letter to Al Clarke, member of the Screen Australia Board

Al Clarke

Screen Australia Board

Level 7, 45 Jones St

Ultimo 2007

8^th 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.”

Alternatively, they may be thinking, “I don’t believe James is guilty as charged but I can’t afford to have my name associated with his on any project and possibly alienate Screen Australia. I don’t want to find myself on the same black list as James and others who have had the temerity to be public critics of our peak film funding body.”

On the 5^th May 2014, almost a year ago, I included the following in a letter to Graeme Mason:

“I  find it hard to believe that in your heart of hearts you do not feel that the banning of any screenwriter is nonsense, especially if s/he has been provided with no evidence in support of the crimes that led to the ban.

Will you defy the board and read HONEY? I certainly hope so. I fear for the future of Australian screenwriting (and hence Australian and TV production) if the quality of the screenwriting is seen to be of less importance than whether or not the screenwriter is (or has been) ‘nice’ to members of the Screen Australia board.

The board, indeed yourself and all Screen Australia staff, should thrive on constructive criticism and be able to accept with good grace even those criticisms that seem unfair or unfounded. Just as filmmakers are, quite rightly, judged harshly in the pubic arena when they make second rate boring films, so too should film bureaucrats (a category that includes members of the Screen Australia board) be judged harshly (though preferably constructively) if they develop and finance second rate and boring films.”

Graeme Mason did not reply to this letter or acknowledge receipt of it or the enclosed screenplay.

It was, of course, Ruth Harley’s intention with her ban to cause as much damage as possible to my career as an Australian filmmaker. In this she had been very successful.  A pyrrhic victory!

Shooting the messenger (or vocal critic, take your pick!) was a preferable option for Ruth to admonishing Fiona Cameron for placing lies on file and, when I made a complaint about her doing so, assigning to Fiona the task of conducting an ‘investigation’ into my complaint about Fiona!

That Ruth Harley should respond to my criticism of her management style in such a vindictive manner did not surprise me too much. What did surprise me (and surprises me still) is why the board (especially fellow filmmakers) went along with Ruth’s plan to ban me! Did the board really believe, in May 2012, that I had placed members of Screen Australia staff at risk? In what way? Why were the police not called? Why was no AVO taken out?

Did board members simply accept Ruth’s allegations as fact? Without asking Ruth for any evidence? It appears so.

On 6^th May 2012 I published the following on my blog:

Why is my complaint about Screen Australia of any relevance to anyone but myself?

I do not expect anyone to take a particular interest in the details of my battle with Screen Australia. It is of no consequence to anyone but myself. It is only relevant to my fellow filmmakers in that Screen Australia has no functioning complaints process. This means that any other filmmaker with a valid complaint to make about Screen Australia can be, at the whim of senior management, treated with the contempt that I have been treated with – lied to and threatened with legal action for having the temerity to stand up for their rights. And if any other filmmaker should feel inclined to make a complaint to Ruth Harley about his or her latest insultingly dismissive email or letter from Fiona Cameron, Ruth will pass it on to Fiona who will tell him/her that she has no intention of communicating further on the matter – whatever the matter might be. In short, zero accountability, zero transparency. And if this frustrated filmmaker should write to Glen Boreham and the Screen Australia Board, the result will be the same – silence or, if they are persistent, a spin-laded letter from Glen in which it is quite apparent that he accepts, without question, a version of events provided to him by Ruth and Fiona. And the same will apply if s/he writes to Simon Crean – a spin-laden letter being the best s/he can hope for. And so on up to the Prime Minister’s office. This is the issue that I believe should be of concern to the industry at large. Excuse me for belabouring the point but all the evidence (from my own experience and that of others I have spoken with whose experiences mirror my own) suggests that Screen Australia is an autocracy whose tactics, when dealing with critics or anyone with the temerity to ask questions, are akin to those practiced by the mafia. Why do we, as an industry, put up with this state of affairs? Screen Australia’s role is to serve the industry and culture of Australian film, not vice versa!

http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/why-is-my-complaint-about-screen.html

Four days before a two year ban was imposed on me by Ruth and rubber stamped by the board without even the benefit of a board meeting to discuss the wisdom of imposing such a ban. And, needless to say, without giving me any opportunity to present a defense against the charges that had been laid.

To the best of my knowledge I am the only filmmaker anywhere in the democratic world since the Mc Carthy era in the 50’s, who has been banned by a government film funding body! An extraordinary state of affairs.

