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Steal Away
At the final Ozdox screening of 2009, FILMINK discovered that the controversy surrounding the film Stolen was far from over.
Making a documentary is no easy feat. While it might not demand the same level of production values, or involve masses of special effects, extras and actors that a feature film requires, documentaries have their own extensive list of issues to overcome. In the case of Stolen, the film that proved to be the most controversial at this year's Sydney Film Festival, the creators have had to endure detention, international criticism and public scrutiny after the featured family in the film withdrew their support for the film's claims.
Originally Sydney filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw [pictured centre] had headed into the refugee camps in Algeria in 2006 to make a film about the family reunions that the UN was organising. When they arrived however, they met Fetim. Separated from her mother at a very young age, Fetim was waiting for the reunion that would unite her and her children with her mother and sister after many years of living in a refugee camp. Her daughter Leil, who spoke perfect Spanish, proved a helpful translator for Bolivian born Ayala, and also a bright and engaging subject who sparkles on the screen. It was in one particular conversation with the two of them that Ayala uncovered something massive. Leil suggested that Fetim was a slave to her white Arabic master, also living in the camps with them. It was the alleged uncovering of slavery, and the fallout associated with it, that led to the much-publicised controversy at this year's Sydney Film Festival.
Fetim flew out to Sydney to publicly claim that she had been mistranslated in the film and that the filmmakers' claims were incorrect. Ayala and Fallshaw however insist that they stand by all that they have said in the film and that Fetim has been bullied into submission by the Polisario Liberation Front.
The 7:30 Report as well as numerous national newspapers have covered the controversy with varying claims coming from all sides. Independent translators hired by the ABC found inconsistencies with the initial translations and one of the film's cameramen has stated that he found no evidence of slavery when he accompanied Dan and Violeta to the camps.
While Ayala and Fallshaw may have thought that the controversy surrounding their film had dissipated months ago after the end of Australia's film festival season, their current tour with the film, recently screened at the Toronto Film Festival before returning back to Sydney for a screening at the Bondi Pavilion and another at AFTRS as part of the OzDox program, has seen it all reignite, with one audience member at the OzDox screening and Q&A claiming that the filmmakers had lied.
Producer Tom Zubrycki, who along with Violeta and Dan attended the Ozdox screening, still supports the film entirely no matter what others have claimed. "When I found out their side of the story I supported them without a shadow of doubt," the producer said. "The last few months have been hard for all of us, hard for me because I know quite a few colleagues and friends [who] I don't think supported me. I know quite a few did but some of them didn't and I felt personally very challenged by that, very put out by that."
While Ayala commented to FILMINK that she did not want to speak any more about the controversy as she felt that she had already said it all already, all three of them were unwillingly brought back into it during the process of the Q&A.
When asked about the responsibility they felt for the subjects in the film, Dan commented, "we could either not make the film, and just acquiesce and say ‘you guys win' or we can put it out there and give their voices the true amplification that they need so the rest of the world notices." Ayala agreed. "Everyone has been very happy to accuse us but has anyone asked Kamal Fadel (the Polisario representative in Australia) what's going on in those camps?"
Stolen is now headed to Amsterdam for the International Documentary Festival and will also screen at Watch Docs in Poland. Though it seems that the film is being well received in festivals around the world, the fact that controversy over its claims will follow it is also a sure thing.
For more information visit www.thetruthaboutstolen.com