Claudia Karvan, Rachel Perkins,
Richard Keddie
Screen Australia Board
Level 4 150 William St
Woolloomooloo 2011 14th Jan 2013
Dear Claudia, Rachel and Richard
My letter of 21st
December, as with my earlier letters, has yielded no response.
As the three of you know, as the
Screen Australia Board knows, as the Minister for the Arts Simon Crean knows,
Ruth Harley’s assertion that I have, with my correspondence, intimidated and
placed at risk members of SA staff, is a lie. For reasons best known to
yourselves you are prepared to go along with this lie and the ban on me that it
has led to, regardless of its consequences for myself both personally and
professionally. All three of you, along with the Board, have ignored my many
requests to be provided with evidence of the crimes that have led to my being
banned. That I have been arrested twice for doing nothing other than sitting
quietly in the Screen Australia foyer, waiting only to be provided with such
evidence, seems not to bother you at all.
It is not just myself who is now
suffering as a result of this ban. Also affected by it are my co-writer and
co-producer for THURSDAY’S CHILD – the most recent draft of which I have, this
past week, started to publish on my blog:
http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/thursdays-child-1.html
You will not read it, of course,
as doing so would place yourselves (as with Screen Australia’s staff) at some
kind of vague ill-defined risk! That three fellow filmmakers can go along with
such nonsense, based on a transparently
clumsy lie, is astounding. Your banning
of me has rendered it impossible for me to develop THURSDAY’S CHILD further as
an Australian film whilst the current regime is in power.
It had been my plan to keep
turning up to the Screen Australia foyer and being arrested as many times as it
took for someone on the Screen Australia chain of command with at least a
modicum of commitment to notions of natural justice to provide me with evidence
of my crimes. However, it became apparent in the court case that played itself
out on 20th Dec, that being repeatedly arrested would eventually
result in a trespassing charge on my record that would make it impossible for
me to travel to and work in the United States. This is a far from desirable
outcome, especially as I wish to travel to the US in March to start work on a
re-write of THURSDAY’S CHILD - transposing the story from Sydney and Australia
to San Francisco and Montana.
Requesting evidence that I have
intimidated, harassed and placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff is
clearly an exercise in futility but I will do so again anyway.
Evidence please! Or an apology
and a lifting of your ban.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
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