The former British spy at the heart of the media furor surrounding the upcoming world premiere of Kari Skogland’s Fifty Dead Men Walking at the Toronto International Film Festival disputes how the filmmakers have characterized his role in the production process, just as they have fictionalized his life story on the big screen.

Martin McGartland, on whose autobiography the feature is based, contests an August 26 statement by the U.K.’s Future Films, which coproduced the drama with Vancouver’s Brightlight Pictures.

‘They have… tried to rewrite the history of what has taken place in the movie,’ McGartland, who lives in hiding, tells Playback Daily. He was reacting to the statement from Future that dismissed any claims that they had infringed upon McGartland’s rights during production.

McGartland said the producers attempted without success to get him to waive his moral rights, and that he was never asked whether the movie’s main character, played by Jim Sturgess, could be called ‘Marty,’ in recognition of his true-life experiences during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

He once again distanced himself from Skogland’s movie.

‘I have told the filmmakers many times since that I do not want my name, likeness nor my true story to be connected with such a monstrously untrue and damaging film,’ he says.

McGartland adds that the original script for Fifty Dead Men Walking named the main character ‘Brendan,’ and was initially titled Man on the Run.

He insists he had no role in later changes to the script, which changed ‘Brendan’ to ‘Marty,’ and the film’s name to Fifty Dead Men Walking, also the title of McGartland’s book.

McGartland contends the film’s producers made the changes to represent the movie as based on a true story for authenticity, and have now back-pedaled to claim Fifty Dead Men Walking was only ‘inspired’ by his life story to protect themselves from a possible legal claim that they infringed upon his moral rights.

The British producers, in their Aug. 26 statement, insist that McGartland had no legal grounds to question ‘the legitimacy of the film,’ and that ‘due process has been followed throughout the production.’

The film’s producers were not available on Wednesday to comment on whether or not McGartland had waived his moral rights.

Also made public Wednesday was the original film option agreement for McGartland’s book between Kyle Lundberg of Los Angeles-based Altitude Entertainment and Blake Publishing, the book’s publisher.

The legal document, dated April 7, 2005, obligates the producer to indemnify the British publisher against losses due to ‘any claim for defamation or invasion or copyright, trademark, right of privacy, right of publicity, or any other right brought against publisher based upon a scene, character, or event contained in the Motion Picture.’

The six-page document does not appear, however, to offer the producer, should he exercise the right to exploit the film rights, a contractual right to fictionalize, dramatize or modify McGartland’s life story.

Lundberg in March 2007 assigned certain film exploitation rights to Skogland in return for an executive producer credit and compensation. The Canadian director then went on to adapt McGartland’s book for her film, which is scheduled to receive the gala treatment on September 10 at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall. The film will be released in Canada through TVA Films.