I will not embarrass you, Al, by asking you if you believe that the banning of filmmakers is appropriate under the circumstances that prevail here. Even if you find such a ban nonsense you could easily be outvoted by fellow board members such as Claudia Karvan, Rosemary Blight and Richard Keddie who have been very consistent in their desire to see me banned - effectively, for life.

However, I will ask you to advocate within Screen Australia for my right to be provided with evidence that I have ever intimidated or placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff (the original reason given for the ban); for evidence that I have “humiliate(d) and damage(d) the reputation of Screen Australia staff”.  

What I have done is continue to insist that senior members of Screen Australia staff, and the Screen Australia board, be transparent and accountable and not able to place on file assertions that they know to be false. If this assertion of mine is false, this can very easily be demonstrated by Screen Australia making public just one instance in which I have, in my correspondence, (a) intimidated, (b) placed at risk and/or (c) humiliated and damaged the reputation of Screen Australia staff. Just one example.

For the record, I have, this past few years, tried on many occasions to bring this conflict to an amicable resolution. Here are just a few examples:

17^th May, 2012

Regardless of who is right and who is wrong in my dispute with Screen Australia one thing is clear: it has gone on for much too long and is wasting the time and energy of too many people. There should be some mechanism whereby a quick and equitable resolution can be reached. It could have happened 15 months ago. It could happen next week. Here’s how it could work. A Conciliator is called in who has no connection with Screen Australia or myself and no vested interest in the outcome – a cross between Judge Judy and a marriage guidance counsellor. S/he would be interested in verifiable facts only.

http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/simple-solution.html

I received no response. I tried again on 17^th May:

Last week I suggested in ‘A simple solution’ an equitable way not only to resolve my own dispute with Screen Australia but a way that other filmmakers who find themselves at loggerheads with the organization could resolve their disputes.

My suggestion has been ignored by Screen Australia. The front page of today’s Sydney Morning Herald carries a story entitled DOUBLE MEDIATION ORDERED FOR DIVORCE. “Divorcing couples will be asked to undergo further mediation before having their case heard in court,” the article begins. Having been recently divorced by Screen Australia on the flimsiest of pretexts, this seems like a good idea to me. Okay, so the marriage between James Ricketson and Screen Australia has not been a particularly happy one but I feel as though I have been divorced on the grounds of infidelity without my partner providing any evidence at all that I have been unfaithful!

http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/conciliationmediation.html

I received no response.

On 11^th Nov 2013 I wrote the following to Graeme Mason, recently appointed Chief Executive:

“Given that the ball is now in your court, I would much appreciated it if you could identify one letter, one email, one paragraph, one sentence or even one phrase in any of my correspondence in which I have intimidated or placed at risk any member of Screen Australia’s staff.

If none of the suggestions I have made to resolve this matter appeal to you (one being: http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/simple-solution.html), there is one more I would like to make. It is that you and I and Fiona Cameron meet to discuss whatever evidence Screen Australia believes it has in support of the ban. If Fiona can point to anywhere in my correspondence where I suggested or even implied that I believed CHANTI’S WORLD had been greenlit and if either of you can point to even one phrase in my correspondence that places the intended recipient at risk or which is intimidating, I will accept my ban and say no more.

If, on the other hand, Fiona cannot identify where in my correspondence I expressed my belief that CHANTI’S WORLD had been greenlit and if neither of you can identify anything in my correspondence that is intimidating etc. the ban should be lifted. This could be done with a minimum of fuss and could be announced by SA along the lines of: “The dispute between James Ricketson and Screen Australia has been amicably resolved and the ban on him has been lifted.” We could agree that neither I nor  Screen Australia will comment further. That will be the end of the matter and I can get back to simply making films and stop fighting for the right to be able to make them unencumbered by the Screen Australia ban.”

http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/letter-to-graeme-mason-11th-nov-2013-re.html

Graeme did not take me up on my offer.

These are but three of my attempts, Al, to see this matter resolved. Screen Australia has made not one attempt – believing as it does that banning filmmakers is the most appropriate form of conflict resolution!

