by an inability to accept the agency’s numerous determinations on your project rather than a genuine concern regarding the agency’s impartiality. 

But let’s pretend that the statement above is true and that my previous submissions (‘spanning 15-plus years’) were deservedly rejected. As you will all be aware, it is commonplace in our industry, and that of book publishing, for writers, screenwriters, documentary filmmakers to receive dozens of letters of rejection before producing their award-winning work. In accordance with the logic being presented here, the 7^th, 8^th, 9^th , 10^th and 11^th publishers to whom JK Rowling presented her first Harry Potter book should have rejected it on the grounds that it had already been rejected many times. That the Board thinks in this way is symptomatic of lack of understanding of creative processes. In the creative universe I inhabit, the fact that a filmmaker keeps working on a film project for 30 years, despite multiple knockbacks, is a good reason to take him or her seriously and not treat them with the dismissive contempt that SA has treated my  CHANTI’S WORLD application.

As you know, after 30 years of self-funding, I was not applying for any money for myself, but for a relatively small amount of money to get tapes digitised, my hard drive having been stolen by Cambodian police.

As it happens, the dispute back in 2012 began with my asking questions that SA staff did not wish to answer, closely followed by statements placed on file that were demonstrably false. When I pointed this out SA doubled down, as the current Board is a dozen or so years later. My attempts to have the record set straight, to be provided with evidence of harassment, intimdation etc. led to Fiona Cameron calling the police to have me removed from the foyer of SA, where I was sitting reading a book waiting to speak with a flesh and blood human being about the matter.  And now the Board in 2025 is threatening to ban me if I persist in asking for evidence of my crimes.

I insist that you uncouple the events of 2012-2016 from your 2025 application and refrain from speculating on the motives of previous Screen Australia staff in order to make these wild accusations regarding the agency’s integrity due to your inability to accept its decision on your project. These are allegations that Screen Australia takes very seriously and will be strongly refuted. 

This is just bluff and bluster on the Board’s part – a ‘straw man’ argument.

Once again, I reiterate that the volume of correspondence the agency is receiving from you is unacceptable and regarded as harassment and is having an intimidatory effect on the staff involved. 

I doubt very much that any members of staff do feel ‘intimidated’, but if they really do feel intimidated by a filmmaker who asks legitimate questions they are not fit for purpose. As I mentioned in an earlier letter, the expression, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’ .

The tone of this letter and its accompany threat of banning is intimidatory, its message clear: stop asking questions or we’ll ban you. I will not stop, so go ahead and ban me if you think this is the most appropriate way of dealing with a filmmaker who asks questions the Board does not want to answer.

Accordingly, I urge you to accept that your application for Chanti’s World has been unable to demonstrate adequate merit for funding and to desist from your campaign of correspondence in making unfounded allegations against Screen Australia. In the event you persist in this campaign, the Board will move a further resolution to refuse to accept future applications or correspondence from you. 

This is just bluff and bluster. Ham-fisted intimidation. I will complete CHANTI’S WORLD without any assistance from SA and I can assure you that the finished documentary will make this Board, along with the Board of 2012, appear petty, vindictive, lacking in commitment to the precepts of transparency and accountability, and not fit for purpose.

Yours sincerely 

Michael Ebeid AM Chair 

Letter # 3 My appeal to three members of the SA board to meet with me and present evidence of my 'intimidation' of staff

 Mr. M. Ebeid AM, Chair

Members of the Screen Australia Boad

Screen Australia

GPO Box 3984

Sydney 2001                                                                              26^th August 2025

 

for Marta Dusseldorp, Sacha Horler and Deborah Mailman

and Members of the Screen Australia Board

 

Dear Marta, Sacha and Deborah 

 

Following on from my letters of 14^th. And 20^th August.

 

It does seem as though the Screen Australia Board is going to adhere to its decision not to engage in communication with me – even though I ask only for an answer to a simple question, first asked 13 years ago – evidence of the ‘crimes’ that led to my being banned!

 

I can’t help but wonder if the 2012 ban on me is still in place? It was never lifted or, if it was, I was not informed! Is it still in place? If not, when was it lifted?

 

As you know from personal professional experience, our highly competitive industry (a little ‘money pie’ with lots of hungry filmmakers wanting a slice) is a small one in which everyone knows everyone, or knows of pretty much everyone by reputation. It is an industry rife with gossip, rumours and scuttlebutt: “Don’t ever work with XXX, s/he is a nightmare.” Whether or not such rumours/scuttlebutt represent the truth or not gets lost in the mists of time. Rumours and scuttlebutt become accepted industry wisdom, and I know, as I am sure you do, how these have negatively impacted the careers of some.

 

Surviving financially as a filmmaker, is not easy for most of us. It is made much more difficult for those who have earned (or had thrust upon them) a reputation of harassment, intimidation and ‘placing at risk’. There is no such legal category as ‘placing at risk’ in the context in play here. These words, levelled at me, were intended back in 2012 to leave to the imagination of my fellow filmmakers to guess what risk I posed; the ‘risk’ amplified by Screen Australia’s decision to call the police and have me arrested for ‘trespassing’ when I was merely sitting in the foyer waiting for answers to my legitimate questions.

