James Ricketson | |
---|---|
Born | James Staniforth Ricketson [1] 1949 (age 72–73) |
Alma mater | Australian Film and Television School |
Occupation | Film director |
Notable credit(s) |
|
Opponent(s) | |
Criminal charge(s) | Espionage |
Criminal penalty | Six years in custody (sentenced under Cambodian law) |
Criminal status | Pardoned |
Relatives | Staniforth Ricketson (grandfather) [2] |
Awards |
|
James Staniforth Ricketson (born 1949) is an Australian film director who, in June 2017, was arrested while flying a drone at a Cambodia National Rescue Party rally in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and charged with espionage, a charge he denies. [3] He was held in Prey Sar prison and his trial began in a Phnom Penh court on 16 August 2018, with character testimony from Australian film director Peter Weir. [4] [5] On 31 August he was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison. [6] It was announced on 21 September 2018 that Cambodian authorities had pardoned Ricketson for the offence. [7]
Ricketson studied at the Australian Film and Television School and has made a number of features and documentaries. [8]
In 1973 Ricketson filmed and helped to organise Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the two north pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge. A short film of the walk was released on DVD with Man On Wire, the Academy Award-winning documentary on Petit's World Trade Center Twin Towers walk. [9]
Ricketson has directed three feature films, Third Person Plural (1978), Candy Regentag (1989), Blackfellas (1994). His documentaries include Reflections (1973), Roslyn and Blagica Everyone Needs a Friend (1979), Born in Soweto (1994), Sleeping with Cambodia (1997), Backpacking Australia (2001), and Viva (2004).
In 1981 he became one of the founding members of the Australian Directors Guild. [10] In the same year he directed one of the four episodes of the award-winning Australian miniseries Women of the Sun . In July 2012 it was announced he was suing Screen Australia. [11]
In 2014 Ricketson was fined six-million Cambodian riel (A$1,500) and given a suspended two year prison sentence by a Phnom Penh court for threatening to broadcast accusations that a local branch of the Brisbane-based Citipointe Church sold children. [12] https://www.cambodianchildrensfund.org/fact-sheet-1/
Ricketson is the grandson of stockbroker Staniforth Ricketson. [2] He has a son, Jesse, and is a surrogate father to Roxanne Holmes whom he met "while researching a film project about street kids" in the 1980s. [13]
Sydney Hillel Schanberg was an American journalist who was best known for his coverage of the war in Cambodia. He was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two George Polk awards, two Overseas Press Club awards, and the Sigma Delta Chi prize for distinguished journalism. Schanberg was portrayed by Sam Waterston in the 1984 film The Killing Fields based on the experiences of Schanberg and the Cambodian journalist Dith Pran in Cambodia.
Sinn Sisamouth was a Cambodian singer-songwriter active from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Khieu Samphan is a Cambodian former communist politician and economist who was the chairman of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as Cambodia's head of state and was one of the most powerful officials in the Khmer Rouge movement, although Pol Pot remained the General Secretary in the party.
The Killing Fields is a 1984 British biographical drama film about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which is based on the experiences of two journalists: Cambodian Dith Pran and American Sydney Schanberg. It was directed by Roland Joffé and produced by David Puttnam for his company Goldcrest Films. Sam Waterston stars as Schanberg, Haing S. Ngor as Pran, Julian Sands as Jon Swain, and John Malkovich as Al Rockoff. The adaptation for the screen was written by Bruce Robinson; the musical score was written by Mike Oldfield and orchestrated by David Bedford.
Kem Sokha is a Cambodian politician and activist who most recently served as the President of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). He served as the Minority Leader, the highest-ranking opposition parliamentarian, of the National Assembly from December 2016 to January 2017, and previously as the First Vice President of the National Assembly from August 2014 to October 2015. He represented Kampong Cham as its Member of Parliament (MP) from 2008 to 2017. From 2007 to 2012, Kem was the leader of the Human Rights Party, which he founded.
Battambang is the capital of Battambang Province and the third largest city in Cambodia.
Cinema in Cambodia began in the 1950s, and many films were being screened in theaters throughout the country by the 1960s, which are regarded as the "golden age". After a near-disappearance during the Khmer Rouge regime, competition from video and television has meant that the Cambodian film industry is a small one.
