Scientologists pressured Sydney Film Festival to ban film

The Sydney Film Festival almost buckled to pressure from the Church of Scientology to ban a film about the religion.

Alex Gibney’s Going Clear is the subject of legal threats.

The Sydney Film Festival almost buckled to pressure from the Church of Scientology to ban screenings of the documentary about the contentious religion, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. The church’s Australian legal representative, Kennedys, sent legal threats to the SFF and the film’s distributor, Madman, claiming the film was “highly defamatory”, particularly its allegations a leader of the church placed an illegal wiretap on Nicole Kidman, the then-wife of Tom Cruise. Reel Time understands the SFF board opted to pull the film from its screening at the festival before the late intervention of artistic director Nashen Moodley. Madman continued with its commercial release. Unlike many enterprises, the church can sue for defamation in Australia because it is a “not for profit” corporation. The church’s “not for profit” status is a point of contention in the film, and is likely to be an emerging issue for the church in the US and Australia if any legal action arises. CS Australia president Vicki Dunstan says “none of the allegations in Going Clear relates to the church in Australia” and “The Church of Scientology International (CSI) has already responded to the baseless allegations” the film raised on its website (www.freedommag.org). She says the church will not “publicly discuss” its legal rights. The legal threats are part of a campaign against Alex Gibney’s film by the church. “The church is passionate about both freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion,” Dunstan says. “HBO and the producer ignored the church and the result is a ridiculous fairytale by a handful of bitter individuals with their own personal agendas.” The legal action is also believed to claim the film will breach the television codes of practice, when subsequently broadcast on subscription television (Foxtel), by perpetuating “intense dislike, serious contempt or severe ridicule” against a group on the grounds of religion. It is believed the film has been turned down for screening by Qantas too. Qantas ambassador and high-profile Scientologist John Travolta is featured in the film. Sydney Film Festival chief executive Leigh Small and Madman Entertainment did not comment.

The windows are breaking. Release windows, at least. Following the prompt screening of Russell Crowe’s The Water Diviner on Seven only three months after its successful cinema release, when the network bought out the normal 120-day holdback window for its subscription TV and rental release, Transmission Films is crunching the release windows for Australian film Strangerland and Slow West, the Western starring Michael Fassbender and Ben Mendelsohn. Australian indie Transmission will release Kim Farrant’s regional mystery starring Nicole Kidman and Hugo Weaving on DVD and video-on-demand platforms (but not SVOD) on July 10, and Slow West on July 29, only weeks after their Sydney Film Festival premieres and platform releases in a “SFF Presents” initiative that has produced steady box office. Transmission says the two films are part of a new, possibly ongoing, strategy releasing on DVD/VOD soon after a film’s theatrical release.

The unstoppable 2015 box office continues apace. Jurassic World has topped the box office for a third weekend, bringing its take to $38 million, while animated films Minions ($11m) and Inside Out ($9m) continue to perform well into the school holidays. Comedy Ted 2 opened with a solid $4.28m, although it is unlikely to replicate the original’s unexpected success in 2012, when it earned $34m. Beyond the strong opening weekend for period romance Far From the Madding Crowd, the story of the weekend was the performance of Sardaar Ji, which had the best screen average among all films, and earned $353,000. Movies from the subcontinent have a big audience in Australia and regularly feature in the top 20 releases each weekend. Increasingly, they’re making the top 10, as did the Punjabi film with a 50 per cent bigger screen average than Jurassic World (albeit on 23 screens, not 507). And the film is not even a Bollywood film; it is from the “Pollywood” filmmaking region of the Punjab in India and Pakistan.

Further to last week’s news of board movements at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, some clarification is required, even if the board members themselves aren’t clear who was elected via member election and who was appointed directly by the board. It appears AACTA lawyer Tony Petani was the only person elected by the AACTA membership, in place of sitting member Ian Sutherland. Alaric McAusland, Mike Baard and Geoff Brown stepped down and Margaret Pomeranz and George Souris were board appointments. Or that’s as far as Reel Time can deduce.