There is a small film festival in Oklahoma called Bare Bones. They have a lot of info on their website encouraging their filmmakers to promote their own films and offering friendly suggestions. Well, a horror film called A BEAUTIFUL DAY tried to promote their Bare Bones screening with some You Tube videos. Unfortunately idiotic school administrators were shown these videos and got scared it was some real (albeit vague) threat. They called the cops and the cops called in the FBI. When the filmmakers caught wind of these knee jerk reactions to their promotions they helpfully called the police to explain and then took the videos down off You Tube.
Well, the Bare Bones festival has now pulled the film from their line-up. I don't know what the motivation for this is. I suppose it's some sort of punishment for the filmmakers. Although how the filmmakers can be held responsible for the hysteria and idiocy of authority figures is beyond me. For shame, Bare Bones. Festivals should foster and encourage creativity not kowtow to the cult of fear.
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This is what i sent to the Muskogee Phoenix. I'm a filmmaker and happened to be visiting when it hit the news.
Dear Editor,
While visiting my family I was sad to see in a recent article that the Bare Bones International Film Festival decided to pull "A Beautiful Day" from their festival lineup.
The filmmakers of "A Beautiful Day" are Oklahomans, practicing their craft in Oklahoma - not an easy feat given that the film industry in Oklahoma isn't exactly robust.
The trailer they created was produced along the same vein as nearly all Hollywood blockbuster trailers including "Independence Day," "Blair Witch Project" etc. Unfortunately, someone over-reacted and felt the need to report this “subversive terrorist threat”. Now, under the Patriot Act, this reported “threat” must be investigated. What a monumental waste of time and taxpayer’s money.
Thankfully, the authorities determined that, in fact, this IS NOT a 'terrorist threat' but just a MOVIE TRAILER. End of the story, right?
Not quite; the story made the front page of the newspaper. While people should have been outraged by the questioning of the filmmaker’s artistic license, the festival organizers chose to take the path of least resistance. They pulled the film from the lineup.
Fear in America is clearly paralyzing our brains. Someone cried “Wolf!”, and called in this threat, and the alleged vessel for genius and dreams, Bare Bones, saved Oklahoma from exposure to creativity. Now we can all sleep better at night.
Festivals started so that people could see something other than big budget films. One purpose of film festivals is to screen what may be controversial or challenge us to think. Great art is everywhere, some of it is not so great. But how will we know the difference if we aren’t allowed to judge for ourselves? I guess censorship is back in vogue, but I am not buying.
We should be proud that some guys from Shawnee spent their time and money to create something to entertain us. But to add insult to injury, we have just learned Bare Bones pulled their 2 other films that made it into the festival to avoid issues.
The entire fiasco touches so many depressing realities facing America today: erosion of freedom of expression, censorship masquerading as a virtue, political correctness, etc.
Censorship (by any means) is unpatriotic.
Lets celebrate what it means to be free. Show the films.
Richard Farmer, Los Angeles, CA
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