My latest failed attempt to get someone within Screen
Australia to communicate with me.
No, the Screen Australia board has decreed
that my correspondence with SA staff was so intimidating, placing members
of SA staff at such risk, that no communication with me can occur.
Ever!
As for
providing me with one example of the crime for which I have been banned, this
would involve communicating with me – which has been forbidden!
Richard
Harris
Head of
Business & Audience
Screen
Australia
Level 7, 45 Jones St
Ultimo 2007
22nd Jan 2016
Dear Richard
re NEXT OF VIPERS (aka ANGKOR)
Dear Richard
I am, as you know, a filmmaker banned by Screen Australia
– ostensibly for having intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen
Australia staff with my correspondence. This is nonsense. I have been asking
for close to four years now to be provided with one instance in which I am
guilty as charged. None has been forthcoming - for the simple reason that I
have never sent such correspondence to any member of staff.
Graeme Mason refuses to communicate with me, as does
Nerida Moore. This is in line with the
fatwa that dictates SA staff not even speak with me on the telephone. It may
well be that you are obliged, as an employee of Screen Australia, to likewise
ignore this letter and to consign the first 3 episodes of NEST OF VIPERS (enclosed)
to the Screen Australia paper recycle bin. If so, so be it.
As an Australia filmmaker I would much prefer to mount VIPERS
as an Australian co-production. This is not possible for as long as I am banned
- a ban that must last the rest of my life as I have no intention of ceasing to
be, when necessary, a critic of Screen Australia.
If you are prepared to ignore Screen Australia’s fatwa, please
start to read Ep # 1 of NEST OF VIPERS. If it does not tickle your fancy, if
you see no potential in it, no worries. If you want to keep turning pages and get
to the end of Ep # 3, still keen to find out what happens next, have a look at
the 2 page ‘concept’ I have included also.
As you will discover, the two central leads – Nick and
Stair – are Australians. They can just as easily be Americans, Canadians or
British if VIPERS is to be an English language series. The female lead
character of Angela, at present British, can
likewise be pretty much nay nationality without interfering with the
narrative. Balin Meas (who will turn out to be a major character) is at present
Khmer/American but could just as easily be Khmer/French if VIPERS were to be a
co-French/Australian co-production. The character of Francoise, (also a major
character) will remain French regardless and will, I think (or hope) attract a
major French star to play the role.
It is hard to believe, in 2016, that Screen Australia bans
filmmakers! The original ban was the act of petty and vindictive individuals
who believed that critics of SA should be silenced. Such a mind-set should not
be manifested in the upper echelons of Screen Australia and its Board.
Other than a sentimental attachment to the country of my
birth and to the ‘industry’ I have been a part of for more than 40 years, it is
no skin off my nose if NEST OF VIPERS becomes a non-Australian production.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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