Stir over Aussie film festival: Politics comes before lights, camera, action

A documentary on the exiled Uyghur Rebiya Kadeer was not one of the headlining events at the ongoing Melbourne International Film Festival. But thanks to the film, the festival has made headlines around the world. Some suggest the controversy has been great publicity for the event.

Event

Chinese films quit festival

Five films from the Chinese world, including one made in Taiwan, were withdrawn from this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival in protest of the inclusion of a documentary about Rebiya Kadeer – the leader of the World Uyghur Congress.

Kadeer appears in the 55-minute documentary The 10 Conditions of Love by Australian filmmaker Jeff Daniels, which will be screened August 8 in a program called States of Dissent. The festival runs through August 9.

Kadeer has been invited to Melbourne as a festival guest. Australian senator Bob Brown will attend the film’s premiere.

One of the Chinese films withdrawn was Perfect Life, produced by leading contemporary filmmaker Jia Zhangke. Another was Miao Miao, a Taiwanese film directed by Cheng Hsiao-tse.

The Taiwanese film was pulled out by its producers, Wong and Stanley Kwan, leading filmmakers themselves, who own Hong Kong production company Jet Tone Films.

Two other Hong Kong-produced films have been withdrawn –Petition, directed by Zhao Liang, then its planned replacement, Claustrophobia, directed by Ivy Ho.

Jia, who won the Golden Lion award at the 2006 Venice Film Festival for Still Life – which he submitted in efiance of Chinese film officials – said “the political overtone of this year’s Melbourne festival is getting more and more intense.

Jia said he “decided to withdraw of our own will. We received no instruction or evena hint from the government. When we read the festival program, we realized it has become a place not to talk purely about films, and this naturally diminished our enthusiasm to participate. We feel that appearing with Rebiya in a thoroughly politicized festival crosses the bottom line of what we can accept.”

British director withdraws film

British director Ken Loach also withdrew his film from the festival to protest its acceptance of Israeli funding.

Loach pulled out Looking for Eric, scheduled to screen yesterday, after the festival turned down his request to refuse money from the Israeli Embassy.

The embassy is sponsoring Israeli-born filmmaker Tatia Rosenthal, who will visit the festival to answer questions about her Annie Award-winning feature $9.99, an Australian-Israeli production.

Loach wrote to Moore, saying he was not protesting Israeli films or filmmakers, but objected to Israel’s “illegal occupation of Palestinian land, destructn of homes and livelihoods.”But Moore’s response was that the festival will not bow to “blackmail.

Expert view

Politics in films

While most of us think of film festivals as cultural events, the truth is that they are also deeply political events.

For the most part, the links between politics and film go unnoticed. Part of the reason is that most of us are not privy to the behind-the-scenes dealings that go into making a film. What we do see is usually filtered through an interview with the director, or perhaps, in the case of a film festival, a question-and-answer session with the filmmakers.

In these sessions, the film appears as the product of an individual visionary. This view of filmmaking is about as realistic as the standard Hollywood happy ending. The reality is that films are rarely, if ever, the personal, unadulterated vision of a director. They are influenced or, depending on your point of view, compromised from the start by those who bankroll the films.

While many of us are familiar with the commercial pressures to modify films – to include product placement, to cast a particular actor in the lead, to alter the ending to appeal to a particular maret segment and so on – what gets far less attention is the extensive role played by political figures in the filmmaking process.

The role of political figures, and the state in particular, in the film industry is enormous. And in spite of nice-sounding claims about facilitating cultural dialogue, states don’t fund films because they love a good story. They do so because film can be a highly effective means of spreading influence.

Since they’re footing the bill, it’s understandable they want a say in the content of the film and how it is positioned.

- Christopher Scanlon,The Age, Australia

Sidelights

Hacker attacks website

The website of the Melbourne International Film Festival is back to normal after hackers posted a Chinese flag on the site in protest to the planned attendance of Rebiya Kadeer.

The attack came after Chinese films pulled out of the event.

Earlier this month, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang criticized the screening of Kadeer’s bioThe 10 Conditions of Love and her scheduled appearance, saying: “Everyone knows the kind of person Rebiya is. We are firmly oppsed to any country providing her with a stage for her anti-China separatist activities.”

Festival spokeswoman Louise Heseltine said a hacker put a Chinese flag on the website last Saturday and left English messages demanding festival organizers apologize to all Chinese people for including Kadeer in the program.

The website host discovered hundreds of other attempts to hack into it, Heseltine said.
The hacker sent an email in which he denied any link to the government, saying he was motivated by anger at the planned screening of the Kadeer documentary.

Film directors supported at home

Leading Chinese film directors yesterday voiced support for Jia Zhangke and Zhang Liang who quit the 58th Melbourne International Film Festival.

Feng Xiaogang, a household-name film director in the country, told Xinhua Thursday that film festivals should be a platform for cultural and artistic exchanges. “However, the Melbourne film festival organizers have turned it into a politica drama by inviting Rebiya Kadeer, a political liar,” he said.

Director Yang Yazhou said he was proud of the directors’ decision. “I believe any Chinese director would do the same in a similar position,” he said.

Stanley Tong, a well-known Hong Kong director, said he was shocked by the news because it was “extremely inappropriate” for a film festival to play a documentary about a “terrorist.” “If it were me, I would quit too,” he said.

Chen Jialin, chairman of the Chinese TV Drama Directors’ Working Committee, said Chinese directors should make anti-terrorism documentaies besides expressing pure anger and regret toward the Australian film festival. “We should take more action to reveal the crimes of separatists like Rebiya Kadeer,” he said.

On Internet portal 163.com, news of the withdrawals attracted more than 4,000 comments. Almost all of the posts voiced support for the two directors.

(Agencies)