Venue cancels Peterson film encore

STAFF DISCOMFORT

A New York venue has cancelled an encore screening for Jordan Peterson’s new movie, stating that the film made some of their staff uncomfortable.

In an email circulated to customers who had bought tickets to the show, The Rise of Jordan Peterson, at the Shapeshifters Lab in Brooklyn, filmmakers explained that it was cancelled at the last minute, “due to some staff feeling uncomfortable during the first screening.”

“If we had more notice, we would have made alternative arrangements, but we were informed of the cancellation last night at 11 p.m.,” they wrote in the email.

Customers will be refunded, the filmmakers added.

This is the second time a public venue has cancelled a screening of the movie. In September, the Carleton Cinema in Toronto cancelled what was supposed to be a weeklong run of the documentary due to complaints brought forward by theatre employees.

Peterson, a University of Toronto psychology professor, is an occasional contributor to the National Post. He entered the public spotlight due to videos in which he aired divisive views on political correctness and gender identity. The film is a longer followup of Patricia Marcoccia’s documentary, Shut Him Down, and tracks Peterson’s rise to fame in the past three years.

“Over the last few months we have been reaching out to mainstream and arthouse cinemas across North America,” Marcoccia told the Post Millennial.

“In many cases, we encountered challenges simply because of the subject matter being Jordan Peterson. Some cinemas got stuck in internal debates, Others told us outright that they thought the film was well done and fair, but that they couldn’t, in good conscience, contribute to the ‘cult of personality around Peterson’ in any way.”

In a press release, the film’s producers, Holding Spaces, said they were “disappointed” with the screening’s last-minute cancellation. They explained that they had sent the venue owners a link to the movie a month ago, to give them a chance to “be aware of what they were getting into.”

Despite the advance notice, the producers alleged that the venue owners “went in blindly” and made their decision under the guise of accommodating both sides. “We hardly consider this an accommodation if we’re being notified when it’s too late to find a replacement venue,” they stated.

“To be honest we’re pretty bored of this story. It’s played out and we spent years investigating it for this film. We were — and are still — hoping that our public conversation about the film can actually shift to being about the film,” they added.

The movie premiered internationally at the Cineplex theatre in Toronto on Sept. 26.