AN ANONYMOUS ENTITY calling itself “Film Awareness, a global group exposing unethical behavior in the film industry,” narrowed its focus to one guy, an actor/director I’ll call “Mr. X.”
“Film Awareness,” whoever they/he/she/it may be, claims Mr. X is a total lowlife and charges “he is not only predatory but responsible for copyright infringement, slander, sexual harassment and exploitation of its actors.”
I researched Mr. X and learned that he appears to be an accredited character actor/voiceover who’s worked in some decent movies and TV shows, and wrote and earlier this year directed a low-budget indie comedy that shot in the suburbs.
The shoot was so under the radar that the Reel, which is attuned to even the slightest of projects, never heard of it.
Film Awareness, however, wants us to know about Mr. X’s allegedly shocking on-set behavior.
They/he/she charge that Mr. X demands money from people who work for him without pay; humiliates actors and crew on various projects; makes false claims that cause job loss and reputable damage; stalks film people via phone, Email and chat; exploits women and underpays or doesn’t pay actors and crew.
The thing is, I’ve never heard of Mr. X and his alleged scandalous behavior and I’m usually the first to hear the complaints. Over the years we’ve written about trusted bookkeepers who embezzled or didn’t pay taxes of workers, agency execs who took production company bribes, sexual harassment in various places, agencies evading certain rules, creative billing. Rarely do these things occur today.
As if to prove the allegations, Film Awareness’ Email urged me to “take a look at his criminal record” by conveniently providing a list of DuPage County court cases going back 16 years.
Among these were some dumb traffic violations, a marriage annulment and spousal problems spanning 11 years. Many of the records turned out to be non-cases and had been closed and two were in the wrong file.
I get the feeling that whoever Film Awareness is or are mean to nail the filmmaker and see that he rots in jail. It might have something to do with Mr. X’s problems with domestic violence by his ex-wife detailed in a book and his activism in fathers’ rights.
Mr. X’s directorial effort was unremarkable, according to a couple of people who worked on the movie, and, in my opinion, the facts (i.e., the court cases and lack of other evidence) don’t justify Film Awareness’ mean-spirited campaign.
Maybe it was Mr. X’s farcical take on divorce, showing the former husband having a good time and ultimately finding true love, and even the off chance that the movie could make some money, that so offended the anonymous writer(s).
