Ottawa Sun covers cancellation of Obsession....

Just a reminder that the film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West will be showing this Monday evening, January 29th, at 7 PM at the Ottawa Public Library (Metcalfe at Laurier). Admission is $4.25

I have attached below an article from the Ottawa Sun about the cancellation of the film by the Rainbow Cinema.

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http://www.ottawasun.com/Showbiz/Movies/2007/01/25/3444735-sun.html

Thu, January 25, 2007

An Obsession with protests
Theatre cancels showing of movie after lone complainant tags it anti-Muslim without having even seen the film

By DENIS ARMSTRONG, OTTAWA SUN

A single complaint about a documentary on rising Islamic radicalism has prompted the Rainbow Cinema to scrap a planned screening of the film Monday.

Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West was pulled after Susan Campbell, who says she is a former university professor, e-mailed the theatre chain complaining about the award-winning movie which she admits she has never seen.

"I am discouraged that the Rainbow caved so quickly," said Fred Litwin, the owner of Northernblues Music who had booked the theatre for the film's showing. "It was so quick and there was no effort on the theatre's part to try to understand what the film is all about. They received one e-mail and that was it.

"So much for an open and tolerant society."

Litwin was sent scrambling to move the screening to the 200-seat Main Library Auditorium at 120 Metcalfe St. where the movie will be shown at 7 p.m. Monday.

The local Rainbow Theatre directed all inquiries about the incident to head office in Toronto which failed to return repeated calls from the Sun.

In her e-mail, Campbell wrote that Wayne Kopping and Raphael Shore's 2006 documentary used "anti-Muslim stereotypes ... misrepresentations and lies," to make its case that the rise of a radical Islam is comparable to the rise of the Nazis before World War II.

'Biased films'

"As a friend of several people who 'look Arab' or 'look Muslim' I figured efforts to discourage the Rainbow were appropriate," she wrote in an e-mail to the Sun.

"As a former university professor of history, I am sensitive to how easily one minority or another can be hurt by sensationalized and biased films."

A cursory Google search of Campbell's name turned up a number of causes she has attached her name to, including petitions to free a U.S. soldier court-martialed for refusing to fight in the Gulf War, another to stop bookstore WHSmith from selling Playboy products, and another in support of the Six Nations in the Caledonia land dispute.

Litwin created the Conservative Film Society in December when he couldn't convince the ByTowne Cinema to screen any films with a conservative point of view. The latest experience has left him even more convinced he is doing the right thing getting the movies out to the public.

"I am determined to continue to show provocative, conservative films wherever I can," Litwin said. "The city needs it."