The Phnom Penh Post is a daily English-language newspaper published in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Founded in 1992 by publisher Michael Hayes and Kathleen O'Keefe, it is Cambodia's oldest English-language newspaper. The paper was initially published fortnightly as a full-color tabloid; in 2008 it increased frequency to daily publication and redesigned the format as a Berliner. The Phnom Penh Post is also available in Khmer. It previously published a weekend magazine, 7Days, in its Friday edition. Since July 2014, it has published a weekly edition on Saturdays called Post Weekend. Post Weekend was folded into the paper as a Friday supplement in 2017 and was discontinued in 2018.
The Longford Lyell Award is a lifetime achievement award presented by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA), a non-profit organisation whose aim is "to identify, award, promote and celebrate Australia's greatest achievements in film and television." The award is presented at the annual AACTA Awards, which hand out accolades for technical achievements in feature film, television, documentaries and short films. From 1968 to 2010, the award was presented by the Australian Film Institute (AFI), the Academy's parent organisation, at the annual Australian Film Institute Awards. When the AFI launched the Academy in 2011, it changed the annual ceremony to the AACTA Awards, with the current award being a continuum of the AFI Raymond Longford Award.
Rachel Perkins is an Australian film and television director, producer, and screenwriter. She is known for her films Radiance (1998), One Night the Moon (2001), Bran Nue Dae (2010), and Jasper Jones (2017). Perkins is an Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman from Central Australia, who was raised in Canberra by Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins and his wife Eileen.
Warwick Thornton is an Australian film director, screenwriter and cinematographer. His debut feature film Samson and Delilah won the Caméra d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. He also won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Film in 2017 for Sweet Country.
Cambodia has 612 km (380 mi) of 1,000 mm metre gauge rail network, consisting of two lines: one from the capital Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, and another from Phnom Penh to Poipet on the Thai border. The lines were originally constructed during the time when the country was part of French Indochina, but due to neglect and damage from civil war during the latter half of the 20th century, the railways were in a dilapidated state and all services had been suspended by 2009. Through rehabilitation efforts by the Government of Cambodia, with funding from the Asian Development Bank, Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and Australian company Toll Holdings, freight and limited passenger service returned between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville by 2016, and passenger service between Phnom Penh and Poipet was fully restored in 2019.
Redfern Now is an Australian drama television series, that first aired on ABC1 in 2012. The program follows the lives of 6 Aboriginal Australian families living in the urban hub of Redfern, Sydney. The series provides insight into contemporary issues facing Aboriginal Australians, including lack of employment and mental illness, which are positioned as direct ramifications of colonialisation and the Stolen Generations. Produced by Blackfella Films as part of the ABC’s Indigenous Department, the show is the first series to be ‘commissioned, written, acted and produced by Indigenous Australians’. The series’ release contributes to widespread public debate surrounding Indigenous representation in the Australian media.
Blackfellas is a 1993 Australian drama film directed by James Ricketson and starring John Moore, David Ngoombujarra, Jack Charles, John Hargreaves and Ernie Dingo. It is an adaptation of Archie Weller's 1981 novel The Day of the Dog. The film won two AFI Awards and had its premier at the Valhalla Cinema in Melbourne on 26 August 1993.
Christopher Minko is an Australian musician and co-founder of the Phnom Penh-based Delta blues group called Krom. Living in Cambodia since 1996, Minko is also the founder and Secretary General of the Cambodian National Volleyball League (Disabled) NGO also known as CNVLD.
Davy Chou is a Cambodian-French filmmaker. He is the grandson of Van Chann, who mysteriously disappeared in 1969. Davy Chou only discovered in his teens that his grandfather had been one of Cambodia's leading film producers in the 1960s.
Youk Chhang is the executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) and a survivor of the Khmer Rouge's killing fields. He became DC-Cam’s leader in 1995, when the center was founded as a field office of Yale University’s Cambodian Genocide Program to conduct research, training and documentation relating to the Khmer Rouge regime. Chhang continued to run the center after its inception as an independent Cambodian non-governmental organization in 1997 and is currently building on DC-Cam’s work to establish the Sleuk Rith Institute, a permanent hub for genocide studies in Asia, based in Phnom Penh.
The 7th Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards took place on 6 December 2017. Presented by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA), the awards celebrated the best in Australian feature film, television, documentary and short film productions of 2017. A record number of thirty five feature films were submitted for competition. The main ceremony was televised in Australia by the Seven Network.
Luke Anthony Hunt is an Australian journalist, war correspondent and academic.
Darren Dale is an Indigenous Australian film and television producer. Since joining Blackfella Films as a producer in 2001, he is as of 2021 co-director of the company, along with founder Rachel Perkins. Dale is known for co-producing many films and television series with Miranda Dear since 2010, with their most recent collaboration being the second season of Total Control.