Four years into my Screen Australia ban and
still no evidence has been presented to me, or anyone else, that I am guilty as
charged.
The wagons have circled!
Al
Clarke
Screen
Australia Board
Level 7,
45 Jones St
Ultimo
2007
29th
April 2016
Dear Al
It is now more than a year
since I wrote to you regarding the ban that had been placed on me by Screen
Australia in 2012. I began my letter as
follows:
8th April 2015
Dear Al
Having known you for 30 or
so years it is both awkward and embarrassing to be writing a letter such as
this to you.
However, being a filmmaker
banned by the board of which you are a member is more than a little awkward in
an ‘industry’ (‘cottage’, at best) in which all filmmakers are dependent to one
extent or another on Screen Australia. It is also more than a little
embarrassing to find so many doors closed to me, so many calls not returned,
letters not acknowledged from others in the ‘industry’ who do not,
understandably, wish to be associated with a fellow filmmaker who ‘intimidates’
members of Screen Australia staff’ who places them ‘at risk’.
Not one piece of
correspondence has ever been produced (despite three years of my asking) that
bears witness to my having ‘intimidated’ any member of SA staff in my
correspondence or placing them at risk. Nonetheless, potential collaborators
could be forgiven for thinking, “Where there is smoke there must be fire.”
…..
The complete letter can be
found at:
http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/letter-to-al-clarke-member-of-screen.html
We are fellow filmmakers
and yet you did not feel it necessary to to respond to it!
The ban has destroyed my
career as an Australian filmmaker. This was, of course, the intention of Ruth
Harley and Fiona Cameron.
The ban was not simply
intended to silence a critic, to put in his place someone who asked questions
Ruth and Fiona did not wish to answer. It was also intended to ‘send a message’
to anyone else within the industry who might have the temerity to speak out in
ways that questioned the professional integrity of senior members of Screen
Australia staff. In this Ruth and Fiona (with the rubber stamp blessing of the
Screen Australia board) have also been successful.
The Australian Director’s
Guild, set up in part (I was a founding member) to counter such
heavy-handedness on the part of film bureaucrats, will not even report on the
ban placed in me in an ADG newsletter! The reason: The ADG is dependent on
Screen Australia funding and does not want to rock the funding boat!
How sad that our industry
has devolved into this – top-heavy with career bureaucrats and with a board
that feels the banning of filmmakers is an appropriate way to deal with
critics.
So, at the ripe old age of
67 I have been forced by this ban to retire as an Australian filmmaker and to
begin a new career as a non-Australian filmmaker. This is not quite how I
imagined my retirement as an Australian filmmaker would take place but then
life is full of surprises!
As you will be aware, I am
pursuing the matter of my ban through legal channels - not with a view to
having it overturned (it is too late for that) but to have it proven, once and
for all, that I never intimidated or placed at risk any member of Screen
Australia staff with one paragraph, one sentence or even one word of my
correspondence.
Perhaps, when I have
succeeded in this the ADG might see fit to publish it in the ADG newsletter!
Al, for the life of me, I
cannot understand how you can be a member of the Screen Australia board and go
along with this nonsense!
cheers
James
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