A Canadian documentary filmmaker whose film helped police crack one of the art world’s biggest fraud cases has been forced to hand over source material to Ontario police as part of a production order.

Jamie Kastner is the director of the 2019 documentary No Fakes, which exposes a fraudulent network that passed off fake paintings as originals by famed indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau, known for his colorful paintings depicting the natural world and indigenous mythology. . The eye-opening film, which premiered at Toronto’s Hot Docs, revealed that there were 10 times more Morrisseau fakes on the market than real works, and that the artist’s own nephew may have been involved in facilitating the production of fakes.

The film’s release inspired investigators in Thunder Bay, Ontario to investigate the case, and in early March police made eight arrests and 40 charges in addition to confiscating 1,000 fake Morrisseau paintings. However, as part of the ongoing investigation, investigators also placed a production order on Kastner, a legally enforceable order that ordered the director to hand over all source material. The director and his lawyer are now fighting to ensure that documents that have not yet been opened are sealed.

“We have to fight this because it goes against the basics of journalistic freedom and the need to protect our sources,” Kastner says. Diversity. “If talking to documenters and journalists becomes synonymous with talking to the police, no one will ever talk to us.”

Diversity understands that the authorities conducted a 2.5-year investigation into this case involving more than 90 police officers from different jurisdictions. They are believed to have taken 271 applications – compared to 17 interviews Kastner gave for the film.

“They interviewed the vast majority of people in my film, independently of each other,” Kastner says. “I don’t understand how they can claim they can’t get information in any other way when they were interviewed themselves.”

A likely scenario is that the police want to cross-reference the statements he made with material obtained by Kastner years ago to ensure consistency. Both Thunder Bay Police and the Ontario Provincial Police, also known as the OPP, who are jointly investigating, declined to comment on the story or explain their reasons for the seizure of the footage.

Kastner’s attorney, Ian McKinnon, is a partner at Linden & Associates, a Toronto law firm specializing in media and intellectual property law. Diversity the case is likely to be an “uphill battle”, especially since Kastner’s sources are not confidential and were openly interviewed in the film.

The team disputes the production order and hope to obtain an affidavit from the police outlining their reasons for the production order to go to court. (The court must be satisfied that there are good legal grounds for making an order to testify under oath.) McKinnon also hopes that the Journalist Source Protection Act, a major amendment to the Canadian Penal Code that came into force in 2017, will help the filmmaker’s case.

The JSPA serves to protect the privacy of journalistic sources and helps protect a journalist’s right to privacy when collecting or disseminating information. The law is also a two-part test: first, it requires the police and the Crown not to establish a reasonable alternative means of obtaining information, and second, that the public interest in prosecuting the crime for which material is being sought outweighs the interests of the journalist . interested in privacy in protecting their work.

However, McKinnon, referring to two recent Canadian media cases, R. v. CBC and R vs. Virtanen, who has tried and failed to use the JSPA, admits that “more often than not, courts favor the police because they feel that if it has anything to do with prosecution of defendants, they are quick to crack down on journalists’ rights.”

The lawyer, however, warns of the “chilling” effect that production orders on journalists and documentary makers could have on the media landscape.

“Interviewees may be willing to be interviewed by a journalist, but they may not want to talk to the police for their own good reasons,” McKinnon says. “If people start thinking that every time they talk to a journalist, [the journalist’s] records and records will be turned over to the police and used against them, they may be less willing to speak.”

Another major problem is that the police will begin to view journalists as just another tool for investigating crimes, and reporters will not be seen as independent police watchdogs.

“Journalists may have to start destroying records and records they need for their own protection if someone comes back and sues them,” McKinnon says. “This puts journalists in a very difficult position.”

David F. Sandberg and Rachel Zegler Urge Critics of Shazam! Fury of the Gods” on Twitter.

Superhero sequel by New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. debuted in theaters over the weekend and grossed a disappointing $30.5 million, beating relatively modest expectations of $35 million.

This makes him one of the worst opening weekend performers for the DC Comics franchise, ahead of only Wonder Woman 1984 and The Suicide Squad. both came out during the pandemic and were made available for streaming immediately upon release.

On Rotten Tomatoes, The Tomatometer received a critical acclaim of 53% on Monday afternoon, with an audience score of 88%.

Rachel Zegler, who plays Anthea, Atlas’ youngest daughter, in the Shazam sequel, reacted to this weekend’s poor box office performance by urging people on Twitter to give the film a shot.

“Hey, our movie is really good!” Zegler tweeted Saturday. “but mostly I just really enjoyed doing it and the people I met doing it 🙂 go and see! give it a chance. we have 85% of the audience for a reason.”

“Some people out there are just… needlessly mean” she continued. “And it’s unnecessary. and I know, I know, “if you can’t handle the heat…” and all that nonsense, and you’re right. but our film is actually very good. it’s just cool to hate fun these days. This is fine. were good.”

On Monday, director David F. Sandberg also lamented the reaction to the film, tweeting that it had just received the “lowest critic score” for Rotten Tomatoes and the “highest audience score for the same film.”

“Critically, I didn’t expect a repeat of the first movie, but I was still a little surprised because I think it’s a good movie. Well, the Swedish filmmaker. tweeted.

The first Shazam! The film earned $53.5 million in its opening weekend of 2019.

‘Annabelle: Creation’ director completes his tweet a thread saying that he has no regrets about making “Shazam!” movies “if only for a minute”, but was looking forward to switching off from the stresses of “online superhero discourse” and returning to the horror genre.