The proposal to terminate the lease of Miami Beach’s O Cinema for screening “No Other Land‘ has been withdrawn by the city’s mayor Steven Meiner after a contentious City Commission meeting on Wednesday.
A large majority of attendees opposed Meiner’s proposal, according to the Miami Herald.
The major said he was withdrawing the proposal and also deferring a proposal to encourage screening films that “highlight a fair and balanced viewpoint.” Five city commissioners had said they would not support the resolution to end the non-profit theater’s lease and to withdraw funding. Only one commissioner, David Suarez, supported the proposal.
The mayor told the Herald that he brought the proposal as a public safety measure and “legitimately viewed this as a public safety threat.” O Cinema was represented by attorney Miriam Haskell of the Community Jusice Project, along with the ACLU of Florida. Haskell told the Herald that Meiner was “right to withdraw the resolution to evict and defund O cinema.” The theater’s legal reps had argued that it was a clear case of “viewpoint censorship.”
Meiner’s proposal drew attention around the world and particularly among the filmmaking community, which saw the threat as a dangerous precedent seeking to dampen free speech.
Documentarians including Michael Moore, Laura Poitras, Ezra Edelman and Alex Gibney signed an open letter to the city of Miami Beach on Monday that called the threat “an attack on freedom of expression, the right of artists to tell their stories, and a violation of the First Amendment.”
