Filmmakers Al Clarke and Claudia Karvan, along with Michael Hawkins Richard King and Nicholas Moore refuse to provide evidence in support of the need to ban an Australian filmmaker

Members of the Screen Australia Board

Screen Australia

Level 7, 45 Jones St

Ultimo 2007                                                                                                   

22^nd Feb 2017

Dear Nicholas Moore, Al Clarke, Claudia Karvan, Michael Hawkins & Richard King

In a letter to Chief Executive Graeme Mason dated 1^st Feb 2017 I asked a simple question. It is the same question I had asked of      Ms Jane Supit, Head of Legal on 11th Jan. – six weeks ago now. Neither Jane nor Graeme will answer the question so I will now put it to the Board:           

“Could you please explain to me how, in practical terms, I and my creative collaborators can apply for the Producer’s Offset without meeting members of Screen Australia’s staff?”

For close to 5 years now Screen Australia has maintained the illusion that despite the ban on me, despite my not being allowed to speak or meet with members of SA staff, I can nonetheless apply through Screen Australia for the Producer Offset.

If you cannot explain to me how this can occur you must admit to yourselves that the May 2016 ban you have placed on me prevents me from accessing the producer Offset.

I would also appreciate, after close to five years of asking, whether members of the board have ever been provided with evidence that I intimidated or placed at risk members of staff prior to May 2012? And, in relation to the most recent of your rolling bans (May 2016), if the Board has ever been provided with evidence of my “highly offensive correspondence.”

Jane Supit does not use the word ‘correspondence’. She refers to “highly offensive conduct.” Given that the only conduct she can be referring to is correspondence (I have not met with any member of SA staff since 2012) this is yet another example of senior SA  personnel placing on file statements that are not true and which they know not to be true. It was Fiona’s Cameron’s doing so 6 years ago that set this dispute in progress and led to the ban on me.

Jane Supit’s reference to “highly offensive conduct” is a lie. And you know it to be a lie. Have you got any respect at all, as members of the Board, for the precepts of transparency, accountability and truth? Can Fiona Cameron, Graeme Mason and Jane Supit place whatever nonsense they like on file and you either (a) do not care or (b) do not bother to ask for evidence? Do you believe that I am not entitled, via an FOI application, to be provided with evidence of my “highly offensive correspondence”?

If you do not have your eye on the ball, if you allow senior management to lie with impunity, what useful purpose does the board serve other than to provide a rubber stamp to whatever funding decisions are made by these same senior Screen Australia managers?

If you have any evidence at all of my “highly offensive conduct” please make it public and expose me – not just as a filmmaker who should be shunned by the film and TV community for oafish behaviour (at the very least) but for being a liar as well.

best wishes

James Ricketson