The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is going to court to stop a Mail & Guardian screening of the controversial documentary Unauthorised: Thabo Mbeki in Johannesburg on Wednesday evening.
The M&G and the trustees of the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust, which has helped organise the screening, are named in an interdict application that will be heard in court on Wednesday afternoon.
If successful, the interdict would prevent the screening of the film and force the M&G to deliver to the SABC all copies of the documentary in its possession.
In an urgent letter issued to the M&G earlier in the day by SB Sithole Incorporated Attorneys, the broadcaster demanded an undertaking by the newspaper not to screen the documentary until the finalisation of a dispute between the SABC and Broad Daylight Films, which produced the documentary.
This referred especially to planned screenings of the film at the M&G‘s Critical Thinking Forum in Johannesburg and Cape Town, as well as in other parts of the country.
”In the event that you do not furnish us with the above undertakings, the SABC will have no option but to approach the high court for urgent relief,” the letter stated.
On Tuesday, the SABC had threatened a court interdict against Broad Daylight and producer Ben Cashdan. The M&G had not been named in the court papers served then. That application has now been removed from the court roll at the request of the SABC, head of group communications Kaizer Kganyago said.
In Wednesday’s lawyers’ letter, the broadcaster said it holds the copyright to the documentary, for which it paid Broad Daylight Films and Cashdan. It referred to a written agreement between itself and Cashdan regarding the production of the documentary.
”Broad Daylight has recently purported to cancel the agreement,” the SABC’s letter said. ”The SABC, however, does not accept that the agreement has been validly or lawfully cancelled and accordingly continues to hold Broad Daylight to the terms of the agreement.”
Kganyago also said the SABC still intends to screen the documentary on SABC3 ”on a date to be announced”.
‘Surprise’
On July 17, the lawyers’ letter continued, the SABC learnt via attorneys for the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) ”to our considerable surprise” that copies of the documentary had been distributed to the M&G and other third parties who wanted to screen it.
However, the documentary has already been shown in Grahamstown, Durban, Pietermaritzburg and East London, Cashdan told the M&G Online on Tuesday.
”There was very positive feedback. People said, ‘We enjoyed the film, and we found out more about Thabo Mbeki,”’ he said. ”Even those who said they didn’t like it, said the SABC should have shown it, as they wanted to be able to make up their own minds.”
The interdict application ”gives the impression that they are yet again trying to silence debate and stifle freedom of expression”, Cashdan said.
The SABC’s Kganyago had been invited by the M&G to take part in the forum discussion, but declined the invitation.
Redi Direko, producer of the documentary, said on Tuesday: ”It’s completely bizarre and incomprehensible that they [the SABC] are suddenly serving us with urgent court papers when we are in the middle of a series of screenings.”
The FXI also condemned the SABC’s urgent application for an interdict.
The broadcaster has delayed the screening of the documentary, which is reportedly critical of Mbeki, for more than a year.
The initial canning of the documentary caused an outcry, with accusations of self-censorship levelled against the national broadcaster. At the time, the SABC said the programme was canned because ”internal approval processes were not correctly followed”.
The storm over the documentary was preceded by a furore over the SABC’s banning of certain political commentators.
Apart from forum discussions in Johannesburg (on Wednesday night) and in Cape Town (on July 24), the M&G and the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust plan to show the documentary at several venues across the country, including Soweto, Khayelitsha, Durban and KwaMashu. The screenings are to be followed by a question session with the filmmakers.