Letter # 3 My appeal to three members of the SA board to meet with me and present evidence of my 'intimidation' of staff

 Mr. M. Ebeid AM, Chair

Members of the Screen Australia Boad

Screen Australia

GPO Box 3984

Sydney 2001                                                                              26^th August 2025

 

for Marta Dusseldorp, Sacha Horler and Deborah Mailman

and Members of the Screen Australia Board

 

Dear Marta, Sacha and Deborah 

 

Following on from my letters of 14^th. And 20^th August.

 

It does seem as though the Screen Australia Board is going to adhere to its decision not to engage in communication with me – even though I ask only for an answer to a simple question, first asked 13 years ago – evidence of the ‘crimes’ that led to my being banned!

 

I can’t help but wonder if the 2012 ban on me is still in place? It was never lifted or, if it was, I was not informed! Is it still in place? If not, when was it lifted?

 

As you know from personal professional experience, our highly competitive industry (a little ‘money pie’ with lots of hungry filmmakers wanting a slice) is a small one in which everyone knows everyone, or knows of pretty much everyone by reputation. It is an industry rife with gossip, rumours and scuttlebutt: “Don’t ever work with XXX, s/he is a nightmare.” Whether or not such rumours/scuttlebutt represent the truth or not gets lost in the mists of time. Rumours and scuttlebutt become accepted industry wisdom, and I know, as I am sure you do, how these have negatively impacted the careers of some.

 

Surviving financially as a filmmaker, is not easy for most of us. It is made much more difficult for those who have earned (or had thrust upon them) a reputation of harassment, intimidation and ‘placing at risk’. There is no such legal category as ‘placing at risk’ in the context in play here. These words, levelled at me, were intended back in 2012 to leave to the imagination of my fellow filmmakers to guess what risk I posed; the ‘risk’ amplified by Screen Australia’s decision to call the police and have me arrested for ‘trespassing’ when I was merely sitting in the foyer waiting for answers to my legitimate questions.

 

How would each of you feel if you were banned by Screen Australia under circumstances similar to those that I have experienced? You know that you are not guilty of whatever ‘crime’ you have been charged with and ask Screen Australia to provide you with evidence. Screen Australia refuses to do so. You keep asking but are told that your letters constitute harassment and that no further communication will be entered into with you. You continue to ask for evidence, and placing Screen Australia staff ‘at risk’ is added to the list of your crimes. Precisely what this ‘risk’ entails you are not told and your request for an answer is seen as yet more evidence of your harassment and intimidation. 

 

Ultimately, you are banned by Screen Australia. You cannot make any applications at all to SA. Any and every project you might be involved in that involves Screen Australia is dead in the water. You must withdraw from collaborations with other filmmakers, and they have no choice but to exclude you in their applications for SA funding for projects you have been developing together.

 

I invite each of you to look at the dilemma facing me from a different angle: 

 

‘Would you want to collaborate on a film or TV project with a filmmaker whom you believe had intimidated, harassed or placed at risk members of SA staff? 

 

I hope, if you can put yourself in my shoes, that you will appreciate what the past 13 years have been like for me. On many occasions I have had to defend myself with variations of ‘It is not true. I did not harass, intimidate or place any members of SA staff at risk.’ Heads are nodded, shoulders are shrugged: ‘Why would Screen Australia say that you did, if you did not?’

 

Screen Australia’s word against my own.

 

I request a meeting with the three of you to discuss whatever evidence SA has of my guilt. Or with any representatives of the Board. Lay the evidence out on the table – the relevant intimidatory and harassing words, phrases and sentences highlighted, along with any words that I wrote prior to 2012 suggesting that I posed any kind of threat to Screen Australia staff. Indeed, to any words I have ever written to anyone at Screen Australia that are intimidatory, harassing or suggest that I pose some kind of threat to staff. 

 

If I am guilty as charged, the evidence of my having done so will be on file. As I noted in my last letter, if I am guilty, I deserve to be banned and will accept my punishment and consequent public humiliation.