The time is long overdue for Screen Australia to present me with evidence of my crimes or to lift the ban and apologize for having imposed it in the first place. Perhaps you could arrange a meeting with the relevant parties in which some way out of this mess can be found that is satisfactory to all concerned.

cheers

James

letter to Minister for the Arts, George Brandis, dated 31st March 2015

A little over two weeks ago, in yet another attempt to have the ban on me by Screen Australia lifted or, alternatively, to be provided with evidence in support of its necessity, I wrote the following to Senator George Brandis. I have received no response:

The Hon George Brandis MP

Minister for the Arts

Commonwealth Parliament Offices

Level 361 Eagle St

Brisbane QLD 4000                                                                                       

31^st March 2015

Dear Senator Brandis

On 29^th April, 2014, I wrote to you as follows:

Dear Senator Brandis

Following on from my letter of 6^th Jan. Some questions:

- How much script development money did Martha Coleman earmark for Goalpost Pictures when working at Screen Australia before joining the company in Jan this year?

- How much development and production money has Screen Australia provided to Goalpost Pictures since Rosemary Blight became a member of the board?

- At the March 2014 board meeting, was Goalpost’s HOLDING THE MAN really one of the two only film projects deserving of Screen Australia production funding?

- Is there any limit to the amount of funding that the Screen Australia board can vote to provide to board members film and TV projects?

- Has the board ever knocked back a project presented to it by a board member?

Is it possible to even ask such questions without being accused of intimidating or placing at risk members of the Screen Australia board; of being banned for having the temerity to ask such questions?

The answer is no. Ten days after I wrote this letter to you the Screen Australia board banned for a further two years.

In reality, the Board has banned me for life as I have no intention of ceasing to ask questions such those above or of advocating on behalf of my right to be provided with evidence of the crimes that led to my being banned.

On many occasions now I have requested of the Commonwealth Ombudsman that his office request, from Screen Australia, evidence of my ‘crimes’. The Ombudsman refuses to do – proving a variety of “Yes Prime Minister”- type reasons for not doing so. The expression “Useless as tits on a bull” springs to mind!

Leaving aside the ban on myself, there is the question of whether or not it is appropriate for members of the Screen Australia Board to continually vote large sums of money to themselves and their associates. This is the elephant in the room that filmmakers dare not speak of in public for fear of being banned as I have been – whether such a ban be official (as is the case with myself) or unofficial, as is the case with other filmmakers I know who have been critical of Screen Australia and/or are not professional associates or friends of key SA decision makers.

You have presented yourself to the public as a champion of free speech but clearly such free speech does not extend to critics of Screen Australia.

From the ICAC website:

“The ICAC receives and analyses complaints from members of the public and public officials, and reports made by the principal officers of public sector organisations.

The ICAC has extensive powers of investigation and may conduct public inquiries to obtain evidence of corruption.

The ICAC also conducts research to identify specific areas of corruption risk.

The ICAC works to minimise corruption by providing advice, information, resources and training to public sector organisations to remedy existing or potential corruption problems, and helps organisations to identify and deal with significant corruption risks.”

I believe, along with many others in the film and TV community, that the risk of corruption is great in an organization in which filmmaker board members are able to vote to give substantial amounts of money to each other whilst at the same time banning fellow filmmakers who raise questions, in public, about the propriety of such rent seeking.

Before making a formal complaint to ICAC I will, one last time, request that you do all in your power to resolve the dispute between myself and Screen Australia and conduct some form of public enquiry into Screen Australia board members propensity to reward themselves so handsomely.

Eternal optimist that I am, I also request that you instruct Screen Australia to provide me with evidence that I have ever, even once, either intimidated or placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff.

My latest letter to the Screen Australia board, written 20 days ago, has yielded no response at all. If nothing else, Screen Australia’s lack of transparency and accountability should be of concern. This letter can be found at:

http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com/2015/03/letter-to-screen-australia-board-re-3.html

I have also attached a subsequent letter sent to Claudia Karvan  on 24^th March 2015. It speaks for itself.

best wishes

James Ricketson

Yet another letter to fellow filmmaker Claudia Karvan

I sent the following letter to Claudia Karvan 2 weeks ago. I have received no reply.

Claudia Karvan

Screen Australia Board

Screen Australia

Level 7, 45 Jones St 

Ultimo 2007   

                                                                       

24th March 2015

Dear Claudia

I have received no response from you or any other member of the board to my letter of 10^th March. This is par for the course!

