Gaelic film director cries foul on BAFTA's Oscar snub

 

Seachd: The Inaccessible PinnacleThe director of the Scottish Gaelic film Seachd has called "foul" on BAFTA's decision not to put forward an official British entry film in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars, suggesting one member of the selection committee, a Scottish producer, may have had a commercial conflict of interest when sitting in judgment on their film, which was warmly received by press and public when it premiered at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival.

 

Two films for possible nomination included one in Welsh language, but neither was put forward. Leaks from BAFTA suggest the 6-strong film committee considered neither film good enough to warrant being put forward to the U.S. Academy for Oscar consideration. The film committee decision was appealed, but after it was upheld by BAFTA, Seachd producer Chris Young promptly resigned his BAFTA membership in protest.

Since then, there have been further developments which seem likely to fuel the controversy further and question the ethics of committee deliberation on possible Oscar contenders.

"New and shocking information has come to light," Seachd director Simon Miller revealed, which he says "sheds some distasteful light on BAFTA's inexplicable decision."

It seems that Douglas Rae, a Scottish film producer, who sat on the BAFTA film committee and appears to be the only member to have passed comment on the film in the press, may have strong commercial motivation not to support the international marketing of a Scottish Gaelic film, because he has a similar film of his own shortly to be released. In the international film market the two films would, as likely as not, be in direct competition with each other.

The soon to be released rival Scottish film, on which Douglas Rae is named as a producer by the Internet Movie Database, is called The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep. Miller's film Seachd, also uses the Gaelic legend of the water horse.

"The similarities to our film are obvious," Miller contends. "It is a Scottish Highland fantasy film, the lead role taken by a similarly aged Scottish boy and his relationship with the story of the water horse."

Since Seachd producer Chris Young's resignation over BAFTA upholding the Film Committee decision, support for the film has snowballed. The BAFTA decision has been questioned in the press and on radio and TV programmes including Radio 4 and BBC2's Newsnight. BAFTA have received complaints from people as far away as the United States questioning their decision. Questions on the affair have now been raised in the Scottish Parliament.

The British Academy's Film Committee should not have been considering his film if a possible conflict of interest was involved, Miller maintains.

"In these situations the moral thing to do is to declare your conflict of interest and step out of the committee, inviting someone else to make the decision in your place. In fact, it is quite often the case that in public and political life, it is an absolute legal necessity to do so."

Douglas Rae, a Scot himself and a supporter of Scottish film production, might be assumed to be supportive of Scottish film talent. Not so, says Miller, "By all accounts he has been the most vocal in deriding our film... It seems we have discovered why."

"If you were the producer of The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep would you like the idea of another Scottish film on international release at the same time as yours which told the water horse story in a way true to the original roots of the story in Scottish Gaelic mythology? Would a truly Scottish Gaelic film that had been put forward for an Oscar take the shine off the publicity for your own Scottish film that trivializes a similar story?"

"Not only that ... we have been informed that the Chairperson of the committee was on holiday when the committee met to decide which films would be put forward. Not only is this a rather convenient excuse for passing the buck, but it shows with absolute clarity the seriousness with which BAFTA took this category."

"On appeal we understand that the decision to maintain BAFTA's position of not putting forward a film was upheld by majority decision, rather than unanimous decision. Would that decision have been different if Douglas Rae's personal interests in burying a competitor Scottish film had been made clear?" Miller asks.

Miller say he believes the appeal decision was made to save embarrassment at BAFTA after a process that had not taken the contender films seriously enough in the first place. How could BAFTA be seen to cave in to pressure from a producer?, he asks.