Hollywood hurries to distance itself from Libya

MICHAEL CIEPLY
International Herald Tribune
03-10-2011
Hollywood hurries to distance itself from Libya
Byline: MICHAEL CIEPLY
Type: News

Producers and actors are said to be distancing themselves from projects in which Saadi el-Qaddafi might be financially involved.

Things have gotten chilly for Natural Selection, a film production company backed by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's son Saadi.
On the company's office line, a recorded message has been the only answer for much of the past week.

Outside its suite on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, a parking spot identified as being reserved for Natural Selection is blocked by a battered white van with four flat tires. An attendant's notice taped to the back is dated Feb. 2.

And Mathew Beckerman, the producer who made a splash last year in the weekly magazine Variety when he rounded up $100 million in financing from Saadi el-Qaddafi and others, is suddenly getting a very cold shoulder.

Over the weekend, Mr. Beckerman's name was deleted from the producer credits of a documentary, "Live at Preservation Hall: Louisiana Fairytale," on the official Web site of the South by Southwest festival, which begins Friday in Austin, Texas.

In an e-mail on Saturday, Theresa Vibberts, who works with Danny Clinch, the director of the movie, said simply, "Natural Selection is not involved in the film."

Neither Ms. Vibberts nor Mr. Clinch responded further to questions about the sudden disappearance of Mr. Beckerman's credit, or a listing that shows Natural Selection among the movie's backers on the Internet Movie Database.

So it goes when Hollywood begins to suspect it has made a mistake.

Speaking through an intermediary Monday, Mr. Beckerman declined to discuss his company, or the Qaddafi investment that had been treated as routine until the uprising against the Qaddafi regime in Libya turned bloody.

In recent days, the pop singers Nelly Furtado, Mariah Carey, Beyonce and Usher have announced that they will give away money they had received for entertaining at Qaddafi family events. Hollywood, meanwhile, has pretty much joined Mr. Beckerman in doing what it does best when trouble crops up -- hiding out.

The writer David McKenna and the actors Mickey Rourke and Eva Amurri, who is Susan Sarandon's daughter, have all been connected to some extent with film projects financed by Natural Selection since Mr. Qaddafi signed on.

A spokesman for the Paradigm agency, which represents Mr. McKenna, said Tuesday that the writer could not be reached. A representative of One Talent Management, which represents Ms. Amurri, and a spokeswoman for International Creative Management, which represents Mr. Rourke, had no comment.

But several people who have been involved with Mr. Beckerman's list of films, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid conflict, described a scramble by major Hollywood players and institutions to distance themselves from projects in which the Qaddafi family might be involved.

William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, which had been identified in several reports as a distribution partner on Natural Selection's planned crime film "The Ice Man," for instance, is now unlikely to get involved because of concerns about the Qaddafis, two people with knowledge of the situation said. A spokesman for the agency said its policy was not to comment on individual projects.

Kevin Iwashina, whose Preferred Content production and sales company has been lined up as a sales agent for "Isolation," which has already been shot and stars Ms. Amurri, declined to comment. Schuyler Moore, an entertainment lawyer who was identified in a 2009 news report as having helped Mr. Beckerman assemble the Qaddafi deal, did not respond to queries.

Meanwhile at 42West, an entertainment public relations firm, a letter to the news media that identified Natural Selection as handling the "Preservation Hall" documentary at South by Southwest is now being described -- in conversations conditioned on anonymity to minimize conflict -- as having been in error.

According to people familiar with the discussions, 42West planned to help Mr. Beckerman when insiders thought his involvement with the documentary was purely personal. But it backpedaled when it appeared that Natural Selection and Mr. Qaddafi might have a role.

As Mr. Beckerman has not been returning calls, the future of the company remains unclear, as does the extent of Mr. Qaddafi's involvement with its various films.

Two people who have dealt closely with Mr. Beckerman said they had been introduced to Mr. Qaddafi at film festivals outside the United States, though never in Los Angeles. Both said that they had found the man, a former professional soccer player, to be vibrant, forthcoming and committed to the notion of building a rapport between Libya and the United States.

Neither expressed qualms about past allegations that Libya had backed terrorists or abused its people. Both pointed out that Hollywood had routinely welcomed investors whose peripheral connections might not be the purest.

The news and politics Web site The Daily Beast reported in September that Mr. Beckerman, who once worked in the music business, was introduced to Mr. Qaddafi on a beach in Mauritius at a time when he was looking for funds.

The Qaddafis are not the first among African strongmen to have flirted with the film world. In 1990, the Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti tried to line up the Liberian government as an investor in a company he was using to buy MGM/UA Communications. But the relationship ended when Mr. Parretti's ally, the Liberian president, Samuel K. Doe, was tortured and killed by his opponents.

During the uprising in Libya, Mr. Qaddafi has given speeches and appeared on television to defend his father's regime.

In 2009, Natural Selection made "The Experiment," a psychological drama that starred Forest Whitaker and Adrien Brody, and released the film on video through Sony Pictures. It shot "Isolation" early last year and has been selling distribution rights to the movie through what appears to be a shifting team of partners since then.

In perhaps its most prominent move, the company also bought rights to Philip Carlo's book "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer," about the American mobster Richard Kuklinski. Filming was to have begun as early as this spring. But the script is still being written, say people who were briefed on the project.

Mr. Rourke, one of those people said, had expressed interest in the lead role but had made no formal deal and will not face any decision about working with a Qaddafi-backed company until the screenplay is done.

Until then, a world away in Libya, Mr. Beckerman's major backer has a lot on his mind.

Copyright International Herald Tribune Mar 10, 2011