Richard Moore, the organiser of the The 2009 Melbourne Film Festival was unable to confirm whether the withdrawal of Zhao Liang’s Petition, Emily Tang’s Perfect Life and a short film called Cry Me a River was due to pressure from the Chinese Government following his refusal to cancel the screening of Jeff Daniel’s The 10 Conditions of Love the previous week.   The publicity generated over Moore’s refusal to bow to political pressure from the Chinese resulted in all screenings of the documentary about Rebiya Kadeer selling out and extra screenings being scheduled.

In a letter to the festival, Jia Zhangke, the producer of Perfect Life whose company also produced Cry Me a River, said the films were being withdrawn in protest at Kadeer’s attendance at the festival.   The businesswoman – who was exiled from China in 2005 following a six year prison sentence – was due to attend a screening of The 10 Conditions of Love on 8^th August 2009.   Another Chinese short, yp box, a documentary about Chinese beatboxers was still scheduled to be screened at the festival.

 There was some media speculation that the festival had become embroiled in diplomatic wrangling between Australia and China over the arrest without charge of Stern-Hu, the executive for mining company Rio Tinto.

The withdrawal came hot on the heels of the news that British filmmaker Ken Loach was withdrawing his film Looking for Eric from the festival in protest at the fact that it had accepted funding from the state of Israel.

16/7/2009: China tries to Stop 10 Conditions of Love

24/7/2009: Chinese Hack into MIFF's Website

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