Film critic responds to director’s rant

The film critic on the receiving end of a rant by a director at Tuesday’s inaugural AACTA Awards after giving the film a negative review has told Encore that there was no personal attack to the director.

During the AACTA Awards, A Few Best Men director Stephan Elliott attacked The Age’s Jim Schembri over the critic’s review of the film, accusing Schembri of personal attacks. The attack was removed from Nine’s broadcast of the show.

Schembri on behalf of himself and The Age told Encore: “We respect Stephan Elliott’s right to bite back at negative reviews. However, we never engage in personal attacks in film reviews and cannot see how referring to him as ‘having proved himself worthy of so much better’ constitutes one.

“Also, journalists must never feel any obligation whatsoever to “support” Australian films, only good ones. Stephan Elliott showed with Easy Virtue how talented and accomplished a director he is, and we look forward very much to his next film.”