for Claudia Karvan, Rachel Perkins & Richard Keddie

Claudia Karvan, Rachel Perkins, Richard Keddie

Screen Australia Board

Level 4 150 William St

Woolloomooloo 2011                                                                                     14^th Jan 2013

Dear Claudia, Rachel and Richard

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. 

It is not just myself who is now suffering as a result of this ban. Also affected by it are my co-writer and co-producer for THURSDAY’S CHILD – the most recent draft of which I have, this past week, started to publish on my blog:

http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/thursdays-child-1.html

You will not read it, of course, as doing so would place yourselves (as with Screen Australia’s staff) at some kind of vague ill-defined risk! That three fellow filmmakers can go along with such nonsense, based on a  transparently clumsy lie, is astounding.  Your banning of me has rendered it impossible for me to develop THURSDAY’S CHILD further as an Australian film whilst the current regime is in power.  

It had been my plan to keep turning up to the Screen Australia foyer and being arrested as many times as it took for someone on the Screen Australia chain of command with at least a modicum of commitment to notions of natural justice to provide me with evidence of my crimes. However, it became apparent in the court case that played itself out on 20^th Dec, that being repeatedly arrested would eventually result in a trespassing charge on my record that would make it impossible for me to travel to and work in the United States. This is a far from desirable outcome, especially as I wish to travel to the US in March to start work on a re-write of THURSDAY’S CHILD - transposing the story from Sydney and Australia to San Francisco and Montana.

Requesting evidence that I have intimidated, harassed and placed at risk members of Screen Australia’s staff is clearly an exercise in futility but I will do so again anyway.

Evidence please! Or an apology and a lifting of your ban.

best wishes

James Ricketson