Dame Carol Kidu wins injunction against Australian film
24 April 2016
LOUISE HALL | Sydney Morning Herald
REVERED former Papua New Guinea politician Dame Carol Kidu has won an injunction restraining the Australian makers of a documentary from screening footage about her role in a controversial land development premiering at a prestigious film festival next week.
On Friday, the NSW Supreme Court granted an injunction preventing the screening of parts of the film The Opposition by young filmmaker Hollie Fifer at Canada's Hot Docs, the largest documentary festival in North America.
Fifer's 77-minute documentary focuses on the struggle to stop the eviction of 3,000 people from a decades-old squatter community to make way for an Australian-backed property development that is promising a hotel, marina and exhibition centre. It is the proposed venue for the 2018 APEC leaders' summit.
Dame Carol, the former PNG opposition leader, publicly protested against the development.
However, after retiring from politics in July 2012, she established a private company, which was later engaged by the project's developers to advise and champion its resettlement scheme.
On the day of her retirement, 3 July 2012, Dame Carol emailed Fifer saying: "Many conversations you heard were off the record and must not appear in any way in the documentary - forget about corruption etc. I have to find work after politics to support the many people that I support and thus I must be friends to all and enemies to none at this stage".
But in the weeks and months later, Dame Carol confirmed she had no reservations about the documentary.
Justice Michael Slattery ruled any footage of Dame Carol filmed by Fifer was not to be broadcast at least until a final hearing takes place in the future, although the rest of the documentary can be screened.
The material comprises about 20 minutes of the film and lawyers for Fifer had argued the cuts were the "central scenes" and the "heart of the documentary".
Fifer (pictured) and the two production companies behind the film, Media Stockdale and Beacon Films, said if the film footage of Dame Carol could not be used, there was no more time and no more funding to delete the footage and re-edit before Thursday's premiere in Toronto.
However, Justice Slattery granted the injunction on the grounds there was a serious question to be tried of whether Fifer breached a purported contract between herself and Dame Carol and if the latter could prove she was the victim of deceptive and unconscionable conduct.
Excluded from the injunction is about two minutes of footage of Dame Carol protesting as bulldozers demolished homes at Paga Hill, a prominent headland on Port Moresby's Fairfax Harbour, in May 2012.
Dame Carol is seen vigorously protesting against the destruction of the settlement and being taken away by police. This footage was excluded because it was uploaded by Dame Carol's daughter Dobi to YouTube at the time and is still available on the internet.
Australian-born Dame Carol, who moved to PNG at the age of 19 and married Sir Buri Kidu, the man who would become the country's first indigenous Chief Justice, says she believed Fifer was filming her as part of a "school project" and not for a film that would become a commercial release.
Her barrister Bruce McClintock, SC, said in 2012 that Dame Carol permitted Ms Fifer to film her on the understanding it was to be an assignment for her graduate diploma at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and would be about her last months in politics before retiring.
However, Fifer claims it became clear the documentary was evolving into a commercial enterprise, in part because she secured various funding grants from the ABC, Screen Australia and Screen NSW worth $95,000.
The film was eventually pitched as a "David-and-Goliath battle over land in Papua New Guinea".
The Opposition cost about $375,000 to produce and an order preventing its screening in Toronto would rob Fifer of the opportunity to secure wider distribution agreements with a resultant loss of at least $150,000, the court heard.
Justice Slattery ordered Dame Carol to provide security of $250,000 as a condition of the grant of the injunction.
He said: "This case will potentially be very costly for the losing party."
Outside the court The Opposition's producer Rebecca Barry said the film "is at risk of not being screened" because of the injunction.
"The filmmakers believe that the story is too important not to be told or censored and are working on all options to ensure its release at Hot Docs," she said.
The matter will return to court on Tuesday.
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