Nicholas
Moore
Chair
Screen Australia Board
12th
June 2015
Dear Nicholas
As the new Chair of the Screen
Australia Board you may not be aware, or only dimly aware, that in May 2012 I
was banned by the Board from making applications of any kind to Screen
Australia. I am not even allowed to speak with members of Screen Australia staff
on the telephone.
My crime? Well might you ask! And
I hope you do. It was alleged by then Chief Executive Ruth Harley, in May 2012,
that I had, in my correspondence, intimidated and placed at risk members of
Screen Australia staff.
Despite three years of asking, I
have never been provided by the Screen Australia Board with evidence of even
one instance in which I either intimidated or placed a member of SA’s staff at
risk. On one occasion, in 2012, prior to her calling the police to have me
arrested for ‘trespassing’ in the Screen Australia foyer at 3 pm on a work day,
Fiona Cameron told me that she ‘felt’ intimidated!
Felt! Evidence that I had
intimidated Fiona was not necessary. All that was required was that she ‘felt’
intimidated!
In fact, if anyone had ever
bothered to look at the correspondence on
file, Fiona ‘felt’ intimidated because I was asking her questions she
refused to answer in relation to allegations she had placed on file which were
demonstrably untrue.
No one has ever looked at the
facts surrounding the beginnings of this dispute and the reason is clear. If
they did, if any kind of impartial investigation were to occur, the Screen
Australia Board would have no choice but to apologize for having implemented a
ban based on the vindictiveness of Ruth Harley and Fiona Cameron’s sensitivity
to being challenged vis a vis her honesty and her commitment to transparency
and accountability.
In the interests of transparency,
accountability and natural justice, Nicholas, could you please ask Fiona
Cameron (or whoever the relevant person may be) to sprovide me with one
instance in which I am guilty as charged? Just one!
The primary consequences of this
ban for me have been as follows:
Documentary:
In June 2012 I was offered a
pre-sale deal from National Geographic for a documentary I had been working on (self-funded)
for 17 years – CHANTI’S WORLD. This pre-sale would have enabled me to acquire a
budget to complete the film. However, in order for me to be able to qualify for
the Producer Offset I would have needed to be able to speak with members of
Screen Australia staff – which Ruth Harley had decided (ratified by the Board
of which you are now Chair) I was not allowed to do.
I found myself in the very
embarrassing position of having to explain to National Geographic that I was a
‘banned filmmaker’ and hence unable to take of Nat Geo’s offer. And I found
myself having to continue, with limited financial resources, to self-fund the
documentary to this day.
For the past 3 years I have had
variations on this Nat Geo dialogue with broadcasters around the world and they
are, quite understandably, not keen to deal with a ‘banned filmmaker’ who, they
can easily find out through a google search, has allegedly intimidated and
placed at risk members of Screen Australia staff.
Drama:
Screen Australia invested in the
development of the first draft of a screenplay of mine for a feature film
entitled HONEY. The ban on me means that no-one at Screen Australia can read any
of the subsequent drafts I have written as this would, the logic of the ban
goes, place the reader at risk! At risk of what has never been explained to me.
Perhaps you can do so, Nicholas!?
Given that Screen Australia’s ban
is essentially a lifetime ban, Graeme Mason has agreed to write off the
investment made by SA to date in HONEY. This is good news for me as the project
is now unencumbered by debt and I can develop HONEY as a film to be made
anywhere in the world. Other than in
Australia, that is!
But is this such good news for
Australian film?
I think that the 8th
draft of HONEY, completed recently, is a pretty good screenplay but then I am,
of course, biased.
What does Screen Australia make
of HONEY? Please do ask. You will find that no-one within Screen Australia has
read it, because I am banned. HONEY might be brilliant. It might be lackluster.
It might be amateurish. It is not for me to say. However, given the dearth of
good screenplays in Australia, does it make policy sense to refuse to read a
screenplay by an experienced screenwriter on the grounds that doing so would
place the reader at some kind of risk?
I am now re-writing HONEY as a ‘Hollywood’
film, set in the United States. The same applies for another screenplay of mine
entitled THURSDAY’S CHILD – a feature film based on the life of Australia’s
most famous eccentric, Bea Miles.
Does this make any sense?
To the best of my knowledge the
ban placed on me is the only instance in which such a ban has occurred in a
democracy this past half century; since Joseph McCarthy, with a lack of regard
for evidence, sought to demonize ‘communists’.
Screen Australia has, very
effectively, demonized me as a filmmaker who intimidates and places at risk
film bureaucrats. In so doing, Screen Australia has defamed me and essentially
destroyed my career as an Australian filmmaker.
I trust, Nicholas, that you will
either provide me with evidence of my crimes (which the SA Board has refused to
do this past 3 years) or secure from the board an apology for having placed the
ban in the first place.
As will be apparent from what
must now be a very fat file, I will not give up until natural justice has been
done.
best wishes
James Ricketson
I received no response to this letter.
Receipt of it has not been acknowledged by Nicholas Moore. This is the case with all my
correspondence this past year.
The Screen Australia board has, for 40 months
now, refused to provide me with one instance in which I have, in my
correspondence, intimidated, harassed or placed at risk a member of Screen Australia
staff.
