The British producers of Kari Skogland’s Fifty Dead Men Walking and Martin McGartland, whose story provides the basis for the Canadian/British coproduction, have launched high-stakes negotiations to reach an out-of-court settlement before the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

McGartland and a lawyer for Future Films and Handmade International met Friday in London to discuss a deal that would see the former British spy receive £10,000 in return for waiving his moral rights.

McGartland will also be able to view Skogland’s final cut to ease concerns that the IRA drama infringes his moral rights.

According to both McGartland and sources close to the British producers, the meeting ended without agreement owing to a dispute over process.

Essentially, the producers do not want to show McGartland the final cut before he waives his moral rights, for fear he will carry through on a threat to sue the filmmakers after screening the film. Moral rights limit a filmmaker’s ability to modify the story in such a way that would hurt the author’s name or reputation.

McGartland insists he will not sign any document to waive his moral rights until he sees Skogland’s final cut.

‘I can’t waive my moral rights if I don’t know what’s in dispute. That doesn’t make sense,’ the former IRA mole said Friday.

The British producers late Friday offered regrets that their proposal to resolve the film dispute did not succeed, and assured McGartland that the deal remains ‘on the table.’

For his part, McGartland, who remains on the run from possible IRA retribution, said he too prefers to settle out of court, but remained prepared to launch a legal action against Skogland and her producers.

McGartland earlier this week retained Toronto legal firm Chitiz Pathak LLP to represent him in Ontario. He added the Toronto International Film Festival will be named as a party to his legal suit if it goes ahead with the world premiere at Roy Thomson Hall, scheduled for Wednesday.

‘I am very angry that TIFF is continuing with the screening because I maintain that they too must be held to account for their actions, given they are fully aware that the filmmakers do not have the right to make the film, let alone to screen it — but why let the truth stand in the way of a good story,’ he said Friday.

David Tang, a solicitor for the festival with Toronto legal firm Gowlings Lafleur Henderson, in a Sept. 3 letter to McGartland argued that the dispute, with its ‘conflicting interests and allegations,’ was ultimately between the film’s producer and its main subject, and did not directly implicate the festival.

‘Determing whose statements are more accurate is not an activity TIFFG can undertake,’ he added.

Tang instead directed McGartland to approach the Ontario courts and seek an emergency injunction to block next week’s world premiere.

The film’s producers on Aug. 26 first informed McGartland that they had retained Wiggin to represent them, and invited the former IRA infiltrator to get his own lawyers, whether in London or Toronto, in touch with the British legal firm if he wished to pursue legal action.

That followed a public statement from the producers that ‘any queries relating to the legitimacy of the film are unfounded and that due process has been followed throughout the production.’

In addition, the producers said Fifty Dead Men Walking was inspired by the contents of McGartland’s autobiography, and did not represent ‘Mr. McGartland’s life.’

Going into TIFF, the dispute over Fifty Dead Men Walking remains centered on whether the producers have a legal and moral right to fictionalize McGartland’s life story.

In particular, McGartland takes issue with two dramatized scenes that the producers concede were not in the 1998 book. In one, the character ‘Marty’ is in a room while an IRA informant is tortured and killed, and in the second is seen driving an explosive expert to where a bomb is planted and later kills a British officer.

The two scenes are understood to still be in Skogland’s final cut, despite his objections. At the same time, a voice-over by a British Special Branch handler, played by Ben Kingsley, has apparently been added to indicate that ‘Marty,’ McGartland’s character in the movie, should have expected to witness torture and murder when he set about to infiltrate the terrorist organization.

Away from the bargaining table, TVA Films, the Canadian distributor of Fifty Dead Men Walking, has planned a industry screenings of the movie next week, and a press conference and media junket.

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Playback Daily’s coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival continues through this weekend with special editions on Saturday and Sunday.