 

How would each of you feel if you were banned by Screen Australia under circumstances similar to those that I have experienced? You know that you are not guilty of whatever ‘crime’ you have been charged with and ask Screen Australia to provide you with evidence. Screen Australia refuses to do so. You keep asking but are told that your letters constitute harassment and that no further communication will be entered into with you. You continue to ask for evidence, and placing Screen Australia staff ‘at risk’ is added to the list of your crimes. Precisely what this ‘risk’ entails you are not told and your request for an answer is seen as yet more evidence of your harassment and intimidation. 

 

Ultimately, you are banned by Screen Australia. You cannot make any applications at all to SA. Any and every project you might be involved in that involves Screen Australia is dead in the water. You must withdraw from collaborations with other filmmakers, and they have no choice but to exclude you in their applications for SA funding for projects you have been developing together.

 

I invite each of you to look at the dilemma facing me from a different angle: 

 

‘Would you want to collaborate on a film or TV project with a filmmaker whom you believe had intimidated, harassed or placed at risk members of SA staff? 

 

I hope, if you can put yourself in my shoes, that you will appreciate what the past 13 years have been like for me. On many occasions I have had to defend myself with variations of ‘It is not true. I did not harass, intimidate or place any members of SA staff at risk.’ Heads are nodded, shoulders are shrugged: ‘Why would Screen Australia say that you did, if you did not?’

 

Screen Australia’s word against my own.

 

I request a meeting with the three of you to discuss whatever evidence SA has of my guilt. Or with any representatives of the Board. Lay the evidence out on the table – the relevant intimidatory and harassing words, phrases and sentences highlighted, along with any words that I wrote prior to 2012 suggesting that I posed any kind of threat to Screen Australia staff. Indeed, to any words I have ever written to anyone at Screen Australia that are intimidatory, harassing or suggest that I pose some kind of threat to staff. 

 

If I am guilty as charged, the evidence of my having done so will be on file. As I noted in my last letter, if I am guilty, I deserve to be banned and will accept my punishment and consequent public humiliation.

 

cheers

 

James

Letter # 2 requesting of Screen Australia evidence of my alleged intimidation of staff 20.8.25

 

Mr. M. Ebeid AM, Chair

Members of the Screen Australia Boad

Screen Australia

GPO Box 3984

Sydney 2001                                                                              20^th August 2025

 

Dear Mr. Ebeid and Members of the Screen Australia Board

 

Following on from my letter of 14^th. August.

 

This letter does not constitute ‘harassment’. It is a request for a simple answer to a simple question I asked 13 years ago and to which I could never get an answer: 

 

‘What evidence does Screen Australia have on file in support of the allegation that I intimidated, harassed and placed at risk members of SA staff prior to 2012?’

 

Am I not entitled to know what evidence led to my being found guilty by the Screen Australia Board 13 years ago?

 

I trust that you can appreciate how much damage can be done to the career of a filmmaker working in a relatively small industry such as ours by being publicly accused of intimidation. 

 

 ‘Intimidation’, a criminal offense under Section 13(1) of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007, can lead to the offender receiving a jail sentence.

 

Does the Screen Australia board, in August 2025, believe that there is there anything in my correspondence that indicates an intention on my part to (quoting the 2007 Act)  ‘cause fear or apprehension of physical or mental harm?’

 

Did I ever shout at a member of staff? Did I ever swear or use abusive language? Did I ever threaten a member of staff? Give them reason to believe that I might cause them physical harm?

 

If the Board believes me to be guilty as charged, is such belief based on evidence you have been presented with? Or is it merely hearsay? If it is the latter, please request of CEO Dierdre Brennan she present each of you with evidence.  

 

What about ‘mental harm’? Perhaps I am guilty of that?  Notwithstanding Fiona Cameron’s telling me, in the foyer of Screen Australia, that she ‘felt intimidated’ by my correspondence,  the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW) makes clear that not every unpleasant interaction amounts to intimidation; that ‘the context of the interaction is extremely important and so is the background between the parties.’

 

The context, in this instance, is the correspondence between myself and Screen Australia. In broad brushstrokes, this involves me, in the lead-up to my 2012 banning, trying to get straightforward answers to questions and Screen Australia refusing to answer them, and then characterising my continuing to ask them as ‘harassment’.

 

This same dynamic prevails in 2025. I ask questions and get no answers. I ask again and get no answers or, on occasion, answers to a few questions that are factually incorrect, whilst the important questions are ignored. I ask again and I am accused of harassment and am told that no further communication with me will be entered into. This is an all-too-familiar bureaucratic scenario – used to justify NOT answering questions, or to silence critics.

 

I have requested, on several occasions now, to meet with members of SA staff to discuss this matter face to face. My requests have been ignored.

