Starsuckers is a 2009 British documentary film aiming to expose the "shams and deceit involved in creating a pernicious celebrity culture".
Directed by Chris Atkins, director of the 2007 documentary Taking Liberties, it shows the production team planting a variety of celebrity-related stories in the UK media, such as a claim that the singer Avril Lavigne had been seen asleep in a nightclub. A variety of tabloid newspapers accepted the stories without corroboration or evidence.[1]
It launched as part of the British Film Institute's 53rd Film Festival. Thirty minutes of footage from the film were shown to the Leveson Inquiry as part of the evidence presented by the film's director, Chris Atkins.[2]
Contents |
On 23 October 2009, six days before the Starsuckers premiere, the makers reported that they had received an e-mail from the law firm Carter-Ruck, acting on behalf of controversial publicist Max Clifford and threatening them with an injunction.[3][4]