Jane Campion denies sexual harassment claims
Jane Campion has denied newspaper reports that she was sexually harassed by the husband of a film festival director in India.
The Times of India reported yesterday that Campion, who won an Oscar in 1994 for her screenplay for The Piano, had lodged a complaint against Bhaskar Deb, whose wife Shyamali Banerjee organised the India International Women film festival in Delhi last December. The story was also picked up by a number of British newspapers.
Today, Campion issued a statement to give her side of the story. While she denied being harassed personally, she had other issues with what she described as a "fraudulently presented" festival.
"I was not sexually harassed by the festival director's husband and did not make that allegation," she said. "However at least two other delegates I spoke to and a third I heard about, did have bad experiences with the festival director's husband and I hear they went on to make allegations of sexual harassment.
"My own experience of the organisers of the film festival was that they made promises to me which they failed to keep: failure to meet me or any of the other delegates that I spoke to on arrival at the airport, failure to pay for my airline tickets, cancelling the premiere of my film Bright Star at the last moment."
She added: "Never in my entire experience has a film festival been so fraudulently presented and organised. It's a shame for the film-makers, the audience, the funding bodies of the countries involved as well as the Indian government who, it appears from the advertising, sponsored them to some degree."
Some other press reports have named the women concerned. One is said to have been "repeatedly mauled by a drunken Bhaskar and constantly offered alcohol".
Bhaskar Deb has denied the claims in the Indian press, hitting back at the Sydney-based Campion as "a racist from Australia". Saugata Roy, the minister of state for urban development, told the Times of India: "We have received complaints from two women who attended the film festival, Jane Campion and Ayesha Khan. The matter is now under investigation."
Source: Guardian Online