 

The document(s) I have asked for, containing evidence in support of my alleged intimidation and harassment of staff, should be very easy to locate. It/they will be in the SA Board’s September 2012 minutes file. If it contains evidence that I did intimidate, harass and place at risk members of SA staff prior to 2012, then I will be proven a liar - in which case reputational legacy will be that I not only intimidated members of Screen Australia staff, but that I lied year after year about having not done so. This reputation will be well-deserved if I am guilty.

 

If Screen Australia in 2025 is committed to transparency and accountability, please provide me with the document(s) that led to the SA Board in September 2012 agreeing to my being banned. As I have made clear, all names can be redacted from the document, or documents. I am interested only in finding out what words, phrases, sentences contained in my correspondence led to my being banned.

 

Given that Screen Australia staff refuse to meet with me or to even speak with me on the phone, I request an opportunity to meet with and discuss this matter with members of the Board at their convenience.

 

cheers

 

James Ricketsona

Screen Australia threatens to ban me for the fourth time

         

Mr. M. Ebeid AM, Chair

Members of the Screen Australia Boad

Screen Australia

GPO Box 3984

Sydney 2001                                                                                          14^th August 2025

 

Dear Mr. Ebeid and Members of the Screen Australia Board

 

As you know, thirteen years ago CEO Ruth Harley banned me from making applications to Screen Australia. She claimed, without presenting any evidence, that I had harassed, intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff. She steadfastly refused to provide any evidence in support of her allegations. Indeed, she characterized my continuing to ask that I be provided with evidence as harassment.

 

Ms. Harley’s intention in banning me was, it seems, threefold: 

 

(1) Make it difficult for me to produce films in Australia.

(2) Cause me reputational damage and

(3) Intimidate fellow filmmaker Screen Australia critics into silence.

 

She achieved all three of her objectives.

 

In 2017, finding it impossible to earn money as a filmmaker in Australia, I sought legal advice. (see attached documents below). I was much less concerned with winning my case than I was in forcing Screen Australia to provide the court with evidence in support of the allegations made against me. Fundamental to any legal proceeding, is the requirement that the accused be provided with evidence of their crime. Mere allegations will not suffice.

 

A few days away from commencing legal proceedings in early June 2017 I was arrested in Cambodia, charged with being a spy and spent 15 months in prison.

 

When I was released, I had neither the money nor the desire to proceed legally against SA. I figured that the ban on me would now be in the past. I was wrong. Graeme Mason made it quite clear that I was persona non grata and that the ban remained. He had decided, it seems, that the narrative presented by Ruth to the Board, and to the film industry, reflected the truth; that I had intimidated, harassed and placed Screen Australia staff at risk.

 

In mid 2025 it seems that you and the Board also accept this narrative as reflective of the truth. Indeed, the word ‘harass’ has been used again by Screen Australia and this letter is probably, in your mind, further evidence of harassment on my part? 

 

The ban on me has never been formally lifted, and may well still be in place. It certainly seems that way from the way my ‘Chanti’s World’ application has been treated by Screen Australia.

 

Am I guilty as charged, or innocent? Where does the truth lie? In Screen Australia’s files.

 

There are four options available to us to resolve this matter once and for all:

 

(1)   The relevant person at Screen Australia reads through all the correspondence that led to my banning and identifies evidence of my guilt. Time consuming.

(2)   I make a Freedom of Information request for this evidence. If this involves my paying a fee for this search to be conducted, I am prepared to pay it - whatever the sum may be. Time consuming and expensive.

(3)   Feed my correspondence – letters and emails - into ChatGPT, GROK or any Large Language Model that Screen Australia trusts, asking it to identify anything I wrote that is clear evidence of intimidation, harassment or placing Screen Australia staff at risk, or could reasonably be construed as being so. 

(4)   The simplest way to determine my guilt or otherwise is probably to be found in one document. When Ruth Harley presented to the SA Board her argument as to why I should be banned, back in 2012, she must have included in her request evidence of my having intimidated SA staff in my correspondence. This one document will provide the current SA board with evidence one way or another. Locating this document would take minutes only. I would like a copy of it. SA can redact all names contained in it. The only part of it that is relevant here is what I wrote that led to the ban. I shoulc point out, lest there be any confusion here, that there was only one conversation between me and a member of SA staff – with Fiona Cameron in which she declared that she ‘felt’ intimidated.

 

There are two possible outcomes of this exercise in transparency and accountability: 

 

(a)   Clear evidence of my having intimidated, harassed and placed at risk SA staff, in which case my being banned in 2012 was justified. 

or

 

(b)  There is no evidence at all to support these allegations, in which case SA must acknowledge this, so that we can put this unpleasant incident behind us. I require no pro forma apology and will not proceed any further with this matter. I merely want to be able to pick up my career from where it came to a virtual standstill a dozen years ago - without this Damoclean sword hanging over me; to bring to an end the reputational damage that Screen Australia’s false allegations have caused me.

 

As did Ruth Harley a dozen years ago, you have declared, on behalf of the Board, that this matter is closed and that you have no intention of communicating with me further.  I trust, in the interests of fair play, that this request for evidence does not falls on deaf ears.

 

Cheers

 

Jamesa