A blog covering the Tribeca film festival and Robert De Niro agreeing to face his accusers.
A blog covering the Tribeca film festival and Robert De Niro agreeing to face his accusers.
A blog covering the Tribeca film festival and Robert De Niro agreeing to face his accusers.
Robert De Niro Agrees to Face His Accusers at Tribeca Film Festival After Calls to Boycott
Tribeca will host a panel discussion with the accusers of Vaxxed director Andrew Wakefield.
By Eriq Gardner
|Wednesday, Mar 30, 2016 10:34 AM PDT|Tags: Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro
After facing criticism for selecting an anti-vaccination documentary for his film festival and then retracting it, Robert De Niro has agreed to host a discussion on the controversial topic.
The Tribeca Film Festival is to feature a panel discussion entitled “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe.” The event will be moderated by moderator Polly Tommey, who appears in the documentary. Other participants include Del Bigtree, who produced the film and was also an executive producer on The Doctors; Brian Hooker, who appears in the film; and Andrew Wakefield himself.
The panel description reads as follows: “This panel will be an opportunity to learn more about Andrew Wakefield’s seminal study (which was retracted by The Lancet) and his ensuing 15-year battle in an effort to defend his research and his reputation against systematic efforts orchestrated by pharmaceutical giant Glaxo
Robert De Niro Agrees to Face His Accusers at Tribeca Film Festival After Calls to Boycott
Following weeks of controversy surrounding the inclusion of Vaxxed, a film by anti-vaccine activist Andrew Wakefield, on the lineup at the Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro has agreed to include a panel discussion after planned screenings of the movie.
De Niro made the announcement in a statement on Wednesday, writing that he and his wife, Grace Hightower De Niro, had recently met with Dr. Paul Offit and Dr. Arthur Caplan for an “in depth discussion” about vaccines and autism, which was hosted by Scientific American and moderated by journalist Michael Specter.
“Grace and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined,” he said in his statement. “In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming. However this is very personal to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will be screening Vaxxed.”
The decision came just one day after a group
Robert De Niro has agreed to face his accusers at an event during the Tribeca Film Festival after several survivors of sexual abuse called for a boycott of the event.
The actor’s decision was made public in an open letter signed by more than 50 survivors and their supporters, including three of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers. They took issue with the festival’s plan to screen a film that includes commentary from accused child abusers.
“By giving a platform to these accusations and thereby giving them legitimacy, you are telling survivors everywhere that despite all of your talk about inclusivity, we are not welcome in your spaces,” the letter reads in part.
The film in question is titled Vaxxed II: The People’s Truth and is a sequel to the 2016 anti-vaccination documentary Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe. The new film is directed by Andrew Wakefield, who was stripped of his medical license after he authored a fraudulent 1998 paper linking vaccinations to autism (the paper has since been retracted).
With the countdown to the Tribeca Film Festival now in single digits, Robert De Niro is facing a mounting backlash over his plan to open the event with a controversial documentary featuring interviews with many of the women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault.
De Niro and his festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal have received calls to cancel the April 18 premiere of “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” which examines the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism. The film was directed by Andrew Wakefield, a former British doctor whose medical license was revoked in 2010 due to ethical violations after he published a paper linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism and bowel disease.
“I think we did due diligence about [the controversy] as much as we could,” De Niro said in an interview Tuesday. He and Rosenthal decided to go ahead with the screening because “it’s an issue that people are talking about.”
De Niro’s Tribeca Film Festival was hit with a wave of criticism after it announced its intention to screen Vaxxed, a film about the alleged link between vaccines and autism.
Vaxxed is directed by Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who published a study in 1998 linking the MMR vaccine to autism that was later retracted by The Lancet for unethical practices. Wakefield had his medical license revoked in 2010.
In an interview with “60 Minutes” last month, De Niro defended his decision to screen the film at Tribeca: “There’s something there that people aren’t addressing, and they say it’s discredited but … it should be discussed. It should be looked at … people are not going to stop asking questions.”
The festival reversed its decision two days later, saying it was “unable to find common ground” with filmmakers on whether or not the film should be screened.
