It’s been a few days now since Sam Weisberg published his article about the rivalry between two men (a director, Abel Ferrara, and a distributor, Vincent Maraval) and the former’s claims to artistic prerogative surrounding the production and subsequent U.S. release of the movie “Welcome to New York.” I sent a link of Sam’s article to Abel Ferrara, who had also received financing from Paris-based Wild Bunch padrone Vincent Maraval to make his movie. Ferrara sounds none too happy in his response to me, although I’m not sure now what it’s all about. I’ve pasted his response below, verbatim:

i thought the article was bullshit and sam is naive and a collaborator
why write for a film magazine if you don not
understand the basic law that films are made by filmmakers
maraval speaking about movies is moronic and sams fascination
with him as he is some authority and then going on about the specifics of ratings and contracts is very sad for everybody
especially a magazine that calls themselves
film comment, my work is my right, my personal right of freedom of expression which i will defend with my last breath
period basta if sam or vincent think anyone can do what i do let them man up in front of a blank page and put their thoughts and feelings into a script
then take that out into the night with their crew and actors and create scenes then learn to play a guitar to put music behind those scenes, man up and make your own film anput your name to it but don’t take the work i do with my fellow artists and destroy in vincent was once our producer and sales agent he once had a role in this process but not anymore somehow he forgot the final cut of the movie is the the directors and without that there is no film, so i stand by my original statement