"Effie Gray" screening at Mill Valley Film Festival was canceled

 millvalley Fanning was set to be the subject of a Spotlight program and Q&A after the film screening; She won't be appearing at the festival this year as a result of the cancellation.

Effie Gray, a film about the "curiously brief marriage and abrupt annulment of famed art critic  John Ruskin and his ethereal child bride – played by actress Dakota Fanning – has canceled its world premiere screening Saturday at the 36th Mill Valley Film Festival, with its producer Donald Rosenfeld citing "unforeseen circumstance."

Fanning was set to be the subject of a Spotlight program and Q&A after the screening at the Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. She won't be appearing at the festival this year as a result of the cancellation.

No specific reason was given for the cancellation, though the film, the screenplay of which was written by famed actress Emma Thompson, has been the subject of a legal fight with Gregory Murphy, a "playwright who alleges that the Oscar-winning actress drew inspiration for her screenplay from his play, The Countess, which was performed in the West End in 2005," according to the The Telegraph newspaper.

Murphy told the paper last month that Thompson and her legal team had until November to reply to an appeal Murphy filed after he lost an earlier legal battle over the film.

Effie Gray had originally been planned to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Thans for head up to meljmcguire

From Telegraph Although Donald Rosenfeld, the producer of Emma Thompson’s Effie Gray, assures me it is a “masterpiece,” it looks as if it will be a while yet before cinema audiences can judge for themselves.
Filming of the starry drama, about the Victorian art critic John Ruskin’s unconsummated marriage to Effie Gray, was completed two years ago, but its much-trumpeted premiere at Cannes in May was cancelled. Rosenfeld now cites “unforseen circumstances” for abandoning its postponed premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival in California.

The makers of the film talked about their “great regret” and “sincerely apologised” for the “inconvenience of this unexpected situation.” Dakota Fanning, who plays the title role alongside Emma Thompson, who also wrote the screenplay, had been expected to take part in a question and answer session and collect an award, but says she will not now be attending the festival.

The plan had been for Effie Gray to open on the East and West coasts of America, but punters who had booked to see it at the Hamptons Film Festival were also told that it had been “withdrawn”.
Rosenfeld was adamant when I spoke to him last month that there are no legal obstacles preventing the film from being shown. However, Gregory Murphy, the writer who alleges that Thompson drew inspiration for her screenplay from his play, The Countess, which was performed in the West End in 2005, tells me the legal battle is “ongoing”.