Festival Won’t Show Film About Rock Stars Filmmaker Upset As Questions About Control, Music Rights Stop Screening Of Movie About Cobain, Love

Filmmaker Nick Broomfield vows to show his documentary about Kurt Cobain and the late rock star’s often turbulent marriage to Courtney Love just as soon as he can.

It may take awhile.

Broomfield’s plan to debut “Kurt and Courtney” at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, which began its 11-day run here Thursday, went awry when festival officials pulled the film from the Sundance lineup two days before its scheduled Friday premiere. The move was made in response to a letter from EMI Music Publishing.

At issue are the rights to two songs that EMI claims Broomfield never secured. The first is “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” a hit by the Cobain-led group Nirvana. The second is “Doll Parts,” a song recorded by Love’s band Hole.

At a news conference on Saturday, Broomfield denied EMI’s allegations. “What this issue is really about,” Broomfield said, reading from a prepared statement, “is the continuing control on the part of Courtney Love to prevent the truth from coming out through a story that she doesn’t want told.”

Three years in the making, “Kurt and Courtney” includes interviews with Love’s father and other family members and friends who were close to Cobain and Love. The Sundance program describes the film as “a voyage of discovery that brings Broomfield in touch with the biggest sideshow of characters … this side of the circus.”

On Saturday, Broomfield said his film “tells the story of Kurt Cobain - his life, his death and his relationship with Courtney Love. But at the heart of the film lies the issue of control. It documents various attempts that have been made to stop journalists, filmmakers and writers from reporting on this story.”

Broomfield, a respected filmmaker who coincidentally is a juror for Sundance’s documentary competition, said he offered to cut the two songs from his film to resolve the controversy. Still, Sundance officials would not change their position, claiming that the disputed music ran through the entire film.

“Regrettably, we have been informed that there are a number of unresolved legal matters between the filmmaker and others - including uncleared music rights - which make it impossible for us to present the film,” festival officials said in a press statement.

According to a Los Angeles Times story, EMI’s legal threats are only the most recent attempts by Love to stop release of Broomfield’s film. Love’s own lawyers reportedly sent Sundance a letter late last year complaining about a description of “Kurt and Courtney” that had been printed in the festival’s program. The lawyers claimed the program blurb was “defamatory,” reported the Times.

“What this demonstrates is that there has never been a bona fide dispute over music rights,” Broomfield said on Saturday. “I have proved that I have the necessary licensing and have also agreed to cut out the clips in question in order to make the screening possible.” Broomfield told the New York Times that the two clips came from a British Broadcasting Corp. broadcast titled “Top of the Pops.”

“The BBC licensed the footage of these two excerpts to me,” he said. “I was legally within my rights to have these two excerpts in my film.”

A spokeswoman for Love rebutted Broomfield, telling the New York Times that the issue doesn’t involve Love at all. According to Pat Kingsley, “It’s about Nirvana, her husband’s group, and the rights were not cleared. You want to use a Frank Sinatra record in a movie, you can’t do it without getting permission and paying for it. And the same applies here.”

Broomfield, a past Sundance awardwinner, did not criticize Sundance officials directly. He even thanked Robert Redford, head of the Sundance Institute, for his support. But he said the removal of his film from this year’s festival program is representative of a larger problem both for artists and journalists.

“I have always viewed the Sundance Film Festival as a forum for the independent expression of ideas and the freedom of speech,” he said. “It is frightening to imagine the festival being forced to give in to the kind of control that someone with a great deal of money and power holds.”

, DataTimes