McCallum v Projector Films Pty Ltd

This case is about a documentary film, a looming premiere, and a fight over who should be publicly credited as its principal director. The documentary, Never Get Busted!, was due to premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival in early August 2025. Before that happened, Stephen McCallum asked the Federal Court to intervene urgently.

McCallum said he was the documentary's principal director. Projector Films Pty Ltd and David Anthony Ngo disagreed. They accepted that McCallum was a director of the documentary, but said Ngo was the principal director. That disagreement mattered because the Court explained that, for moral rights purposes under the Copyright Act, attribution of the director of a film is tied to the principal director where more than one person is involved in directing.

The timing made the dispute commercially urgent. The final hearing was listed for September 2025, but the MIFF screenings were due to happen first. If the documentary screened in Australia with disputed credits, the immediate reputational and industry impact could not easily be undone later. That is why the case came before the Court as an interlocutory application for urgent interim relief rather than as a final trial on the merits.

The Court also gave useful context about the project itself. It was common ground that Ngo and his wife, Erin Williams-Weir, created the idea for the documentary, which was based on the life of Barry Cooper, a former Texan narcotics officer who later became a decriminalisation activist. It was also common ground that Ngo was the screenwriter and that he and Williams-Weir were the producers under Projector Films.

The evidence showed the documentary had developed through multiple versions, including a 30-minute promotional cut used for funding pitches, an episodic version, a 46-minute Sundance version and a feature-length version intended for MIFF. The Court noted evidence that the primary footage and interviews were conducted predominantly by McCallum, though not exclusively. The respondents said later footage, editing, research and aspects of the film's overall feel were undertaken without McCallum's involvement, and that Ngo had performed substantial directorial work in the development and production of the final versions.

So this was not a simple case where one person claimed total authorship and the other denied any involvement. Both sides accepted that each man had directed the film in some sense. The real fight was over who should be publicly presented as the principal director.

The judgment is especially useful because it shows how a credit dispute can be built from many separate pieces of public-facing material. The Court did not look only at the final film. It looked at festival webpages, program copy, media reporting, Q&A invitations and the sequence of names in credits.

One important example was the Sundance material. The Court referred to a webpage connected with the Sundance screening that described Ngo as making his directorial debut with the documentary. McCallum was not mentioned at all. He had no biography, no credit in the credits section and no other reference on the page. McCallum also gave evidence that he was refused entry to the Sundance premiere and that his tickets had been cancelled and refunded.

The Court also referred to material from the Dances With Films Festival in Los Angeles. That program promoted the documentary as a film by David Anthony Ngo and said it was written and directed by David Anthony Ngo. McCallum was mentioned, but only with the word director rather than the phrase directed by. A later publication in Deadline reported that the documentary had won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Feature at that festival and again described it as written and directed by Ngo, without mentioning McCallum.

The MIFF material was particularly important because the Australian premiere was imminent. The first version of the MIFF webpage made no reference to McCallum at all. It identified Ngo as the sole director in two places and said that Ngo helmed the Australian production. After McCallum threatened urgent court action, the respondents made a proposal on 16 July 2025 to amend the credits so that McCallum would be given a Directed By credit in the same style as Ngo's credit and for the same amount of time.

McCallum rejected that proposal. His position, as recorded by the Court, was that the proposal did not truly solve the problem because the surrounding promotional and contextual material still conveyed that Ngo was the principal director. The second iteration of the MIFF webpage did add McCallum, but it still referred to Ngo first in the byline and continued to say that Ngo helmed the documentary. The MIFF program used the shorthand "Dir." followed by Ngo's name first and McCallum's second. There was also evidence of a Q&A invitation stating that Director David Anthony Ngo would attend both sessions of the film.

The Court also considered the proposed opening and closing credit cards. The evidence showed common ground that, traditionally, the person mentioned last in opening credits and first in closing credits is regarded as the principal director. That meant the order of names could carry real significance, not just the words used.

Because this was an interlocutory application, the Court was not deciding the final merits of the whole case. The judge identified the two familiar questions for interim injunctions. First, was there a serious question to be tried, or a sufficient likelihood of success if the evidence remained as it was? Second, did the balance of convenience favour granting the injunction?

McCallum had pleaded three causes of action in the substantive proceeding: moral rights claims under the Copyright Act, misleading or deceptive conduct under section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law, and breach of contract. For the urgent application, however, he did not rely on breach of contract as the basis for interlocutory relief. The immediate focus was on the Copyright Act and the ACL.