I wonder if you can imagine what it would be like to be in the position I am in!? To be banned from making any applications at all to Screen Australia? To be banned from even speaking on the telephone with a member of Screen Australia’s staff on the basis of allegations you know to be false? To be in the position where no member of the board (many fellow filmmakers) is prepared to communicate with you in any way at all or to provide you with evidence of your crimes?

Recently a longtime friend and film colleague wrote to me in relation to a screenplay of mine I had sent him to read.

“James, I can’t read ‘Honey’. I might like it. What then? I hope you understand. Nothing personal.”

This is but one of many similar responses I have received from potential collaborators within the film industry this past 3 years.

Why on earth would this friend or any other filmmaker wish to enter into a professional relationship with a colleague who has been banned by Screen Australia and whose Australian projects are, by definition, all dead in the water? Why would anyone want to work with a filmmaker who has ‘intimidated’,  ‘placed at risk’, members of Screen Australia’s staff?

The board of which you are a member has never articulated what ‘risk’ I posed to Screen Australia staff and, presumably, what risk I still pose today! Neither yourself nor any other member of the board has articulated in what way I ‘intimidated’ members of SA staff with my correspondence -  leaving potential film collaborators to use their imaginations to guess.

For three years I have asked for evidence of  both these allegations. I have been given none. And I have been given none, as you know, because I have neither intimidated nor placed at risk anyone at Screen Australia. It suited the purposes of both Ruth Harley and the board to have a critic silenced in 2012  – not merely as punishment  for asking difficult questions and insisting on accountability but to let the film and TV community know, in no uncertain terms, just what happens to anyone who questions the integrity of senior members of Screen Australia’s staff and of its board.

On 14^th Jan 2013, I wrote the following to yourself, Rachel Perkins and Richard Keddie – all three of you deeply implicated in the continued banning of me:

My letter of 21^st December, as with my earlier letters, has yielded no response.

As the three of you know, as the Screen Australia Board knows, as the Minister for the Arts Simon Crean knows, Ruth Harley’s assertion that I have, with my correspondence, intimidated and placed at risk members of SA staff, is a lie.

For reasons best known to yourselves you are prepared to go along with this lie and the ban on me that it has led to, regardless of its consequences for myself both personally and professionally. All three of you, along with the Board, have ignored my many requests to be provided with evidence of the crimes that have led to my being banned. That I have been arrested twice for doing nothing other than sitting quietly in the Screen Australia foyer, waiting only to be provided with such evidence, seems not to bother you at all. 

You did not have the professional courtesy, Claudia, to respond in any way to this or any other letter I have sent to you – of which there have been several this past two years. To do so would necessitate evidence and, given that there is none, the only option left to you is silence – a silence that enables you to neither confirm nor deny that I intimidated or placed anyone as SA at risk. The alternative would be an honest statement along the lines of:

We have no evidence. We blindly followed Ruth Harley’s lead. We made a mistake. A bad mistake. It is a mistake that has caused you enormous professional and personal damage and we, the board,  offer our heartfelt apologies.

You are not going to do this. The board is not going to do this. To do so would not only necessitate some humility on your part and on the part of your fellow board members’ parts, but would open up a Pandora’s Box of questions about the integrity of the Screen Australia board.

Whilst you, a serving  board member, have been the beneficiary of more than $11 million of Screen Australia’s production budget this past year to pursue your film and TV career, I am not able to have even a telephone conversation with a member of Screen Australia’s staff! Such a conversation would, you and your fellow board members seem to believe, place the person on the other end of the phone at risk!

That members of the SA board regularly vote large sums of development and production money to fellow board members is an elephant in the room that members of the film and TV community dare speak of only in hushed tones. To articulate their concerns in public would be to invite the kind of bureaucratic retribution that I am the unfortunate beneficiary of – to be officially (or unofficially) banned by a board that will brook no criticism and will not tolerate anyone who has the temerity to ask questions that the board does not wish to answer.

Choosing his words carefully, journalist Michael West has, in his 6^th March Sydney Morning Herald article, asked questions of the kind I have been asking for years in a fairly pubic manner. That the film and TV community has, for the most part, remained silent in response to Michael West’s article, speaks volumes about the fear many filmmakers have of Screen Australia retribution if they articulate their concerns.

Whilst you refuse, whilst the Screen Australia board refuses to provide me with evidence of my crimes, I trust that new board members such as Al Clark do ask, in board meetings, precisely what this evidence comprises of. As a matter of both professional courtesy and natural justice you should provide me with this same evidence.

best wishes

James Ricketson