''Starsuckers'' is a 2009 British documentary film aiming to expose the "shams and deceit involved in creating a pernicious

celebrity culture Celebrity culture is a high-volume exposure to celebrities' personal lives on a global scale. It is inherently tied to consumer interests where celebrities transform their fame to become product brands. Whereas a culture can usually be physically ...

". Directed by Chris Atkins, director of the 2007 documentary '' Taking Liberties'', it shows the production team planting a variety of celebrity-related stories in the UK media, such as a claim that the singer

Avril Lavigne Avril Ramona Lavigne ( ; born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. At age 16, she signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records. Her debut studio album, ''Let Go (Avril Lavigne album), Let Go'' (2002), is the ...

had been seen asleep in a

nightclub A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gener ...

. A variety of

tabloid newspaper A tabloid is a newspaper with a compact page size smaller than broadsheet. There is no standard size for this newspaper format. Etymology The word ''tabloid'' comes from the name given by the London-based pharmaceutical company Burroughs We ...

s accepted the stories without corroboration or evidence. The film launched as part of the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

's 53rd Film Festival. Thirty minutes of footage from the film were shown to the

Leveson Inquiry The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of ...

as part of the evidence presented by the film's director, Chris Atkins.

Legal threats from Max Clifford

On 23 October 2009, six days before the ''Starsuckers'' premiere, the makers reported that they had received an e-mail from the law firm

Carter-Ruck Carter-Ruck is a British law firm founded by Peter Carter-Ruck. The firm specialises in libel, privacy, international law and commercial disputes. The leading legal directories (Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners) rank Carter-Ruck in the top t ...

, acting on behalf of controversial

publicist A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a company, a brand, or public figure – especially a celebrity – or for a work such as a book, film, or album. Publicists are public relations specialists who ...

Max Clifford Maxwell Frank Clifford (6 April 1943 – 10 December 2017) was an English publicist who was particularly associated with promoting " kiss and tell" stories in tabloid newspapers. In December 2012, as part of Operation Yewtree, Clifford was arr ...

and threatening them with an

injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in pa ...

Criminal convictions

In December 2015, three

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

traders, James Hyde, Hamish Maclellan, and Phillip Jenkins, along with their accountant Terence Potter, were convicted of conspiring to cheat

HM Revenue & Customs HM Revenue and Customs (His Majesty's Revenue and Customs, or HMRC) is a non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial Departments of the United Kingdom Government, department of the His Majesty's Government, UK Government responsible fo ...

by falsifying documents to show that they had each actively worked 10 or more hours a week on the production of Starsuckers and were eligible for tax rebates. Three other defendants were acquitted at the same trial. In June 2016, two further producers of Starsuckers, Christopher Walsh Atkins and Christina Slater, were convicted of the same charge of conspiring to cheat HM Revenue & Customs, and were jailed for 5 and 4 years respectively. Terence Potter was again convicted.

References

External links

* http://www.starsuckersmovie.com *
''Screen Daily''

UK screen
2009 films British documentary films British independent films Celebrity Documentary films about the media 2009 documentary films 2009 independent films 2000s English-language films 2000s British films English-language documentary films {{UK-documentary-film-stub

Legal threats from Max Clifford

Criminal convictions

See also

References

External links