On the Copyright Act side, the judgment explains that an author has moral rights including the right of attribution of authorship and the right not to have authorship falsely attributed. In the context of a cinematograph film, the Court pointed to section 191, which provides that where two or more individuals are involved in directing, a reference to the director in that part of the Act is a reference to the principal director and does not include a subsidiary director. McCallum's case was that the respondents had failed to attribute him properly and had falsely attributed Ngo as principal director.

On the ACL side, the issue was whether the credits and promotional materials conveyed a misleading impression about who was the principal director. That is a useful point for businesses because it shows how a dispute over authorship can spill beyond intellectual property law into consumer law once the representation is made publicly.

The Court also noted that these distinctions might seem technical to ordinary members of the public, but they were well understood within the film industry. That observation matters. A representation can still be legally significant even if it looks subtle to outsiders, especially where the relevant audience includes industry participants, buyers, festivals or commercial partners who understand the coding of titles and credit order.

The evidence on who actually was the principal director was contested and extensive. The Court referred to large volumes of affidavit material, documentary records and expert evidence. It was not necessary at this stage to resolve every factual dispute finally. The question was whether the applicant had shown enough to justify interim protection before the premiere.

The Court granted interlocutory relief. The orders restrained the respondents, in Australia and until final determination of the proceedings or further order, from causing or authorising the documentary to be seen and heard in public or communicated to the public unless it both contained the credit "Directed by Stephen McCallum" and did not contain the credit "Directed by" for David Ngo. The same approach applied to promotion of the documentary where the promotion contained credits. Costs were reserved, and the orders were made upon the usual undertaking as to damages.

The judgment states clearly that the Court was satisfied interlocutory relief should be granted. That means the judge found both that there was a sufficient case to be tried and that the balance of convenience favoured interim intervention before the MIFF screenings.

An interesting feature of the decision is that the judge said she was initially inclined to grant a different form of relief. McCallum had proposed, in the alternative, that the documentary or its promotion should state that both men claimed to be the director and that the directing credits were the subject of court proceedings. The judge considered that this would more accurately reflect the true state of affairs and genuinely preserve the status quo.

However, the respondents did not want that position publicly conveyed because they considered it detrimental to their prospects of selling rights to the documentary to third parties, particularly in the streaming and digital market. The Court recorded that the respondents urged that, if relief were granted at all, the Court should grant McCallum's primary relief rather than the alternative. In light of that position, the Court granted the primary relief.

That procedural detail is commercially important. It shows the Court was alive to the business consequences of different forms of interim relief, including how a public statement about a live dispute might affect rights sales. It also shows that parties can shape the practical form of an injunction through the positions they take at the hearing.

Because the available judgment text is truncated, this page should not be read as a complete account of every step in the Court's reasoning. But the result is clear: the Court intervened urgently before the Australian premiere and imposed specific conditions on screening and promotion in Australia.

Even if your business never makes a film, this case is a practical warning about public attribution. Many businesses rely on founders, contractors, agencies, producers, editors, designers, developers and other collaborators to create work that is later marketed to the public. Problems often arise when the original deal, the actual work done and the final public messaging do not line up.

The first lesson is to define roles early. If a project may involve more than one person in a lead creative role, decide in writing how titles, bylines and credits will work. If your industry treats certain wording as a signal of seniority or authorship, say so expressly. Do not assume everyone shares the same understanding.

The second lesson is to keep records as the project evolves. In this case, the documentary moved through multiple versions, and the respondents said later development, editing and aesthetic work changed the picture. That kind of evolving contribution is common in creative and digital projects. If roles shift over time, update the paperwork and approval process rather than relying on old assumptions.

The third lesson is to review the whole communications package before launch. The Court looked at webpages, festival programs, media reports, invitations and credit order. A business can create legal risk through the combined effect of many small statements, even if no single item seems decisive on its own.

The fourth lesson is to treat attribution disputes as launch-critical. Once a release date, event or campaign is close, the pressure increases and the available fixes narrow. A court may be willing to intervene quickly if the alleged harm to reputation, career prospects or market perception cannot easily be repaired by damages later.

Finally, remember what this case does and does not establish. It does not finally determine who was right about principal directorship. It does show that disputed credits can justify urgent injunctive relief where the public rollout is imminent and the surrounding promotional material may convey a contested message to the market.

The judgment records that the interlocutory hearing took place on 4 August 2025. Orders were made on 6 August 2025 and the judgment was published on 7 August 2025. The documentary was scheduled to screen at MIFF on 8 August 2025 and again on 10 August 2025. The substantive proceedings were listed for final hearing for three days commencing on 10 September 2025.

This means the ruling explained on this page is a pre-trial decision made in a highly time-sensitive setting. It should not be treated as the final legal resolution of the parties' dispute. Readers should also keep in mind that the available judgment text is truncated and does not cover any later developments after the interlocutory ruling.