Watch: ‘You Tell Me Mr Grech’ – Comedian Kevin Naudi Releases ‘Leaked Footage’ Of Film Awards Hosting Proposal
Maltese comedian Kevin Naudi has poked fun at David Walliams’ controversial €120,000 fee to host the 2022 Malta Film Awards in his own way – with a short satirical video, of course!
“Leaked footage of my phone call with Malta Film Commission back in 2020,” Naudi wrote this morning. “Safe to say didn’t end well.”
In the clip, Naudi holds a wallet to his ears as he has an imaginary conversation with Malta Film Commissioner Johann Grech, detailing his previous experience with comedy specials and hosting award shows.
When asked for a fee, Naudi smiles and says anywhere between €8,000 to €10,000, but acts as if he keeps on being pushed to ask for a higher fee which ends up going all the way up to €50,000.
“You tell me Mr Grech,” the Maltese comedian smirks, feebly accepting any higher offer than his original one.
The “call” abruptly ends, however, when Naudi confirms that he’s actually Maltese, in a clear dig at the Malta Film Awards’ preference of international talent over established local names.
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Yesterday, a two-year battle of rejected Freedom Of Information requests, most notably by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, came to an end when Walliams’ invoice to the Malta Film Commission was finally revealed to be €120,000.
This puts Walliams’ fee at 30% of the Film Awards’ original budget of €400,000… which eventually ballooned up to €1.3 million.
For context, €120,000 is nearly double Prime Minister Robert Abela’s official annual salary of €63,000.
“This means that nearly 10% of the total amount was spent on just the host of the show: David Walliams,” the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation wrote today. “Where did the rest of the €1.3 million go?”
The Malta Film Awards instantly rose to notoriety in 2022 when the extremely glamorous show was accused of going far over its budget… a budget which was already more than what the Commission hands out in grants to local filmmakers (some €600,000 in total).
Barely a month after the show went down, lawyer Jason Azzopardi had claimed that David Walliams was paid €200,000 from the by-then €2+ million budget (the original allocated budget was that of €400,000). When this accusation was brought up, Minister Bartolo had refused to answer, accusing the Nationalist Party of “hating” and “attacking” the film industry and stating that the last PN government had spent €1.1 million on the European Film Awards back in 2011, twice the set budget.
Meanwhile, when asked about the show’s controversy weeks after it had aired, Film Commission Johann Grech had refused to confirm whether the total expenses ended up going beyond the original budget, only stating it will be “value for money” when questioned.
One year later, in June 2023, the Mediterrane Film Festival brought a number of other high-profile names to the islands, with highlights ranging from a Russel Crowe concert to the world premiere of Deep Fear, attended by Madalina Diana Ghenea and Ed Westwick.
Since then, the Malta Film Commission was involved in another controversy, when it emerged in August 2023 that over €45 million in taxpayer money were spent to fund the Gladiator sequel partially filmed on the islands.
Do you think Kevin Naudi would’ve been more value for money than David Walliams?
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