Claire
Jager, Ross Mathews, Liz Crosby
Screen
Australia
Level
4, 150 William St
Woolloomooloo
2011 27th August 2012
Dear
Claire, Ross and Liz
Have
I ever, in any email or letter I have sent you this past few years,
intimidated or placed you at risk of any kind? As you know, I have
been banned by Screen Australia from even speaking with members of SA
staff on the phone (let alone making any kind of funding application)
for having intimidated one (or perhaps all!) of you and placed you at
risk. I have tried, through FOI legislation and through the Office of
the Ombudsman, to be provided with one paragraph, one sentence, one
phrase or even one word that any reasonable person could construe to
render me guilty of having intimidated you or placed you at risk. I
have yet to be provided with any evidence at all and, it seems, I
will have to acquire the evidence in the Supreme Court of NSW next
week.
As
you know, my being banned is the culmination of a sequence of events
that leads back, Claire, to your June 2009 assessment of my
documentary project ‘Chanti’s World’. In the interests of
context it is worth revisiting that assessment – one that begins
very promisingly:
“If
the film was to be the story of how an evangelical Christian
missionary agency ‘steals’ children from poverty-stricken
Cambodian families in order to turn them into Christians as quid pro
quo for ‘rescuing’ them from the street of Phnom Penh - an
unholy exchange of succour for souls - and as a bonus, the main
character has been continuously filmed for 14 years since she was a
child, and now enlists the help of the hopelessly enmeshed filmmaker
to get her own children back from the Christian agency which is
acting illegally ... then we have a great film.”
Unfortunately,
Claire, you did not actually view the ‘promo’ for my ‘Chanti’s
World’ application – presenting you with something of a
disadvantage in forming a view regarding the strengths and weaknesses
of the project – especially since this ‘promo’ encapsulated
around 14 years of my record of Chanti’s life. Your problem in
assessing ‘Chanti’s World’ appropriately was compounded by your
assertion, expressed in your assessment, that:
“The
accompanying DVD of stills do not excite confidence or optimism.”
I
had included no DVD of stills in my submission so it remains a
mystery to me to this day what this sentence refers to. Since neither
yourself nor Ross has provided an explanation (despite my many
requests) I have had to resort to conjecture. Perhaps your use of
‘stills’ was a typo and that you were referring to a DVD of raw
rushes I submitted by way of demonstrating the strength of the cinema
verite footage I had at my disposal. If so, and in the absence of
viewing my ‘promo’, you may have been led to believe that this
cinema verite footage comprised my main (indeed only) audio-visual
representation of ‘Chanti’s World’. If so, your lack of
confidence and optimism would have been understandable.
Another
problem with your assessment, Claire, resides in two statements you
made in relation to the church that had ‘stolen’ Chanti’s two
eldest daughters. You refer to my:
“conducting
war with the agency, the Brisbane church which runs it…”
and
add, a few sentences later,
“He
appear to have alienated - justifiably, it may be the case -
relevant NGOs operating in Cambodia, thus making it highly unlikely
he could access direct funding from them.”
Yes,
I had alienated the church that had ‘stolen’ the children
(Citipointe, based in Brisbane) and, yes, it is highly unlikely that
Citipointe (and associated Christian NGOs turning a blind eye to this
‘stealing’ of children) would wish to provide direct funding to
‘Chanti’s World’. The idea that a church being investigated by
a filmmaker that has charged it with the illegal removal of children
from their parents care (a church that has threatened to sue him!),
would wish to provide ‘direct funding’ to him. The proposition
implicit in your comment about my alienating Citipointe is just
absurd and, by itself, in any fair assessment process, result in the
assessment being discounted and a new one commissioned.
Your
assessment, Claire, was problematic in numerous ways – the most
glaring being that you did not view my ‘promo’ before deciding to
knock back my ‘Chanti’s World’ application. Neither did Ross
Mathews or Julia Overton. The logical and appropriate Screen
Australia response, once I had pointed out the problems with your
assessment, would have been to commission another. This Screen
Australia decided not to do.
There
are, as you know, other stages to this dispute but it starts here –
with you and Ross not viewing the ‘promo’ that was the
centrepiece of my application. Or so I allege. I have invited all
three of you countless times to contradict my assertion that you
(Ross and Claire) admitted to not having seen my ‘Chanti’s World’
promo. You have not done so. I invite you again to contradict me and
say words to the effect of, “James, we never admitted to not
viewing your promo. You are mistaken. We did view it.” A clear,
unequivocal answer to this question would go some way to clarifying
just how and why this dispute began. If you, Ross and Claire, insist
that you did view my ‘promo’ in mid 2009, I have been playing
fast and loose with the truth in claiming for three years that you
did not. If, on the other hand, you were to now admit that you did
not view it, my original complaint had (and still has) merit and all
that has happened since, and which will lead myself and Screen
Australia to appear in the Supreme Court of NSW next week, has been
both unnecessary and a waste of time, energy and financial resources.
I
do appreciate that you are caught here between a rock and a hard
place. To claim, three years down the track that you did view the
promo raises the question: “Why did you not admit to having seen it
before this dispute escalated to the point it has.” If you do now
admit to not
having viewing the ‘promo’ in 2009 the question arises: “Why
have Fiona Cameron, Ruth Harley, Glen Boreham and the Screen
Australia Board and the offices of the Hon Simon Crean and the
Ombudsman allowed this dispute to progress to the point where, in
order for me to get copies of correspondence I have supposedly
written, I must sue Screen Australia for defamation in the Supreme
Court?
It
would certainly be very helpful vis a vis next week’s Supreme Court
hearing if one or all three of you were to either (1) Confirm that
you did not view my ‘Chanti’s World’ promo or (2) That you did
view it and I have been lying all along.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
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