Wildmon Hit With Lawsuit Over Documentary : Film: Ongoing battle over ‘Damned in the USA’ heats up as producers, others, try to get film distributed in U.S.

The Rev. Donald Wildmon, the Mississippi fundamentalist who has effectively blocked American screenings of an award-winning British documentary about arts censorship in the United States, was hit with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit Thursday that seeks to end his stranglehold on distribution of the film.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in New York by the film’s producers, the British television network that first commissioned and aired it, and a coalition of American civil rights organizations, church groups and film exhibitors. The American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and the American Film and Video Assn. are among those who joined the legal action.

As a result of the filing, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence McKenna ordered Wildmon’s attorneys to appear before him in New York on Monday.

“Wildmon is attempting, with considerable success, to prevent this film about censorship in the United States from being seen by the American public,” said Martin Garbus, one of the attorneys representing the film. “What we’re asking for is what Wildmon fears the most: the opportunity to let people see the film and make up their own minds.”

Said Paul Yule, the film’s director: “This is censorship, pure and simple.”

The film, “Damned in the USA,” examines subjects such as the controversy over photographs by Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, the arrest of rappers 2 Live Crew and the efforts of U.S. politicians to influence the awarding of National Endowment for the Arts grants. Some of the most graphic works at the heart of the arts censorship issue are shown in the film.

Wildmon, head of the conservative American Family Assn., which fights media materials it deems obscene or anti-Christian, had agreed to be interviewed for the documentary and appears in it discussing his views and tactics.

“Damned” was first shown on the British television network Channel 4 in April, 1991. It then opened the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the Museum of Natural History in New York in September and went on to win an International Emmy Award for best arts documentary.

In October, Wildmon filed a $2-million lawsuit in Mississippi against the film’s producers, claiming they had violated an agreement not to show the film in the United States. The producers deny making such an agreement. But Wildmon’s suit has created a “de facto” ban on the documentary, according to the film’s producers and attorneys.

“Potential distributors will not enter into contracts to distribute it, and potential exhibitors will not enter into contracts to show it, because of a justifiable fear of being named as defendants in a lawsuit by Wildmon and the (American Family Assn.),” said attorney Garbus in an affidavit filed with the new lawsuit.

Officials from the Museum of Natural History and Webster University in St. Louis, where “Damned” was screened as part of a retrospective of Yule’s work, were subpoenaed by Wildmon and compelled to give depositions.

The complaint filed against Wildmon and the American Family Assn. on Thursday asks for an immediate trial and a declaration from the court that the film can be shown legally in the United States.

According to the suit, a great number of film exhibitors and distributors have expressed interest in showing “Damned,” but are awaiting legal clarification before doing so.

Human Rights Watch plans to show the documentary at the opening of its film festival in New York next month, and then afterward in other cities where the group’s festival will tour. The film is scheduled to open the Los Angeles leg of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival on June 17.

The principal complainants in the lawsuit against Wildmon--Channel 4, which owns the film; Berwick Universal Pictures Ltd., which is filmmaker Yule’s production company, and Devillier Donegan Enterprises, which distributes Channel 4 programs in the United States--are each seeking more than $4 million in damages from him and the American Family Assn. because of alleged interference with business relations and prospective contracts.

The suit also seeks to move all legal proceedings pertaining to the case from Mississippi to New York.

Wildmon, who has repeatedly declined to discuss the case with The Times, was traveling Thursday and could not be reached, his office said. According to the court documents filed Thursday, Wildmon stated in his Mississippi lawsuit “that his only objection to the film is ‘the inclusion of graphic material’ and that his ‘mere presence’ in the film implies that he has endorsed ‘this kind of material.’ ”

Channel 4 had offered to insert a disclaimer at the beginning of the film stating that Wildmon did not endorse all, or part, of it. But he rejected the offer, Garbus said.

“Wildmon is not content with his undisputed right to urge the public to refrain from seeing the film,” the attorney said. “He is attempting instead to prevent the public from having any say in the matter.”