 

cheers

 

James

Letter # 2 requesting of Screen Australia evidence of my alleged intimidation of staff 20.8.25

 

Mr. M. Ebeid AM, Chair

Members of the Screen Australia Boad

Screen Australia

GPO Box 3984

Sydney 2001                                                                              20^th August 2025

 

Dear Mr. Ebeid and Members of the Screen Australia Board

 

Following on from my letter of 14^th. August.

 

This letter does not constitute ‘harassment’. It is a request for a simple answer to a simple question I asked 13 years ago and to which I could never get an answer: 

 

‘What evidence does Screen Australia have on file in support of the allegation that I intimidated, harassed and placed at risk members of SA staff prior to 2012?’

 

Am I not entitled to know what evidence led to my being found guilty by the Screen Australia Board 13 years ago?

 

I trust that you can appreciate how much damage can be done to the career of a filmmaker working in a relatively small industry such as ours by being publicly accused of intimidation. 

 

 ‘Intimidation’, a criminal offense under Section 13(1) of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007, can lead to the offender receiving a jail sentence.

 

Does the Screen Australia board, in August 2025, believe that there is there anything in my correspondence that indicates an intention on my part to (quoting the 2007 Act)  ‘cause fear or apprehension of physical or mental harm?’

 

Did I ever shout at a member of staff? Did I ever swear or use abusive language? Did I ever threaten a member of staff? Give them reason to believe that I might cause them physical harm?

 

If the Board believes me to be guilty as charged, is such belief based on evidence you have been presented with? Or is it merely hearsay? If it is the latter, please request of CEO Dierdre Brennan she present each of you with evidence.  

 

What about ‘mental harm’? Perhaps I am guilty of that?  Notwithstanding Fiona Cameron’s telling me, in the foyer of Screen Australia, that she ‘felt intimidated’ by my correspondence,  the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW) makes clear that not every unpleasant interaction amounts to intimidation; that ‘the context of the interaction is extremely important and so is the background between the parties.’

 

The context, in this instance, is the correspondence between myself and Screen Australia. In broad brushstrokes, this involves me, in the lead-up to my 2012 banning, trying to get straightforward answers to questions and Screen Australia refusing to answer them, and then characterising my continuing to ask them as ‘harassment’.

 

This same dynamic prevails in 2025. I ask questions and get no answers. I ask again and get no answers or, on occasion, answers to a few questions that are factually incorrect, whilst the important questions are ignored. I ask again and I am accused of harassment and am told that no further communication with me will be entered into. This is an all-too-familiar bureaucratic scenario – used to justify NOT answering questions, or to silence critics.

 

I have requested, on several occasions now, to meet with members of SA staff to discuss this matter face to face. My requests have been ignored.

 

The document(s) I have asked for, containing evidence in support of my alleged intimidation and harassment of staff, should be very easy to locate. It/they will be in the SA Board’s September 2012 minutes file. If it contains evidence that I did intimidate, harass and place at risk members of SA staff prior to 2012, then I will be proven a liar - in which case reputational legacy will be that I not only intimidated members of Screen Australia staff, but that I lied year after year about having not done so. This reputation will be well-deserved if I am guilty.

 

If Screen Australia in 2025 is committed to transparency and accountability, please provide me with the document(s) that led to the SA Board in September 2012 agreeing to my being banned. As I have made clear, all names can be redacted from the document, or documents. I am interested only in finding out what words, phrases, sentences contained in my correspondence led to my being banned.

 

Given that Screen Australia staff refuse to meet with me or to even speak with me on the phone, I request an opportunity to meet with and discuss this matter with members of the Board at their convenience.

 

cheers

 

James Ricketsona

Screen Australia threatens to ban me for the fourth time

         

Mr. M. Ebeid AM, Chair

Members of the Screen Australia Boad

Screen Australia

GPO Box 3984

Sydney 2001                                                                                          14^th August 2025

 

Dear Mr. Ebeid and Members of the Screen Australia Board

 

As you know, thirteen years ago CEO Ruth Harley banned me from making applications to Screen Australia. She claimed, without presenting any evidence, that I had harassed, intimidated and placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff. She steadfastly refused to provide any evidence in support of her allegations. Indeed, she characterized my continuing to ask that I be provided with evidence as harassment.

