2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
Cheap excuses for betraying free speech
This is getting out of hand in Canada. On Thursday, the chief executive of the Toronto International Film Festival was in damage-control mode after having announced the previous day that the festival was cancelling the premiere of a documentary because of unspecified safety concerns.
Or was it copyright concerns? Or maybe a staff revolt?
The film, The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, tells the story of a retired Israeli paratrooper who rescues his son and his son's family during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas.
TIFF officials originally said the film was being pulled partly because the filmmakers hadn't procured the rights to Hamas's livestream footage of its massacre at the kibbutz where the son lived with his wife and two children.
But that excuse was not repeated in an e-mail TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey sent to the filmmakers explaining the festival's decision. Instead, he said 'the risk of major, disruptive protest actions around the film's presence at the Festival, including internal opposition, has become too great.'
A day later, Mr. Cameron apologized 'for any pain this situation may have caused' and denied that TIFF had censored the movie. He said he 'remains committed' to working with the filmmakers in order to 'allow the film to be screened.' (Late Thursday, TIFF said the movie would be part of the festival.)
TIFF pledges to work with filmmakers of Oct. 7 documentary after pulling premiere
Opinion: TIFF's latest censorship controversy is more than just a tiff. It's existential
So, then, what was it that prompted TIFF to cancel the premiere initially: the festival's concerns about the intellectual property rights of a terrorist organization, or the 'internal opposition' and the threat of 'disruptive protest actions'?
The latter is the better bet. This is the same organization that last year postponed screenings of a documentary, Russians at War, because it was 'aware of significant threats to festival operations and public safety.'
That film, which followed a Russian battalion into battle in Ukraine, was accused of whitewashing Russian war crimes and condemned as Moscow propaganda.
Chrystia Freeland, then the deputy prime minister, said she had 'grave concerns' about the film, while the Ukrainian Canadian Congress called for the resignation of TIFF's board.
A year later, and now that people have actually watched it, Russians at War is said by critics to be a courageous antiwar film about disaffected and angry Russian soldiers forced to carry out Vladimir Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. Moscow would never allow its citizens to watch this film.
A year after controversial TIFF premiere, Russians at War deserves to be seen
But it's not just TIFF that is cancelling shows and hiding behind unidentified threats to security these days.
This summer brought the sorry spectacle of federal and municipal officials cancelling performances by a D-list American country musician who makes his living preaching the most retrograde parts of the MAGA agenda.
After people protested, officials in cities where concerts were scheduled cited 'security concerns' to justify shutting them down, a move that of course gave Sean Feucht more visibility in Canada than he could have ever hoped for.
Two things connect these examples. One is the fact that the security threats cited as grounds for cancelling shows are never spelled out.
People have the perfect right to call for the cancellation of a screening or musical concert that doesn't jibe with their beliefs and values, but they do not have the right to threaten violence or disruption it they don't get their way.
At the same time, organizers should not be able to imply coyly and without evidence that protesters will act illegally. By ducking behind vague security concerns instead of exerting the right to show what they please, officials leave open the possibility that what they are really doing is capitulating to the loudest voices in a polarized debate.
The other disturbing commonality is that officials are failing to reflexively protect the invaluable right to freedom of artistic and political expression in Canada.
We have no doubt that if noisy protesters demanded the withdrawal of a TIFF movie because of its glorification of violence, TIFF officials would be the first to stand up for the filmmaker's right to artistic expression.
But when it comes to telling stories or singing songs that some deem offensive, that reflex has been replaced by a knee-jerk run for cover.
This is an alarming development in Canada. In difficult times, we need people in positions of authority to stand up for freedom of expression – not look for excuses to abandon it. That never ends well for anyone.
