De Niro defends pulling vaccination movie from TriBeCa Film Festival
NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - The subject of autism and whether there is a link between the developmental disorder and vaccinations hits close to home for Oscar winner and TriBeCa Film Festival co-founder Robert De Niro.
De Niro, who only recently confirmed that his son Elliott, 18, has autism, was faced with the decision as to whether he should pull the controversial, anti-vaccination movie, 'Vaxxed,' from the festival which begins next week.
The film's creator has been slammed and largely discredited putting pressure on De Niro and co-founder Jane Rosenthal to take a stand.
"My position is not anti-vaccine," said De Niro. “I didn’t want to make it a whole controversy with the festival. I said let me just pull it, we'll deal with it later."
However, not everyone De Niro heard from was against showing the film.
"I'm working that out now. But it's not at the festival," said De Niro.
A week after it was removed from the lineup, “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” debuted at the Angelika Film Center to an estimated $22,000 in receipts, reported Variety.
"Part of the issues we dealt with was whom it's from. We're known for our documentary films and that became an issue with our film makers," said Rosenthal.
"For me and my own experience and one of my kids, the key thing is what was put into the vaccine. It is very complicated. I am still getting information from people who are much more into it all the time, so we'll see,' said De Niro.
The TriBeCa Film Festival runs April 13-24.