 

Ms. Harley’s intention in banning me was, it seems, threefold: 

 

(1) Make it difficult for me to produce films in Australia.

(2) Cause me reputational damage and

(3) Intimidate fellow filmmaker Screen Australia critics into silence.

 

She achieved all three of her objectives.

 

In 2017, finding it impossible to earn money as a filmmaker in Australia, I sought legal advice. (see attached documents below). I was much less concerned with winning my case than I was in forcing Screen Australia to provide the court with evidence in support of the allegations made against me. Fundamental to any legal proceeding, is the requirement that the accused be provided with evidence of their crime. Mere allegations will not suffice.

 

A few days away from commencing legal proceedings in early June 2017 I was arrested in Cambodia, charged with being a spy and spent 15 months in prison.

 

When I was released, I had neither the money nor the desire to proceed legally against SA. I figured that the ban on me would now be in the past. I was wrong. Graeme Mason made it quite clear that I was persona non grata and that the ban remained. He had decided, it seems, that the narrative presented by Ruth to the Board, and to the film industry, reflected the truth; that I had intimidated, harassed and placed Screen Australia staff at risk.

 

In mid 2025 it seems that you and the Board also accept this narrative as reflective of the truth. Indeed, the word ‘harass’ has been used again by Screen Australia and this letter is probably, in your mind, further evidence of harassment on my part? 

 

The ban on me has never been formally lifted, and may well still be in place. It certainly seems that way from the way my ‘Chanti’s World’ application has been treated by Screen Australia.

 

Am I guilty as charged, or innocent? Where does the truth lie? In Screen Australia’s files.

 

There are four options available to us to resolve this matter once and for all:

 

(1)   The relevant person at Screen Australia reads through all the correspondence that led to my banning and identifies evidence of my guilt. Time consuming.

(2)   I make a Freedom of Information request for this evidence. If this involves my paying a fee for this search to be conducted, I am prepared to pay it - whatever the sum may be. Time consuming and expensive.

(3)   Feed my correspondence – letters and emails - into ChatGPT, GROK or any Large Language Model that Screen Australia trusts, asking it to identify anything I wrote that is clear evidence of intimidation, harassment or placing Screen Australia staff at risk, or could reasonably be construed as being so. 

(4)   The simplest way to determine my guilt or otherwise is probably to be found in one document. When Ruth Harley presented to the SA Board her argument as to why I should be banned, back in 2012, she must have included in her request evidence of my having intimidated SA staff in my correspondence. This one document will provide the current SA board with evidence one way or another. Locating this document would take minutes only. I would like a copy of it. SA can redact all names contained in it. The only part of it that is relevant here is what I wrote that led to the ban. I shoulc point out, lest there be any confusion here, that there was only one conversation between me and a member of SA staff – with Fiona Cameron in which she declared that she ‘felt’ intimidated.

 

There are two possible outcomes of this exercise in transparency and accountability: 

 

(a)   Clear evidence of my having intimidated, harassed and placed at risk SA staff, in which case my being banned in 2012 was justified. 

or

 

(b)  There is no evidence at all to support these allegations, in which case SA must acknowledge this, so that we can put this unpleasant incident behind us. I require no pro forma apology and will not proceed any further with this matter. I merely want to be able to pick up my career from where it came to a virtual standstill a dozen years ago - without this Damoclean sword hanging over me; to bring to an end the reputational damage that Screen Australia’s false allegations have caused me.

 

As did Ruth Harley a dozen years ago, you have declared, on behalf of the Board, that this matter is closed and that you have no intention of communicating with me further.  I trust, in the interests of fair play, that this request for evidence does not falls on deaf ears.

 

Cheers

 

Jamesa