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August 16, 2002
Jewish filmmaker targeted
Province's censors threaten documentary on censorship.
PAT JOHNSON REPORTER
When Aerlyn Weissman found out that provincial censors were threatening
to block the screening of her new film on censorship, she had two
conflicting emotions.
"[I was] really resentful that they were interfering with our
party," said the filmmaker. On the other hand, the province
handed her a perfect example of how government tries to control
ideas, she said.
Weissman's film Little Sister's vs. Big Brother was the feature
at the opening night gala of Vancouver's 14th Queer Film and Video
Festival Aug. 8. The documentary follows the battle of Vancouver's
Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium with the federal government
over more than a decade of costly harassment. Canada Customs continues
to hold some of the bookstore's orders at the border, despite a
court judgment earlier this year that seemed to be a victory for
the store.
In the film, Weissman follows the lives of owners Bruce Smyth and
Jim Deva, whose livelihoods have been devoted as much to their struggle
with federal censors as it has with retailing. Over the years, according
to the film, federal officials have opened books destined for the
store, held them for extended periods and then, when they permitted
delivery, handed over badly damaged material. In one case, the owners
arrived at the store to find a heap of mangled stock piled on the
doorstep. In another, one of the earliest publications explaining
safe sex to the gay community arrived with almost all pertinent
information blacked out by the censors' markers.
Federal morals enforcers have not been the store's only challenges.
The store has been bombed on more than one occasion and threats,
including vociferous hate-mail, tends to flow in whenever the store
is in the news.
But it was the provincial government that challenged the screening
last week. The B.C. Film Classification Board notified the Capital
6 theatre, where the gala was scheduled, that they could face hefty
fines if they screened the film, on the grounds that the film had
not been classified by the provincial overseer. Festival organizers
cried foul for several reasons. They argued that the screenings
are for members of the nonprofit society that organizes the festival,
Out on Screen (a one dollar membership fee to the society is included
in the ticket price), and are therefore not subject to the same
classification guidelines as public screenings.
More to the point, organizers told the packed house before the film
aired (half an hour late, but without incident), provincial officials
waited until after business hours the night before the festival's
opening before threatening the theatre. No similar threats have
been made in the previous 13 years of the festival, nor has the
Vancouver International Film Festival been subjected to similar
warnings, festival officials said.
Weissman acknowledged that the evening's energy was probably enhanced
by the outrage felt by members of the audience and festival organizers
over the incident. Though the classification board eventually backed
down and rescinded the threat against the Capital 6, they demanded
to see copies of an additional 11 films slated for screening during
the festival, which runs until Aug. 18. The board later backed down
on that matter as well.
Weissman, festival organizers and bookstore owners and staff were
fêted with uproarious ovations at the opening screening. Little
Sister's is emblematic in the gay community as a bulwark for free
expression. The legal battles gained high-level support from civil
libertarians and international literary icons, whose views were
included in Weissman's film.
The pre-screening incident is a warning to British Columbia's gay
community and others, said Weissman.
"There is still no room for complacency," she said. Though
British Columbia and Canada can seem progressive and open, cases
like Little Sister's belie such images.
"In some cases, the veneer of acceptance or tolerance is just
that," said Weissman.
The Jewish community, of which Weissman is a member, can learn from
these experiences as well, she suggested. Issues of integration
and assimilation have similarities in both the gay community and
the Jewish community.
"There's a parallel. You're fine unless you're too gay, too
Jewish," she said, citing the Middle East situation and its
ripples in North America as an example. "People are quick to
conflate what is a political situation in Israel with Jews in other
parts of the world," said Weissman.
The filmmaker, who is a native of Chicago and has lived in Vancouver
since 1989, also had cautionary words for members and leaders of
the Jewish community who see censorship as a solution to anti-Semitic
propaganda.
"I take issue with those in our own community who don't [respect]
free speech," she said. "The answer to hate is more free
speech, not less."
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