Scientology Ramps Up Campaign Against 'Going Clear,' Targets Academy Members

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The Hollywood Reporter - ‎October‎ ‎07‎, ‎2015

The Church of Scientology really doesn’t want Alex Gibney to win an Oscar for his documentary "Going Clear."

Since the film — a scathing critique of the controversial church and its celebrity adherents, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta, based on Lawrence Wright’s best-selling book — won three Emmys in September, the filmmaker says he has been the subject of an increasingly hostile harassment campaign that has included a Scientology-backed “documentary” and outreach to members of the Academy’s doc branch, the group that selects the Oscar contenders...

As Gibney and Going Clear make a run at an Oscar, the stakes are perhaps higher for Scientology. If Gibney wins and is given a worldwide stage on which to speak out against the church (with Travolta, Cruise or other Hollywood Scientologists possibly sitting in the audience), it would be a public relations nightmare for the church and its leader, David Miscavige.

“The church of Scientology stakes a claim on Hollywood, and so it’s not surprising that it would be threatened by the possibility that that community would examine the church more closely,” says Wright. “That’s what I think is causing the more feverish attention to the documentary.”

For this reason, Rinder believes the actions by Scientology members against the documentary are being “at least approved, if not dictated” by Miscavige himself.

“I guess their intention is to intimidate or to get people to think that they should be afraid of speaking out,” Rinder says. “But honestly, I think they have exactly the opposite effect.”

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/scientology-ramps-up-campaign-against-going-145629951.html