6th Feb
IF MAGAZINE: We are working on the February issue now but looking to
close things off this week. Let me know what you are after and I
can shoot through some rates.
JAMES: An open letter to Screen Australia.
IF MAGAZINE: I would need the decision this week
with artwork due next week. May I ask what the subject is for the open
letter?
JAMES: My open letter contains some questions
for Screen Australia that I have been trying to get answers to for a few years.
In a sense it is 'political'. Is this a problem for IF Magazine?
IF MAGAZINE: I understand that and I am happy to
do it but knowing it is an open letter I would just run it by my publisher. I could do a quarter page for $X or a half page for $Y.
Before I ask the
publisher are you OK with either of these options?
JAMES: Am fine with half page, Joanne. My
letter will be made up of a series of questions and will be controversial.
IF MAGAZINE: OK James – let me just check with our Publisher –
he is usually pretty good with these things.
JAMES: OK, Joanne. I can promise you that
whilst there will be implicit criticism of Screen Australia there will be
nothing in any way offensive. Just questions. I believe that Screen Australia
should be open to the same kind of scrutiny that we filmmakers are when we
present our films to the world. All filmmakers know of, have experienced, the
sinking feeling of reading a bad review. It is part and parcel of what we do.
The same should apply for film funding bodies. For the most part it does not.
They are very thin skinned and do not take criticism kindly.
7th Feb
JAMES: Here is my 'open letter' -
addressed not to Screen Australia but to my 'fellow filmmakers. If you provide
me with IF's bank details I will make a $X transfer electronically this
afternoon.
Later in the day,
having received no response.
JAMES: Please do let me know if you
are not able to publish an ad of this kind.
8th Feb
JAMES: Dear Mark (Kuban) Joanne and I agreed on a price for my ad, to appear
in the Feb instalment of IF. She needed to run the content of the ad by you,
however. I have not heard back from Joanne and wonder if, perhaps, you do
have a problem with the content? If so, perhaps you could let me know what it
is and I can address it?
9th Feb
JAMES:
Dear Mark, Am I right on presuming from your lack of response to my email of
yesterday that you do not wish to publish my ‘open letter’ in IF Magazine? Or
are you simply flat out just now meeting a deadline and will get back to me
soon?
10th
Feb
JAMES:
Dear Mark
I guess the answer it ‘no’. You will not
publish my ‘open letter’? Nor will you explain to me why? Is there anything in
it that is offensive? Or is your problem with it that Screen Australia would
not be happy to see such a paid-for ‘open letter’ in IF Magazine?
It is now 40 months since I first alerted you
to the ban that had been placed on me. I expected, at the very least, that it
might warrant a paragraph as ‘news’. No. The same has applied, since May 2012
to the Australian Director’s Guild. My banning is not deemed to be significant
enough to warrant a paragraph in the ADG newsletter.
An experienced filmmaker, one of the founders
of the Australian Director’s Guild, being banned for intimidating and placing
at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff is news. If it is true.
A filmmaker banned and prevented from making
films in Australia on the basis of the false allegation that he has intimidated and placed at risk members of
Screen Australia staff is also news. If it is true.
All that was required of you 40 months ago to
determine which of these two alternatives was true was to ask Screen Australia
for evidence. If SA had been provided it, you could have published a story in
which I was revealed, to my fellow filmmakers, not just to be an unpleasant
human being (intimidating and placing at risk SA staff is unacceptable) but a
liar to boot for having denied, often, that I had intimidated or placed anyone
at risk. My credibility would have been shot and there would be no sympathy for
me. And nor should there be.
And if Screen Australia could not provide you
with evidence, you could have published a story in which I was exonerated and
senior SA staff would, quite rightly, be held accountable. My reputation would have been restored to me.
Your refusal to report on the facts (as
revealed or not in my allegedly ‘intimidating’ correspondence) raises questions
about your impartiality as a publisher. Your refusal to even carry a paid-for
advertisement reinforces the perception that IF Magazine will not publish anything
that might be seen as being critical of Screen Australia.
Or perhaps there is another explanation for
your decision to neither publish my advertisement or to have the professional courtesy
to respond to my emails this week?
