Karla Hits Theaters This Fall Families of Homolka victims won't fight release October 15th 2005 01:02am | Posted by: Robert Falconer HNR Senior Editor The Canadian Press is reporting that the families of Karla Homolka's victims will not fight the release of a Hollywood movie chronicling the depraved crimes of Canada's most notorious female offender, their lawyer stated Wednesday. The film, entitled Karla, and due in theatres this fall, tells the sordid tale of Homolka's life with Paul Bernardo and the horrific crimes their ill-fated union would ultimately produce.   Despite the true crime events having occurred in Canada, nobody in the Canadian film industry wanted to be involved with this project, which was consequently filmed entirely in the United States with an all American cast & crew. "We're not going to engage in some sensational, high-profile protest," said Tim Danson, who represents the families of slain teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy. "We've satisfied ourselves it's not illegal," Danson said of the film. "There's no legal basis to stop it." Danson had vowed to take legal action on the grounds the film was child pornography, if the movie depicted the rapes and deaths of French and Mahaffy. After a lengthy consultation with the film's producer Michael Sellers-including a clandestine viewing for Danson in a Toronto hotel room two weeks ago - a scene was cut that Danson felt "crossed the line" from free speech into child pornography. "I believe that it would have (been child pornography) if not for the change," he said, adding the families have no desire to play critic or censor. "While my clients prefer no movie being made ... that sensationalizes their daughters' rapes and murders, they recognize we live in a free society." The scene in question depicted the abduction of Mahaffy and Homolka's first glimpse of the 14-year-old girl after Bernardo brought her to their Port Dalhousie, Ont., home. "The camera, for about six or eight frames, gives you a flash of the girl in the distance, and her top is off," said Sellers in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "We just cut that." As yet unseen by the public, Karla has created a firestorm of controversy in the province where the couple committed their deeds - with Premier Dalton McGuinty urging Ontarians to boycott the movie. The film was also pulled from the Montreal World Film Festival after sponsors, including Air Canada, cried foul over its inclusion. A Canadian distribution deal that would put Karla in theatres before Christmas is almost complete, said Sellers, but the outcry the film has provoked will keep details of that deal under wraps for now. Sellers believes other changes made to the film, including a revamped epilogue containing actual quotes from a psychiatric evaluation of Homolka, were important ones to make. "It helps remind the audience not to be excessively sympathetic here," he said. "Yes, she was brutalized (by Bernardo) but that did not, in the view of the psychiatrist, excuse her actions." The film's release follows months of Homolka, 35, dominating headlines in Canada - a media frenzy that saw journalists camp outside a Montreal-area prison for days awaiting her July 4 release. Homolka, who gave one television interview before going into hiding, was discovered working in a Montreal-area hardware store in late August after her boss, Richer Lapointe, went to the media and police with allegations the schoolgirl killer broke conditions of her release. Police have yet to act on those allegations, and Lapointe's audiotaped conversations with Homolka remain in their hands. Homolka no longer works at the store and it is not known if she has found another job. Believed to be living somewhere in Montreal, she faces a number of court-imposed restrictions, including a ban on contacting anyone with a criminal record and coming into contact with children - two conditions that Lapointe alleges Homolka broke. Breaching those conditions can put Homolka back behind bars for up to two years. Under an infamous plea bargain dubbed "the deal with the devil," Homolka served 12 years for the grisly rape and torture deaths of French and Mahaffy. The rape and choking death of her younger sister Tammy, at the hands of Homolka and Bernardo, was also taken into account during sentencing. Bernardo was declared a dangerous offender and serves an indefinite prison term in solitary confinement. Source: Canadian Press In: National News |Visit the HNR Forums

.