Documentary maker Hollie Fifer leaves the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday. Photo: James Alcock
Revered former Papua New Guinea politician Dame Carol Kidu has taken urgent legal action to stop an Australian documentary about her role in a controversial land development premiering at a prestigious film festival next month.
Dame Carol's lawyers sought and won a temporary injunction last week preventing the screening of the film The Opposition by young filmmaker Hollie Fifer airing at Canada's Hot Docs, the largest documentary festival in North America.
Ms Fifer's 77-minute documentary focuses on the struggle to stop the eviction of 3000 people from a decades-old squatter community to make way for an Australian-backed property development that is promising a hotel, marina and exhibition centre. It is the proposed venue for the 2018 APEC leaders' summit.
Dame Carol Kidu from the documentary The Opposition. Photo: Screengrab: The Opposition
On Thursday, Dame Carol's lawyers asked the NSW Supreme Court to order all footage of her be edited out of the film on the grounds of deception and unconscionable conduct, saying Ms Fifer seriously misrepresented her role in the property stoush and "clearly intended to dupe" her.
But Ms Fifer's lawyers said the proposed injunction "tears the heart of the documentary" because the cuts in question are "the central scenes".
Australian-born Dame Carol, who moved to PNG at age 19 and married Sir Buri Kidu, the man who would become the country's first indigenous Chief Justice, says she believed Ms Fifer was filming her as part of a "school project" and not for a film that would become a commercial release.
Dame Carol Kidu at her home village in Port Moresby in 2011. Photo: Jason South
Her barrister Bruce McClintock, SC, said in 2012 Dame Carol permitted Ms Fifer to film her on the understanding it was to be an assignment for her graduate diploma at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and would be about her last months in politics before retiring.
Ms Fifer went onto successfully secure an $80,000 funding grant from the Documentary Australia Foundation as well as funding from Screen Australia and Screen NSW to produce a documentary pitched as a "David-and-Goliath battle over land in Papua New Guinea".
When Dame Carol found out the property stoush was at the heart of the documentary and that it was to screen publicly in Canada in 2016, she said she felt "betrayed" and "distressed". Dame Carol said she agreed to participate in filming as a favour to her friend, Ms Fifer's mother Dimity.
Bulldozers demolishing the shanty town at Paga Hill, Port Moresby.
In an email she said: "I had no idea you were going to use [footage of me] to solicit public funds."
The documentary portrays Dame Carol as a "freedom fighter" who stepped in front of bulldozers as they began to demolish the homes at Paga Hill, a prominent headland on Port Moresby's Fairfax Harbour, in May 2012. She called the demolition and resettlement scheme "unacceptable" and "disgusting".
But months later she retired as PNG Opposition Leader and established a private company, which was later engaged by the project's developers to advise and champion its resettlement scheme. She revoked her public stance against the project, saying it was based on "assumptions and incorrect information".
Ms Fifer's barrister Richard Potter said Dame Carol signed a release form in 2012 permitting filming and distribution. Mr Potter said correspondence between the two clearly show the "development and evolution of the purpose and scope of the documentary".
He said it was "as plain as a pikestaff" that a student wouldn't secure $80,000 funding for a school project.
Further, he said Dame Carol's daughter Doby said her mother helped upload the bulldozer footage onto YouTube at the time.
He said Dame Carol is concerned the documentary will portray her as "a hypocrite for changing allegiances". He said she took part in a filmed interview in 2014 in which she explained her change of heart, which was included in the final cut of the documentary.
He said documents suggest the developer was behind the legal action and it had not been brought because of any real hurt and embarrassment to Dame Carol.
The documentary cost $350,000 to produce and an order preventing its screening in Toronto would rob Ms Fifer of the opportunity to secure wider distribution agreements with a resultant loss of at least $150,000, he said.
Mr McClintock said Dame Carol has interest in a property in Cairns that could cover a loss of what should be no more of $100,000.
Justice Michael Slattery will give judgment next week.