Have you any idea,
Mark, how distressing it is to have your career terminated after 45 years on
the basis of lies? And then, when you seek to have these lies exposed for what
they are, to be banned again – for harassment or, most recently, for being ‘unreasonable’?
If you have any
interest at all in fulfilling what I believe to be your journalistic/publisher
duties, ask the one question that will determine, once and for all, who is
lying - myself or Screen Australia. Ask Chief Executive Graeme Mason to provide
you with at least one example (preferably more) of statements made in my
correspondence, or on my blog, that could be construed to be either
intimidating or to place staff at risk? Or so ‘unreasonable’ as to warrant my
being banned for the 3rd time in May 2016. If Screen Australia
cannot or refuses to do so, report this without fear or favour. If Screen
Australia can present you with evidence that I am guilty as charged, report
this without fear or favour.
I am copying this
to the Australian Director’s Guild in the hope that it (like you) may (even at
this very late date) at least report that an experienced filmmaker has been
banned on the basis of allegations that Screen Australia refuses to back up
with evidence; that Screen Australia has even denied FOI requests made by
myself to acquire such evidence on the grounds that it is not in the ‘public
interest’.
I am copying this
also to Graeme Mason in the hope that he also, at this late date, either
provide you with evidence of my guilt or acknowledge that there is no evidence.
And I am copying
this to Senator Mitch Fifield in the hope that he may, at this late date,
realize that no filmmaker should be prevented from practicing his art, his
craft, without his being provided with evidence in support of the proposition
that he poses a danger of some kind to members of Screen Australia’s staff.
12th
Feb
JAMES:
Dear Mark, Clearly, you have no intention of publishing my ‘open letter’ so I
will do so on my blog.
It will not be
seen or read by that many people but at least it will be there as evidence that
future readers can take into account when and if they should happen to take an
interest in the strange business, back in 2012, when Screen Australia banned a
filmmaker and publications like IF Magazine maintained an undignified silence!
“In 2012, Screen
Australia banned a filmmaker! Surely not! Why What did he do?”
The whole sorry
tale will be laid out for them to read.
For me this is no
longer about being banned, having my career as an Australian filmmaker
destroyed by a vindictive film funding organization. It is about freedom of speech. I am being
punished by Screen Australia (in 2017, for God’s sake!) for exercising my right
of free speech. And you, Mark, publisher of a major film and TV industry
publication, are providing Screen Australia with your tacit support!
I have a question
for you. On 7th Feb I sent you and Joanne my ‘open letter’. In it I
made made reference to, provided the link to, a blog entry from May 2012.
Within two hours this entry had been viewed 10 times. Did you and Joanne need
to visit the link 10 times between you? Or did you forward my ‘open letter’ to
others so that they too could read it? If so, was Screen Australia amongst
those ‘others’? If so, did Screen Australia influence your decision not to
publish my ‘open letter’ in any way? If the decision was entirely yours and
yours alone could you please explain why you made such a decision?
cheers
James
14th Feb 2017
MARK KUBAN: Dear James, Many apologies for the delayed
response. I’ve been on leave.
I disagree with your assertions
that IF maintains any form of undignified silence and found your email to be
mildly offensive.
You appear to have forgotten that
IF has published many of your editorial comments and published your open letter
on ‘Quotas in Australia’.
We spent considerable time
assessing your open letter and I determined that it wasn’t in-line with IF’s
editorial charter. Perhaps a more moderate approach will assist your quest.
Regards,
Mark Kuban
JAMES: Mark, I have spent five years
trying numerous approaches to get Screen Australia to provide evidence in
support of the proposition that I intimidated or placed at risk any member of
staff with my correspondence. To not avail.
As you will be aware the banning of a
filmmaker in unprecedented in Australia. Indeed, anywhere in the 'free world'
since the days of Joe Mc Carthy. You have known of this ban and the fact that
it prevents me from making films in the country of my birth for at least 40
months.
You are not alone in not wishing to
devote even a paragraph to the story of this ban in IF. The same applies for
the Australian Screen Director's News letter and Screen Director.
I will keep fighting to clear my name
and will, in the meantime, publish both the ad that you refuse to publish and
the correspondence between myself and IF leading up to your decision. I would
be curious to know which aspect of IF's editorial charter my ad is not in line
with?
cheers
The ‘open letter’ that IF
Magazine has declined to publish can be found below...
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